My mother, sad to say, did not have a recording career. The extant live recordings that remain, including some from the 1980s that I digitized from cassette (see below), are treasures to me. But the latest to come my way — her rendering of the Beethoven Violin Concerto in D, performed in 1962 with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy — is an absolute miracle. For this I convey my many, many, many thanks to Peter Kohn, whose diligent research into Ormandy has yielded an extraordinary range of live recordings on YouTube, including this one. It’s fabulous:

In reaching out to me, Kohn explained that he ran across my mother’s performance while listening to the many long-lost recordings that were originally broadcast by WFLN — a shuttered Philadelphia classical station — and later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania library, which turned the reel-to-reel recordings into CDs.

As you’ll hear, the sound is astonishingly good, thanks to sound engineers Albert Borkow Jr. and his assistant Harold Sacks. The recording has a short intro and outro with biographical information read by Bill Smith, assistant conductor of the Philly, and likely written by the violinist herself. 

Listening to this — hearing my mother come alive through music, bringing all of her nuance and fire and poetry and guts into the present moment — gave me chills. Talk about astonishing. 

This was her final performance under Ormandy’s baton. A few years later, after taking time off with her young family, she found herself shut out. Apparently her stint as a globally touring concert violinist was over. But as I wrote on her bio page, she never stopped making music. 

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Below, as an example, are a few old cassette recordings from some of Jeanne Mitchell’s performances in the 1980s, rendered digitally (with mixed results). As you’ll hear, some are in better shape than others. I’ll be adding more, bit by bit, as I transfer them to digital format. But no matter the technical issues, her world-class musicianship punches through:

Bartok “Romanian Folk Dance,” circa 1980, performed with the Litchfield (Conn.) Chamber Orchestra. Lovely performance; fuzzy tape.

 

Bach Partita No. 2 in D Minor, performed at a 1984 recital in New Milford, Conn. The tape starts out fine but gets seriously (and heart-breakingly) wobbly in the middle, worsening all the way into the “Chaconne.” Suffice to say this is a failure of the cassette, not the performer.

 

Haydn Concerto in C Major. 1987 performance of Mitchell’s arrangement — with a new cadenza — from a recital at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Conn.  Not a bad recording, but my transfer is a little tinny. The organist is Jon Lafleur. From the program notes: “This concert version was devised in 1987 by Jeanne Mitchell Biancolli and dedicated to the Abbey of Regina Laudis with gratitude and love. It includes a new Cadenza, restructuring of the Finale, and a new Keyboard Accompaniment.”