Copland by the Dorian String Quartet

Aaron Copland wrote precious little chamber music, but what he did write is of high quality, and this extends back to works he wrote as a young man in the 1920s. For string quartet there are only three extant pieces, all dating from the 20s, a Movement written while he was studying with Nadia Boulanger in Paris (between 1921 and 1924), which was shelved and forgotten until it was rediscovered in the 1980s, a Rondino from the same period, and a Lento molto from 1928. The latter two pieces (in reverse order) form a satisfying slow-fast grouping, and Copland decided to publish them that way. This is the pair's first recording:

Copland: Two Pieces for String Quartet (1923-28)
Dorian String Quartet
Recorded February 8, 1940
Columbia 70092-D, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 19.69 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 13.63 MB)

I can't find out much about the Dorian String Quartet, other than that they seem to have been active between about 1939 and 1942, and their membership consisted of Alexander Cores and Harry Friedman, violins; David Mankovitz, viola, and a very young Bernard Greenhouse, who went on to later fame with the Beaux Arts Trio, as cellist. They made only a handful of recordings: the Piston String Quartet No. 1 in 1939, and Arthur Foote's Night Piece with flutist John Wummer, made on the same day as the Copland pieces. Cores and Greenhouse went on to make sets of violin and cello literature, respectively, for Columbia's educational series.

I got this Copland record from an eBay seller, and in the same package was John Kirkpatrick's pioneering set of Ives' "Concord" Sonata on five Columbia 78s. It was only after I ordered it that I realized that Buster had given us this same recording as transferred from its LP reissue, which is the preferable way to hear it, because the quality of Columbia's shellac from this time (1948) was simply awful. The "Concord", however, takes nine sides, making a filler necessary, and this - a part of the second movement of Ives' First Piano Sonata, recorded the same day as the larger work - didn't make it onto the LP. So I offer it here, as a sort of appendix to Buster's upload:

Ives: "In the Inn" (from Piano Sonata No. 1)
John Kirkpatrick, piano
Recorded April 9, 1945
Side 10 of Columbia set MM-749, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 14.05 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 10.33 MB)

The Composer as Accompanist

John Ireland

Back in 2008 I offered two different recordings featuring composers as piano accompanists in their chamber works.  One of these was John Ireland (1879-1962), who made at least two such recordings of which I am aware.  One was of his First Violin Sonata, with Frederick Grinke, for Decca in 1945.  This has turned up on a Dutton CD, but I am unaware of any subsequent release of the other recording, that of the Cello Sonata with Antoni Sala, with, as a filler, a solo piano piece by Ireland, which I present here:

Ireland: Cello Sonata in G minor (1923)
Antoni Sala, cello; John Ireland, piano
Recorded October 25, 1928
and
Ireland: April (1925)
John Ireland, piano
Recorded February 18, 1929
English Columbia L 2314 through L 2317, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 59.62 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 26.73 MB)

I know very little about Antoni Sala, other than that he was Spanish and was the cellist on a fine Parlophone recording of the Arensky Piano Trio, Op. 35, with Eileen Joyce and Henri Temianka, which turned up some years ago on a Biddulph double CD set devoted to Temianka.

Walter Piston

There could hardly be imagined a more different musical idiom than that of the other composer-pianist whom I present here, Walter Piston (1894-1976), in one of his very rare appearances on records as a performer.  Here he accompanies Louis Krasner in his Violin Sonata, a recording which appeared only a month before Krasner's famous recording of the Berg Violin Concerto, which Krasner commissioned:

Piston: Sonata for Violin and Piano (1939)
Louis Krasner, violin; Walter Piston, piano
Recorded November 24, 1939
Columbia Masterworks set MX-199, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 39.01 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 21.22 MB)

This recording was reviewed in the TIME magazine issue of August, 1941, where Piston is described as an "atonalist."  He was hardly that!  Wonder if the review had him mixed up with Berg?

Columbia had two sets of music by Piston on its catalogue during the 78-rpm era; here's the other one:

Piston: String Quartet No. 1 (1933) and
Cowell: Movement for String Quartet (Quartet No. 2, 1934)
Dorian String Quartet
Recorded September 27, 1939
Columbia Masterworks Set M-388, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 55.52 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 27.23 MB)

The cellist in the Dorian String Quartet was the 23-year-old Bernard Greenhouse; the other members were Alexander Cores and Harry Friedman, violins, and David Mankovitz, viola.