Category Archives: Mystery Track

My semi-regular series of recording excerpts. Your mission: usually to identify the artist.

Mystery Track: Maestro Revealed

DG 477 089-2The artists playing the mystery track of Sibelius‘s Tapiola? The Berlin Philharmonic conducted by someone more closely associated with Bruckner, Mahler and the Second Viennese School – Hans Rosbaud, from a studio recording for Deutsche Grammophon made in 1957 – just before the label began stereophonic recordings.

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Mystery Violinist Revealed

Enharmonic 18The soloist is Josef Gingold; he is accompanied by the Ohio State University Symphony Orchestra conducted by George Hardesty in the finale of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, Op.61, recorded in 1963. The complete performance is on Enharmonic Records’ invaluable 2-CD set of performances drawn from Gingold’s own archive.

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Mystery Track Revealed

Music & Arts 1213The storm sequence from Richard Strauss‘s Eine Alpensinfonie, Op.64, captured in an aircheck from November 23, 1947. Dimitri Mitropoulos conducts the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. From Volume 1 of Music & Arts’ invaluable The Art of Dimitri Mitropoulos.

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Mystery Polonaise

Here’s something a little different for the mystery track: a Polonaise for solo piano by one of my favorite 20th century composers. Don’t let the neo-Romantic elements fool you – he was a postwar composer in Western Europe and a prominent musical figure in his country

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All will be revealed June 26 at 1500 EST.