Constant Lambert conducts Alan Rawsthorne

Alan Rawsthorne

Constant Lambert and Alan Rawsthorne, who were friends and drinking companions, shared not only the same year of birth (1905) but also a passion for cats and fish, and even the same wife!  (Not at the same time, of course.  Lambert died 20 years before Rawsthorne, who then married his widow, the painter Isabel Nicholas.)  It probably did no harm to their friendship that their compositional styles were utterly dissimilar.  Rawsthorne's music sounds to me like a kind of English Hindemith, neoclassical and a little dry at times, while Lambert's (to judge from the two works I know, "The Rio Grande" and the Piano Concerto) seems more like an English Gershwin.  Certainly Lambert the conductor was a persuasive advocate for the music of his friend, and he in fact made the first recordings of any of Rawsthorne's orchestral works, which I present here:

Rawsthorne: Symphonic Studies (1939) and
Rawsthorne: "Street Corner" Overture (1944)
Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Constant Lambert
Recorded March 28 and 29, 1946
HMV C 3542 through 3544, and C 3502, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 69.36 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 29.7 MB)

Constant Lambert Conducts

This week I present several rare recordings by Constant Lambert (1905-1951), conductor, composer, raconteur, writer and wit.  As a conductor, he was renowned for his interpretations of Russian and English music, and both are featured in these downloads.  From Russia we get Lambert's brilliant and exciting interpretations of two tone poems, Tchaikovsky's Hamlet and Glazunov's Stenka Razin, and from England the Purcell Chaconne in G minor in a string orchestra arrangment.  (This is not the famous Purcell Chacony, as the first volume of the World's Encyclopedia of Music erroneously states - but an arrangement of No. 6 of the Ten Sonatas in Four Parts, which is also in G minor and also in the form of a chaconne.)  These three different recordings feature three different orchestras, and in fact the Glazunov was the first appearance of the Liverpool Philharmonic on records.  Here are the details:

Tchaikovsky: Hamlet - Overture-Fantasia, Op. 67
Hallé Orchestra conducted by Constant Lambert
Recorded October 9, 1942
Columbia Masterworks set MX-243, 2 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 43.11 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 22.31 MB)

Glazunov: Stenka Razin - Symphonic Poem, Op. 13
Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Constant Lambert
Recorded December 22, 1942 and January 12, 1943
English Columbia DX 1107 and DX 1108, 2 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 35.87 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 16.24 MB)

Purcell, arr. Whittaker: Chaconne in G minor, Z. 807
Philharmonia String Orchestra conducted by Constant Lambert
Recorded October 12, 1945
English Columbia DX 1230, 1 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 22.15 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 8.98 MB)

Back in 2008 I uploaded another Constant Lambert recording, in tandem with one by Walter Goehr, as both featured orchestral works of Bizet in their first recordings.  These have been re-uploaded; the details:

Bizet: Carnival (from "Roma" Suite)
Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Constant Lambert
Recorded October 29, 1943
English Columbia DX 1136, 1 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 17.37 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 6.63 MB)

Bizet: Symphony in C Major (+ Danse Bohemienne from "Fair Maid of Perth")
London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Walter Goehr
Recorded November 26, 1937
Victor Musical Masterpiece Set DM-721, 4 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 67.45 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 32.23 MB)