New ReDiscovery FLAC download - Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals et al (Sondra Bianca et al)

[factor...@gmail.com]

After a six-year hiatus, David Gideon has posted a new free download album at ReDiscovery, this time in FLAC as well as MP3. Contents include 1) an entertaining, although rather slow-paced, rendition of Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals by pianists Sondra Bianca and Herbert Drechsel with a Hamburg orchestra conducted by Robert Stehli; 2) selections from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake with a Hamburg orchestra conducted by (who else) Hans Jurgen-Walther, and 3) a rather good rendition of a Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody with Bianca and Jurgen-Walther.

Thanks so much to David Gideon for providing this release, particularly as a FLAC download.

[AB]

On Sunday, May 5, 2019 at 3:01:31 AM UTC-4, factor...@gmail.com wrote:
> After a six-year hiatus, David Gideon has posted a new free download album at ReDiscovery, this time in FLAC as well as MP3. Contents include 1) an entertaining, although rather slow-paced, rendition of Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals by pianists Sondra Bianca and Herbert Drechsel with a Hamburg orchestra conducted by Robert Stehli; 2) selections from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake with a Hamburg orchestra conducted by (who else) Hans Jurgen-Walther, and 3) a rather good rendition of a Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody with Bianca and Jurgen-Walther.
>
> Thanks so much to David Gideon for providing this release, particularly as a FLAC download.

I grew up knowing her name.. she was a fine pianist. somewhere along the line, she seemed to have disappeared.

AB

[cooper...@gmail.com]

I posted here about Sondra Bianca a few years ago a propos of her Gershwin recordings. She was a fine pianist who withdrew from performing at a young age. David Gideon's transfers of her recordings are well worth hearing. A different recording of Gershwin than the one David has had on offer was posted by Satyr, whose blog has since gone private. Gershwin's music was banned by the Nazis, and apparently Bianca was the first pianist to perform the Concerto in F in Germany after WWII. There also was a fine Mozart PC recording transferred from MGM LP on Random Classics, but the link is no longer active (http://randomclassics.blogspot.com/2010/09/sondra-bianca-performs-mozart.html).

I believe that Ms. Bianca still lives in Brooklyn as she approaches her 90th birthday, although it must be about 60 years since she stopped recording and performing in public.

AC