It’s always thrilling to hear a great composer interpret their own music.

During the twentieth century, a number of great composers recorded performances of their own works. These recordings reveal their approaches to phrasing, tempo, and colour that simply can’t be imparted by a score.

Here are eight remarkable historical recordings of great composers performing their own works.

George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue

Recorded in 1924

Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue was premiered in February 1924 in New York City. Bandleader Paul Whiteman’s jazz orchestra played the orchestral part.

A few months later, Gershwin, Whiteman, and the orchestra recorded an abridged version of the score.

This vintage performance is noticeably different from all modern ones…sometimes drastically so.

Differences are especially noticeable in the accompaniment, which sounds much jazzier than a modern symphony orchestra ever does. These are clearly players who’d be more comfortable making a jazz record than setting down a Beethoven symphony.

You can hear the difference in the opening notes. Here, the famous clarinet solo sounds like laughter, and so does the trumpet that follows, in an idiosyncratic way that few modern orchestras would dare to attempt today.

Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto

Recorded in 1928

In 1928, nearly a decade after the work’s debut, a 71-year-old Edward Elgar ascended the podium to conduct 35-year-old cellist Beatrice Harrison in a recording of his cello concerto.

The result is a fascinating historical document that every cellist should listen to at least once.

The embrace of glissando (i.e., sliding from note to note) is striking, both in Harrison’s solo part and the orchestral part.

Notice how Elgar emphasises the music’s waltz-like qualities in the first movement. Modern interpretations tend to prioritise the concerto’s tragic mood over its dancelike rhythms.

We wrote about brilliant cellist Beatrice Harrison, including how recordings she made in her garden became the most famous of her career.

Béla Bartók’s Allegro barbaro

Recorded in 1929

By 1929, Béla Bartók was no stranger to recording. Starting in 1908, he and his friend Zoltan Kodály began traveling to rural areas of Hungary and Romania to record Magyar folk songs. He famously carried primitive recording equipment on his back to make recordings of peasant musicians.

His intimate knowledge of folk music bled through into his own compositions. Sometimes he didn’t know whether to take credit for a particular piece or not, given its clear debt to the folk music tradition.

This recording is brief (only lasting thirty seconds), but even those thirty seconds reveal a pianist of assertive grit and human subtlety.

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2

Recorded in 1929

Rachmaninoff was more than a great composer: he was also one of the most celebrated pianists of his time. Lucky for us, he made a number of recordings.

This 1929 recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra is sheer magic. Like other recordings on this list, it’s noticeably different from many modern interpretations.

For instance, he refuses to milk the drama of the opening chords or linger on them in any way. This creates the effect of emphatically tolling bells.

Or listen to how commanding he is in the passages around 6:00, making them sound like assertive military marches.

When the music softens, the beauty of his tone becomes searing. The way he weaves the solo part in and out of the orchestral texture, starting at around 10:00, is just stunning.

Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3

Recorded in 1932

Prokofiev was famous for being an enfant terrible during the 1910s and 1920s. Listening to this icy performance of his third piano concerto, you can understand how he got that reputation.

His virtuosity is stunning, aided by the fluidity of his hand. The rapid passagework starting at 5:35 is an especially thrilling ride: somehow both completely relaxed and edge-of-your-seat thrilling.

He rejects all sentimentality, focusing instead on the broader shapes and patterns of notes and phrases to make an emotional impact…and his approach works.

Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird

Recorded in 1960

This 1960 performance was originally recorded for one of Leonard Bernstein’s famous broadcasts with the New York Philharmonic.

That year, Stravinsky turned 78 years old. But there’s no sense here that this is an old man’s interpretation. Indeed, the Philharmonic musicians play with a striking, youthful energy.

Amusingly, his motions include waving his clenched fists around, making him look like a conducting baby. But somehow those motions elicit a performance both colourful and magnetic.

At times, you can see him whispering under his breath or perhaps counting (check out the passage that begins at 5:10).

Aaron Copland’s Piano Concerto

Recorded in 1964

Here’s another recording made for a Bernstein broadcast. This one features Aaron Copland playing his piano concerto.

Bernstein and Copland’s handshake is sweet to witness: the two men had been devoted friends for twenty years at this point (in fact, at times, they’d been a bit more than friends; but that’s a story for another day!). Their chemistry and collaboration here is warm and easy.

It’s a real treat to hear a 64-year-old Copland perform a piece he wrote when he was 25. His playing is generous and probing, especially in the slow opening movement.

He becomes especially adorable around 8:50, slyly plunking around at seemingly random jazzy notes, clearly delighted to be lost in the joy of his own irregular youthful rhythms.

Benjamin Britten’s Down by the Salley Gardens

Recorded in 1964

Benjamin Britten’s primary musical inspiration and life partner was tenor Peter Pears.

Pears would go on recital tours, getting Britten (a fiercely talented pianist in addition to composer) to accompany him.

This recording features works by Frank Bridge, Benjamin Britten, and Mozart. Britten’s featured composition, an arrangement of the folksong “Down by the Salley Gardens”, begins at 1:19.

Britten proves himself to be a remarkably talented accompanist, deeply attuned to Pears’s performance. It’s deeply precious to witness, and it demonstrates how important Pears’s voice was to Britten’s artistic development.

Conclusion

Leonard Bernstein verbalised the value of these recordings well in his introduction of Stravinsky’s performance of the Rite of Spring:

The bulk of our repertoire is out of the classical tradition of the eighteenth century and the Romantic ardours of the nineteenth. So we, twentieth-century artists, are constantly in the position of having to put ourselves back in time, of trying to recapture those past epochs. And no matter how much we study, no matter how much tradition we adhere to, no matter how much insight we may have, it is always to some extent guesswork.

How wonderful it would have been to hear Bach or Beethoven perform their works. What we would give for a stereophonic record of Mozart playing one of his own piano concertos.

But we never have to worry about this problem again. Because today we have electronic devices that can capture the authentic original for all time…we hope!

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