Delayed Performances

In the luggage of brilliant Pianist William Kapell when he died in a plane crash in 1953 was the only copy of an unperformed piano concerto. It was the work of Efrem Zimbalist, onetime concert violinist and now head of Philadelphia's Curtis Institute, who had given Kapell the score to study. For a time after the crash, Composer Zimbalist had no heart to return to the concerto, but eventually he rewrote it from memory. Last week the piece was played for the first time by the New Orleans Philharmonic, with Alexander Hilsberg conducting and 21-year-old Lee Luvisi as soloist. Zimbalist's Concerto in E-Flat proved to be a happy, romantic work full of languorous melody, was cheered by the audience. Said one of the New Orleans musicians: "I thought a lot of dead composers had come to life, especially Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky."

After 24 years in limbo, Roger Sessions' Violin Concerto won its first big league hearing last week in Carnegie Hall. Sessions completed the work in 1935, withdrew it when the late noted Albert Spalding wanted changes in the finale. Since then it has been performed only three times in the U.S. The concerto lived up to Conductor Leonard Bernstein's characterization as "the apotheosis of complexity." But it proved exhilarating and impressive, from a long, lyrical main theme via a dissonant scherzo, to a flowing, waltzlike episode in the finale, reminiscent in mood of Alban Berg. The piece ended with a frenzied cadenza. Though in its 24 years the concerto has gained something of a reputation for being "unplayable," Violinist Tossy Spivakovsky performed it brilliantly. Said he: "It will not take a long time now. This work will be admired at first and later loved."

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