Bach: Harpsichord Concerto No. 7 (Anna Linde)

Anna Linde

Last year, I presented on this blog what I believed to be the first electrical recording of a Bach concerto, a triple clavier concerto played by three French pianists. Now I present the first complete recording of a Bach clavier concerto played on the harpsichord - I say "complete" because Alice Ehlers had recorded two movements of the BWV 1056 concerto for Homokord in 1926, a recording which achieved nothing like the currency that this one did:

Bach: Harpsichord Concerto No. 7 in G Minor, BWV 1058
Anna Linde, harpsichord, with string orchestra
Recorded October 8, 1928
English Parlophone E 10879 and E 10880, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 40.39 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 22.71 MB)

According to Christian Zwerg's Parlophon discography, the orchestra is that of the Berlin State Opera, and the conductor was Frieder Weissmann, Parlophon's house conductor. And the irony is that, although Weissmann's name is not on the labels, we know far more about his career than we do about the harpsichordist's, for Anna Linde is a figure shrouded in mystery. Here is what we have been able to find out about her (and I am indebted to Nick Morgan and his great sleuthing powers for this information):

She was born Johanna Anna Pincus in Bromberg, Germany (now Bydgoszcz, Poland), in 1880. During the 1910s she studied with Wanda Landowska at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, and sometime after this adopted "Anna Linde" as her professional name. In the late 1920s she recorded a handful of sides for Parlophon, among them several with Paul Grümmer playing the viola da gamba (these can be heard at the CHARM website, as can two of her solo sides). Being Jewish, when the Nazis came to power, she was forced to flee Germany, and she went first to Italy, where she made several recordings for the anthology "Musiche Antiche Italiane" (producers of this first recording of Monteverdi's "Orfeo"). After Italy became unsafe for Jews, she emigrated to the USA, took citizenship and appears to have settled in Denver, Colorado, dying there in 1968.

The picture above is the only one I have been able to find of her, and appears to derive from Parlophon publicity material; my apologies for its awful quality but it was little better in my source, which was a reproduction in Frank Andrews and Michael Smith's discography of English Parlophone's 12-inch "E" series, published by the City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society.

The Danish Quartet

Gilbert Jespersen                  Erling Bloch                 Lund Christiansen

More Danish gems this time, played by an ensemble founded in 1935 by the three gentlemen pictured above plus one other - cellist Torben Svendsen, whose picture, regrettably, I cannot find. I present three recordings from the late 1930s, one by the full ensemble (flute, violin, cello, piano), and the others featuring two of the possible trio combinations within it:

Bach: Trio Sonata in C Minor (from "The Musical Offering", BWV 1079)

The Danish Quartet (Jespersen-Bloch-Svendsen-Christiansen)

Recorded November 22, 1937

HMV DB 5215 and DB 5216, two 78-rpm records

Link (FLAC file, 44.85 MB)

Link (MP3 file, 24.88 MB)

Kuhlau: Trio in G Major, Op. 119 - Allegro moderato (first movement)

Members of the Danish Quartet (Jespersen-Bloch-Christiansen)

Recorded November 21, 1938

HMV DB 5226, one 78-rpm record

Link (FLAC file, 20.16 MB)

Link (MP3 file, 11.83 MB)

Beethoven: Variations on "Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu", Op. 121a

Members of the Danish Quartet (Bloch-Svendsen-Christiansen)

Recorded January 16 and 21, 1939

HMV DB 5229 and DB 5230, two 78-rpm records

Link (FLAC file, 40.31 MB)

Link (MP3 file, 26.74 MB)

The trio movement by Friedrich Kuhlau (1786-1832) is complete as issued; its composer was German-born but fled to Denmark as a young man to escape having to fight in the Napoleonic wars. During his lifetime he was famous as a pianist and composer of Danish operas, but he is best remembered now for his piano sonatinas and his works featuring the flute.

The First Electrical Recording of a Bach Concerto?

As I mentioned several weeks ago, I have lately discovered the online treasure-trove of the Phonograph Monthly Review magazine (1926-1932). I have been methodically plodding through this, issue by issue, and am about halfway through the run. One of its features was R. D. Darrell's monthly "Recorded Symphony Programs" - an overview of recorded orchestral works one might likely encounter in concert, with the aim of allowing the reader to recreate such a concert at home by means of records. The issue for April, 1928, gives an overview of orchestral recordings of Bach, and notes that Harriet Cohen's acoustical recording of the D minor concerto (BWV 1052) is the only "Bach piano concerto" yet recorded. Moreover, all the other Bach concertos (for violin) listed were acoustical recordings. In the very next issue, in the very same feature, mention is made of this French HMV recording of a concerto for three pianos, as having just been released:

Bach: Concerto in C Major, BWV 1064, for three claviers and strings
Hélène Pignari, Lydia Schavelson, Lucette Descaves, pianos
Orchestra conducted by Gustave Bret
Recorded November 2, 1927
HMV D 2080 and D 2081, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 45.47 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 26.67 MB)

My copy, however, is from an English issue of five years later. Of the three pianists involved, I can only find out information online about Lucette Descaves (1906-1993), a pupil of Marguerite Long who went on to teach Pascal Rogé and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, among others. The name of Hélène Pignari (sometimes billed Pignari-Salles; I assume she married a Monsieur Salles at some point?) comes up sometimes in connection with recordings in partnership with violinist Louis Kaufman for Concert Hall, but of Schavelson I can find out nothing. If anyone out there knows anything more about these two ladies, please comment! The conductor, Gustave Bret (1875-1969) appears to have also been an organist and composer with a particular interest in Bach. In 1933 he directed a recording of the Vivaldi-Bach concerto for four keyboards (with Pignari again as one of the pianists) for French HMV, which can be heard at the CHARM website.

Thanks also to PMR, I have new information about this recording of the Bach Double Concerto by Anton Witek and his wife - apparently it was made at Bayreuth in 1928; for further details see my update to that post.

Bach: Orchestral Suite No. 1 (Sanderling)

In the early 1950s, the switch from standard 78-rpm records to the new long-playing ones occasioned, in some countries, some pretty strange hybrid types. Deutsche Grammophon had a "variable micrograde" 78 shellac disc, playable with an ordinary 78-size stylus, that managed to extend the timing of a 12-inch disc to eight minutes. These didn't last long; by 1952 DGG bowed to the future and began producing 33-rpm LPs. In the Soviet Union, LPs were also launched about 1952, but with a twist - longer works were presented as 33-rpm records, but shorter ones were issued on 8-inch or 10-inch 78-rpm vinyl records, playable with the same microgroove stylus as the 33-rpm LPs. I'm aware of only one issue on Soviet microgroove 78s that offered an extended work on two records, and this is it:

Bach: Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C Major, BWV 1066
Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Kurt Sanderling
Issued c. 1953
USSR D-893/6, two 10-inch vinyl microgroove 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 85.34 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 52.52 MB)

This appears to be the first Soviet recording of a Bach orchestral work other than a solo concerto or a transcription, and it's fitting that Kurt Sanderling (1912-2011) should have been chosen to make it. Born a Jew in Germany, he fled east when the Nazis took power, becoming co-conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic (with Yevgeny Mravinsky) before returning back to East Berlin in 1960. His performance of the Bach Suite sounds rather old-fashioned in some ways, with stately tempi and no continuo instrument, but in terms of scholarship, it's quite up-to-date, with all cadential trills observed, even those usually missing from contemporaneous recordings of the Bach suites.

Stokowski's All-American Youth Orchestra

Leopold Stokowski rehearsing with the
All-American Youth Orchestra, 1940

Leopold Stokowski's birthday is upon us again (he was born 134 years ago this Monday), and this year I've chosen some samples of his work with the All-American Youth Orchestra, essentially his own creation for the purposes of touring and recording. I will not go into the details, but instead direct you to this article at Larry Huffman's incredible site about the conductor, an article that contains a discography, orchestra roster, and several pictures (such as the one above). The orchestra existed for two years, in 1940 and 1941, and both years are represented here:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67 and
Bach-Stokowski: "Little" Fugue in G Minor, BWV 578
The All-American Youth Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Recorded November 14, 1940
Columbia Masterworks set MM-451, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 83.82 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 58.94 MB)

Liszt-Stokowski: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
The All-American Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Recorded July 8, 1941
Columbia Masterworks 11646-D, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 22.03 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 13.03 MB)

Mendelssohn: Scherzo (from "A Midsummer Night's Dream")
Bach-Stokowski: Preludio (from Partita in E Major, BWV 1006)
The All-American Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Recorded July 11 and 20, 1941
Columbia Masterworks 11983-D, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC files, 21.38 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 13.07 MB)

The Beethoven set is a relatively recent acquisition for me; but for the two single discs I have revisited the reclaimed record pile. I'm particularly pleased to have reclaimed the Bach-Mendelssohn disc, for it was a gift from my first piano teacher, George A. Neely (1903-1990), with whom I began lessons at the age of 11. Mr. Neely was a kind man who traveled to our neighborhood once a week to give lessons to kids in their homes. When he learned of my interest in collecting classical 78s, he decided to give me his entire collection - accumulated 25-35 years previously and containing some 40 or 50 sets, among them all the Beethoven and Brahms symphonies! The Stokowski record I'm sharing here is all I have left of this largess. I took lessons from Mr. Neely until I was fourteen, at which point I wanted to learn to play Shostakovich and he declared he had nothing left to teach me, so another teacher was found. But I remember Mr. Neely with the greatest fondness, am grateful for his many gifts, and hope I give as much to my own students as he gave me.

Bach by Adolf Busch

Cover design by Darrill Connelly (?)

Happy New Year, everyone! 2016 marks the 125th birth anniversary of one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, the German violinist, conductor and quartet leader Adolf Busch (1891-1952). Fortunately for us, Busch's recorded legacy was large, varied and has been readily available in the decades since his death. To commemorate the anniversary, Warner Music Group, which has fallen heir to EMI's catalog of classical recordings, has done right by Busch in issuing a 16-CD set containing his complete HMV/EMI output, which comprises a little over half his legacy. I urge everyone to obtain this set, especially as it quite modestly priced (one Amazon dealer has it for just over $30). A few of the transfers are not up to par; Warner (which, laughably, refers to this set as "The Complete Warner Recordings" - almost implying that Bugs Bunny and not Fred Gaisberg was in charge of producing them in the first place), merely re-uses old EMI transfers in most cases. The vast majority of these, fortunately, are still quite serviceable, and the few which Warner has had newly made are, invariably, very good.

Unfortunately, I don't see anything forthcoming from Sony, which controls most of the other half of the Busch legacy - the American Columbia recordings made from 1941 to 1951. So to plug the gap a little, I present one of the rarer of these. It's characteristic that Busch, although he only recorded two of the unaccompanied Bach violin works commercially - one Sonata and one Partita - would choose to do the ones with the most complex movements. And so, the Partita that he recorded in 1929 is No. 2 with the great Chaconne (this is in the Warner box), and the Sonata is the one with the grandest Fugue:

Bach: Unaccompanied Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1005
Adolf Busch, violin
Recorded May 18, 1942
Columbia ML-4309, one side of one 12" LP record
Link (FLAC files, 62.75 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 39.15 MB)

Although made in 1942, this recording did not receive a release until 1950, simultaneously on LP and 78 (the latter was set MM-926), the LP being coupled with a Bach concerto played by the 19-year-old Eugene Istomin which had been released on 78s four years previously. I have chosen to transfer this from the 78s (since tracking these old Columbia LPs is, for me, always a bit dicey):

Bach: Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 1052
Eugene Istomin (piano) with the Busch Chamber Players
Recorded April 25 and May 3, 1945
Columbia Masterworks set MM-624, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 58.40 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 41.49 MB)

Mogens Wöldike - Two Brandenburg Concertos

Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg

As the 200th anniversary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach approached in the year 1950, several record companies worldwide engaged in a flurry of activity making new recordings of his works, including several versions of the six Brandenburg Concertos.  Columbia had a version with Fritz Reiner conducting an ad hoc ensemble of New York players, and Decca had the newly-signed Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra under its founder, Karl Münchinger.  HMV countered with piecemeal issues of the six concertos with Mogens Wöldike leading two different Danish ensembles (Nos. 3 and 6 being done by an ensemble of soloists), recorded over a span of one-and-a-half years.  Nos. 4 and 6 of this set can be heard at the CHARM website; to complement these, I present Wöldike's readings of Nos. 3 and 5:

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048
Chamber Ensemble of the Chapel Palace, Copenhagen,
conducted by Mogens Wöldike
Recorded December 1, 1949
and
Bach: Partita No. 1 in B-Flat, BWV 825 - Sarabande
Liselotte Selbiger, harpsichord
Recorded February 3, 1950
HMV C 3947 and C 3948, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 40.01 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 25.03 MB)

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major, BWV 1050
Herman D. Koppel, harpsichord; Leo Hansen, violin; Poul Birkelund, flute;
Danish State Broadcasting Chamber Orchestra
conducted by Mogens Wöldike
Recorded May 31, 1950
HMV DB 20118 through DB 20120, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 60.63 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 37.54 MB)

Herman D. Koppel, the harpsichordist in No. 5, can be heard in an utterly different triple concerto here - as pianist in Niels Viggo Bentzon's Chamber Concerto recorded the following year.

For those interested, here are the particulars of the order of recording for Wöldike's set of Brandenburgs, culled from Michael Gray's listings, WERM, and Frank Andrews' HMV "C" Series Discography:

No. 4 - mats. 2CS2718-22: Nov 29 '49 & Mar 1 '50* (DB 20109-11 & C 4073-5)
No. 3 - mats. 2CS2723-25: Dec 1 '49 (DB 5291-2 & C 3947-8)
No. 6 - mats. 2CS2813-17: May 27 '50 (DB 20121-3 & C 4164-6)
No. 5 - mats. 2CS2819-24: May 31 '50 (DB 20118-20)
No. 2 - mats. 2CS2908-11: Dec 20 '50 (DB 20107-8 & C 7848-9)
No. 1 - mats. 2CS2952-56: Mar 10 & 11 '51 (DB 20140-2)

*Most, if not all, issued takes of No. 4 are surely from the later date, on the evidence of the high take numbers (4's and 6's).

Sir Thomas' Only Issued Commercial Bach Recording

The great Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961) was renowned for his interpretations of older music, especially his unique Handel arrangements, but he seems to have had a blind spot when it came to Bach. It's unclear why. Maybe the heaviness with which Bach was usually interpreted in those days turned him off; maybe it was rivalry with Sir Henry Wood, who was famous for his renditions of the Brandenburg Concertos. Whatever the reason, the fact that he could, when he was so moved, turn out a perfect gem of a Bach performance is amply demonstrated by this record, which also contains one of his inimitable Handel transcriptions:

Bach: Christmas Oratorio - Sinfonia
and
Handel-Beecham: Il Pastor Fido - Gavotte
Sir Thomas Beecham conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Recorded May 12, 1947
RCA Victor 12-0583, one 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 22.45 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 14.76 MB)

This record was only issued in the USA, never by HMV in Europe.

As I may have mentioned here before, in my heyday as a 78 collector I had a collection of over 8,000 discs, which I was forced to sell in 2003-04 for financial reasons. Some of these I had had since childhood. Among them were several by the First Piano Quartet, and when in my recent post devoted to this ensemble, a commenter mentioned a recording of the Paganini Variations, I thought to myself, ruefully, "yes, I used to have that record, and wish I still did."

Well, a few days later, I was at my parents' house for Thanksgiving dinner, and my mother mentioned that there were still several boxes of my records in the basement. This was news to me; I had thought they threw out all the unsold stuff years ago. I went to investigate and found lots of junk, of course - many sets with broken or missing records which I had never tried to sell, but also several dozen single records, some of which I was genuinely surprised to see hadn't sold. Among the latter was this Beecham Bach record. And yes, I did get my First Piano Quartet records back - it was like an early Christmas present! The reclaimed records were somewhat the worse for having been stored in a damp basement for 10 years, perhaps, but still quite playable, and now I share the first of these with you all.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Bach from Copenhagen

Frederiksberg Church, Copenhagen

This week, two organ pieces by J. S. Bach, played by an organist about whom I can find out absolutely nothing online - indeed, there's more information available about the organ itself!  Presumably, Georg Krarup was a staff organist at the Frederiksberg Church in Copenhagen, built in 1734 on land donated by King Frederick IV; the organ used in this recording is the church's third, built in 1947 by the firm of Marcussen & Son, and is an instrument with a light, pleasing, Baroque-style sound:

Bach: Trio Sonata No. 4 in E Minor, BWV 528 and
Bach: "Little" Prelude and Fugue No. 4 in F Major, BWV 556
Georg Krarup at the organ of Frederiksberg Church, Copenhagen
Recorded c. 1951-52
HMV Z 7046 and Z 7047, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 40.59 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 22.59 MB)

This recording has the distinction of being the last release that I can trace in HMV's Danish plum label automatic-sequence series, which featured some very interesting repertoire, as can be seen from this list (the orchestra is always that of the Danish State Radio, unless otherwise indicated):

Z 7000/3 Nielsen: Symphony No. 2 (Thomas Jensen)
Z 7004/7  Brahms: Symphony No. 2 (Fritz Busch)
Z 7008/12 Dvorak: "New World" Symphony (Nikolai Malko)
Z 7013/5  Niels Viggo Bentzon: Partita for piano, Op. 38 (Composer)
Z 7016/8  Haydn: Symphony No. 91 (Mogens Wöldike)
Z 7019/21 Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini (Issay Dobrowen)
Z 7022/6  Nielsen: Symphony No. 5 (Erik Tuxen)
Z 7027/9  Bach: Cantata No. 82 (Bernhard Sonnerstedt, Wöldike)
Z 7030/1  Bentzon: Piano Sonata No. 3 (Composer)
Z 7032/3  Beethoven: Gellert-Lieder, Op. 48 (Børg Lowenfalk, Lund Christiansen)
Z 7034/5  Bach: Orgelbuchlein - 12 selections (Georg Krarup)
Z 7036/7  Bentzon: Chamber Concerto, Op. 52 (Copenhagen Collegium Musicum)
Z 7038/40 Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf (with Danish narration) (Markevitch, Philharmonia)
Z 7041/3  Jørgen Jersild: Alice i Eventyrland (Wöldike, Danish Madrigal Cho.)
Z 7044/5  Bach: Orgelbuchlein - 9 selections (Krarup)
Z 7046/7  Bach: Trio Sonata No. 4 (Krarup)

The Brahms, Dvorak and Tchaikovsky sets also turned up in the regular English plum label C series.

Bach: Orchestral Suite No. 3 (Boult)

Adrian Boult, 1933

An orchestral suite by Bach is hardly repertoire that one would associate with the great British conductor Sir Adrian Boult (1889-1983), but this recording, one of Boult's earliest with the BBC Symphony Orchestra (which he helped to found in 1930), is noteworthy for two reasons, both concerning the opening slow section of the Ouverture.  First, to my knowledge it's the only recording of a Bach orchestral suite made during the 78-rpm era to observe the repeat of the opening section.  Second, it's the earliest recording in which the "modern" practice of synchronizing the dotted rhythms (so that, for example, when eighth notes and sixteenth notes occur simultaneously in different parts, the rhythm adopted is that of the sixteenths) is heard.  Boult must have received coaching in this from Arnold Dolmetsch, for who else in England at that time would have known about it?  This practice became almost universal for Baroque music in the 1960s (and indeed there was a backlash against it starting in the 1980s, led by the American musicologist Frederick Neumann, and put into practice by Reinhard Goebel and his wonderful ensemble "Musica Antiqua Köln"), but it's rather startling to hear it in a 1933 recording.  Indeed the performance is very stylish and modern-sounding, and only the absence of any continuo instrument reminds one that it dates from eighty years ago:

Bach: Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068

and

Prelude from the Violin Partita, BWV 1006 (arr. Pick-Mangiagalli)

BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adrian Boult

Recorded May 22-23, 1933

HMV DB 1963 through DB 1965, three 78-rpm records

Link (FLAC files, 69.15 MB)

Link (MP3 files, 37.99 MB)

Kammermusikkreis Scheck-Wenzinger

The Swiss cellist and viola da gamba player August Wenzinger (1905-1996), a student of Feuermann, was one of the 20th century pioneers of historically-informed performances of Baroque music, both through his performances on the gamba and his participation in various orchestras, principally that of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and the Capella Coloniensis.  He gained fame in the 1950s through directing these groups.  But he was active long before this in exploring Baroque music; he was one of the gamba players on the Busch Chamber Players' recording of the Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in 1935, and in 1930, with a like-minded colleague, the flutist Gustav Scheck (1901-1984), he co-founded a Baroque ensemble, Kammermusikkreis Scheck-Wenzinger.  This group made a handful of recordings in the late 1930s for Electrola, including this one featuring Scheck (his first name Italianized on this pressing as "Gustavo"!) as a soloist in a flute concerto attributed to Pergolesi - although most scholars seem fairly certain that it isn't actually his:

Pergolesi [attrib.]: Flute Concerto in G Major and
Bach: Sarabande (from the Suite for lute, BWV 997, arr. Hinnenthal)
Gustav Scheck, flute and the Kammermusikkreis Scheck-Wenzinger
Recorded October 1938 and probably the summer of 1939
La Voce del Padrone S 10494 and S 10495, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 43.81 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 20.86 MB)

There are a couple of interesting aspects about this recording.  One is that, when played at 78-rpm, the instruments appear to be tuned at A = 415 Hz, the current standard for what is called "low pitch" used by period-instrument ensembles!  Surely this is one of the earliest examples of this on a recording (outside, perhaps, of the various Dolmetsch family recordings).  The other is the sound of Scheck's flute: the tone is much closer to a recorder than to a modern metal flute, and I'm wondering whether he actually used an early flute for this recording.  He was known for his interest in the Baroque flute; Hans-Martin Linde, also a specialist in this field, is Scheck's most famous student.

Bach: Chromatic Fantasy (Liselotte Selbiger)

Liselotte Selbiger

Born in 1906 as the only child in a well-to-do German family of Jewish lineage, harpsichordist Liselotte Selbiger had to escape the Nazis not once but twice - first in 1935, when she relocated to Denmark, then again in 1943, when she escaped to Sweden in the bottom of a fishing boat, carrying poison with her in case of capture.  We are fortunate that she survived, because on the evidence of her all-too-few recordings (the first of which was made after the war), she was a very fine musician.  She actually trained as a cellist, then switched to piano, then, just before leaving Germany for good, acquired a Neupert harpsichord, with which she became the first person to give a full-length harpsichord recital in Denmark.  Danacord, that indefatigable purveyor of historical Danish recordings, has issued several CD's of her extant commercial and broadcast recordings, but this earlier version of the Bach Chromatic Fantasy is not among them:

Bach: Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903 and
Bach: Partita No. 1 in B-Flat Major, BWV 825 - Gigue
Liselotte Selbiger, harpsichord
Recorded December 13, 1949
Danish Columbia LDX 7014 and 7015, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 35.28 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 16.07 MB)

Stokowski and Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams and Leopold Stokowski, 1957

Thursday will mark the 131st anniversary of the birth of Leopold Stokowski, and so I present his only commercial recording of a Vaughan Williams symphony - his Sixth - which also happens to be the only non-British première recording of a Vaughan Williams symphony.  No doubt this latter circumstance was quite by accident, for a competing version, Boult's on HMV (which can be heard at the CHARM website), was made a mere two days later!  Stokowski's version is very exciting, and may be the fastest on record of this great symphony.  (For an appreciation of Stokowski's performances of Vaughan Williams, see this article by Edward Johnson at Larry Huffman's amazing site, www.stokowski.org - from which the above picture has been borrowed.)  As a bonus, a ravishing but slightly abridged version of the Fantasia on "Greensleeves," issued only on 78 at the time, is included:

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 6 in E Minor and Fantasia on "Greensleeves"
New York Philharmonic conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Recorded February 21, 1949
Columbia Masterworks set MM-838, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 82.47 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 43.08 MB)

Another important conductor anniversary on the horizon is that of Albert Coates, who was born five days after Stokowski.  In 2009 I first offered his recording of a Bach organ toccata, orchestrated by Heinrich Esser.  A few weeks ago I decided to use a different stylus to make a new transfer, the original one being afflicted by a swish towards the end.  I think this one sounds a little better:

Bach: Toccata in F, BWV 540 (orch. Esser)
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Albert Coates
Recorded February 18, 1932
Victor 11468, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 24.70 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 9.35 MB)

The links at the original post have also been updated.

Carol Brice and Reiner

Carol Brice, as pictured in the liner notes for her set of Bach Arias

Today I present the first three recordings by North Carolina-born contralto Carol Brice (1918-1985), who, in 1943, became the first African-American to win the Walter Naumberg Award.  The first two of these sets, recorded on the same day, also feature Fritz Reiner and the Pittsburgh Symphony - in fact, since the singing is incidental, Reiner gets the main billing in this gripping performance of Falla's El Amor Brujo:

De Falla: El Amor Brujo (Love by Witchcraft)

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner, 

with Carol Brice (contralto)

Recorded February 5, 1946

Columbia Masterworks set MM-633, three 78-rpm records

Link (FLAC file, 61.91 MB)

Link (MP3 file, 31.95 MB)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss
(restored by Peter Joelson)

Next, the first-ever recording of a popular Mahler song cycle:

Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer)

Carol Brice (contralto) with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

conducted by Fritz Reiner

Recorded February 5, 1946

Columbia Masterworks set MX-267, two 78-rpm records

Link (FLAC file, 44.03 MB)

Link (MP3 file, 24.75 MB)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss
(restored by Peter Joelson)

Finally, from a year later, an album of Bach arias (two from the Magnificat in D, and two from the Mass in B minor), this time conducted by Daniel Saidenberg, and also featuring the talents of Julius Baker (flute) and Albert Goltzer (English horn):

Sacred Arias of Johann Sebastian Bach

Carol Brice (contralto) with the Columbia Broadcasting Concert Orchestra

conducted by Daniel Saidenberg

Recorded April 14, 1947

Columbia Masterworks set MX-283, two 78-rpm records

Link (FLAC files, 52.4 MB)

Link (MP3 files, 30.2 MB)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss
(restored by Peter Joelson)

As with many of the Steinweiss-illustrated Columbia albums I have been posting lately, the Bach and de Falla sets were kindly provided to me by Ken Halperin of Collecting Record Covers.

Bach by Wood

It's been an insanely busy weekend, and I've had time to prepare only morsels, but they are, I think, tasty ones, and I hope you will agree: two string-orchestra arrangements of Bach conducted by the great Sir Henry J. Wood (1869-1944).  Here they are:

Bach-Wilhemj: Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D, BWV 1068 - Air and
Bach-Wood: Unaccompanied Violin Partita No. 3 in E, BWV 1006 - Gavotte
String Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry J. Wood
Recorded June 16, 1932
English Columbia DX 475, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC files, 23.28 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 9.94 MB)

The label incorrectly identifies the orchestra as the London Symphony; American and British catalogues identify the record as by the British Symphony Orchestra, which Weingartner and Bruno Walter also conducted for records, and which I suspect was a pseudonym for an ad hoc group.  On the same session, Wood and the orchestra also recorded Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, which I uploaded earlier at this post.

Happy Birthday, Denis Matthews!

Monday marks the 92nd birth anniversary of the British pianist Denis Matthews, who came to a sad end - he committed suicide on Christmas Day, 1988.  He was most famous for his recordings of Mozart and Beethoven, with at least eight of Mozart's concertos in his discography.  Here is the first of these, made in 1944, when he was in R.A.F. uniform:

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 in A, K. 488
Denis Matthews with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
conducted by George Weldon
Recorded August 28, 1944
English Columbia DX 1167 through DX 1169, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 64.79 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 27.79 MB)

A little over a year ago, I presented several single discs of Matthews playing solo works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and John Field.  Here is another to add to that collection:

Bach: Prelude and Fugue No. 8 in E-Flat minor (Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I)
Denis Matthews, piano
Recorded April 25, 1949
English Columbia DX 1635, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 21.54 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 9.66 MB)

According to CHARM, Matthews recorded at least five of the Bach "Well-Tempered Clavier" preludes and fugues, but only this one and the No. 1 in C were actually issued.  Matthews' Bach discography is rather meager, but it does include a fine version of the Triple Concerto in C, BWV 1064, with Edwin Fischer and Ronald Smith, from the Bach anniversary year of 1950, available on an EMI CD.

My 100th Post!

Bryan Bishop, 2008

Believe it or not, eighteen months after starting this blog, I have reached my 100th post!  So, something rather unique seems in order, and I therefore offer three of my own performances as a pianist.  I've posted the Haydn here before, but only as MP3 files, so here are the FLACs to go with them.  The Vaughan Williams I have posted to YouTube, but the Brandenburg Concerto is truly new - I only got the CD myself this past Monday.  So, without further ado, here are the links:


Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D, BWV 1050
DaSalo Solisti Chamber Orchestra conducted by Norman Bernal
Bryan Bishop, piano
Teodora Stoyanova, flute
Norman Bernal, violin
Live recording by Carey Carlan [a member of the orchestra], November 13, 2011
Link (FLAC files, 101.35)
Link (MP3 files, 24.33)

Haydn: Piano Trio in G, Hob.XV:25 ("Gypsy") and
Haydn: Andante with Variations in F minor, Hob.XVII:6
Bryan Bishop, piano
Laura Nadine, violin
James Woodall, cello
Live recording, November 7, 2009
Link (FLAC files, 95.58 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 33.49 MB)

Vaughan Williams: Suite of Six Short Pieces
Bryan Bishop, piano
Live recording, October 12, 2008
Link (FLAC files, 44.65 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 14.91 MB)

The Incomparable Leon Goossens - Postscript

Leon Goossens

My Christmas present to myself this year was a new turntable - an Audio-Technica LP120 3-speed direct drive unit - meaning that it will no longer be necessary for me to switch out between turntables to handle LPs and 78s (at least, I hope it won't be!).  Here is my first project using the new table: an LP featuring two oboe concertos played by the great Leon Goossens, as a kind of postscript to the transfers of concerto recordings by him that I offered earlier:

Bach-Tovey: Concerto in A, BWV 1055, for oboe d'amore and strings
Recorded June 1, 1949, and July 30, 1952
and
Vaughan Williams: Concerto for Oboe and Strings
Recorded June 16, July 7 and September 1, 1952

Leon Goossens, with the Philharmonia String Orchestra
conducted by Walter Susskind
HMV CLP 1656, one 12-inch LP record
Link (FLAC files, 96.04 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 50.18 MB)

No doubt both of these, like the earlier Goossens concerto recordings, would have been issued as English Columbia 78 sets had not the long-delayed launch of LP by EMI in September 1952 intervened.  As it was, both recordings had to wait eleven years for full issue.  In the case of the Bach, an incomplete issue actually did occur in 1953, on American Columbia (ML 4782) - apparently only the first three 78-rpm matrices of the required four were available to CBS, with the result that the concerto, on that release, cuts off about a minute into the finale!

My best wishes to everyone for a prosperous and collectingful New Year!

Bach's "Wachet auf" Cantata (Robert Shaw)

One of the best-loved Bach cantatas, that on the Nicolai chorale "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme," is presented today in a recording by that greatest of choral conductors, Robert Shaw (1916-1999).  This cantata was written for the 27th Sunday after Trinity, a Sunday that occurs infrequently, only when Easter is particularly early in the year - in fact, I don't think the next 27th Sunday after Trinity will happen until 2035.  Well, I wasn't willing to wait that long to share this recording.  Taking note of the fact that the 27th Sunday after Trinity was also, always, the last Sunday before Advent, and also of the fact that this coming Sunday is the last Sunday before Advent for 2011, I decided that this weekend would be a liturgically appropriate time to present this recording, so here it is:

Bach: Cantata No. 140, "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme"
Soloists, RCA Victor Chorale and Orchestra conducted by Robert Shaw
Recorded June 25-26, 1946
RCA Victor Red Seal set DM-1162, four 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 64.47 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 32.57 MB)

The soloists are Suzanne Freil, soprano, and Paul Matthen, bass, who sing two duets, and Roy Russell, tenor, who sings the recitatives preceding these duets.  For the first of the duets Joseph Fuchs provides a violin obbligato, and for the second, the oboe obbligato is played by Robert Bloom.

Walton: First Symphony

Sir Hamilton Harty

Today I offer the first recording of William Walton's First Symphony, by the man who commissioned it, Sir Hamilton Harty (1879-1941).  The ink was barely dry on the score when the recording was made - or at least, barely dry on the finale, for Walton had completed the first three movements, and Harty had conducted them, in December 1934, before the finale was finished!  Then, in November, 1935, the completed work was finally played by the BBC Symphony under Harty, and a mere month later, this recording was made, with the London Symphony.  It was a rare honor for a British symphony to be recorded soon after its première; even Vaughan Williams' Fourth Symphony, completed the same year, had to wait two years for its first recording:

Walton: Symphony No. 1 in B-Flat minor (1935)
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Hamilton Harty
Recorded December 9 and 10, 1935
English Decca X 108 through 113, six 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 98.94 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 43.88 MB)

The Walton Symphony is a new transfer.  Back in 2008 I offered these two acoustically recorded sets featuring the not-yet-knighted Hamilton Harty, one as conductor and one as pianist:

Bach: Suite No. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067, for flute and strings
Robert Murchie, flute, with orchestra conducted by Hamilton Harty
Recorded January 20, 1924
English Columbia L 1557 and 1558, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 45.79 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 17.31 MB)

Brahms: Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114
H. P. Draper, clarinet; W. H. Squire, cello; Hamilton Harty, piano
Recorded October 21, 1924
English Columbia L 1609 through 1611, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 74.98 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 30.35 MB)

Both are first recordings of these works; the Bach Suite is slightly abridged (64 bars cut from the fast section of the Ouverture, and the return of the slow section omitted altogether).