1954 Beethoven Symphony No 1 - Mitropoulos & NY Philharmonic

Beethoven’s Symphony No 1 in C major, Op. 21 performed by the NY Philharmonic on January 31st, 1954. Conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos. Recorded over the radio - Jim Fassett’s golden radio voice can be heard introducing, and later concluding the recording.
Thanks as usual to the truly outstanding NY Philharmonic archives, I found the program for the performance:
archives.nyphil.org/index.php...
The Marchant collection so far has all the famous conductors of the NY Philharmonic- Bruno Walter, George Szell, Pierre Monteux - and now I get to add Dimitri Mitropoulos! Hopefully even more to come - maybe Bernstein?
Technical info:
Unknown Scotch, probably 150
5” Cine Reel
7 1/2 IPS
First side of reel runs out near the end of the 3rd movement, but I think I was able to make it whole as I believe the second side included a bit before the dropoff of the first side. Edited the audio to be hopefully transparent. Unfortunately as sometimes happens with these tapes, the other side was recorded at a different speed (!) and I had to pitch it down 45 cents. I'm doing this pitch adjusting by ear - good thing I'm a musician and have a background in classical music, albeit many decades ago.
00:00 - Introduction by Jim Fassett
00:16 - Adagio molto - Allegro con brio
08:39 - Andante cantabile con moto
14:50 - Menuetto, allegro molto e vivace
16:26 - Adagio - Allegro molto e vivace

[@karldelavigne8134]

With Toscanini still alive and kicking in the same city, you wouldn't expect Mitropoulos to come up short in this symphony - in fact, this performance reminds me very much of Toscanini's recordings, other than the tempo fluctuations/ritardandi, but the string attack is very similar. And the sound is very big.

[@MarchantTapeArchive]

Thanks for listening/watching!

[@andromede087]

Unfortunately the sound is a little bit saturated.

[@MarchantTapeArchive]

Yeah agreed - unfortunately it was as found. I'm very careful to not overload any of my recordings of these reels.