Rostal & Schaefer play the Beatles Concerto

A recording from 1979 conducted by Ron Goodwin included the interpretation and performance of concert-pianists Peter Rostal and Paul Schaefer as well as the accompaniment from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The guest leader of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic for this recording was Hugh Maguire. The record label was EMI, and in those days EMI had its own mobile recording service and were frequent visitors to the RLPO and the Philharmonic Hall. The engineer for these sessions was the veteran sound genius Stuart Eltham. The recording was made on eight-track one-inch tape (EMI's own brand) running at 15 inches per second on Studer A80 tape machines. Dolby A noise reduction was used on each channel. Microphones were all Neumanns. EMI used their own design sound mixing desk and Tannoy monitor speakers. One of the editors of this contribution at the time of this recording was a very new player in the RLPO and was very excited to be part of this project. When the recording was first talked of, the orchestra were informed that the Beatles had given their permission for the project, but with the proviso that it must be recorded in Liverpool. The truth of this cannot be guaranteed, but it was certainly in current belief at the time. The RLPO had worked with Ron Goodwin many times, but it was an extra thrill to have the legendary George Martin there as producer. The six Beatles Impressions which went on the LP along with the Concerto were single song arrangements for pianos and orchestra. Ron Goodwin and John Rutter arranged three each. Rostal and Schaefer were great fun to work with. Schaefer, especially, built up a jokey rapport with some of the orchestra, and a series of practical jokes started between him and the band members during the recording sessions. The final one was when he returned to the piano after listening to a take in the control room. On putting his hands onto the keys for the first chord of the next take, he found that 'someone' had Sellotaped all the keys together. The audible results might well still lurk somewhere in the EMI out-takes vault.