Arthur Lourié - Concerto Spirituale (1929; Re-upload with improved audio)

Arthur-Vincent Lourié (Propoysk 1892 - Princeton 1966)
Concerto Spirituale for chorus, piano and orchestra (1929)

Movements:
1. Prologue. Bénédiction du feu (0:00)
2. Concerto. Bénédiction des fonts (13:03)

Played by Viktoria Postnikova with Deutsches Sinfonieorchester and Chorus, Berlin conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky

The sound quality from the original video, which I uploaded 11 years ago, was pretty dire; a combination of distortion and a weird rattle in the tutti, and a general lack of muddiness. Another creator on YT remedied the sound somewhat, removing the rattle to the largest extent but emphasizing the distortion. This is my second attempt at the thing; I tweaked some other settings as well, and I hope you’ll find the result a bit better to listen to. It’s still an execrable recording, though; don’t expect miracles. Also, in my quest to create a better overall listening experience, some details may have gotten lost. Apologies for that.

The Postnikova / Rozh combo is as idiosyncratic as they’ve always been, and I’m convinced it’s played way too slow as they always tended to do, but as I’m not an expert in Lourié’s music and this is just their vision, I obviously haven’t interfered. However, I did up the pitch by a semitone, thereby shaving off a good two minutes. This is a mix of speculation and an educated guess based on what often happens when collectors in the past copied tapes onto another. And it sounded better to my ears.

Images: Paris c. 1930.