Discography Intro

A Brief Introduction of Annie Fischer's Recording Legacy

Annie Fischer started recording rather late from 1950. The now-defunct Dante label once reissued almost all her earliest recordings and live performances, except one Beethoven album from a 1950’s pre-Melodiya LP. These three-volume Dante releases contained several small piano works from Annie Fischer's repertoire the she never made other recordings. Dante's careless documentation gave no original source of the recordings and some recording dates were incorrect.

Archiphon label is available in digital download only but their extensive Klemperer live in concert series offered an only source of a 1956 performance of Beethoven Piano Concerto No.3 with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The Archiphon recording sources are from the broadcast, including the full radio announcements and applause and the sound quality is adequate. Canadian label "Palexa" issued a full bodied live Beethoven Piano Concerto No.3 in 1957 with Fricsay, which is interesting to be compared with her DGG studio version with the same conductor in the same year. The only other issue by Palexa was a Live in Montreal recital in 1984, where she gave a performance of the Schubert D.959 sonata, her only published recording of this piece. Her wonderful Edinburgh Festival recital in 1961 was an important legacy of her to be included in the BBC Legends, but the Beethoven Sonata No.30 from the same recital still remains unpublished. The other three BBC Legend CD released some of the BBC studio recording of works by Beethoven, Chopin, Haydn, Mozart and Schumann, of which I enjoyed the May 19,1963 recording session very much, including the Schumann Carnaval and a superb rendition of Beethoven's WoO 80. There was one more release from the BBC studio which contained four Beethoven sonatas in the 1970-1980’s, however this time was not by the BBC Legends, but the BBC Radio Classics label from the 1990’s. ICA Classics, the successor of BBC Legends, released an album two years ago. It did not expand Annie Fischer's repertoire but they managed to offer a first time authorized and better transfer of the wonderful 1958 Schumann Concerto (which was once only available on Melodiya's LP and Dante's CD with incorrect recording date). Except the Chopin Minuet Waltz video released in the famous DVD "The Art of Piano - Great Pianists of the 20th Century" by NVC Arts, the Canada based record label Doremi is currently the only one that released several video performance of Annie Fischer; however their documentation and production are just as poor as Dante.

The new Annie Fischer recording by Melo Classic brought nothing new to the repertoire list either, however these all pre-1960's live in studio broadcast well presented Annie Fischer's live atmosphere at her best. More broadcast master tapes of Annie Fischer, including several interview recordings from Hungary, are in possession of Melo Classic that I wish they would consider releasing some of them in the near future. In Japan, three concerto performances from the NHK archives are finally surfaced this year as for her 100th Birth Anniversary occasion. The 70-year-old lady was technically incomparable to 20 years ago, yet nothing was out of her control in all these concertos which she had played constantly throughout her professional career. Among them, only Beethoven Concerto No.3 is currently available in Video, but it suggested that all of these NHK performances may have been video archived and televised in Japan. Another Japanese label TOBU had once announced, in 2013, a double-CD including Mozart's Piano Concerto in A major, K.488. It was a live performance just less than one year before she passed away in Apr.1995. Unfortunately, probably due to copyright issue (according to some rumors), this album was never released.

NM Classics have been issuing series of "Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra" in box-sets and the second volume contains the first ever official CD release of the 1956 Mozart K.482 with Klemperer when it was only previously available from Palexa and Archiphon, but with unauthorized source. Furthermore, two box-set albums both contain live performance released nowhere else. Thanks to the Romanian Radio Archive, 10 CDs of concerts from the 2nd Enescu Festival in 1961 were put together under their record label Editura Casa Radio. Annie Fischer gave a performance of the Mozart Piano Concerto K.488 during this festival with Constantin Bugeanu and the Romanian National Radio Orchestra and it is the only available live performance of this piece. From Caprice Records' 4-CD+DVD album, which titled as " Svenska Tangenter: Svenska Pianister före 1950"(Swedish Pianists before 1950), contained the earliest known recording by Annie Fischer in March 9, 1943. It is by far the only known recording by Annie Fischer during the WWII period when she escaped from Hungary and stay in Sweden. Unfortunately, this is only a 4"45" fragment of the Liszt's E flat major Piano Concerto with Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Armas Jarnefelt.

Columbia/EMI engaged her from the late 50’s and issued recordings of her major repertoire, The most important are those Beethoven Sonatas and the Mozart Piano Concertos which continue to receive high praise. A very convincing Schubert D.960 Sonata and Schumann’s Kreisleriana delivered her best musical artistry and are still competitive among other fine recordings nowadays. Annie Fischer was always considered the best interpreter of the Bartok Piano Concerto No.3. Her EMI's version with Markevitch was indeed a great interpretation and the 1960 Live recording released by Orfeo label with Fricsay conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra was amazing and hardly surpassed. The Salzburg Festival version with Solti from the same label was however less impressive. For the centennial celebration of her birth, Warner Classics reissued all of her EMI studio recordings for the first time in a bargain box-set, however no new materials for surprise.

For the Hungaroton label she made no more than three CDs of music during her lifetime. The Beethoven Piano Concerto No.3 under the baton of Heribert Esser was an equally fine one compared to her DGG version nine years ago, with Ferenc Fricsay as the conductor. The most important piece should be the one and only Liszt B minor Sonata recorded by Annie Fischer. It was this piece she performed so impressively in the Budapest Liszt Competition (in which she received the first prize at the age of nineteen). Another superb Schubert D.960 coupled with the Liszt B minor makes the disc one of my favorite. The two wonderful account of Mozart concertos with Lukas was long time out-of-print and was only occasionally listed online and asking for an unreasonable price. These recordings alongside with the highly recommended complete set of Beethoven 32 Piano Sonatas made in the late 70’s by Hungaroton but published only after her death are all important supplements to her recording legacy. The company finally bundled all three individual CDs in a box-set as part of their “Annie Fischer 100” series this year, but with no informative insert booklets at all. A new 2-CD release "Encore·In Concert" was the highlight of this series which contained all first release live materials (and some works never appeared on her recordings before) recorded from her concerts in the 70’s by Anna Dévény, a true fan who followed Annie Fischer’s concerts since young.

There are many non-commercial material exists. However many of them are private/bootleg recordings circulated amoung collectors and others are not accessible due to copyright issue, including the British Library Archive, Melo Classic's Archive, Broadcast Recordings from France and Germany Radios Archives. Annie Fischer did not commercially record any Chamber Music and she also rarely performed them in public. There are only three concerts (that I am currently aware of) were fortunately captured from Hungarian radio broadcast: the Beethoven "Kreutzer" Violin Sonata (1949), Schubert “Trout” Piano Quintet (1971) and the Schumann E flat major Piano Quintet (1975). Although Annie Fischer never recorded the Beethoven Piano Concerto No.4 commercially, yet she had performed them many times and there are broadcast and live recordings survived. A video extract of it showed a full live concert video may exist in Hungary. I would be delighted if Doremi could dig out this source and put in their second volume (if there will be one). The Brahms Piano Concerto No.2 is no less important and at least three recordings of live performances are known of their existence. The one from the 1955 Hungarian radio broadcast is said to be the finest. Lastly, a live performance of Schumann’s Fantasiestucke believed to be from the 1966 Edinburgh Festival is also available.

Yuan Huang
Nov.26, 2014