John Ogdon & Brenda Lucas Liszt/Schumann LP Argo 1973
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John Ogdon & Brenda Lucas Liszt/Schumann LP Argo 1973
Original UK stereo recording on ARGO ZRG 721- music for two pianos by Liszt and Schumann.
THERE CANNOT BE many concert pianists who have made front page news, Beckham-style, for winning a competition. When John Ogdon won the Tchaikovsky Prize in Moscow (jointly with Vladimir Ashkenazy) in 1962, all the daily newspapers went wild with excitement, for it was not thought that Englishness was a quality conducive to passionate musical fireworks.
Literally from one day to the next, this shy, diffident, quiet-mannered young man from Lancashire passed from being totally unknown to a global sensation, photographed and followed wherever he went. His concerts were sell-outs, his reception a stampede of stomping and bursting energy. He made audiences catch fire.
Ogdon died quite unnecessarily and prematurely in 1989 at the age of 52. Meanwhile, a debilitating schizophrenic illness had intervened to tame his talent. Now, there are some salespeople in record shops who shuffle shamefully when trying to remember his name.
John Ogdon was born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, UK and studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music from 1945. His teachers included Claude Biggs, Denis Matthews, Gordon Green and Egon Petri. In composition he joined the Manchester New Music Group, which included fellow Manchester contemporaries Birtwistle, Goehr and Maxwell Davies amongst its members.
ln 1958, Ogdon made his London debut playing the Busoni Piano Concerto at the Proms. He came to international attention when he won the Liszt prize in Budapest in 1961 and the first prize in the 1962 Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition jointly with Vladimir Ashkenazy.
Ogdon was equally at home with the classics and in modern repertoire but he was perhaps most renowned for championing the music of the 20th Century British composers. In addition to first performances of numerous works by the Manchester New Music Group, he pioneered first performances of works by Elgar, Rawsthorne Tippett. At the same time, he explored much neglected music from the late Romantic period. He was a formidable exponent of Alkan, Busoni, Rachmaninov, Scriabin and Schoenberg.
He never forgot Liszt and was one of the first players to revive almost forgotten pieces by the composer.
He also mastered the two piano repertoire with Brenda Lucas, whom he married in 1960.
Ogdon leaves an invaluable legacy of recordings made over a span of 30 years.
Side 1:
Liszt: Concerto Pathetique
Side 2:
Schumann: Andante & Variations
6 Canonic Studies
CONDITION:
SLEEVE: VG++ Some minor ring wear, laminate glossy, corner creases right side.
RECORD: VG+ to EX— Vinyl clean & glossy, looks NM, plays clearly with occasional very faint noise and a few pops on side 2.
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