This is the best issue in Andante’s first batch of historical CD sets. The performances are uniformly superb, the transfers as good or better than anything available, and the repertoire well chosen to showcase Szigeti’s range of musical interests. Among the larger works, the Beethoven concerto with Walter, the Mendelssohn concerto and Prokofiev First concerto with Beecham, Bartók’s Contrasts with Benny Goodman and the composer, and the Bloch concerto with Mengelberg remain classics (though I think Szigeti is on even better form in his studio recording of the Bloch with Charles Munch, but then the orchestra is inferior). A lovely collection of chamber works (in addition to the Bartók) shows Szigeti in collaboration with some first rate accompanists: there’s Handel’s Violin Sonata Op. 1 No. 13 with Nikita Magaloff; Brahms’ Third violin sonata with Egon Petri; Bloch’s Baal Shem with Andor Foldes; and Stravinsky’s Duo Concertante with the composer at the piano.
Szigeti plays and conducts his own arrangement of Tartini’s D minor concerto (D. 45), and has Fritz Stiedry on hand in the violin restoration of the marvelous Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1052–this latter an especially remarkable performance that sustains an impressive level of drive and passion in the work’s outer movements. The shorter works include arrangements of everything from Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances to a number from Kodály’s Háry János, taking in along the way works by Milhaud, Paganini, Hubay, Stravinsky, Brahms, and even Peter Warlock. Fine notes complement Andante’s rather unattractive and awkward book-style packaging. You would spend much more than Andante’s $80 price tag to assemble this material from other sources, even assuming you could find it all, making this set something of a bargain given the uniform excellence of performance and transfer quality. If Andante manages more sets like this one, they’ll really have something going.
