Like Stokowski, the great Hungarian violinist Joseph Szigeti – a friend of Bartók’s – was a staunch supporter of what was in his day contemporary music. Szigeti’s ample discography encompasses many works that even nowadays are considered modern but a work that was especially close to his heart was Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto, which he never had an opportunity to record in the studio. Fortunately for us a 1945 NBC broadcast exists, where Szigeti is at his poignant best backed by the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Dimitri Mitropoulos, whose dedication to the piece is equally obvious. The closing Adagio overlaying Bach’s chorale ‘Es ist genug! So nimm, Herr, meinen Geist’ (‘It is enough! Therefore, Lord, take my spirit from here to the spirits of Zion’) is among the most beautiful moments in 20th-century music and Szigeti in league with Mitropoulos and the orchestra extracts a maximum of feeling from it.

Biddulph’s recently released transfer of this classic recording is the best I’ve yet heard. Also included is a deeply felt reading, also from 1945, of Beethoven’s First Romance in G with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Bernstein, who just a year or so earlier had made his sensational debut with the New York Philharmonic. From the UK, we’re offered Bartók’s First Portrait and Berlioz’s Rêverie et caprice, both from 1946 with the Philharmonia under Constant Lambert, and there are the complete AFRS relays from 1943 – rare recordings of various genre pieces that find Szigeti in his late prime. The transfers are in the main excellent.

This feature originally appeared in the July 2024 issue of Gramophone. Never miss an issue of the world's leading classical music magazine – subscribe to Gramophone today