The Coolidge Quartet Completed (III)

Daniel Gregory Mason

The third and final installment of my Coolidge Quartet series is here, meaning you can now hear every one of their published Victor recordings through my uploads. All of their sets are fairly rare, but these two may be the rarest, so I have saved them for last. These two sets also share another, rather more unfortunate distinction: there are cuts in both major works presented. In the Hummel work, only the slow movement is affected, but in the work by Massachusetts-born Daniel Gregory Mason (1873-1953), all the movements are cut, the last one most seriously. Had the cuts not been taken, however, it would not have been possible to include the filler side, a quartet movement by Virginia native Mary Howe (née Carlisle, 1882-1964):

Daniel Gregory Mason: Quartet in G Minor, Op. 19 (On Negro Themes) and
Mary Howe: Allegro inevitabile
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Pepper-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded September 27, 1940
Victor Musical Masterpiece set DM-891, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 70.47 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 47.45 MB)

Johann Nepomuk Hummel: Quartet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 30, No. 2
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Berezowsky-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded March 24, 1939
Victor Musical Masterpiece set M-723, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 45.80 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 33.09 MB)

I had never heard the Hummel quartet before acquiring this set; it is charming, and its finale is particularly fun. Certain passages suggest that Hummel was familiar with Bach's "Goldberg" Variations.

The Coolidge Quartet Completed (II)

Victor Chapman, 1916

Here is the next installment of my Coolidge Quartet series. The "Music for Four Stringed Instruments" by Charles Martin Loeffler, based on a Gregorian chant for Easter Sunday ("Resurrexi"), was composed to honor the memory of Victor Chapman, the first American aviator to be killed in the First World War - in 1916, a year before the USA itself actually entered that war. Loeffler, evidently, was a friend of Chapman's father. The piece makes unusual demands on the cellist, who must, several times during the second movement, tune the lowest string down while playing it. This was the first recording of the work, and the Coolidge Quartet's second recording of anything:

Loeffler: Music for Four Stringed Instruments (1917)
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Berezowsky-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded May 27, 1938
Victor Musical Masterpiece set DM-543, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 63.82 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 43.86 MB)

The Coolidge Quartet's version of Beethoven's G Major Quartet, Op. 18, No. 2, competed directly in Victor's catalogue with one by the Budapest Quartet. Irving Kolodin, in his 1941 "Guide to Recorded Music," preferred the Coolidge version, saying that "the Coolidges have apparently made a particular study of this work, for they play it with extraordinary grace and flexibility. Comparatively the Budapest performance is a bit heavy-handed though superbly executed."

Beethoven: Quartet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 18, No. 2
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Berezowsky-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded April 28, 1939
Victor Musical Masterpiece set M-622, four 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 53.54 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 36.55 MB)

The Coolidge Quartet Completed (I)

Irene and Frederick Jacobi in Paris, 1950

My heroic quest is ended! This summer I have realized my goal of acquiring all of the Coolidge Quartet's published recordings, when the six sets that I lacked to make up a complete collection became available to me almost simultaneously from two different sources. So, this is to be the first of three posts uploading these. Particularly valuable is the piano quintet Hagiographa by San Francisco-born Frederick Jacobi (1891-1952), a composer who, like his teacher Ernest Bloch, specialized in music on Jewish themes. Like the Roy Harris Piano Quintet recording of a year earlier, this has the Coolidge Quartet collaborating with the composer's wife, Irene Jacobi (née Schwarcz, 1890-1984):

Frederick Jacobi: Hagiographa - Three Biblical Narratives (1938)
Irene Jacobi, piano, with the Coolidge Quartet
Recorded January 23, 1940
Victor Musical Masterpiece set DM-782, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 56.41 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 39.85 MB)

Beethoven: Quartet No. 7 in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Berezowsky-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded April 3, 1940
Victor Musical Masterpiece set DM-804, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 87.82 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 59.20 MB)

This Beethoven set was the Coolidges' last to have Nicolai Berezowsky as the second violinist; in the next season, he would be replaced by Jack Pepper.

Two "Firsts" from the Coolidge Quartet

Nicolai Berezowsky

With these two sets, I am now about two-thirds of the way through completing what Nick, of Grumpy's Classics Cave, has quaintly called my "heroic quest" - my effort to possess a complete run of the Coolidge Quartet's recordings of 1938-40. (Every time I hear the word "quest" I, perhaps inevitably, think of Don Quixote - thanks to that little ditty by Mitch Leigh, "The Impossible Dream.") Today's installment contains something I am quite thrilled to be able to offer, a work by the Coolidges' own second violinist, Nicolai Berezowsky (1900-1953):

Berezowsky: Quartet No. 1, Op. 16
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Berezowsky-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded May 31, 1938
Victor Musical Masterpiece set DM-624, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 46.71 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 33.06 MB)

This piece, published in 1931, is hardly profound but is highly enjoyable, its four movements squarely in the neo-classical tradition with strong echoes of Stravinsky and Hindemith. Berezowsky enjoyed a certain amount of success as a composer during his lifetime, with four symphonies and several concertos to his credit. (His Fourth Symphony can be heard here on YouTube.) Sadly, he committed suicide at the age of 53, and his work has since fallen into oblivion.

The other item today is the first installment of the Coolidges' ill-fated Beethoven cycle:

Beethoven: Quartet No. 1 in F Major, Op. 18, No. 1
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Berezowsky-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded March 17, 1939
Victor Musical Masterpiece set AM-550, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 60.00 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 43.33 MB)

Both downloads contain PDF files of the original program booklets, that of the Berezowsky offering his own analysis of his quartet.

Beethoven: Quartet No. 5 (Coolidge Quartet)

With this set, I'm one step closer to having a complete run of Coolidge Quartet recordings - 11 down, 8 to go! This one is part of their ill-fated Beethoven series, which only got as far as Opus 59, No. 2 before the Coolidges' recording activity abruptly ceased. This one of Opus 18, No. 5, is actually available elsewhere online, from the British Library, but we poor Americans cannot listen to those files, so I'm happy to now be able to provide our chance to hear them:

Beethoven: Quartet No. 5 in A Major, Op. 18, No. 5
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Berezowsky-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded December 18, 1939
Victor Musical Masterpiece set DM-716, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 55.40 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 37.15 MB)

My latest discographic project is an article on the Coolidge Quartet, which was published in the June, 2015, issue of the 78rpm Community's Discographer Magazine.  This can be read online here.

Two More by the Coolidge Quartet

Robert McBride

I recently acquired two more recordings by the Coolidge Quartet (William Kroll and Nicolai Berezowsky, violins; Nicholas Moldavan, viola; Victor Gottlieb, cello), and with them, I am about halfway to having a complete collection of the issued commercial recordings of this unjustly neglected ensemble. For the first one, which is the only single-record issue in the Coolidges' discography that I can trace, they are joined by Arizona-born composer-oboist Robert McBride (1911-2007), who gained some fame as a young man for writing pieces with catchy, evocative titles such as "Jingle Jangle", "Swing Stuff", etc. Arthur Fiedler promoted him on records with the Boston Pops before discovering Leroy Anderson (Youtube has his recording of "Fugato on a Well-Known Theme" here). His Oboe Quintet, despite its academic title, inhabits the same lighthearted world; it's in a single jazzy movement marked With kick:

Robert McBride: Quintet for Oboe and Strings (1937)
Robert McBride, oboist, with the Coolidge Quartet
Recorded October 27, 1939
Victor 2159, one 10-inch 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 13.52 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 8.70 MB)

The other Coolidge item here is more self-explanatory; it's the third installment of their ill-fated Beethoven quartet cycle:

Beethoven: Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 18, No. 3
The Coolidge Quartet
Recorded October 27, 1939
Victor Musical Masterpiece set M-650, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 45.64 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 30.68 MB)

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge!

Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (center) surrounded by the members of the Coolidge Quartet:
(L to R) Victor Gottlieb, Nicolai Berezowsky, Nicholas Moldavan, William Kroll

Thursday, October 30, will see the 150th anniversary of the birth of that great patron of 20th-century music, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (1864-1953). Her influence on music was incalculable. Her commissions include a number of works that became mainstream repertory, such as Bartók's Fifth String Quartet, Copland's Appalachian Spring, and Poulenc's Flute Sonata, as well as such important works as the first string quartets by Britten and Prokofiev, the last two by Schoenberg, and Stravinsky's Apollon Musagète. Less well-remembered is the fact that she was a pianist and composer in her own right. Her String Quartet in E minor, performed by the group that bears her name, is evidence of her gifts in the latter capacity:

Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge: Quartet in E minor
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Berezowsky-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded January 22, 1940
Victor Musical Masterpiece set M-719, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 70.75 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 46.42 MB)

I don't believe this piece has ever been recorded otherwise, nor does it seem to have been published. I don't even know when it was written; Victor's booklet of program notes (included as a PDF file, and from which the picture above is lifted) omit that seemingly important bit of information. The piece may not be an earth-shattering masterpiece, but it is well-crafted and pleasing to the ear, in a solidly post-romantic idiom. There are three movements: a sonata allegro, a "Funeral Lament" as a slow movement, and a finale called "Divertimenti" - variations and a fugue on the Quartet's opening melody.

Beethoven: Quartet No. 6 (Coolidge Quartet)

Happy Beethoven's Birthday! Here is my latest Coolidge Quartet find, another in their aborted series to record all the Beethoven string quartets (which stopped short halfway through, with No. 8).  This is the last of the "early" quartets (Op. 18), and the Coolidge Beethoven set which had the shortest catalogue life (since it was the last issued of their Op. 18 sets, all of which were deleted during the Second World War, unlike their two successors):

Beethoven: Quartet No. 6 in B-Flat, Op. 18, No. 6
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Berezowsky-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded December 19, 1939
Victor Musical Masterpiece set M-745, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 59.46 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 42.73 MB)

This recording would appear to have been made at the same time as that of the Beethoven quartet which preceded it, if the proximity of its matrix numbers is any indication.  Said matrix numbers can be found here at the British Library website (as can the recording itself...but not for us poor Americans!).

Beethoven: Quartet No. 4 (Coolidge Quartet)

In an earlier post, I remarked that the Coolidge Quartet (in existence from 1936 to 1944) had begun about 1937 an ambitious project to record the Beethoven string quartets, which stopped short with the Second "Rasumovsky" (No. 8), in 1940.  They were released in order, which means that all the Opus 18 quartets, at least, did get recorded by the Coolidges, and here is one of those - a set that I was fortunate enough to find from an online dealer about a month ago, and at a quite reasonable price:

Beethoven: Quartet No. 4 in C Minor, Op. 18, No. 4
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Berezowsky-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded October 24, 1939
Victor Musical Masterpiece set M-696, four ten-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 55.48 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 29.95 MB)

The Coolidge Quartet made eighteen sets for Victor; here is a list of these in order of issue:

M-524 Hindemith: Quartet No. 3, Op. 22
M-543 Loeffler: Music for Four Stringed Instruments
M-550 Beethoven: Quartet No. 1 in F, Op. 18, No. 1
M-558 Griffes: Two Sketches Based on Indian Themes
M-622 Beethoven: Quartet No. 2 in G, Op. 18, No. 2
M-624 Nicolai Berezowsky: Quartet No. 1, Op. 16
M-641 Schubert: Quartet No. 9 in G Minor, Op. Posth.
M-650 Beethoven: Quartet No. 3 in D, Op. 18, No. 3
M-696 Beethoven: Quartet No. 4 in C Minor, Op. 18, No. 4
M-716 Beethoven: Quartet No. 5 in A, Op. 18, No. 5
M-719 Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge: Quartet in E Minor
M-723 Hummel: Quartet in G, Op. 30, No. 2
M-745 Beethoven: Quartet No. 6 in B-Flat, Op. 18, No. 6
M-752 Harris: Quintet for Piano and Strings (with Johana Harris)
M-782 Frederick Jacobi: Hagiographa (with Irene Jacobi, piano)
M-804 Beethoven: Quartet No. 7 in F, Op. 59, No. 1
M-891 Mason: Quartet in G Minor, on Negro Themes, Op. 19
M-919 Beethoven: Quartet No. 8 in E Minor, Op. 59, No. 2

All except the last two Beethoven sets had been deleted from the Victor catalogue by the end of the Second World War, and even those were dumped when the Paganini Quartet's series of all three Beethoven Op. 59 quartets appeared in 1948.

Two by the Coolidge Quartet

The Coolidge Quartet with Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge
(left to right: Nicolai Berezowsky, William Kroll,
Mrs. Coolidge, Nicholas Moldavan, Victor Gottlieb)

Today I present two more sets by the Coolidge Quartet, that pioneering group named after the great patron of early 20th-century chamber music, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge.  On records, besides their aborted project to record the complete Beethoven quartets, the Coolidge Quartet brought to American record buyers many previously unrecorded works; they had a penchant for American works, as well as for unearthing rarities from the Classical era.  Both are represented here:

Griffes: Two Sketches Based on Indian Themes and
Chadwick: Quartet No. 4 in E minor - Andante semplice
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Berezowsky-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded May 27 and 31, 1938
Victor Musical Masterpiece set M-558, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 46.55 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 25.62 MB)

Schubert: Quartet No. 9 in G minor, D. 173
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Berezowsky-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded October 28, 1938
Victor Musical Masterpiece set M-641, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 53.85 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 32.15 MB)

Beethoven: Quartet No. 8 (Coolidge Quartet)

About a year ago, when I was doing my "reissue" series, I devoted one post to the Flonzaley Quartet and two groups that contained members of that famous ensemble after it disbanded.  One of these was the Coolidge Quartet, whose violist, Nicolas Moldavan, had been in the Flonzaley Quartet.  This very interesting group was founded in 1936 by violinist William Kroll, who remained the only constant presence in the quartet until its disbanding in 1944.  The other original members were violinist Nicolai Berezowsky and cellist Victor Gottlieb.

In 1937 they began recording for Victor, and a big project was undertaken: a complete recording at popular prices of the Beethoven string quartets.  It should be explained that until 1940, when all Red Seal records were reduced in price to $1 each per 12-inch disc, there were two tiers of pricing for them - a cheaper series at $1.50 and a more expensive series at $2.  The Coolidge Quartet's non-Beethoven recordings sold at the higher rate, as did recordings by other, more prestigious chamber music groups such as the Budapest and Busch quartets.  But with the price reduction, the Beethoven project sort of ran out of steam, and it stopped short, halfway, with the work I present here:

Beethoven: Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Pepper-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded in September, 1940
Victor Musical Masterpiece Set DM-919, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files,  80.44 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 40.61 MB)

By the time this recording was made, the American-born Jack Pepper had replaced Berezowsky as the group's second fiddle.  By the following year (1941), Moldavan would be replaced by another American, David Dawson on viola, and Gottlieb would be replaced by the Russian-born Naoum Benditzky on cello.

Roy Harris: Chamber Music

Roy Harris

During the 1930s, Oklahoma-born Roy Harris (1898-1979) was generally seen as the greatest hope for the future of American music.  After all, the facts of his life - born in a log cabin on Lincoln's birthday, worked as a truck driver while studying to be a composer - made good copy, but beyond this, the music he was writing in the 1930s was as good as, or better than, any being written in America at the time.  The two major American record companies, Victor and Columbia, were quick to seize on this, recording over a dozen of his works between 1933 and 1941 - more than any other contemporary American composer.  If this state of affairs seems incredible to us today, remember that Copland's reputation was that of an enfant terrible with his folksy ballet scores not yet written, Barber and William Schuman were in their 20s, the discovery of Ives was in its infancy, and Gershwin was considered a light music composer.

The two chamber music recordings I present here were among the last fruits of this Harris-mania, and I submit that not only are they two of Harris' finest works, but among the finest chamber music works written by an American.  That the publishers of these works (G. Schirmer and Mills Music, which is now part of Alfred Music Publishing) have allowed them to go out-of-print is a sad commentary on our musical life.

Roy Harris: Quintet for Piano and Strings (1936)
Johana Harris and the Coolidge String Quartet
Recorded January 24, 1939
Victor Musical Masterpiece set DM-752, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file,  64.87 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 31.84 MB)

Roy Harris: String Quartet No. 3 (Four Preludes and Fugues, 1939)
Roth String Quartet (Roth-Weinstock-Shaier-Edel)
Recorded June 13, 1940, and January 6, 1941
Columbia Masterworks Set MM-450, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 62.65 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 30.96 MB)

The Flonzaley Quartet and After

The Flonzaley Quartet

Today I present the legendary Flonzaley Quartet in the only complete 20th century quartet they recorded, the Dohnányi Op. 15.  This is one of their rarer recordings; in fact, I am unaware of any LP or CD transfer of this set, though most of the Flonzaleys' other early electrical sets were covered by Biddulph in a pair of double-CD packages during the 1990s.  Well, here it is, in a transfer I originally offered in 2008:

Dohnányi: Quartet No. 2 in D-Flat, Op. 15
The Flonzaley Quartet
Recorded October 20 and 21, 1927
HMV DB 1135 through 1137, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 69.3 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 26.74 MB)

The Flonzaley Quartet disbanded in 1929, but its members (which by this time were Adolfo Betti and Alfred Pochon, violins; Nicholas Moldavan, viola; and Iwan d'Archambeau, cello) continued to work in other quartets.  One of these was the Stradivarius String Quartet, in which Pochon and d'Archambeau were joined by Wolfe Wolfinsohn, first violin, and Marcel Dick, viola.  In 1937 the group made a handful of recordings for Columbia, of which perhaps the most important is this Mendelssohn quartet (again, originally offered in 2008):

Mendelssohn: Quartet No. 3 in D, Op. 44, No. 1
The Stradivarius String Quartet
Recorded January 27, February 4, April 19 and 22, 1937
Columbia Masterworks Set 304, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 59.77 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 24.47 MB)

Violist Moldavan went on to become a founding member (along with violinists William Kroll and Nicolai Berezowsky and cellist Jack Gottlieb) of the Coolidge Quartet, a very interesting group: named after that patron saint of 20th century chamber music, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (whose own String Quartet in E minor the group recorded); they started a project to record the complete Beethoven quartets, but abandoned it after No. 8 when the war and the Petrillo recording ban of 1942-44 intervened.  They also recorded quite a few American works, including quartets by Griffes, Loeffler, Mason, and by their own second violinist Berezowsky, as well as Roy Harris' piano quintet (with the composer's wife, Johana, at the piano).  Their first recording was of this Hindemith quartet (also a 2008 transfer):

Hindemith: Quartet No. 3, Op. 22
The Coolidge Quartet
Recorded May 20, 1938
Victor Musical Masterpiece Set M-524, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 48.93 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 25.77 MB)

Finally, for anyone interested, I have put up three videos on YouTube with my own harpsichord- and piano-playing; here are the links:

Maple Leaf Rag
Hovhaness: Dark River and Distant Bell
"Linus and Ludwig"