Franck: Quartet in D (Virtuoso String Quartet)

In the next (February 2014) newsletter of the 78rpm Community, I have a discography of the Virtuoso String Quartet slated to appear.  In tandem with this, I present their most ambitious recording, the first ever made of Franck's wonderful String Quartet.  This is already available at CHARM, as I have said before, but interest was expressed in my transfer, and there's one thing you will get from my download that CHARM doesn't have - the original liner notes!  These contain a reasonably good analysis of the piece, written by someone whose initials were "P.M.S.L.", and they also contain, at the end, a pat on the back for HMV's recording department - something Victor often did in their early liner notes, but it's surprising to see this from their staid English counterpart.  This was, in fact, one of HMV's last acoustical recordings, made over five sessions in 1925 just before they signed on to use Western Electric's system of electrical recording in May, and it remained in their catalogue longer than most of their acoustically recorded sets - until 1934, when it was replaced by the Quatour Pro Arte's version of the same work:

Franck: String Quartet in D Major
The Virtuoso String Quartet (Hayward-Virgo-Jeremy-Sharpe)
Recorded January 14 to April 20, 1925
HMV D 1006 through D 1011, six 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 149.02 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 74.09 MB)

This is, for me, as fine a recording of the Franck quartet as any since, although it must be admitted that there aren't that many to choose from, at least from the pre-digital era.  Indeed, during the 1970s, the work was completely absent from the Schwann Long Playing Record Catalog!  I remember how eagerly I snapped up the Fitzwilliam Quartet's L'Oiseau Lyre recording (their first project after their famed Shostakovich cycle) when it was released in the USA in 1980, for it gave me a chance to finally hear the piece.

Franck: Symphony (Ormandy)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss
(restored by Peter Joelson)

My vintage Ormandy series continues, with the first of his three studio versions of the Franck Symphony in D Minor, from 1945.  (The others, also for Columbia, were from 1953 and 1961.)  I'm quite fond of this recording, as it was my introduction to the glories of this great symphony.  In particular, the buildup in the coda of the first movement is most excitingly done.  The English horn solo in the second movement is, unfortunately, uncredited on the labels or album, but it must have been played by John Minsker, the English horn player in the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1936 to 1959.

Franck: Symphony in D Minor
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded March 15, 1945
Columbia Masterworks set MM-608, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 101.95 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 53.68 MB)

This recording was reissued in 1948 as part of Columbia's launch of LP, as ML-4024.  Some copies of this have the same Steinweiss cover art as the 78 set, as shown in this scan lifted from Ken Halperin's wonderful site Collecting Record Covers:

Franck: Organ Chorales (Guy Weitz)

Guy Weitz

During the late 1920s, when the introduction of electrical recording made it possible for the record companies to make on-location recordings on a wide scale, a great deal of attention was focused on the one instrument which had no chance of being recorded by the acoustical process - the pipe organ.  The pages of the HMV and Columbia catalogues of this period are littered with organ records, most of them by organists of strictly local (British) reputation - men such as G. D. Cunningham and George Thalben-Ball.  An exception was the Belgian-born organist and composer Guy Weitz (1883-1970), a student of Widor and Guilmant at the Schola Cantorum in Paris.  At the onset of war in 1914 he fled Belgium for London, where he was organist at the Farm Street Church from 1917 to 1967.  HMV got him to make these first recordings of two Franck chorales:

Franck: Chorale No. 1 in E Major
Guy Weitz at the Organ of St. Thomas' Church, Wandsworth
Recorded October 7, 1929
HMV C 1825 and C 1826, two 78-rpm records

Franck: Chorale No. 3 in A minor and
Widor: Symphony No. 4 - Andante cantabile
Guy Weitz at the Organ of Westminster Cathedral, London
Recorded December 16, 1926, and May 4, 1927
HMV C 1378 and C 1379, two 78-rpm records

Both recordings are available in one bundle:
Link (FLAC files, 71.91 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 31.99 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.

Symphonies from Sir Henry

The reissues continue, with a trio of recordings by the great British conductor Sir Henry J. Wood (1869-1944).  Among these are the first two complete recordings of symphonies made by Sir Henry, the Franck from 1924 and the Haydn "Surprise" from 1925.  Previously, he had recorded the Schubert "Unfinished" (in 1919, re-recorded in 1923), the Beethoven "Eroica" (in 1922) and the Tchaikovsky "Pathétique" (in 1923), but these had all been abridged.  The Franck and Haydn are not, but they sure are fast!  The Franck takes 31 minutes, and the "Surprise" takes 18.

Franck: Symphony in D minor
New Queen's Hall Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry J. Wood
Recorded July 2, 9, and 16, 1924
Columbia Masterworks Set No. 10, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 83.33 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 34.77 MB)

Haydn: Symphony No. 94 in G, "Surprise" and
Järnefelt: Praeludium
New Queen's Hall Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry J. Wood
Recorded February 5, March 25 and 26, 1925
English Columbia L 1668 through 1670, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 62.68 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 22.79 MB)

Sir Henry had a long recording career with Columbia, spanning from 1915 to 1934, before he moved to Decca in 1935.  For Decca he made recordings of Beethoven's Fifth, Vaughan Williams' London Symphony, and Elgar's Enigma Variations, and this one of Dvořák's Symphonic Variations:

Dvořák: Symphonic Variations, Op. 78 and
Handel-Wood: Sailors' Dance and Rigaudon
Queen's Hall Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry J. Wood
Recorded April 1 and 2, 1937
English Decca X 182 through 184, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 58.16 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 24.41 MB)

Coming up next: recordings by Albert Coates, including his 1923 Beethoven Ninth!