It is never not strange to me that in 1992, there were competing English recordings of Medtner’s Piano Concertos 2 and 3. In the Hyperion corner, Nikolai Demidenko and in the Chandos corner, Geoffrey Tozer.

Demidenko’s recording was the lauded one - it won a Gramophone Award and all sorts of critical plaudits. Tozer’s came out and even the Gramophone review was all “yeah, it’s ok, but it’s no Demidenko!”

It’s weird to me for a number of reasons. Since then, barely anyone had recorded Medtner’s concertos before or since that time. His music had virtually disappeared off the map - I remember Tozer’s excited tone in telling the story of his music’s “rediscovery” on @ABCClassic

Even in Medtner’s time, he was pretty much just a mate of Rachmaninov’s, pottering away in England until the Maharajah of Mysore became his benefactor late in Medtner’s life and paid for all of his works to be recorded. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1948/10/17/85333333.html

But after all that, his dense, many layered works - that to me is somewhere in style between Brahms and Rachmaninov - disappeared until 1992. I can only speculate, however, as to why there were suddenly two competing recordings. A bit like Addams Family v Munsters.

Hyperion was somewhere deep in their Romantic Piano Concerto series, which explains the Demidenko. For Tozer, however, this was his first recording for a major company. He was pumped - he was recording a whole lot of Medtner. And yet this happened.

Tozer’s story wasn’t massively different from Medtner’s. He was largely ignored and forgotten in Australia - even after this recording. Soloists who grew up here generally got a rough deal if they stayed. It remains a black mark on our arts organisations how he was treated.

This is therefore another weird thing - Tozer’s career went meandering along after the Medtner recordings - and Demidenko doesn’t seem to have recorded a massive amount either. Maybe Medtner is a curse.

Anyway, because I was a fan of Tozer ever since hearing him play at the opening of the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre in Penrith, I have never bought or listened to the Demidenko. And today I got out Tozer’s recording. Still good.

While I have done this thread, I’ve also managed to find details of a documentary about Tozer - The Eulogy, where people like Paul Keating will talk probably about the ugly side of Australian music snobbery. I will probably be outraged when I receive the DVD I have just ordered.