It's wonderful to find a video recording of Rudolf Firkusny playing the Dvorak. For decades he was the great advocate of the piece, playing it often and recording it twice. His 1970's recording with Walter Susskind and the St. Louis Symphony is the best performance of this work which is unfortunately seldom recorded.
Definitive! I remember seeing Firkusny in the '60s with the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell. A soloist and conductor with that special affinity for music from Czech composers.
Magnificent performance by a master pianist of an all too rarely performed concerto. Appreciate any artist willing to depart or performing the same tired war horses! While not a masterpiece of the order of Beethoven, Brahms or Mozart concerto, this piece has wonderful melodies and is deserving of far more live performances than it gets.
I got the same experience - I especially like the fairy-tale character of this movement with its intricately woven, rhythmically very interesting, thematic material
What a great recording! Firkušný si completely smashing it ;) And you can see the president, Václav Havel with his wife Olga, sitting in the lodge, at the beginning of this concert.
Found it out exactly: festival.cz/cz/archiv/6122 It is Jiří Bělohlávek conducting Czech Philharmonic in Rudolfinum in Prague during 1992 Prague Spring festival
This took place in 1992 when Fikunsky was 80. (Jiří Bělohlávek conducting Czech Philharmonic in Rudolfinum in Prague during 1992 Prague Spring festival)
@@GregSpradlin I've loved the violin concerto since I was a kid (I'm 80). But I've never quite "gotten" the piano concerto. For me, it doesn't have the sustained inspiration of the violin concerto and certainly not the cello concerto. Maybe it should be filed with the first Piano Quintet (Op. 5) as one of Dvorak's few failures.
The recorded balance between the piano and the orchestra is poor. I have the feeling he is key-mashing a bit, but this is probably an extension of the former point.
He's 80 year old in this performance. That may be a factor, too. (Jiří Bělohlávek conducting Czech Philharmonic in Rudolfinum in Prague during 1992 Prague Spring festival)
