RACHMANINOV PLAYS HIS OWN WORKS

Tonight a local PBS channel played a video of Leonard Bernstein conducting a German orchestra and chorus doing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Despite the age of the recording and the degradation of the acoustics, it was a magnificent interpretation. I'd forgotten how great Leonard Bernstein had been since he did so many things so well and has been gone from the current radar for such a long time.

It really raises my moods when I realize how much wonderful music has been made over the years and how fortunate we are to have so much of it available to us today. For about 60 years I have carted around original recordings of Sergei Rachmanov playing some of his own pieces. They have been in my various basements over the years and I can't bear to part with them until I can find someone who can turn them into something that can be heard with today's equipment. Since I have not seen them on DVD in any catalogs, I'm assuming that either the originals are lost or someone picked up the copyright and is sitting on them. Whatever the explanation, I would dearly love to hear the composer playing his own pieces.

With that thought came the enlightenment that I have not Googled for these in the recent past. Remarkably, Amazon offers some CDs of the composer playing some of his own pieces. There is one that is a recording of a piano roll series though there are other performances actually playing the piano, as well.

As I write this, I realize my homework is incomplete. My first task is to go to the basement, find them if they have not been tossed away by relatives who think they can make decisions for me about what I want or need of my own belongings. Then, I guess, I have to go on a serious 2008 hunt for what had not been previously available to me.

Wish me luck in my search.