Concerto For Orchestra / Symphony No. 3

Live concert recordings performed at Symphony Hall, Boston. Bartok Concerto recorded December 30, 1944 (Koussevitzky's only recording of this work). Piston Symphony recorded December 31, 1948. Liner Notes Serge Koussevitzky was responsible for the commissioning of a large number of important works during his time with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the list of world premières he conducted with the orchestra is exceptionally impressive. Although the majority of these premières went unrecorded, the regularity of the orchestra's radio appearances meant that many very early performances were broadcast, and of these broadcasts a good number have survived on disc recordings. In most cases these broadcast performances preserve the only known recordings of Koussevitzky conducting the music in question, and this appears to be the case with both works here. The Bartok is heard in its fourth performance of six, having been first heard some thirty days earlier. Following these early outings, the composer decided to make revisions to the work, the most significant being the lengthening of the final movement. Thus we hear the first version of the Concerto - both versions are still in use today. Walter Piston's Symphony No. 3 had been premiered by Koussevitzky at Symphony Hall in Boston on 9th January 1948, the first of ten performances given over the course of the next twelve months. The Eighth of these took place on 31 December, from which this broadcast recording was taken. Piston's composition had won the Pulitzer Prize for composition in 1947, and its finale has been seen as a celebration of the end of the Second World War. Both recordings have been reasonably well preserved, with the later Piston apparently demonstrating an early commercial use of tape technology, allowing for a much wider dynamic range and frequency response than heard in the Bartok. Although the latter is somewhat noisier, I have done my best to preserve and highlight what upper frequencies were available. - Andrew Rose