Louis Kaufman - Tchaikovsky & Smetana Piano Trios (Remastered 2026) Louis Kaufman

• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893): Piano Trio in A minor, Op.50:
• 1 Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A minor, Op.50: I. Pezzo elegiac: Moderato assai - Allegro giusto 15:58
• 2 Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A minor, Op.50: II. Tema con variazioni: Andante con moto 22:16
• Bedřich Smetana (1824 - 1884): Piano Trio in G minor, Op.15:
• 3 Smetana: Piano Trio in G minor, Op.15: I. Moderato assai 09:47
• 4 Smetana: Piano Trio in G minor, Op.15: II. Allegro, ma non agitato 06:32
• 5 Smetana: Piano Trio in G minor, Op.15: III. Finale: Presto 08:07
• Total Runtime 01:02:40

Info for Louis Kaufman - Tchaikovsky & Smetana Piano Trios (Remastered 2026)

This album features piano trio was adopted and given its own voice by two of the most important Slavic composers of the 19th century: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Bedrich Smetana. These two trio recordings originally appeared on the American Vox label and were recorded in Los Angeles in the late 1940s.

The Tchaikovsky Trio was one of the first recordings to be released on the newly developed medium of the LP record developed by Columbia in 1948. Both trio recordings feature the legendary violinist Louis Kaufman, who was the leading Hollywood studio violin soloist throughout the 1930s and early 1940s.

He was featured in the luscious violin solos in such classic film scores as Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, Wuthering Heights and Modern Times. After the Second World War, following his career in the film industry, Kaufman resumed his concert activities as a violin soloist. His world premiere recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons - a work which was virtually unknown until after the Second World War - won him the illustrious Grand Prix du Disque and he made the premiere recordings of many 20th-century works, including the Barber Concerto.

The other artists appearing in these trio recordings are the cellists Kurt Reher and Willem van den Burg, principals of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony respectively. The brilliant Czech pianist Rudolf Firkusny is featured on the Tchaikovsky Trio, in one of the first recordings he ever made.

Louis Kaufman, violin (Tchaikovski)
Kurt Reher, violoncello
Theodore Saidenberg, piano

Louis Kaufman, violin (Smetana)
Willem van den Burg, violoncello
Rudolf Firkusny, piano

Digitally remastered

Louis Kaufman
Possibly the most recorded violinist of all time, Louis Kaufman enjoyed a playing career that spanned almost seventy years. Despite an apparent avoidance of any rigorous training he won the Loeb Prize in 1927 and the Naumburg Award in 1928, precipitating a début recital in New York’s Town Hall and subsequent extensive touring and concerto appearances.

Moving to Los Angeles in 1933 Kaufman, like Toscha Seidel, was swept up into the Hollywood fold and provided solos for several hundred films with all the major studios over the next fourteen years. He still managed to pursue ‘serious’ playing, making very popular recordings of concertos by Khachaturian and Saint-Saëns and, in 1947, the first-ever recording of Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ concertos in their original and complete form.

After moving to Paris in 1948 Kaufman’s first major project was to locate and record (in 1950) the further eight concertos of Vivaldi’s Op. 8, Il cimento dell’ armonia e dell’ invenzione. The rapidly expanding LP industry proved highly fruitful for Kaufman who notched up well over one hundred major recordings before retiring in his seventies. He premièred a significant number of concertos and introduced American works to European audiences, notably concertos by Piston and Barber, and Copland’s Violin Sonata (recorded with Copland at the piano).

Kaufman’s playing on record reveals a refined and warm tone, richly presented with considerable intensity. His vibrato is continuous but always carefully controlled and quite fast, lending power and directness especially in the driven 1945 performance of Khachaturian’s D minor Concerto and an engaging Bennett Song Sonata. Kaufman retained a relatively frequent use of the portamento, which gives the famous first recording of Barber’s Violin Concerto (1951) a soft and romantic edge. His somewhat spurious uses of the device in Vivaldi’s Le quattro stagione sound incongruous to our historically-aware ears and yet, along with some challenging tempo variations, give a sense of whimsy to the performance which is compelling. There is sometimes a thickness to his sound which can work well, as in the rather ponderous Concerto, Op. 42 by Larsson (c. 1952). Kaufman’s playing is not necessarily to the taste of the present time, but cannot fail to be admired for its integrity.

Booklet for Louis Kaufman - Tchaikovsky & Smetana Piano Trios (Remastered 2026)