Rachmaninoff plays Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.2 (1929) - alternate takes

Composer-pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff recorded his Second Piano Concerto on April 10 & 13, 1929 with Leopold Stokowski leading the Philadelphia Orchestra. As was the custom at the time of 78rpm discs, which did not allow for precision editing (every 4-to-5-minute segment was recorded ’as is’), multiple versions were made of each ’side’ so that the best of each could be chosen for the commercial release, which in the case of concertos usually consisted of four or five two-sided records (for this work, it was five discs comprising ten ’takes’). It seems that RCA had, starting in the 1940s, been repressing earlier recordings from their catalogue using occasional alternate takes instead of those approved by the artists and used in earlier pressings, apparently doing so to avoid overusing the ’master’ metal stamper. In the case of this Rachmaninoff recording, it became apparent in the 1980s that 9 out of the 10 sides making up the entire performance used alternate takes in all rereleases of the reading from the