Albert Roussel – Piano Concerto – Claude Helffer, piano – ORTF Symphony – Pierre-Michel LeConte – circa 1965 – ORTF, Paris –
A familiar composer, with a noted Pianist playing a difficult concerto. Claude Helffer, celebrated advocate for 20th Century Music has been a very familiar name with concertgoers and record collectors alike. His recordings of Bartok and Schoenberg have been highly praised by critics.
This recording of the Piano concerto by Albert Roussel is from an ORTF Studio recording made around 1965 for broadcast. It features the ORTF Symphony conducted by Pierre-Michel LeConte. Halffer recorded this piece once, in the early days of Stereo tape with an orchestra purported to be the Cento Soli of Paris, conducted by Serge Baudo. That recording, released around 1960 but with no actual date of recording, has been out of print for years.
There are several commercial recordings of this concerto currently available – but this is the only one featuring Claude Helffer and the ORTF Symphony from a broadcast.
Good accompaniment all the way around, with Pierre-Michel LeConte, one of the unsung heroes of the French concert hall and recording studio, leading the way.
Enjoy
And while you’re doing that, please remember to chip in what you can to help keep Past Daily stay afloat. Our site is in dire need of a revamp and the cost of transferring over 6,000 posts to a more compatible site is pretty high. And if we don’t, we run the risk of losing everything when the site finally crashes for the last time. We’ve had one warning shot last week, and according to our Web people – there won’t be another warning – the site will up and die, and all the work I’ve been doing the past five years will go with it. So to prevent that from happening, I am turning to you, the readers and listeners; the people who come to the site every day, or come once a week for a specific feature we do. Whether it’s history, news, popular Culture, Jazz concerts, Classical Concerts, rock concerts – interviews – a whole host of rare and interesting information you can use and share. All I need is your support – a few bucks – it’s tax deductible so it’s a win-win situation. But I can’t do it without your help – so please; we’ve got 18 days left before the Fundraiser is over and we need to raise as much as we can in that period. Do what you can – I will be eternally grateful.
Click on the link in the box below and it will take you to our Indiegogo site where you can grab a premium as a thank-you gift or arrange to do monthly payments – whatever you want to do – but please do it.
An incredible document ! For which label this recording has been released? Coupled with another Roussel piece?
Not this one – the commercial recording I wrote about (not the one I posted) was with Serge Baudo and the “Cento Soli Of Paris” for Omega Records. It was coupled with The Spider’s Feast. It was issued in 1961. Omega Records was an American label. I don’t know what label it was issued in France.