Oh what treasures you can find when you are not looking for anything in particular! Here are two remarkable piano recordings, one by the brilliant Polish-American pianist Marian Filar and the other by the Viennese born Frieda Valenzi. These records contain artistry of the highest level by two musicians that lived rich, fulfilling, 'complete' lives, well into their 90's. Marian Filar, if you are not aware, just passed away in July 2012 so this transfer is a testimony to the very 'human' life of a great man. When I say 'human' I do so with the greatest respect as this man represented the highest ideals and most noblest sentiments.
I had become acquainted with Marian Filar through his autobiography From Buchenwald to Carnegie Hall. A thoroughly engaging story, it recalls Filar's years growing up in Warsaw, imprisonment in concentration camps, artistic resurrection as a pupil of the great Walter Gieseking and consequent 'rebirth' as a proud American and living beacon for liberty. The last might seem strange to mention as it is but what struck me was Filar's passion for freedom and liberty illustrated in his trips each year to the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia on the day that the Allies declared victory in Europe. Filar would gently stroke the bell, this symbol of democracy and freedom for all.
Filar was a powerful and personal artist of enormous integrity. I'm held in awe of this modest, giving man who possessed fingers of gold and a heart filled with hope and faith in the ultimate goodness of mankind. Filar plays a brilliant program of Chopin's Sonata in b with four preludes of Szymanowski. Gieseking thought Filar and Rubinstein the two greatest living interpreters of Chopin's music.
Frieda Valenzi was remarkable not only for being a woman who was a strong advocate for 20th century music but for being, one of the first woman conducting teachers in the world, maybe she and Nadia Boulanger were 1 and 2? Her repertoire was hugely impressive and I would encourage you to have a look here at the breathtaking variety of composers and compositions that she made her own. Valenzi is wonderfully poetic in these four Goyescas of Granados and she proves that a Viennese woman can be spectacularly convincing in this most 'Spanish' of music.
Both these records date from 1950, give or take a year. Awesome finds.
