A Wagner Concert (Reiner)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

It almost never happens these days that I go into a record store (or any other kind of store) and stumble upon any 78s worth buying, especially classical ones; the supply, never plentiful here in the South, has all but dried up.  Imagine my delight when, three weeks ago, I went into Records Galore in Clarkston, Ga., and found, among the three or four 78 sets tucked away in the back, this Reiner album (including his very first recording with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the "Ride of the Valkyries"), and very reasonably priced too (as you can see from the sticker on the above picture)!  I'm afraid it was the only set there that had both musical interest and acceptable condition, but there it was, and now I offer it to you, along with another Wagner set by Reiner that I've harbored for seven years, but never got around to transferring until now:

A Wagner Concert:
Prelude to Act I of "Die Meistersinger"
"Forest Murmurs" from "Siegfried"
Preludes to Acts I and III of "Lohengrin"
"The Ride of the Valkyries" from "Die Walküre"
Columbia Masterworks set MM-549, four 78-rpm records

and

Wagner: Bacchanale (Venusberg Music) from "Tannhäuser"
Columbia Masterworks set MX-193, two 78-rpm records

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner
Recorded March 14, 1940, January 9, 1941, and November 15, 1941
Link (FLAC files, 120.52 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 78.29 MB)

For those who like to burn CDs from my downloads, or make playlists, I would suggest following the order of the "Wagner Concert" but inserting the "Tannhäuser" extract before the "Ride of the Valkyries" - this seems to give the best balance of moods and tempi.

MM-549 was one of several albums of reissues that Columbia issued in the closing days of the Petrillo recording ban in 1944, when the supply of backlogged recordings had run dry, and new ones from Europe were unavailable due to the war.  So they took four single records of Wagner already on the catalog, and cobbled them together into an album.  The resulting "Wagner Concert" was also part of Columbia's initial LP launch, and in that form would have been the first Wagner compilation to be listed in the fondly-remembered Schwann Long Playing Record Guide.  I always wondered why, under the Wagner listings, albums of compilations of his music were under the heading "Wagner Concert" while all the other composers' compilations were under headings like "Music of Beethoven," "Music of Brahms," etc.  This issue, I've decided, has to be the reason....

Strauss: Don Quixote (Piatigorsky & Reiner)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss
(restored by Peter Joelson)

About a year ago, I posted Emanuel Feuermann's great recording of Richard Strauss' strange and wonderful hybrid of variations, concerto and symphonic poem, "Don Quixote."  Fine as that recording is, I still maintain a great affection for the recording which functioned as its competitor when new, because it was my own introduction to the glories of this great work, about thirty-three years ago:

Strauss: Don Quixote, Op. 35
Fritz Reiner conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra with
Gregor Piatigorsky, cello; Henri Temianka, violin; Vladimir Bakaleinikoff, viola
Recorded November 15, 1941
Columbia Masterworks set MM-506, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 84.7 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 48.5 MB)

Both Reiner and Piatigorsky would revisit "Don Quixote" in the recording studio a decade later, though not together - even though both had by then moved to RCA.  Piatigorsky recorded the piece with Munch and the Boston Symphony in 1953, and Reiner recorded it with the Chicago Symphony and cellist Antonio Janigro in 1959.

Shostakovich: Sixth Symphony (Reiner)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

Well, Shostakovich's birthday is upon us again, on Tuesday (I first celebrated it on this blog two years ago, with Efrem Kurtz's 1947 recording of his Ninth Symphony).  Here is Fritz Reiner's only commercial recording of a work by Shostakovich, which happens to be my favorite of his 15 symphonies, primarily because it's the first major Shostakovich work I ever came to know, through this very set:

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 54
and
Kabalevsky: Colas Breugnon - Overture
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner
Recorded March 26, 1945
Columbia Masterworks set MM-585, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 95.39 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 50.5 MB)

This set was issued in direct competition with Stokowski's 1940 recording, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, on Victor, and was then reissued on LP (unlike Stoki's).  Incredibly, the next version of the Shostakovich Sixth wasn't made until 1958 (a fine one, by Sir Adrian Boult, on Everest), by which time this Reiner version had been deleted!

This is the second copy of MM-585 that I have owned, thanks to Ken Halperin of Collecting Record Covers.  The first I purchased as a lad of almost twelve, from a wonderful shop in downtown Decatur, Ga., called Clark Music, at 115 Sycamore Street.  I could write a book about this place, which was so important to me during the 1970s.  It was, among other things, the site of my first summer job.  Clark's was a mom-and-pop operation opened in 1945 by Mayo and Mary Clark, which originally sold both sporting goods and musical merchandise.  Mr. Clark oversaw the former, and Mrs. Clark the latter.  They apparently never sent back to the manufacturers anything they couldn't sell, for when I discovered the store in 1973, the back wall was crammed with 78s, classical and popular, in brand-new condition.  Mrs. Clark also insisted the prices were the same as in the late 40s, and I know now that she was right, but for one of my limited means, these were still expensive!  This Shostakovich set cost $7.25, and I remember that after buying it, I had to call a neighbor for a ride home, for I had miscalculated the sales tax, and ended up a penny short of the 15-cent bus fare!  Clark's finally closed its doors in 1990, shortly after Mrs. Clark died, and I miss it still.  I found some wonderful treasures there.

Photo courtesy of the blog Next Stop...Decatur

Carol Brice and Reiner

Carol Brice, as pictured in the liner notes for her set of Bach Arias

Today I present the first three recordings by North Carolina-born contralto Carol Brice (1918-1985), who, in 1943, became the first African-American to win the Walter Naumberg Award.  The first two of these sets, recorded on the same day, also feature Fritz Reiner and the Pittsburgh Symphony - in fact, since the singing is incidental, Reiner gets the main billing in this gripping performance of Falla's El Amor Brujo:

De Falla: El Amor Brujo (Love by Witchcraft)

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner, 

with Carol Brice (contralto)

Recorded February 5, 1946

Columbia Masterworks set MM-633, three 78-rpm records

Link (FLAC file, 61.91 MB)

Link (MP3 file, 31.95 MB)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss
(restored by Peter Joelson)

Next, the first-ever recording of a popular Mahler song cycle:

Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer)

Carol Brice (contralto) with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

conducted by Fritz Reiner

Recorded February 5, 1946

Columbia Masterworks set MX-267, two 78-rpm records

Link (FLAC file, 44.03 MB)

Link (MP3 file, 24.75 MB)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss
(restored by Peter Joelson)

Finally, from a year later, an album of Bach arias (two from the Magnificat in D, and two from the Mass in B minor), this time conducted by Daniel Saidenberg, and also featuring the talents of Julius Baker (flute) and Albert Goltzer (English horn):

Sacred Arias of Johann Sebastian Bach

Carol Brice (contralto) with the Columbia Broadcasting Concert Orchestra

conducted by Daniel Saidenberg

Recorded April 14, 1947

Columbia Masterworks set MX-283, two 78-rpm records

Link (FLAC files, 52.4 MB)

Link (MP3 files, 30.2 MB)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss
(restored by Peter Joelson)

As with many of the Steinweiss-illustrated Columbia albums I have been posting lately, the Bach and de Falla sets were kindly provided to me by Ken Halperin of Collecting Record Covers.

Two American Pictures (Rodzinski, Reiner)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

Arguably, two of the most groundbreaking shows in the history of the American musical theatre are Showboat (by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II) and Porgy and Bess (by Gershwin).  And two transplanted American conductors, Artur Rodzinski and Fritz Reiner, recognized their genius and sought to give these works greater permanence by "elevating" them to symphonic form (remember, Porgy was considered a musical rather than an opera in those days).  Rodzinski commissioned Kern to create a "scenario for orchestra" out of Showboat, and Reiner commissioned Robert Russell Bennett (since Gershwin himself was no longer alive to do it) to create a "symphonic picture" out of Porgy and Bess.  Here are the results, conducted by their instigators:

Kern: Showboat - Scenario for Orchestra
Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Artur Rodzinski
Recorded January 29, 1941
Columbia Masterworks set M-495, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 55.09 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 30.41 MB)

Gershwin (arr. Bennett): Porgy and Bess - A Symphonic Picture
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner
Recorded March 27, 1945
Columbia Masterworks set MM-572, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 58.88 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 28.76 MB)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

Once again I am indebted to Ken Halperin of Collecting Record Covers for sending me these sets.  The Showboat recording was apparently never reissued by Columbia on LP, and the Porgy only as a ten-incher, as part of Columbia's initial launch of LP in 1948.