This performance of the Italy portion of the Années de Pélerinage of Liszt is by Erno Balogh, a student of Bartok and Kodaly who preceded the former to the U.S. and helped arrange his first visit here in 1927. All that is available on CD, as far as I can tell, are his performances as an accompanist -- for Lotte Lehman, Fritz Kreisler, and, perhaps, Grace Moore.
He made a number of records for Lyrichord, but a search of their present catalog turns up nothing. I felt strongly that the recording was worth renovating from a challengingly used and abused thrift store bargain bin LP, both for Balogh’s link to Bartok and for the performance itself, which is beautifully articulated.
There was apparently some difficulty with some of these files on MediaFire, so I have reposted them in zipped folders labeled "REDO". The original folder are also there temporarily, as they seemed to work for some.
Hi Lawrence,
ReplyDeleteI downloaded both the the mp3 and flac files but nothing appears to be on any of the files...just silence. Could you upload again?
Thanks, Fred
Hi Fred: I don't know what the problem is; I just downloaded them and they unpack and play OK for me. I will put them up again, though, this afternoon. I like this recording enough that I want to make sure it can be shared. Thanks for letting me know about the problem.
ReplyDeleteHi again Fred. New zipped folders labeled REDO are available for download. Let me know how things work out.
ReplyDeleteThanks much for your efforts with this transfer - a wise choice!
ReplyDeleteAny information regarding the date/place of recording?
Hello Charles, I'm glad you like the post. I'm quite fond of this performance. Unfortunately, I do not have the discographic information you asked for. The Library of Congress online catalog listed the date as 195-. Not very helpful. My guess would be the early fifties, somewhere in or around New York, where Balogh made some of his other recordings. But it's just a guess. Sorry I tell you more.
ReplyDeleteCiao Lawrence, let me thank you for you brilliant blog, which I discovered only today!
ReplyDeleteAs I’m wading through those reaches i coldn’t help but notice that the cover art for Ernö Balogh’s Liszt is gone. Is there any chance you could upload it again?
Thanks again, Miguel
Miguel: Thanks for letting me know about the photo. I deleted some duplicate photos in my Google pics, not knowing they would effect the blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks, too, for your kind comments.
Thank you so much Lawrence! :-)
ReplyDelete