Dame Myra Hess & Ernest Ansermet: Beethoven Piano Concerto No.3 live in 1958

A March 23, 1958 concert broadcast performance of Dame Myra Hess playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.3 in C Minor Op.37 with Ernest Ansermet conducting the New York Philharmonic.
This Sunday afternoon radio broadcast performance has, as far as I know, never been released - perhaps due to a gap in the recording partway through the last movement and some radio interference at various parts of the source material. Nevertheless, this recording is very much worth hearing: Hess famously disliked the recording process and in general extant live performances show her music-making at its freest and most inspired, often capturing her in works outside her commercial discography's repertoire.
Although this reading is from the last few years of Hess's career, she was still in very fine form. As always, she plays with a wonderful balance of strength and sensitivity, with dynamic contrasts idiomatic to Beethoven's music evident throughout but particularly well accomplished in the exquisitely emotional second movement. The entire performance is a testament to her artistry, and her rapport with Ansermet is marvellous, this account paced very differently from her famous 1946 account with Toscanini.
Profound gratitude to Nicholas Brown for having provided this recording for this upload!
For more on Hess, my tribute to her on the 130th anniversary of her birth: www.thepianofi...
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[@_PROCLUS]

Ernest Ansermet 1883 -- 1969 ... Originally he was a mathematics professor, teaching at the University of Lausanne. He began conducting at the Casino in Montreux in 1912, and from 1915 to 1923 was the conductor for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Travelling in France for this, he met both Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, and consulted them on the performance of their works. ... In 1918 Ansermet founded his own orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR). He toured widely in Europe and America and became famous for accurate performances of difficult modern music ... was one of the first in the field of classical music to take jazz seriously ...

[@matteogiorgetti858]

Forse la migliore realizzazione di questo concerto. Myra stupenda...

[@berlinzerberus]

Myra Hess, the pianist playing with a golden tone. Marvellous, thank you!

[@claudio7448]

These recordings with the inevitable background noise do not affect the freshness of the performance at all. I really enjoyed your Hess memorial article. Thank you Mark.

[@leestamm3187]

These old broadcasts take me back to those days when I heard great things like this on the radio quite often. Thanks for sharing.

[@cbooth2004]

Wow. What a treasure.

[@_PROCLUS]

💝💝💝 TY

[@christopherczajasager9030]

I heard this concert just before leaving New York to study at Oberlin. Hess played this with the New Haven orchestra and a special treat the Konzert fuer 3 Klaviere of Bach with her friends Btuce Simonds and his wife, those also as Myra pupils of Tobias Matthay.