The Legendary Radio Program "Concert Grande"

Jed pays tribute to Concert Grande, a groundbreaking radio program about piano music that aired on New York's WFUV between 1977 and 1993, created and co-hosted by Bruce Posner and the late Joseph Patrych. Below are links to selected Concert Grande episodes available for free download, as well as two of Jed's "Between the Keys" radio show episodes that pay tribute to Concert Grande. Please consider donating to The Piano Maven podcast by subscribing to our Substack page (https://jeddistlermusic.substack.com/about), which you also can access by clicking on the "Donate" button here: https://rss.com/podcasts/pianomaven

Concert Grande Episode Links:

New Record Forum, with guest panelists composer/pianists Ronn Yedidia and Andrew Violette - https://archive.org/details/nrf-1988-03-29-violette-yedidia

Featured guest David Del Tredici - https://archive.org/details/david-del-tredici-1-12-15-1987

Comparative Chopin Etudes (first in a series) - https://archive.org/details/chopin-etudes-1-7-7-1986

Pianist Gail Niwa - https://archive.org/details/gail-niwa-10-15-1991

Pianist Robert Goldsand - https://archive.org/details/robert-goldsand-5-28-1979

Between the Keys Episode Links:

Episode 25 Concert Grande Revisited - https://soundcloud.com/jeddistler/episode-0028-concert-grande-revisited-2015-10-06?in=jeddistler/sets/between-the-keys-archive

Episode 400 New Record Forum - https://www.wwfm.org/show/between-the-keys-with-jed-distler/2023-02-20/episode-400-new-record-forum

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is Jed Distler, and welcome to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano

(00:15):
recordings. You can subscribe to the Piano Maven podcast through my sub stack page by
clicking on the link in the episode description. Paid subscribers get bonuses such as Piano
Maven Zoom meetings, and we just had our first one, which was quite a lot of fun. So please

(00:38):
consider subscribing to help us reach out further into the piano community and to keep
this podcast in production throughout this year.
As some of you may know, or almost all of you may know, or everyone should know, I am
the creator, the producer, and the host of a weekly radio show called Between the Keys,

(01:05):
which airs every week on WWFM.org, the classical network, where I have been their artist in
residence for many years. Since 2015, I've used this program to present a wide variety
of piano music, and I've often done interviews with special guests, including such artists

(01:29):
like Emanuel Axe, Angela Hewitt, Garrick Olson, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Fredric Jepsy, many,
many younger artists. Well, younger than me, let's put it that way. Most pianists seem
to be younger than me. But I am always quick to tell people that Between the Keys never,

(01:52):
never would have existed had it not been for a remarkable piano radio program that was
called Concert Grand. The program ran from 1977 until 1993 on the New York radio station
WFUV, based at Fordham University. And Concert Grand was co-hosted by two people who would

(02:19):
eventually become very close friends of mine. One was Bruce Posner, and the other was the
late Joseph Patrick. Joe was an avid collector of piano recordings. And one could say that
he was a collector of pianists because he attended countless concerts. And his enthusiasm

(02:41):
for recording a lot of these concerts on the sly actually led him to becoming a professional
recording engineer. And he became one of the most respected and beloved professional recording
engineers and producers of CDs of his day. He also did a lot of recordings for students

(03:04):
to get into conservatories or into competitions. So he was really knee deep in the piano world.
During Concert Grand's 17-year run, Bruce and Joe had numerous guests who they would
feature on the show in both music and conversation. Many of the pianists who they presented are

(03:27):
no longer with us. Not only was I an avid listener of Concert Grand, I also was honored
to have been a guest on several occasions where they would showcase my compositions
and piano playing. A few years ago, Bruce Posner began to post archival episodes of

(03:48):
Concert Grand on archive.org. He didn't post each and every episode. I'm not sure if all
of them survive on tape, but he did post quite a few, several hundred episodes in fact, all
dating from between the program's earliest days and last years. If you go on archive.org

(04:13):
and look up Concert Grand, remember to spell it G-R-A-N-D-E, you will discover so many
treasures among these programs. And I've posted links to several episodes in my podcast description
that I think represent the range of the kinds of programs that Bruce and Joe presented.

(04:38):
They often would feature a particular pianist or composer slash pianist for the whole program,
or you would have an interview with the artist plus recorded performances. And some of these
recordings were provided by the pianists, especially for use on Concert Grand, like
live concerts with these pianists. For example, one link that I've included features the pianist

(05:05):
Gail Niwa, who sadly died at a young age very recently. And this 1991 episode of Concert
Grand features an excellent live performance of Gail Niwa in Rachmaninoff's Paganini Rhapsody.
I also provided a link to one of their earlier shows, I think it was in 1979, something like

(05:30):
that, where Bruce and Joe interviewed Robert Goldsand, who was a pianist who taught for
many years at the Manhattan School of Music. And he was a pupil of Moritz Rosenthal in
Vienna. And Rosenthal, of course, was a pupil of Franz Liszt. And on this Robert Goldsand
program are some superb live performances. There's a terrific performance of the Mozart,

(05:58):
Rondo, and D major, Kershaw 485. It's just exquisite. And his commercial recordings really
do not do justice to what his playing in concert was like. And you will hear that on this episode.
Also, there is a link to one of several Concert Grand episodes that Bruce and Joe did with

(06:21):
the late composer David Dell Tredici. And he started out as a concert pianist. Some
of you might know that. And he gave Bruce and Joe carte blanche to tapes of performances
from David Dell Tredici's youthful concertizing years. And the link that I provided takes

(06:44):
you to a program where you can hear the young David Dell Tredici play Liszt's Dante Sonata
amazingly well. And also on this program is a private run through that David did of his
piano piece, Virtuoso Alice. I think he made this tape for Anton Nell, who was supposed

(07:07):
to do the world premiere of the piece. And this is like a demonstration for what the
piece sounds like. And David's run through is just absolutely staggering. And David Dell
Tredici did keep up his piano playing throughout his life for the most part, even when he was

(07:29):
primarily composing. In fact, I remember that I was invited to David's 60th birthday party.
And we played a duet together four hands. We played Tico Tico. I had a really demented

(07:49):
four-hand arrangement of it. Actually, I think David gave me the copy of that arrangement
because I heard him play that with Robert Helps, who was a great composer pianist who
was my big mentor. So David and I played it at this party. That was totally crazy. It
was so much fun. Also on Concert Grand, Bruce and Joe would often do something called the

(08:14):
New Record Forum, where a new recording or reissue would be presented and a panel of
listeners would then comment on the performance, but without knowing the identity of the pianist
on the recording beforehand. And only after they made their comments was the identity

(08:36):
of that pianist revealed. And also every year, Joe and Bruce would present programs devoted
to piano etudes. For example, they had maybe four or five episodes in succession where
they would offer comparative performances for all of the Chopin etudes. They did something

(08:59):
like that with the Liszt Transcendental etudes. And I posted a link to one of their Chopin
etudes programs in the podcast description. So you'll get an idea of what this program
was like. And in addition to the many Concert Grand episode links, I've also provided a

(09:21):
link to a 2015 Between the Keys episode where I interviewed Bruce Posner and Joe Patridge
to talk about Concert Grand. And they talk about how the show came about and how it evolved.
And this show that I did with them includes some samples from their Concert Grand archive,

(09:45):
like Robert Helps playing music of foray and David Del Tredegy playing the Chopin Bacharole,
which is an absolutely gorgeous performance by the way. Also, I've posted a link to Between
the Keys 400th episode that originally aired in 2023. And it was on this episode that I

(10:08):
paid tribute to the New Record Forum by doing a New Record Forum myself. And this was accomplished
via Zoom. So I had Bruce and Joe on Zoom as my panelists. And then my third panelist was
the pianist and radio host, Sarah Cahill, who was a dear friend. And she is the host

(10:31):
of the radio show Revolutions Per Minute on KAFW in San Francisco. I've been wanting to
do more of these New Record Forums with panelists on Between the Keys, but it hasn't happened
since that 400th episode. And I really enjoyed it so much. Maybe some of you subscribers

(10:55):
would want to be panelists if I do a New Record Forum on Between the Keys. So how about that?
Don't be shy. Let me know if you want to do it because I think you will have fun and I
think you'll be really great panelists. In any event, I just wanted to let you know about

(11:15):
this fantastic radio show Concert Grand and that you can find all of these archival episodes.
It's such a treasure trove of piano lore and definitely explore this archive. This is Jet
Disler and you've been listening to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano

(11:39):
recordings. Thank you so much for tuning in and I look forward to being with you for the
next episode. Be well and take care.