Prokofieff Concerto No. 3
MacDowell Concerto No. 2

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Walter Hendl conducting |

LM-2507

RCA VICTO

A ‘‘New Orthophonic’ High

Fidelity Record

ing

lan Ghiburn

Ho the Prokofieff Third Piano Concerto to be per-
formed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra seems

particularly appropriate, since it was this orchestra which

presented the world première of the work in 1921;

Prokofieff, after studying with Rimsky-Korsakoff, Liadoff
and Tcherepnin at the St. Petersburg conservatory, had
graduated there in 1914 with three diplomas and the Anton
Rubinstein Prize in piano. His music for a ballet, Chout,
commissioned by Diaghileff established him as a young com-
poser of promise.

Immediately following World War I and the Russian
Revolution, Prokofieff barnstormed about Europe as a con-
cert pianist and eventually made his way to the United
States.

‘New York, then as always bursting at the seams with
musical talent, was not overly impressed by the young
Russian visitor. Chicago proved more hospitable, and for
several years Prokofieff made that city his base of opera-
tions in this country. His opera The Love of Three Oranges
was commissioned and first performed by the Chicago
Opera Company.

During his industrious lifetime Prokofieff wrote eight
concertos—one for cello, two for violin and five for piano,
one of the latter for left hand alone. By the time he arrived
in Chicago, the first and second piano concertos were already
written.

Prokofieff, then at the peak of his powers as a concert
performer, received numerous invitations to appear with
orchestras. He was a little tired of his two concertos, and
feared audiences might be too. Moreover, he had been
accumulating fresh ideas for years. The musical subject
which became the principal theme of the second movement
of the C Major Concerto had been in the back of his mind
since 1913 when he was still a student at the conservatory.

In the summer of 1921 Prokofieff, then in France, set to
work in earnest on the Third Concerto, finishing it that
October. The world premiére took place December 16,
1921, with the composer as soloist and Frederick Stock
conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The concerto has never really been out of the repertoire
since. It is a bold, sweeping work which achieves exactly

ione

Prokofieff

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TC 01A1110991
Need 4/19/62

CONCERTO NO. 3 IN C, OP. 26

MacDowell

CONCERTO NO. 2 IN D MINOR, OP 23

Chicago Symphony Orchestra * Walter Hendl, conducting
Produced by Richard Mohr e Recording Engineer: Lewis Layton

what the composer set out to do—to write an effective dis-
play piece for piano and orchestra. The first and last move-
ments afford ample opportunity for bravura display, and
the beauties of the Theme and Variations second movement
have charmed listeners in many countries. Stylistically, the
Third Concerto resembles its near predecessor, the “Clas-
sical’ Symphony, more than Prokofieff’s later works.

‘The second of Edward MacDowell’s two piano con-
certos is one of the most praised and most popular of his
compositions.

After study with the famed Venezuelan pianist Teresa
Carrefio and further training in Paris, MacDowell spent
eight years in Germany, then the musical center of western
Europe. His D Minor Concerto has the virtues of this
school of musical thought. It is a big, bold, solidly-wrought
work, imaginatively conceived on a large scale and
unashamedly romantic. It is effective in performance;
MacDowell, like Prokofieff, was a concert artist who under-
stood pianistically quite well what he was about. The con-
certo is still heard, and perhaps deserves to be heard even
oftener.

MacDowell wrote the concerto in Germany during the
winter of 1884-85. It was a remarkable accomplishment for
this twenty-four-year-old American composer. The first
performance was given in New York on March 5, 1889, by
the Theodore Thomas Orchestra with the composer at the

piano. Notes by JoHN Briccs

Not since the Civil War days of Louis Moreau Gott-
schalk has an American pianist attained a world-wide
reputation comparable to that of Van Cliburn. In his fourth
recording for RCA Victor this distinguished young artist
has chosen two concertos that are identified with his career.
In 1952, at the age of seventeen, as the winner of the G. B.
Dealey Memorial Prize in Dallas, Mr. Cliburn played the
MacDowell concerto with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra
under Walter Hendl, then permanent conductor of the
orchestra. It marked the pianist’s*first professional appear-
ance with orchestra. The Prokofieff and MacDowell con-

certos were two of six works with orchestra which the
pianist played in Russia during his overwhelmingly success-
ful three-month tour of the Soviet Union in the summer
of 1960.

Walter Hendl was for six years permanent conductor of
the Dallas Symphony Orchestra following a four-year
tenure as associate conductor of the New York Philhar-
monic. In 1958 he accepted the invitation of Fritz Reiner,
musical director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, to
become associate conductor of the magnificent orchestra
Reiner has developed. Former director of the Chautauqua
summer festival concerts, Mr. Hendl now serves as artistic
director of Chicago’s Ravinia Festival. In 1955 Mr. Hendl
conducted the Symphony of the Air during its tour of the
Far East under the auspices of the State Department.

© by Radio Corporation of America, 1961

Other Recordings by VAN CLIBURN
You Will Enjoy:

Tchaikovsky: Concerto No. 1
(Orchestra conducted by Kiril Kondrashin)
LM/LSC-2252

Rachmaninoff : Concerto No. 3
(Symphony of the Air, Kiril Kondrashin conducting)
LM/LSC-2355

Schumann: Concerto in A Minor
(Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra)
LM/LSC-2455

IMPORTANT NOTICE

This is a “New Orthophonic” High Fidelity recording,
designed for the phonograph of today or tomorrow. Played
on your present machine, it gives you the finest quality of
reproduction. Played on a “Stereophonic” machine, it gives
even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. You can buy today,
without fear of obsolescence in the future.

SJ
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