RCA Victor Cover Art

RCA Victor LSC-2145 (Stereo)
RCA Victor LM-2145 (Mono)
RCA Victor RB-16046 (UK]

Music / MP3
Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit / 00_gaspard_de_la_nuit_complete.mp3
    Ondine / 01_gaspard_de_la_nuit_ondine.mp3
    Le Gibet / 02_gaspard_de_la_nuit_le_gibet.mp3
    Scarbo / 03_gaspard_de_la_nuit_scarbo.mp3

Prokofiev: Visions Fugitives / 00_visions_fugitives_complete.mp3
    Lentamente / 01_visions_fugitives_lentamente.mp3
    Andante / 02_visions_fugitives_andante.mp3
    Allegretto / 03_visions_fugitives_allegretto.mp3
    Animato / 04_visions_fugitives_animato.mp3
    Molto Giocoso / 05_visions_fugitives_molto_giocoso.mp3
    Con Eleganza / 06_visions_fugitives_con_eleganza.mp3
    Pittoresco / 07_visions_fugitives_pittoresco.mp3
    Commodo / 08_visions_fugitives_commodo.mp3
    Allegro Tranquillo / 09_visions_fugitives_allegro_tranquillo.mp3
    Ridicolosamente / 10_visions_fugitives_ridicolosamente.mp3
    Con Vivacita / 11_visions_fugitives_con_vivacita.mp3
    Assai Moderato / 12_visions_fugitives_assai_moderato.mp3
    Allegretto / 13_visions_fugitives_allegretto.mp3
    Feroce / 14_visions_fugitives_feroce.mp3
    Inquieto / 15_visions_fugitives_inquieto.mp3
    Dolente / 16_visions_fugitives_dolente.mp3
    Poetico / 17_visions_fugitives_poetico.mp3
    Con Una Dolce Lentezza / 18_visions_fugitives_dolce_lentezza.mp3
    Presto Agitaissimo / 19_visions_fugitives_presto_agitaissimo.mp3
    Lento Irrealmente / 20_visions_fugitives_lento_irrealmente.mp3

Recording Date(s):
June 4, 1957

Recording Location:
Paris, France (Salle Wagram)

Release Date:
October, 1957

Known Details:
André performed the Ravel work during his prize-winning playing at the 1956 Queen Elizabeth Piano Competition, where he received 3rd prize. This was the famous ABC competition where the prize winners were Vladimir Ashkenazy (Russia), John Browning (USA), and Andrzej Czajkowski (Poland) [soon after, Westernized to André Tchaikowsky]. After playing the Ravel at the competition, music critic Jacques Stehman reported:

"Andrzej Czajkowski, Polish, 20 years old, owns a considerable talent for this age, as a pianist and as a musician. As in the first elimination, his playing can be, at the wrong time, abrupt and brutish, but he is still a gifted performer understanding with deep awareness the pieces he plays, and making a glowing, natural, and suggestive interpretation. He remains a convincing performer. Ravel's "Scarbo," despite some confused and awkward passages, showed he knew how to interpret the heat, the colors, and the sarcastic spirit wanted by Ravel. One cannot be perfect and Mr. Czajkowski doesn't entirely have his playing under control, but he has eloquence, vitality, and sure musical instinct."

It was critical for RCA to have this recording ready for the market in October, 1957 to coincide with André's debut concert in New York City, thus, RCA came to Paris to record André in June of 1957. André's cousin, Charles Fortier, remembers:

"André made a recording for RCA in Paris during 1957. This was a piano recital recording. RCA rented the Salle Wagram for a recording on a Sunday [June 2nd]. The piano was tuned, the technicians were ready, and everything was set for the recording. Sunday came, and no André. He skipped the recording session and went swimming. He called them that he was sick. Monday, the same thing happened and André didn't show up. On Tuesday morning, RCA sent a doctor to Mala's apartment [where André was living - Mala was the sister of André grandmother Celina, and Mala is Charles Fortier's mother] to see how sick André was. With this development, André felt much better and made the recording that afternoon.

"There were many problems during the recording session as André would start to play, but then they would have to stop him and adjust the microphones. They kept asking him to start over. This annoyed André greatly because they made it seem like he was supposed to be able to be creative under such conditions. The recording didn't go well, and it bothered André that they were going to edit all the tapes to make a single good recording. But the RCA producer [Peter Dellheim] was patient with André and should be given a lot of credit that the recording was even made."

This recording was released in October, 1957, and reviewed by a number of publications, including the American magazine, the Saturday Review.

As the citation of the repertory will suggest, there is more to be learned from this disk about the fingers than the heart of the young pianist whose American debut occurs concurrently with the release of his first recording. Particularly, insofar as "Gaspard de la Nuit" is concerned, the fingers have to be capable of delicacy as well as incisiveness, finesse as well as force. It is the revelation of this excellent recording from France that a pianist of major power has come to join the ranks of those who really count.

I wouldn't say that Tchaikowsky gets as much out of "Le Gibet" as this mystical, moody piece contains, but if he did, now, what would be the challenge for the future? He demonstrates, however, every latent capacity for matching that challenge in the future. As for the "Visions Fugitives," they are articulated within a whisper of their sharp-edged contours, and with a certain driving intensity of style not unlike that of Horowitz himself. Certainly, this "Scarbo" shows that he is no cautious precisionist, but a really daring young man on the pianistic trapeze.

In a letter to a friend in Poland, André wrote:

"I'm going to send to you my first record, Ravel's 'Gaspard de le Nuit' and Profofiev's 'Visions Fusitives.' The record is only passable, but there's a rather good photograph of me on the cover. My 'Le Gibet' and 'Scarbo' were very good; only 'Ondine' seems somewhat old, wrinkled, chaste and boring. She lacks feminity. Such an 'Ondine' amounts to a confesson on my part." [Ondine is a German mythological water nymph who caused a mortal to fall tragically in love with her.]

Later that year, in December, 1957, André recorded Bach's "Goldberg Variations" for RCA but it was never released. A hint of the recording difficulties show up on the master tape: 87 individual takes. André eventually recorded in 1964 the Goldberg Variations for Columbia Records.