When William Steinberg was appointed music director of the Boston Symphony in 1969 as successor to Erich Leinsdorf, he attained the pinnacle of his career. No previous conductor had headed two top-ten US orchestras simultaneously. It was a condition of his Boston position that he could continue to work in Pittsburgh with the orchestra that he had headed since 1952. Born as Hans Wilhelm Steinberg in Cologne on 1 August 1899, he studied at the local conservatory with the conductor Hermann Abendroth and the pianist Lazzaro Uzielli, a Clara Schumann pupil. On graduating in 1920 he became Otto Klemperer’s assistant at the Cologne opera house.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra collaboration with William Steinberg exemplifies what Milstein could do with material often considered less than first rate. Milstein plays the concerto beautifully, with his typically aristocratic poise and a lightness of rhythm and purity of intonation that makes the music seem to float across the bar lines. The István Kertész inscription of Dvořák’s “My Home” fills out his survey of the complete symphony cycle for Decca.