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The Legendary Radio Program "Concert Grande" · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  This is Jed Distler, and welcome to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano
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  recordings. You can subscribe to the Piano Maven podcast through my sub stack page by
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  clicking on the link in the episode description. Paid subscribers get bonuses such as Piano
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  Maven Zoom meetings, and we just had our first one, which was quite a lot of fun. So please
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  consider subscribing to help us reach out further into the piano community and to keep
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  this podcast in production throughout this year.
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  As some of you may know, or almost all of you may know, or everyone should know, I am
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  the creator, the producer, and the host of a weekly radio show called Between the Keys,
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  which airs every week on WWFM.org, the classical network, where I have been their artist in
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  residence for many years. Since 2015, I've used this program to present a wide variety
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  of piano music, and I've often done interviews with special guests, including such artists
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  like Emanuel Axe, Angela Hewitt, Garrick Olson, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Fredric Jepsy, many,
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  many younger artists. Well, younger than me, let's put it that way. Most pianists seem
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  to be younger than me. But I am always quick to tell people that Between the Keys never,
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  never would have existed had it not been for a remarkable piano radio program that was
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  called Concert Grand. The program ran from 1977 until 1993 on the New York radio station
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  WFUV, based at Fordham University. And Concert Grand was co-hosted by two people who would
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  eventually become very close friends of mine. One was Bruce Posner, and the other was the
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  late Joseph Patrick. Joe was an avid collector of piano recordings. And one could say that
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  he was a collector of pianists because he attended countless concerts. And his enthusiasm
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  for recording a lot of these concerts on the sly actually led him to becoming a professional
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  recording engineer. And he became one of the most respected and beloved professional recording
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  engineers and producers of CDs of his day. He also did a lot of recordings for students
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  to get into conservatories or into competitions. So he was really knee deep in the piano world.
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  During Concert Grand's 17-year run, Bruce and Joe had numerous guests who they would
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  feature on the show in both music and conversation. Many of the pianists who they presented are
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  no longer with us. Not only was I an avid listener of Concert Grand, I also was honored
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  to have been a guest on several occasions where they would showcase my compositions
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  and piano playing. A few years ago, Bruce Posner began to post archival episodes of
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  Concert Grand on archive.org. He didn't post each and every episode. I'm not sure if all
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  of them survive on tape, but he did post quite a few, several hundred episodes in fact, all
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  dating from between the program's earliest days and last years. If you go on archive.org
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  and look up Concert Grand, remember to spell it G-R-A-N-D-E, you will discover so many
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  treasures among these programs. And I've posted links to several episodes in my podcast description
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  that I think represent the range of the kinds of programs that Bruce and Joe presented.
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  They often would feature a particular pianist or composer slash pianist for the whole program,
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  or you would have an interview with the artist plus recorded performances. And some of these
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  recordings were provided by the pianists, especially for use on Concert Grand, like
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  live concerts with these pianists. For example, one link that I've included features the pianist
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  Gail Niwa, who sadly died at a young age very recently. And this 1991 episode of Concert
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  Grand features an excellent live performance of Gail Niwa in Rachmaninoff's Paganini Rhapsody.
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  I also provided a link to one of their earlier shows, I think it was in 1979, something like
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  that, where Bruce and Joe interviewed Robert Goldsand, who was a pianist who taught for
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  many years at the Manhattan School of Music. And he was a pupil of Moritz Rosenthal in
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  Vienna. And Rosenthal, of course, was a pupil of Franz Liszt. And on this Robert Goldsand
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  program are some superb live performances. There's a terrific performance of the Mozart,
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  Rondo, and D major, Kershaw 485. It's just exquisite. And his commercial recordings really
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  do not do justice to what his playing in concert was like. And you will hear that on this episode.
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  Also, there is a link to one of several Concert Grand episodes that Bruce and Joe did with
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  the late composer David Dell Tredici. And he started out as a concert pianist. Some
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  of you might know that. And he gave Bruce and Joe carte blanche to tapes of performances
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  from David Dell Tredici's youthful concertizing years. And the link that I provided takes
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  you to a program where you can hear the young David Dell Tredici play Liszt's Dante Sonata
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  amazingly well. And also on this program is a private run through that David did of his
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  piano piece, Virtuoso Alice. I think he made this tape for Anton Nell, who was supposed
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  to do the world premiere of the piece. And this is like a demonstration for what the
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  piece sounds like. And David's run through is just absolutely staggering. And David Dell
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  Tredici did keep up his piano playing throughout his life for the most part, even when he was
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  primarily composing. In fact, I remember that I was invited to David's 60th birthday party.
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  And we played a duet together four hands. We played Tico Tico. I had a really demented
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  four-hand arrangement of it. Actually, I think David gave me the copy of that arrangement
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  because I heard him play that with Robert Helps, who was a great composer pianist who
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  was my big mentor. So David and I played it at this party. That was totally crazy. It
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  was so much fun. Also on Concert Grand, Bruce and Joe would often do something called the
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  New Record Forum, where a new recording or reissue would be presented and a panel of
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  listeners would then comment on the performance, but without knowing the identity of the pianist
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  on the recording beforehand. And only after they made their comments was the identity
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  of that pianist revealed. And also every year, Joe and Bruce would present programs devoted
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  to piano etudes. For example, they had maybe four or five episodes in succession where
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  they would offer comparative performances for all of the Chopin etudes. They did something
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  like that with the Liszt Transcendental etudes. And I posted a link to one of their Chopin
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  etudes programs in the podcast description. So you'll get an idea of what this program
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  was like. And in addition to the many Concert Grand episode links, I've also provided a
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  link to a 2015 Between the Keys episode where I interviewed Bruce Posner and Joe Patridge
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  to talk about Concert Grand. And they talk about how the show came about and how it evolved.
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  And this show that I did with them includes some samples from their Concert Grand archive,
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  like Robert Helps playing music of foray and David Del Tredegy playing the Chopin Bacharole,
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  which is an absolutely gorgeous performance by the way. Also, I've posted a link to Between
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  the Keys 400th episode that originally aired in 2023. And it was on this episode that I
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  paid tribute to the New Record Forum by doing a New Record Forum myself. And this was accomplished
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  via Zoom. So I had Bruce and Joe on Zoom as my panelists. And then my third panelist was
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  the pianist and radio host, Sarah Cahill, who was a dear friend. And she is the host
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  of the radio show Revolutions Per Minute on KAFW in San Francisco. I've been wanting to
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  do more of these New Record Forums with panelists on Between the Keys, but it hasn't happened
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  since that 400th episode. And I really enjoyed it so much. Maybe some of you subscribers
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  would want to be panelists if I do a New Record Forum on Between the Keys. So how about that?
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  Don't be shy. Let me know if you want to do it because I think you will have fun and I
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  think you'll be really great panelists. In any event, I just wanted to let you know about
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  this fantastic radio show Concert Grand and that you can find all of these archival episodes.
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  It's such a treasure trove of piano lore and definitely explore this archive. This is Jet
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  Disler and you've been listening to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano
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  recordings. Thank you so much for tuning in and I look forward to being with you for the
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  next episode. Be well and take care.