Edwin Fischer plays Bach Concerto in A Major BWV 1055 (includes alternate take)

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Edwin Fischer's October 5, 1936 recording of Bach's Concerto in A Major BWV 1055, with the Edwin Fischer Chamber Orchestra. This is one of three Bach concertos recorded by Fischer and his chamber orchestra in the 1930s.

This transfer was effected by Tom Jardine, to whom all thanks, from his American RCA pressings; the discs were in such fine condition that his transfer required no noise reduction, only a modicum of de-clicking.

A surprise came when I shared this transfer with Fischer discographer Roger Smithson and Fischer's pupil Gerald Kingsley: Kingsley noted that the timing of the first movement here is 3:42, whereas the issued one is 3:51. Additionally, the issued HMV recording features a smudged A at the 3:31 mark, but Fischer plays it correctly at 3:23 on this RCA set; there is also no octave doubling at 3:32 to 3:36 of the HMV set, but RCA features doubling from 3:24 to 3:28. The passage at 2:51 is untidy in the officially sanctioned HMV take but is better in this RCA version at 2:45.

Mr. Jardine checked his RCA discs and the matrix number indicates this pressing uses take 3, yet the officially published version features take 1. Therefore, the first movement as presented here represents a different version from that officially released for many decades in LP and CD transfers.

And what a performance this is, both in the alternate take and the rest of the recording! Fischer is on the top of his game, playing with a gorgeous array of tonal colours, rhythmic vitality, sumptuous atmospheric pedalling, and infectious enthusiasm.

Mr. Smithson's comprehensive discography of Fischer can be found on my Piano Files website, linked at the bottom of this feature on the pianist that includes a number of other fine transfers by Mr. Jardine: https://www.thepianofiles.com/edwin-f...

The PDF of the discography will soon be updated to include this new discovery.