Mozart by Catterall and Harty

Arthur Catterall

This is the third and last installment of my Arthur Catterall series, and comprises two Mozart recordings he made with Hamilton Harty, the latter as both pianist and conductor.  Catterall was the leader (first violinist) in the Hallé Orchestra, a post he held from 1912 until 1925.  As Harty was music director of the Hallé from 1920 to 1934, their joint association lasted five years, and it was during this time that these recordings were made.  First came a Mozart sonata, which apparently was the first uncut recording of any sonata (which was, curiously, identified as "Opus 8, No. 1" on the labels):

Mozart: Violin Sonata in A, K. 526
Arthur Catterall, violin; Hamilton Harty, piano
Recorded April 27, 1923
English Columbia L 1494 through 1496, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 53.12 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 20.19 MB)

Then in 1924 came this recording of a Mozart concerto:

Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 5 in A, K. 219
Arthur Catterall, violin, with orchestra conducted by Hamilton Harty
Recorded April 10, 1924
English Columbia L 1592 through 1595, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 77.85 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 28.99 MB)

April 10, 1924 was a busy day for Catterall and Harty, who, prior to recording the Mozart, did the Bach Concerto for two violins with John S. Bridge, second violinist in Catterall's quartet.  That recording can be heard at the CHARM website.

There's a little bonus: I had the original album for the English Columbia issue, which contained slightly pedantic liner notes for the concerto printed on each record sleeve above the window for the label.  Quite a difference from the flowery wimble-wamble printed as liner notes in contemporary US sets!  An introductory paragraph or two appears in a box below the label on the first sleeve.  I typed all these into a text file that is included with the downloads.

The Mozart violin concertos were relatively well-served during the late acoustic era.  Three were available complete: besides this one, No. 3 in G was recorded by Yelly d'Aranyi for Vocalion (which Grumpy's Classics Cave has available here), and No. 4 in D was recorded twice - a famous recording by Kreisler with Landon Ronald for HMV (available commercially from various labels), and one by Riele Queling with Frieder Weissmann for Parlophone.

The Catterall Quartet



Label showing Victor sticker for importation into the USA

Part 2 of my reissue series devoted to Arthur Catterall continues with all three complete string quartets recorded and issued by the Catterall Quartet (Arthur Catterall and John S. Bridge, violins; Frank S. Park, viola; Johan C. Hock, cello) - Beethoven's Op. 18, Nos. 1 and 2, and Brahms' Op. 51, No. 1.  (The group also subsequently recorded a third Beethoven quartet, presumably complete, on nine sides - No. 13 in B-Flat, Op. 130, a work otherwise unrecorded acoustically - but this, alas, was unissued.)  Here are the details:

Beethoven: Quartet No. 1 in F, Op. 18, No. 1 and
Tchaikovsky: Quartet No. 2 in F, Op. 22 - Scherzo
Catterall Quartet
Recorded May 8, 1922, and April 30 and June 18, 1923
HMV D 947 through D 950, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 94.53 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 31.75 MB)

Beethoven: Quartet No. 2 in G, Op. 18, No. 2
Catterall Quartet
Recorded June 19, 1923, and May 6, 1924
HMV D 997 through D 999, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 67.22 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 23.27 MB)

Brahms: Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 51, No. 1
Catterall Quartet
Recorded June 18 and 19, 1923
HMV D 791 through D 794, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 89.84 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 31.38 MB)

Included in all three packages is a text file containing information about all the Catterall Quartet's recordings, for both HMV and Columbia, of which I'm aware.

The Catterall Quartet's recording career for HMV effectively ended when the Virtuoso String Quartet was formed by the Gramophone Company in 1924.  The Catterall Quartet moved to Columbia after the introduction of electrical recording, but their repertoire there consisted mainly of potboilers, the only Beethoven being the slow variations movement of Op. 18, No. 5 (the only Beethoven quartet that Columbia's "star" ensemble of the period, the Léner Quartet, didn't record until the 1930s).  Here is that sole Beethoven recording:

Beethoven: Quartet No. 5 in A, Op. 18, No. 5 - Andante cantabile
The Catterall Quartet
Recorded June 16, 1926
English Columbia 9141, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 21.13 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 7.9 MB)

Arthur Catterall and William Murdoch

Arthur Catterall

This is to be the first of three posts dealing with uploads I originally offered in 2007-08, featuring the British violinist Arthur Catterall (1883-1943).  Here are three sonata recordings he made in 1923-24 with the Australian pianist William Murdoch (1888-1942).  The first is an abridged version of Beethoven's "Spring" Sonata:

Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 5 in F, Op. 24 ("Spring")
Arthur Catterall, violin; William Murdoch, piano
Recorded June 6, 1923
English Columbia L 1231 and 1232, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 38.89 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 13.82 MB)

This recording was intended as a replacement for an earlier version by Albert Sammons (also with Murdoch at the piano) that had been issued five years earlier with the same record numbers.  Catterall undertook a number of such re-recordings in June of 1923, not just of violin repertoire but also of piano trio movements with Murdoch and cellist W. H. Squire.  Presumably Sammons was persona non grata at Columbia in 1923, as he was then making records for Vocalion!

The following were not planned as replacements, but as brand-new recordings:

Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108
Arthur Catterall, violin; William Murdoch, piano
Recorded November 18, 1923
English Columbia L 1535 through 1537, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 53.22 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 21.37 MB)

Franck: Violin Sonata in A Major
Arthur Catterall, violin; William Murdoch, piano
Recorded November 18, 1923, and April 11, 1924
Columbia Masterworks Set No. 33, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 75.01 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 30.06 MB)

The Franck was issued only in America, and even then it took two tries to get it right!  The original issue, Masterworks Set No. 23, had been of only three of the work's four movements, and out of order to boot.