Holmboe Quartets (Copenhagen String Quartet)

The Copenhagen String Quartet (Tutter Givskov and Mogens Lydolph, violins; Mogens Bruun, viola; Asger Lund Christiansen, cello) gave the first performances of most of Vagn Holmboe's string quartets from No. 7 on (there were twenty in all). For the Danish Fona label, the group recorded the first ten of these, on five LPs. I have three of them:

Holmboe: String Quartets Nos. 1 and 4
The Copenhagen String Quartet
Fona TF 109, one stereo LP record
Link (FLAC files, 215.70 MB)
Link MP3 files, 80.19 MB)

Holmboe: String Quartets Nos. 2 and 6
The Copenhagen String Quartet
Fona TF 111, one stereo LP record
Link (FLAC files, 214.24 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 77.67 MB)

Holmboe: String Quartets Nos. 9 and 10
The Copenhagen String Quartet
Fona TF 133, one stereo LP record
Link (FLAC files, 227.53 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 81.92 MB)

The first of these LPs is a 1970 reissue of a recording originally made in 1963; the other two are 1973 issues. The liner notes, included with the downloads, are all in Danish, so if anyone conversant with that language cares to translate, the rest of us would be much obliged! It should be noted that the cellist in this ensemble, Asger Lund Christiansen, had also played in the Erling Bloch Quartet, who made the first recording of any of Holmboe's quartets, in 1951.

More Hindemith Trios

This may well be the first time on this blog that I have offered the same work in consecutive posts, or even featured the same composer. But Nick's recent postings, at Grumpy's Classics Cave, of Mozart and Beethoven string trios played by the Pougnet-Riddle-Pini trio reminded me that I had their valuable coupling of the two Hindemith trios in its third Westminster incarnation, as part of their "Collectors' Series", a mid-60s reissue series derived from monaural chamber music recordings of a decade earlier (and, thankfully, not "updated" with fake stereo trickery):

Hindemith: Two String Trios (No. 1, Op. 34; No. 2, 1933)
Jean Pougnet, violin; Frederick Riddle, viola; Anthony Pini, cello
Recorded in the autumn of 1954
Westminster W-9067, one LP record
Link (FLAC files, 110.32 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 72.90 MB)

I am indebted to Nick, not only for inspiring this post, but also for rendering practical service in eliminating the results of an awful gouge in the vinyl on the first side, affecting the first minute or so of the Op. 34 trio.

While I was working on the above transfer, it occurred to me that if I transferred one more LP, I could have available on this blog all the recordings of Hindemith's string trios to be made before the advent of digital recording (including the ones the composer participated in). I am not aware of any other recording of No. 2 besides the one I posted last month, but of No. 1, besides the incomplete one by the Amar-Hindemith Trio, a stereo LP version was made in 1968 by three young German musicians, coupled with the first recording, by a different ensemble, of Hindemith's Op. 16 string quartet:

Hindemith: String Trio No. 1, Op. 34
Rainer Kussmaul, violin; Jürgen Kussmaul, viola; Jürgen Wolf, cello
and
Hindemith: String Quartet No. 3 (old No. 2) in C, Op. 16
Schäffer Quartet (Schäffer-Szabados-Pill-Racz)
Recorded in the summer of 1968
Musical Heritage Society OR-H-297, one stereo LP record
Link (FLAC files, 239.37 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 85.52 MB)

This recording was made by an independent German recording company, Da Camera, in Heidelberg, and was part of a 9-disc retrospective of Hindemith's chamber music. In Germany the series was published as a box set, whereas in the USA each record was obtainable separately. Of the three musicians playing the Op. 34 trio, only one is still with us: Jürgen Kussmaul, born in 1944, was two years older than brother Rainer, who departed this life only last year. The cellist, Jürgen Wolf, was born in 1938 and died in 2014. Their playing of Op. 34 contrasts markedly with that the Pougnet ensemble; the latter really dig into the music while the Germans are more careful and always beautiful-sounding. The Pougnet's approach is much closer to the Amar-Hindemith's in the two movements where direct comparisons are possible.

Hindemith: String Trio No. 2 (Goldberg, Hindemith, Feuermann)

Front of booklet for Columbia Set 209

This may not be a particularly rare recording, having been reissued numerous times on CD labels devoted to historical recordings (the current availability of these, however, may be another matter). But I have come across a nice early US pressing of the set, complete with its booklet of program notes containing an analysis of the piece (by Roy Harris, of all people), and so here it is:

Hindemith: String Trio No. 2 (1933)
The Hindemith Trio (Goldberg-Hindemith-Feuermann)
Recorded January 21, 1934
Columbia Masterworks Set No. 209, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 64.74 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 42.17 MB)

This set has the distinction of containing the first work of Hindemith to be issued on records in the USA on domestic pressings (April, 1935); hitherto, American record collectors interested in Hindemith had to rely on imported pressings (mostly from Polydor). The recording remained available until the end of Columbia's production and sale of classical 78s, about 1951 or so.

The week of this recording saw a flurry of activity in the studio for these three gentlemen. Also on January 21 (a Sunday), Goldberg and Hindemith recorded a Mozart duo (K. 424), then, the following day, the full trio recorded Beethoven's Serenade (Op. 8). On Tuesday, January 23, Goldberg had to leave for a concert tour; coming to the studio to bid his colleagues farewell, he found them listening to the playback of a Scherzo that Hindemith had written that morning for himself and Feuermann! This was intended as a filler for a recording Hindemith made the same day, on five 10-inch sides, of his solo viola sonata (Op. 25, No. 1), though in the end it was not used as such, being released instead in the Columbia History of Music, Vol. 5. On Saturday, January 27, Feuermann recorded Hindemith's solo cello sonata to complete this valuable little group of recordings. All of them were made available on American Columbia during the 1930s, though only the two trios and the Scherzo survived the purge of wartime deletions.

Howard Ferguson: Octet

Howard Ferguson

The work that put Belfast-born Howard Ferguson (1908-1999) on the musical map was his Octet, scored for the same forces as Schubert's, written when he was a young man of 24. Dedicated to his composition teacher at the Royal College of Music, R. O. Morris (whose other students included Gerald Finzi, Michael Tippett, Constant Lambert and Edmund Rubbra), the work began life as a clarinet quintet, then was expanded into an octet at Morris' suggestion.  Here is its first recording, made ten years later:

Howard Ferguson: Octet, Op. 4
The Griller String Quartet (Griller-O'Brien-Burton-Hampton)
augmented by
Pauline Juler, clarinet
Cecil James, bassoon
Dennis Brain, horn
James Merrett, double bass
Recorded April 7 and May 24, 1943
Decca AK 1095 through AK 1097, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 53.49 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 32.61 MB)

This is one of Dennis Brain's earliest recordings, and, of course, he would make many more before his untimely death in 1957 of an auto accident. It appears, however, that this is the only recording by Pauline Juler (1914-2003), a fact that seems doubly regrettable when one hears her fine account of the prominent clarinet part in Ferguson's Octet. But Juler, who had studied with Charles Draper, gave up performing publicly after her marriage to cellist Bernard Richards in 1948.

Beethoven: Quartet No. 15 (Erling Bloch Quartet)

This year I have certainly managed to acquire a healthy batch of recordings by the Erling Bloch Quartet, and here is the latest installment, apparently the Danish ensemble's only recording of Beethoven:

Beethoven: Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, Op. 132
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Friisholm-Kassow-Christiansen)
Recorded April 12 and 13, 1951
HMV DB 20143 through DB 20147, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 117.62 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 70.74 MB)

It's a good, honest performance, a little broader in tempo than was customary for 78-rpm recordings of this work, particularly in the finale. It may not have the searing intensity of the 1937 version by the Busch Quartet (which, incidentally, was slated for deletion in the HMV 1950-51 catalogue), but then, which other version did? I hate making comparisons like this, but in the case of this particular piece I can't help it, because of all the Beethoven quartets Op. 132 is the one I love most, and the Busch performance is my ideal...

Holmboe: Quartet No. 1 (Erling Bloch Quartet)

Vagn Holmboe

Twice in the past I have presented works by the most celebrated Danish composer since Nielsen, Vagn Holmboe (1909-1996): the Serenata, Opus 18 and the Notturno for Wind Quintet, Opus 19 - together constituting two-thirds of the total works of Holmboe recorded on 78-rpm discs. Here now is the third and last of these pioneering recordings:

Holmboe: String Quartet No. 1, Op. 46 (1949)
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Friisholm-Kassow-Christiansen)
Recorded April 9, 1951
HMV DB 20137 through DB 21039, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 58.74 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 38.75 MB)

This fine three-movement quartet, the first of a remarkable series of twenty, was dedicated to, and premièred by, the Erling Bloch Quartet. Holmboe had, in fact, written no less than ten string quartets (not all of them actually completed) before the one he allowed to go out into the world as his First; at the time of its composition, he had already written six of his thirteen symphonies, and all but two of his series of thirteen chamber concertos. The first three of the numbered quartets were written in rapid succession, assigned consecutive opus numbers and recorded within five years - the Second by the Musica Vitalis Quartet for Decca, and the Third by the Koppel Quartet (the dedicatees), also for Decca. The latter was reissued on CD as part of the "Decca Sound - Mono Years" box set issued a couple of years ago.

Bloch: Violin Sonata No. 1 (Josef Gingold, Beryl Rubinstein)

Ernest Bloch, early 1920s

Ernest Bloch wrote two violin sonatas in the 1920s, when he was serving as the first director of the Cleveland Institute of Music, and these have not lacked for performances and recordings from some fairly prominent artists, among them Heifetz, Isaac Stern and Louis Kaufman. The first recording ever made of either of them was for an independent New York label, Gamut, by the husband-and-wife team of Harold and Marion Kahn Berkley, in 1937. This is so rare that I have never encountered it. A year later, Victor recorded the same sonata, and it presumably received somewhat wider distribution, though it is scarcely less common:

Bloch: Violin Sonata No. 1 (1920)
Josef Gingold, violin; Beryl Rubinstein, piano
Recorded c. January 1938
Victor Musical Masterpiece set AM-498, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 69.03 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 49.67 MB)

This recording affords us a rare opportunity to hear Josef Gingold (1909-1995) as a soloist; he was much more active as a chamber and orchestral musician, being in Toscanini's NBC Orchestra and in the Primrose Quartet. Beryl Rubinstein (1898-1952), on the Cleveland Institute's faculty while Bloch was there (and subsequently its director), was one of the dedicatees of Bloch's Second Violin Sonata, along with violinist André Ribaupierre; together they premièred the work in 1925. Curiously enough, another Rubinstein, Artur. participated in the première of the First Sonata, with violinist Paul Kochanski.

Herman D. Koppel

Herman D. Koppel

Nineteen years ago this month, the world of Danish music lost one of its last living links with Carl Nielsen in the passing of pianist and composer Herman David Koppel (1908-1998). (His brother was the violinist Julius Koppel.) Of Jewish heritage, Koppel, who had to flee Denmark in 1943 when the Nazis placed the country under direct military occupation, had considered Nielsen a mentor and had played the composer's piano works in his presence. Koppel made multiple recordings of Nielsen's piano music, of which these appear to be among the first:

Nielsen: Theme and Variations, Op. 40 and Chaconne, Op. 32
Herman D. Koppel, piano
Recorded December 13, 1940
HMV DB 5252 through DB 5254, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 65.99 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 40.48 MB)

Koppel died on Bastille Day, and here he is playing French music - only the second recording ever made of Poulenc's delightful Trio (after the composer's own, for Columbia, in 1928):

Poulenc: Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano (1926)
Waldemar Wolsing, oboe; Carl Bloch, bassoon; Herman D. Koppel, piano
Recorded c. 1950
Metronome CL 3000 and CL 3001, two 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 32.22 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 18.71 MB)

Metrnonome Records was an independent Swedish label founded in 1949 by two jazz enthusiasts, brothers Anders and Lars Burman. This was one of their few classical issues.

Florent Schmitt: String Trio (Pasquier Trio)

Florent Schmitt

Best remembered today for his ballet "La Tragédie de Salome" and his choral-orchestral setting of Psalm 47, French composer Florent Schmitt (1870-1958) actually established his reputation as much with chamber music as with those two works, through his massive, hour-long Piano Quintet of 1908. He returned to chamber music towards the end of his life, writing, among other things, a string quartet, a saxophone quartet, a flute quartet, and this string trio written for, and dedicated to, the Pasquier brothers:

Florent Schmitt: String Trio in E Minor, Op. 105
The Pasquier Trio (Jean, Pierre and Étienne Pasquier)
Recorded May 21 and December 3, 1946
Pathé PDT 103 through 106, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 81.26 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 46.96 MB)

This is a big, satisfying work in four movements, thickly scored (often, because of double-stopping, it sounds more like a sextet), and of immense technical difficulty. Perhaps this explains its comparative neglect, even among Schmitt's works. I believe it has been recorded only once since, in the early 1980s, on an obscure French label, Cybelia - a valiant attempt, but not equal to the one played by the dedicatees. The Gramophone Shop Supplement of October, 1948, reviewed this set (which sold for $10.48), calling it "music of savage power, strange harmonies, and relentless drive. One is hard-pressed to find what may be called 'beauty'..." The anonymous reviewer was certainly right about the power and drive, but there is nothing in the harmonies that would be out of place in, say, Fauré's late chamber music. For me the piece is a real find, as much so as the Loeffler violin partita that I posted last year.

More from the Erling Bloch Quartet

In time for Carl Nielsen's birthday this year (June 9), I present the first recording ever made of a string quartet by him, done during the early months of the Nazi occupation of Denmark by the Erling Bloch Quartet. This recording does not appear to have been reissued on CD; Danacord passed over it in favor of the Koppel Quartet's 1954 account (though their 1984 LP set of early Nielsen chamber recordings did contain a rather inept transfer). I also offer two single discs by the Erling Bloch ensemble to ride, as it were, the coattails of the Nielsen. The details:

Nielsen: Quartet No. 4 in F Major, Op. 44
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Pedersen-Kassow-Svendsen)
Recorded October 26, 1940
HMV DB 1-3, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 71.21 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 42.42 MB)

Hakon Børresen: Scherzo (from Quartet No. 2 in C Minor, 1939)
and
Schubert: Quartettsatz in C Minor, D. 703
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Friisholm-Kassow-Svendsen)
Recorded November 19, 1942
HMV DB 5282, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC files, 23.70 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 14.98 MB)

Stravinsky: Concertino for String Quartet (1920)
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Friisholm-Kassow-Christiansen)
Recorded August 26, 1952
HMV DA 5275, one 10-inch 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 13.81 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 9.16 MB)

The delightful scherzo by Hakon Børresen (1876-1954), a Dane of Norwegian heritage who studied with Johan Svendsen, reminds me of the Scherzo of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, with its pizzicato main section and arco middle section. Yes, the Schubert is complete on one side, thanks to a brisk tempo and the omission of the repeat. The Stravinsky is, I believe, the ensemble's last recording to be issued as a 78,

The issue series in which the Nielsen set found itself was HMV's first automatic set series in Denmark, most of whose numbers were recorded during the Second World War (except for one reissue). I am aware of the existence of the following issues in it:

DB 1-3  Nielsen: Quartet No. 4 (Erling Bloch Quartet)
DB 4-6  Schubert: Fantasia in C, Op. 159  (Erling Bloch, Lund Chistiansen)
DB 7-9  Schubert: "Unfinished" Symphony  (Stokowski, from 1927 Victors)
DB 10-13  Beethoven: "Kreutzer" Sonata  (Bloch, Christiansen)
DB 14-16  Beethoven: "Spring" Sonata  (Bloch, Christiansen)
DB 17-20  Nielsen: Symphony No. 2  (Jensen, earlier recording from 1944)

Mozart: Wind Divertimenti (Danish Radio members)

Resuming my uploads of records from Denmark (actually, the one pictured above is from the reclaimed record pile), I present two Mozart divertimenti for wind sextet. These were recorded five years apart, yet share three of the players between them, including the leader of the ensemble, oboist Waldemar Wolsing (1910-1993). Here are the details:

Mozart: Divertimento No. 12 in E-Flat Major, K. 252
Members of the Danish State Radio Orchestra:
Waldemar Wolsing and Erik Hovaldt, oboes
Ingbert Mikkelsen and Knud E. Olsen, horns
Carl Bloch and Leif Carlsen, bassoons
Recorded October 16, 1952
English Columbia DX 1872, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 19.57 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 12.48 MB)

Mozart: Divertimento No. 14 in B-Flat Major, K. 270
Waldemar Wolsing and Hans Woldbye, oboes
Ingbert Mikkelsen and Wang Breidahl, horns
Kjell Roikjer and Carl Bloch, bassoons
Recorded October 19, 1947
HMV DA 5260 and DA 5261, two 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 26.36 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 16.01 MB)

The HMV records do not identify the players as members of the Danish State Radio Orchestra, but I imagine they were. Two days prior to recording K. 270, Wolsing, Mikkelsen and Roikjer, as members of the Wind Quintet of 1932, participated in this recording of Vagn Holmboe's Notturno.

The London String Quartet in America

From the 1924 American Columbia catalogue

The London String Quartet, founded in 1908, first came to the USA twelve years later, and, in the words of Tully Potter, "the Americas were the LSQ's Nirvana." They found great success here, so much so that its members eventually settled here. In Britain the ensemble had begun a series of recordings for Columbia in 1914, which included a number of first recordings of "complete" quartets by Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann (complete in the sense that entire works were recorded, but with some movements abridged to fit one side). None of these sets had been issued in the USA at the time of their first tours here, so the American record buyer's introduction to the ensemble was through this disc:

Bridge: Two Old English Songs (1916)
(Sally in Our Alley; Cherry Ripe)
The London String Quartet (Levey-Petre-Warner-Evans)
Recorded March 13, 1922
Columbia A-3677, one 10-inch 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC files, 18.03 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 9.85 MB)

During the spring of 1922 and the fall of 1923, the London String Quartet made a series of recordings in New York's Columbia studios, quite separate from their British series (which had, in any case, by this time been taking place for Vocalion). This produced twelve issued sides, mostly of isolated movements from the string quartet repertory. (No complete quartets for the Americans - yet! That would have to wait for the Masterworks series two years later.) Of these, this Bridge coupling is one of the most valuable, for the arrangements were actually given their concert première by the LSQ in 1916, with Bridge himself taking the viola part.

My thanks to Nick Morgan, not only for spotting this record, but for sending it to me.

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.

Happy Birthday, Béla Bartók!

Béla Bartók, 1939

Last year, to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Bartók's birth (March 25, 1881), Decca Classics issued a box set of his complete works on 32 CDs. One of these days I suppose I will have to spring for that, but meanwhile, I have acquired and hereby present a somewhat more modest offering, although, I think, no less valuable. Remarkably, Bartók's Sixth Quartet received three recordings in the 78-rpm era, more than did any of his major works except the Concerto for Orchestra and the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (each of which also received three 78-rpm recordings). The first, by the Gertler Quartet for Decca, can be heard at the CHARM website; the second, by the Hungarian Quartet for HMV, I have myself uploaded previously. The third, also for HMV, followed the second by scarcely a month:

Bartók: Quartet No. 6, Sz. 114 (1939)
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Friisholm-Kassow-Svendsen)
Recorded April 26, 1948
HMV DB 20104 through DB 20106, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 73.34 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 43.25 MB)

One imagines that the HMV office in Copenhagen was unaware of the existence of the Hungarians' recording (made while that ensemble was in London), or else this duplication of repertoire would probably not have been sanctioned. Then again, the Danish recording had the advantage of price, as it is the only one of the three versions that gets the piece onto three discs rather than four. David Hall, writing in Records: 1950 Edition, sums up the respective merits of the three recordings this way: "The Gertler Quartet recording for English Decca offers the most dramatic and colorful treatment of the music; the Danish Erling Bloch Quartet ensemble, the most lean and rhythmically supple; while the Hungarian Quartet has some of the best qualities of both." He then strongly suggests waiting for the forthcoming Juilliard Quartet recordings of all the Bartók quartets for Columbia...

Knudåge Riisager

Knudåge Riisager

Born in Estonia to Danish parents (his father managed a cement factory there), Knudåge Riisager (1897-1974) would emerge as the most internationally-minded of Danish composers, studying music in France with Albert Roussel and in Leipzig with Hermann Grabner. Certainly his music partakes of the neoclassicism then current in the Paris of "Les Six" and Stravinsky. He achieved fame through his ballet scores, but the work of his most likely to survive is the Trumpet Concertino, a delightfully witty piece (with unmistakable echoes of "Three Blind Mice" in the finale - is this tune known in Denmark also?) that augments the meager solo repertoire for that instrument:

Riisager: Concertino for trumpet and strings, Op. 29
George Eskdale, trumpet
Danish State Radio Orchestra conducted by Thomas Jensen
and
Riisager: Lille Ouverture, for string orchestra (1934)
Danish State Radio Orchestra conducted by Thomas Jensen
Both recorded January 27-28, 1949
Tono X-25145 and X-25146, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 40.80 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 23.74 MB)

Also by Riisager (whose birthday, incidentally, was yesterday, March 6) I present a ten-inch LP of two sonatas - both sturdy examples of Gebrauchsmusik:

Riisager: Sonata for Violin, Cello and Piano, Op. 55a
Wandy Tworek, Johan Hye-Knudsen, Esther Vagning
and
Riisager: Sonata for Two Violins, Op. 55b
Wandy Tworek and Charles Senderovitz
Recorded July 3, 1953
London LS-785, one ten-inch LP record
Link (FLAC files, 75.04 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 50.50 MB)

Just why Riisager elected to call the first of these a Sonata rather than a Trio is not explained in Robert Simpson's otherwise excellent liner notes for this LP, but my guess is that it is because the piano plays a mostly subservient role to the strings.

Danish Music for Winds

Jørgen Bentzon

Perhaps it was inevitable after the success of Carl Nielsen's great Wind Quintet of 1922, but Danish composers since then seem to have excelled at enriching the repertory of chamber music for woodwinds. I have already offered two examples of this at this post; now I offer two more:

Jørgen Bentzon: Racconto No. 3, Op. 31 (1937)
Waldemar Wolsing, oboe
P. Allin Erichsen, clarinet
Kjell Roikjer, bassoon
Recorded September 30, 1943
HMV DB 5285, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 24.42 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 14.09 MB)

Vagn Holmboe: Notturno, Op. 19, for wind quintet (1940)
Wind Quintet of 1932
Recorded October 17, 1947
HMV DA 5258 and DA 5259, two 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 34.08 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 20.84 MB)

These appear to be the first recordings of any work by either composer. Of Holmboe, I have spoken at the post referenced above; this delightful four-movement Notturno has remained one of his most popular works. The fame of Jørgen Bentzon (1897-1951) has been eclipsed by that of his younger cousin, Niels Viggo Bentzon. Jørgen, whose 120th birthday incidentally is approaching (Valentine's Day), was a student of Nielsen, whose influence on his work is strong. The piece recorded here is one of a series of six one-movement works he called Racconti (tales), each scored for a different chamber ensemble.

It should be noted that the members of the trio in the Bentzon work are also members of the "Wind Quintet of 1932" - whose flutist was Johan Bentzon, another cousin.

Schubert: Quartet in E-Flat (Musical Art Quartet)

Some years ago, I uploaded two of the Musical Art Quartet's major recordings for Columbia, made during 1927 and 1928, noting there were three in total. Well, here's the third and last, one of the group's two contributions to the Schubert Centennial celebrations in 1928:

Schubert: Quartet No. 10 in E-Flat Major, D. 87 (Op. 125, No. 1)
Recorded March 28, 1928
and
Schubert (arr. Conrad Held): Hark, Hark, the Lark (D. 889)
Recorded April 11, 1928
The Musical Art Quartet (Jacobsen, Bernard, Kaufman, Roemaet-Rosanoff)
English Columbia 9473 through 9475, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 60.18 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 35.75 MB)

This set was actually issued in Britain one month before it was issued in the USA, its country of origin. In the USA, it was the last of the Schubert Centennial sets to be issued -- as Masterworks Set No. 96, in December, 1928, coming after Set No. 97, the Octet, which had been issued the previous month. It was viewed as a holdover by the Phonograph Monthly Review, whose editor called the piece "an interesting little work, but hardly as significant as some of the other Schubert recordings."

Sascha Jacobsen (1895-1972), the leader of the Musical Art Quartet, had been an exclusive Columbia artist for nine years (since 1918) when he founded the ensemble. His last recordings for the company as a soloist were made the day after the Quartet's filler side for this set, though the Quartet would continue to record short pieces for Columbia until 1930.

Stravinsky from Concert Hall

A few months ago, Nick Morgan tipped me off not only to the existence of this LP, but to its availability on ebay at a quite reasonable price. (Thanks, Nick!) In December, 1954, when the record was released, it must have seemed the height of chutzpah for a relatively small record label like Concert Hall, with a little-known orchestra and conductor, to challenge major labels like RCA Victor and Mercury, who had the only available recordings of Stravinsky's Danses Concertantes and Dumbarton Oaks, respectively, conducted by Stravinsky himself! And quite creditably, too. For good measure, Concert Hall threw in their recordings, from 78s originally sold by subscription, of the Gordon String Quartet in Stravinsky's complete works for string quartet - which, I have to admit, was the main reason I was interested in this LP:

Stravinsky: Danses Concertantes and Dumbarton Oaks Concerto
Rochester Chamber Orchestra conducted by Robert Hull
Recorded c. 1954
Stravinsky: Three Pieces for String Quartet and Concertino
The Gordon String Quartet (Gordon-Rossi-Dawson-Magg)
Recorded c. 1947
Concert Hall CHS-1229, one LP record
Link (FLAC files, 116.63 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 81.29 MB)

I can find out very little online about the conductor, Robert Hull, and the sleeve-note for the record unobligingly offers no information either, focusing its attention on the orchestra (and advertising its previous releases). It appears that Hull was active also at Cornell University during this period, then went to Fort Worth, Texas, in 1957 to conduct the symphony orchestra there. In the 70s his name turns up as conductor of the Arizona Symphony on several LPs of contemporary music made by very small specialist labels such as Klavier and Laurel.  Jacques Gordon, the leader of the quartet that bears his name, had, sadly, been dead for six years at the time this LP reissued his Stravinsky recordings.

Happy Birthday, Paul Hindemith!

Paul Hindemith, 1923

This is a recording that I had meant to upload last year for Hindemith's 120th birthday (he was born November 16, 1895), but I got rather busy and in the end, the only composer anniversary I celebrated last autumn was Sibelius' 150th. Well, what's a year between friends? And so, for Hindemith's 121st birthday on Wednesday, here is his fellow viola player, the incomparable William Primrose, in his first sonata for the instrument:

Hindemith: Sonata in F Major, Op. 11, No. 4
William Primrose, viola; Jesús Maria Sanromá, piano
Recorded November 18, 1938
Victor Musical Masterpiece Set M-547, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 38.48 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 26.42 MB)

Hindemith's Opus 11 consists of no less than six sonatas, all written in 1918-19, for various stringed instruments with and without piano.  The first two are violin sonatas with piano, the third a sonata for cello and piano, the fourth for viola and piano, the fifth for viola unaccompanied, and the sixth (unpublished during his lifetime) for violin unaccompanied. He was to add further examples of each combination to his oeuvre, the viola being particularly favored with three accompanied and four unaccompanied sonatas in total.

This is the first of three recordings pianist Sanromá would make of Hindemith's music for Victor during the late 1930s; in the spring of 1939 he would join the composer for recordings of a sonata for piano duet and of the third accompanied viola sonata.

Mozart: Quintet in D, K. 593 (Budapest Quartet & Katims)

The Budapest Quartet with Milton Katims

This past spring, I uploaded a Mozart string quintet recording (C major, K. 515) by the Budapest String Quartet with their frequent collaborator, Milton Katims, as the second violist. At the same time as I acquired that set, I also obtained the one I present today; however, the other set gave me an excuse to add a nice Steinweiss cover to my online gallery, whereas this one's cover is generic. Moreover, I think this recording was slightly more widely circulated than the K. 515 one was. Be that as it may, I see no reason to withhold this transfer any longer:

Mozart: String Quintet in D Major, K. 593
The Budapest String Quartet (Roisman-Ortenberg-Kroyt-Schneider)
with Milton Katims, second viola
Recorded December 12-13, 1946
Columbia Masterworks set MM-708, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 64.49 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 42.88 MB)

I hadn't meant to be inactive quite so long - two weeks! But shortly after posting my last post, I stumbled across the Internet Archive's making available of the complete run of the Phonograph Monthly Review magazine from 1926 to 1932, and this has lured me away from other record-related pursuits fairly consistently since. PMR is one of those publications I've heard about but have never been able to read until now, and it chronicles a very exciting time in American recording history, the beginnings of the push to create a library of symphonic and chamber music masterworks in recorded form. As such, it fulfilled the same function that "The Gramophone" magazine did in England starting three years earlier. The latter magazine is still with us, of course, but PMR, alas, fell victim to the Great Depression.