Szigeti: The Complete AFRS Recordings & Live Performances

Featuring

Joseph Szigeti
Constant Lambert
Alfred Wallenstein
Leonard Bernstein
Dimitri Mitropoulos
Philharmonia Orchestra

WOR Symphony Orchestra
San Francisco Symphony
NBC Symphony Orchestra
Franz Schubert
François Schubert
Johannes Brahms
Antonín Dvořák
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Igor Stravinsky
Jenö Hubay
Hector Berlioz
Béla Bartók
Arcangelo Corelli
Ludwig van Beethoven
Alban Berg

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Recording & Production

Many renowned actors and musicians, including Joseph Szigeti, freely offered their services to record programs for the AFRS to entertain American servicemen.

Composition History

Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, a twelve-tone serial work, was his last composition and was written 'in memory of an angel', Manon Gropius, who died tragically at 18.

Performer Biography

Joseph Szigeti, a violinist, was signed by Columbia in 1925 as a rival to Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz, and later, Yehudi Menuhin.

Composition History

Berlioz's Rêverie et Caprice for violin and orchestra is an adaptation of an aria originally composed for his opera Benvenuto Cellini.

Historical Context

During World War II, the AFM (American Federation of Musicians) imposed a union strike that suspended all commercial recording activities for over two years.

Historical Context

The AFRS (Armed Forces Radio Service) was created in the early 1940s to inform, educate, and entertain American servicemen overseas during World War II.

Composition History

Bartók's Portrait No.1 draws from music from his posthumously published First Violin Concerto, which was originally dedicated to the Hungarian violinist Stefi Geyer.