Busoni: piano concerto. Ogdon/LSO/Horenstein

A live performance from May 1966 of Busoni’s piano concerto, given by John Ogdon with the London Symphony Orchestra (and, in the last movement, the John Alldis Choir) conducted by Jascha Horenstein. Despite the rather rough sound quality (the source is a private tape of a BBC broadcast: the BBC’s original tapes are understood to be lost), there is no denying the musical quality of this performance. Ogdon had a long acquaintance with this work: the late Ronald Stevenson related that when he was an 18-year-old student at the Royal Northern College of Music he was practising this piece when he was interrupted by a small boy, who asked what the piece was. Stevenson told him. ’I’m going to play that’, said the boy, who was John Ogdon, then aged 9. Jascha Horenstein was one of the finest conductors of the mid-20th century (not as widely remembered now as he arguably deserves). He knew Busoni personally and conducted a great many of his works.