Noel Mewton-Wood (piano) - Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13 (Schumann) (1948-9)

Australian pianist Noel Mewton-Wood recorded Schumann's 'Symphonic Etudes' at Decca's West Hampstead studios on 15-16 December 1948 and 12 April 1949. I'm not sure what edition the pianist used - there are many variants - but the performance is a fine one. Decca's excessively gritty English 78 rpm pressings of the period are very difficult to work with. I have applied relatively heavy filtering, while at the same time trying to preserve as much of the piano tone as possible. Even so, a constant accompaniment of noise remains, albeit greatly attenuated in comparison with the sound of the discs unfiltered. From Wikipedia: Noel Mewton-Wood (20 November 1922 – 5 December 1953) was an Australian-born concert pianist who achieved international fame on the basis of many distinguished concerto recordings during his short life. Born in Melbourne, he studied with Waldemar Seidel at the Melbourne Conservatorium until the age of fourteen. After further study at London's Royal Academy of Music, he took private lessons from Artur Schnabel in Italy. In March 1940, he returned to London for his debut performance at Queen's Hall, performing Beethoven's third piano concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham. He then went on tour in the UK as assisting artist accompanying Viennese tenor Richard Tauber, and later performed in France, Germany, South Africa, Poland, Turkey and Australia. Mewton-Wood also possessed considerable talent as a composer. His string trio was featured on the Second Boosey and Hawkes Concerts held at Wigmore Hall on 27 March 1943. He also composed music for films including Tawny Pipit (1944) and Chance of a Lifetime (1950). During his time in London he lived in a house in Hammersmith Terrace and there would often host musical evenings and entertain his close friends Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears. Mewton-Wood's The Times obituary of 7 December 1953 described his debut performance: At once his remarkable control and his musicianship were apparent: the ascending scales in octaves, with which the pianist first enters, thundered out with whirlwind power, but he could summon beautiful cantabile tone for the slow movement and the phrasing of the rondo theme was admirably neat for all the rapidity of the tempo; a true understanding of the relationship in concerto between soloist and orchestra, and of the soloist's part in ensemble, betokened the musician, the potential chamber performer... When only 31, Mewton-Wood committed suicide by drinking prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide), apparently blaming himself for the death from a ruptured appendix of William Fedrick, who he lived with, feeling he had overlooked the early symptoms. Mr. Fedrick was suffering from the severe pain for two or three days before calling a doctor and was eventually admitted to Westminster Hospital for an immediate operation but he subsequently died. Mewton-Wood became distressed and was advised to check himself into the Atkinson Morley Hospital for psychiatric treatment where he stayed for five days. He was released but put under supervision. Mewton-Wood was found dead in his music room on 5 December 1953.