This CD offers Oscar Shumsky’s first commercial recording of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.5 in A, K.219, made origi-nally for the Music Appreciation Society in 1955. This work has a special place in Shumsky’s repertoire as he performed this concerto with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra when he was only eight years old. As it turns out, this work would also feature as Shumsky’s first digital concerto recording after making his triumphant comeback in the UK in 1981. This CD also includes all the RCA Victor recordings of Shumsky playing solo violin obbligato in arias and songs. These include the two magnificent arias – Laudamus te and Benedictus – from Bach’s Mass in B minor, L’amero saro costante with the German soprano Erna Berger, and four Rachmani-noff songs with the American tenor James Melton. Shumsky ravishingly plays two beloved violin solos from the stage: the famous Pas de deux from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, and Massenet’s Méditation from the opera Thaïs. The Tchaikovsky was a private recording made especially for the conductor Joseph Levine with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. The Massenet with orchestral accompaniment receives its first CD release. Shumsky forays into music of a lighter vein in the previously unissued release of a popular song Do you Recall? composed by Idabelle Firestone, the wife of the American tire magnate Harvey Firestone. The Firestone Hour on radio and later tele-vision brought music to millions of US households following the Second World War. The CD concludes with a luscious arrangement for solo violin and orchestra of Schumann’s Träumerei by Al Goodman accompanied by his Orchestra.

Artists

Oscar Shumsky (violin), June Gardner (soprano), Lucius Metz (tenor), Erna Berger (soprano), George Schick (piano), James Melton (tenor), Carol Hollister (piano)

The Little Orchestra, The RCA Victor Orchestra, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, ART Concert Orchestra, Voice of Firestone Orchestra, Al Goodman and His Orchestra, Thomas Scherman, Robert Shaw, Joseph Levine, Alfonso D'Artega, Howard Barlow, Al Goodman