More from Morton

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

For easy summer listening, this week I present two more albums of Morton Gould's popular song arrangements, made for Columbia after he had been promoted to green-label Masterworks status:

String Time
1. Body and Soul (Johnny Green)
2. Laura (David Raskin)
3. Holiday for Strings (David Rose)
4. Sophisticated Lady (Duke Ellington)
5. Solitude (Duke Ellington)
6. Over the Rainbow (Harold Arlen)
7. The Surrey With the Fringe On Top (Richard Rodgers)
8. Stormy Weather (Harold Arlen)
Morton Gould and His Orchestra
Recorded July 11 and 15, 1946
Columbia Masterworks set M-663, four 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 63.38 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 43.86 MB)

Music at Midnight
1. Caravan (Duke Ellington)
2. Moonglow (Will Hudson)
3. Song of the Bayou (Rube Bloom)
4. Deserted Ballroom (Morton Gould)
5. Mood Indigo (Duke Ellington)
6. Serenade in the Night (Cesare Andrea Bixio)
7. Deep Purple (Peter de Rose)
8. Swamp Fire (Harold Mooney)
Morton Gould and His Orchestra
Recorded November 14, 15 and 22, 1950
Columbia Masterworks set MM-992, four 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 70.52 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 46.93 MB)

It will be seen that each collection contains two Duke Ellington tunes, and that "Music at Midnight" also has one of Gould's own compositions, originally a piano piece that he had recorded a decade earlier. To the expected string orchestra of "String Time" Gould's orchestrations add a harp and celesta, and, in the case of "The Surrey With the Fringe On Top" - played entirely pizzicato - also such appurtenances as sleigh bells, wood block, whip and even a banjo. "Music at Midnight" has the distinction of being Columbia's last Masterworks 78-rpm set to be released on a regular schedule concurrent with LP releases, in April, 1951. With the May releases 78s were dropped, although five set numbers (993 to 997) had been assigned, and after that, only selected Masterworks releases appeared as 78s, usually semi-classical in nature.

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

Festive Ormandy

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

Of Ottorino Respighi's three orchestral suites celebrating his adopted home city of Rome (Fountains of Rome, Pines of Rome, and Roman Festivals), I confess my favorite has always been the last one, mainly because it is the most fun. Respighi, like Liszt, seems to be most authentically himself when he can cut loose and play, and nowhere did he do so more than in this piece (unless it was in the kid-in-a-candy-store orchestrations of Antiche Arie e Danze). This is its first American recording to be released (since Toscanini's, with the same orchestra, from five years earlier, did not see the light of day until 1976):

Respighi: Feste Romane (1928)
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded April 18, 1946
Columbia Masterworks set MM-707, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 60.69 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 39.78 MB)

About five years ago, I uploaded Ormandy's first Philadelphia recording of Sibelius' First Symphony, along with his Minneapolis recording of Kodály's Háry János Suite. I noted the existence of an earlier recording of the same symphony from Minneapolis, and have now located a copy of that, and here it is:

Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded January 16, 1935
Victor Musical Masterpiece set DM-290, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 110.30 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 66.42 MB)

Originally issued with a generic cover, by the time of my pressing, c. 1940, the set was sporting this simple but evocative cover design:

Khatchaturian: Piano Concerto (Levant)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

There was a request for this recording at Buster's blog recently, after he posted some of Oscar Levant's incomparable Gershwin playing. I dug around and found this nice early LP copy, complete with one of Steinweiss' more zany cover designs. This is one of three early recordings listed of Khatchaturian's wild and wacky piano concerto - the others are by Moura Lympany with Fistoulari on English Decca (the first to be issued), and William Kapell with Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony (Victor). Of these, I find Levant's the most convincing, for he cuts loose more than the others do, playing it with all the zest and panache that he brought to everything he touched:

Khatchaturian: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1935)
Oscar Levant with the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York
conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos
Recorded January 3, 1950
Columbia ML-4288, one LP record
Link (FLAC files, 88.45 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 58.03 MB)

This recording was also issued as a 78 set (Columbia MM-905), and I am sorry to say I don't have that, nor have I ever seen it anywhere. It contains, as a filler, Levant's rarest recording, apparently unissued in any other form - Rachmaninoff's Prelude in D Minor, Op. 23, No. 3. It is so rare that it is on the wants list of the International Piano Archives at the University of Maryland - although it would be easy to miss this, since they do not identify it as the filler for this Khatchaturian Concerto. If you have it, they would like to hear from you!

Boris Godunov - Symphonic Synthesis (Stokowski, 1941)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

This is something that I should really have saved for Stokowski's birthday in April, but I simply couldn't resist posting it on this eve of Inauguration Day. A posting containing Stokowski's theatrical "symphonic synthesis" of the best-known, and greatest, musical work about a political figure (and not only that, but a political figure whose legitimacy to rule was widely questioned), seemed only too apropos. And this is the closest you will find me coming to making political commentary on this blog, for, as Charles Schulz said, when asked why he wouldn't make his "Peanuts" comic strip a vehicle for politics, "why would I want to offend fifty percent of my readers right off the bat?" With that in mind, I hope you will enjoy the music:

Mussorgsky-Stokowski: Boris Godunov - A Symphonic Synthesis
The All-American Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Recorded July 4-5, 1941
Columbia Masterworks set MM-516, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 59.42 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 41.38 MB)

Speaking of Columbia, I have recently completed compiling a numerical listing of their records in American Columbia's celebrity "-M" suffixed series (1925-1954), which I am making available as a PDF file here:

Link (448.08 KB)

Also, I am making available a copy of the Music Lovers' Guide from March, 1934. This magazine, edited by Axel B. Johnson, is the successor publication to the Phonograph Monthly Review, and eventually morphed into the American Music Lover and then the American Record Guide, which still flourishes. Until that happy day when a complete run of the Music Lovers' Guide is available online, this single copy will give you an idea of what the magazine was like:

Link (28.16 MB)

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 (Levant)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

This posting is in response to a request. I obtained this set of Oscar Levant playing "the" Tchaikovsky concerto, graced with one of Alex Steinweiss' most delightful cover designs, about five years ago from Ken Halperin of Collecting Record Covers. I duly made a transfer, then shelved it, not sure if it would be of interest to anybody. Then, two months ago, after I posted Levant's debut album, there was a request for it, and I am delighted to be able to oblige:

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 23
Oscar Levant, piano; Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded December 12, 1947
and
Rachmaninoff: Prelude in G Major, Op. 32, No. 5
Oscar Levant, piano
Recorded November 19, 1947
Columbia Masterworks set MM-785, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 86.99 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 60.07 MB)

This was Oscar Levant's first concerto recording other than of works by Gershwin, with whom he was so closely associated; on the very next day, however, he was in New York recording the Grieg concerto with Efrem Kurtz! With Ormandy, the Tchaikovsky was his second recording, after the best-selling "Rhapsody in Blue" of 1945. That, however, was not Levant's first phonographic outing with the Rhapsody; that honor belongs to a Brunswick issue of 1927, with Frank Black's Orchestra, which I recently discovered here on YouTube. Writing in his best-selling book, "A Smattering of Ignorance", Levant said of this recording that "contrary to the common impression that composers do not think highly of their own abilities as performers, Gershwin was quite firm in his preference for his own version on Victor. At this distance [twelve years] I can acknowledge that it is much superior."

Larry Adler - Harmonica Virtuoso

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

Some more light listening for the summer months - a set that would have been the first exposure of many Americans to the genius of harmonica king Larry Adler (1914-2001), of whom Sting, with whom Adler collaborated towards the end of his life, said "he was one of the youngest old men I've ever met." This album, released in 1940, is a reissue of some of Adler's most successful sides for English Columbia:

Larry Adler - Harmonica Virtuoso
1. Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue*
2. Kreisler: Caprice Viennois
3. Falla: Ritual Fire Dance
4. Ravel: Bolero
5. Porter: I've Got You Under My Skin
6. Kern: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
7. Conrad: The Continental
*With Carroll Gibbons and the Savoy Hotel Orpheans
Recorded 1934-37
Columbia set C-18, four 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 78.03 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 45.19 MB)

Reportedly, when Gershwin first heard Adler play his "Rhapsody in Blue" he exclaimed, "it sounds as if the goddamned thing was written for you!" And Ravel, upon hearing Adler's record of his "Bolero" - but let's let Adler himself tell the story (as extracted from his entertaining memoir, "It Ain't Necessarily So", published in 1984)":

"I had a call from Jacques Lyon, who ran a record shop, the Sinfonia, on the Champs-Elysées. He said he'd had a call from Maurice Ravel who had heard that I played his Bolero and wanted to hear me. I couldn't stand before the maître playing without accompaniment so I brought my record with me. We drove to Montfort-d'Amaury, outside Paris and had a hard time finding Ravel's house - no one seemed to have heard of him. When we did find it, Ravel opened the door, took the record and before Jacques could even introduce me, put it on. Until then I'd thought it was a good record, it was a big seller and I was proud of it. Standing there while its composer listened to it I was aware of imperfections, of mistakes that I had never noticed. It sounded awful and, though it was on one side of a 78-rpm record, it seemed interminable. When it finished, Ravel spoke to Jacques.
"'The master he say, you play it very fast. Why?'
"Hell, I didn't know why. I hadn't ever known that I did play it fast. Ravel spoke again.
"'The master he says you have made cuts, you do not play the whole thing. Why?'
"I explained that, in music-hall, my act ran fifteen minutes, which was the length of Bolero. I loved the number, I meant no criticism but, to include it, I had to make cuts.
"Jacques said, 'The master he ask, do you know Arturo Toscanini?'
"Yes, I had met him.
"Jacques said, 'The master, he say that Toscanini plays the whole thing.'
"Well, he had me there. What could I say? The conversation languished. I held out the record to Ravel to sign. (I had never asked for an autograph before, have never asked for one since. It was pure embarrassment.) Ravel looked surprised.
"Jacques said: 'The master say, he thought the record was for him.' Now I was surprised. Ravel had given every sign of loathing the record and me. Then Ravel held up his hands, they were shaking. He said that he had palsy, had written nothing in the past five years. I apologized and we left. A few days later Jacques phoned me and told me to get to his record shop at once; the master was there. Ravel was bundled in a heavy coat and a scarf though it was a warm day. He said that, by sitting in a dark room and concentrating, he had been able to steady his hand, long enough to write his signature and he had brought it to me. I was touched and honoured by Ravel's gesture but felt guilty as I hadn't really wanted the autograph.
"In 1940 I was soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra's Robin Hood Dell concerts. Saul Caston, the conductor, suggested an encore; when I chose Bolero the librarian objected. Performance fees for one performance were very high, not worth it for an encore. Elkan, Vogel, Ravel's publishers, were in Philadelphia; I went to their office and announced myself. Mr. Elkan came out and told me he knew about me. Ravel had left instructions that I was to have free rights to play the Bolero in whatever medium I pleased. That right is unique to me."

Morton Gould's First Decca and Columbia Sets

Summertime, and the listenin' is easy....or it should be, I suppose. Anyway, it seems a good time to share my latest Morton Gould acquisitions, One of these is his first-ever album, a group of piano solos recorded for Decca in 1940. His association with Decca did not last long; it produced exactly one other set (with a string orchestra) before he switched to Columbia, a relationship that proved much more fruitful. His first album with Columbia (as a conductor) included one of the same pieces as the first Decca set. This was the delightful "Pavanne" - his most popular piece - which he deliberately spelled incorrectly, with two n's, in the hope that ignorant radio announcers would pronounce it correctly!

Morton Gould At The Piano in a Group of His Own Compositions:
1. Pavanne (from "American Symphonette No. 2")
2. The Prima Donna (from "Caricatones")
3. American Caprice
4. The Child Prodigy (from "Caricatones")
5. Tropical
6. The Ballerina (from "Caricatones")
7. Deserted Ballroom
8. Gavotte (from "American Symphonette No. 3")
Recorded October 9, 1940
Decca set DA-195, four 10" 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 66.01 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 42.12 MB)

A Morton Gould Concert
1. Gould: Pavanne (from "American Symphonette No. 2")
2. Friml: Donkey Serenade (from "The Firefly")
3. Freire: Ay, Ay, Ay
4. Trad.: España Cañi
5. Trad.: Dark Eyes
6. Rodgers-Hart: Where or When (from "Babes in Arms")
Morton Gould and His Orchestra
Recorded c. April-May 1942
Columbia set C-96, three 12" 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 62.98 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 41.70 MB)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss (?)

The "Pavanne" was originally written for orchestra, but the other selections in the Columbia set feature Gould as arranger. Somehow he works in a reference to Enesco's Roumanian Rhapsody No. 1 in his arrangement of the Russian folk song "Dark Eyes". Of the piano compositions, attention is called to the group for which he coined the word "Caricatones" - for me, the most amusing of these is "The Child Prodigy", in which he works in not only the expected Hanon and Kreutzer exercises but also references to Haydn's D Major piano sonata and Chopin's "Minute Waltz"!

Happy 125th, Sergei Prokofiev!

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

Saturday, April 23, marks a significant composer anniversary - the 125th birthday of Prokofiev (1891-1953). I present the recording that was my introduction to his "neoclassical" style - or, to put it more accurately, the first work of his in an academic form that I came to know, since the first copy of this set which I owned (purchased from Clark Music in Decatur, Ga.) was a gift to me for my 11th birthday, and at that age, the name Prokofiev meant to me only "Peter and the Wolf", of course, as well as the March from "The Love for Three Oranges." This first recording of the D Major Sonata, originally for flute but recast for violin at David Oistrakh's suggestion, has never been surpassed:

Prokofiev: Sonata in D Major, Op. 94a (1943)
Joseph Szigeti, violin; Leonid Hambro, piano
Recorded December 8 and 10, 1944
Columbia Masterworks MM-620, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 59.42 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 42.86 MB)

Incredibly, the liner notes (written by Szigeti himself) make no mention of the work's origin as a flute sonata, and for years I had no idea that it had been anything other than a violin piece. Then in high school, a flute-playing friend asked me if I had this recording. He was dissatisfied with James Galway's version, and his flute teacher, Warren Little (first-chair flutist of the Atlanta Symphony back then) had insisted that this Szigeti 78 set was the one to hear, because he played it like a "big Russian bear" - never mind, I suppose, that Szigeti was Hungarian! But he certainly had an affinity for Prokofiev....

Ortenberg, Foss and the Budapest Quartet

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

For a dozen years, beginning in 1932, one half of the famed Budapest String Quartet consisted of the Schneider brothers - Alexander as second violinist and Mischa as cellist.  Then in 1944, Alexander decided to strike out on his own with other projects (for example, a fruitful partnership with harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick), and he was replaced in the Quartet by the Odessa-born Edgar Ortenberg (1900-1996).  One of the first recording projects with Ortenberg, and in fact the first Budapest Quartet recording with him to be released, was this Mozart quintet with another frequent Budapest collaborator, Milton Katims (1909-2006):

Mozart: String Quintet in C Major, K. 515
Budapest String Quartet (Roisman-Ortenberg-Kroyt-Schneider)
with Milton Katims, second viola
Recorded February 6 and April 23, 1945
Columbia Masterworks MM-586, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 80.06 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 54.29 MB)

At about the same time, Ortenberg made his only American recording as a violin soloist, this first recording of a Hindemith violin sonata:

Hindemith: Sonata in E (1935) and
Foss: Dedication (1944)
Edgar Ortenberg, violin; Lukas Foss, piano
Issued May, 1944
Hargail set MW-300, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 43.73 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 27.12 MB)

This would also appear to be Lukas Foss' first appearance on record as either pianist or composer.  He was in his early 20s at the time.

Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 (Munch, New York Philharmonic)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

This Saturday, September 26, marks the birth anniversary of the great Alsatian conductor Charles Munch (1891-1968), and so I present the first recording he made in America, in 1947, not with the Boston Symphony (that appointment was to come two years later) but with the New York Philharmonic. It's also the second-only recording made anywhere of Saint-Saëns' "Organ" Symphony (after Piero Coppola's 1930 version for French HMV) - perhaps understandably, it wasn't until the stereo era that the piece became the vehicle for high-powered collaborations between famous organists and conductors that it is now:

Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 78
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York conducted by Charles Munch
Edouard Nies-Berger (organ); Walter Hendl (piano)
Recorded November 10, 1947
Columbia Masterworks set MM-747, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 90.03 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 54.40 MB)

Edouard Nies-Berger (1903-2002), born in Munch's hometown of Strasbourg, was a protegé of Albert Schweitzer. He came to the USA in 1922 and was the official organist of the New York Philharmonic at the time this recording was made. Shamefully, Columbia did not even bother to identify his first name, billing him on the cover and labels as "E. Nies-Berger." But that was more information than they gave about the pianist, who was completely uncredited. James North, in his Philharmonic discography, says that Walter Hendl (1917-2007), then the assistant conductor of the orchestra, fulfilled this role.

Happy Birthday, Antonín Dvořák!

Tuesday marks the 174th anniversary of the birth of Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904). I guess that means I'm a year ahead of celebrating a nice round number (175th), but so what? - any excuse to listen to Dvořák's music seems a good one to me. And so here is his Cello Concerto, one of the works composed in America, and suffused with nostalgia and homesickness. Of course, almost every cellist of note has recorded it, and most of these recordings that I've heard fall short of the ideal interpretation. It requires a performance of total emotional commitment, while at the same time avoiding sentimentality, and that's a fine line indeed! I think this version by Piatigorsky, himself a lifelong exile, comes as close as any I've heard (naturally, it doesn't hurt to have the support of Ormandy and his great orchestra):

Dvořák: Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104
Gregor Piatigorsky, cello
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded January 17, 1946
Columbia Masterworks set MM-658, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 88.01 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 64.36 MB)

This cover design of this set affords another excuse to add to my ongoing Alex Steinweiss gallery:

Brahms: Symphony No. 1 (Rodzinski)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

For four years, Artur Rodzinski was the music director of the New York Philharmonic (1943-47), but his recording career with that august organization occupied only two of them - eighteen sessions from December, 1944, to October, 1946. The first of these produced recordings of Tchaikovsky's "Pathétique" Symphony and of Gershwin's "An American in Paris" that were quickly released. The second session, four weeks later, produced this Brahms symphony which, for reasons unknown, had to wait over a year and a half for its issue:

Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York conducted by Artur Rodzinski
Recorded January 8, 1945
Columbia Masterworks set MM-621, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 108.62 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 72.20 MB)

This was only the second recording of a Brahms symphony made by the Philharmonic; it was preceded by Barbirolli's 1940 version of the Second. (A complete cycle did follow in the early 1950s, conducted by Bruno Walter.)

Mozart: Horn Concerto No. 4 (Dennis Brain)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

Today I present one of the earliest solo recordings by the tragically short-lived horn virtuoso Dennis Brain (1921-1957), which may not be particularly rare, perhaps (most of his recordings have been widely reissued over the years), but it is wonderful, and putting it on this blog is an excuse to put another delightful Steinweiss album cover into the public eye! This is, for all intents and purposes, the recording that introduced Dennis Brain to the American record-buying public (as a soloist, that is - the Léner Quartet's version of a Mozart divertimento, in which he and his father Aubrey had augmented the ensemble by two horns, had been issued here in 1940). It was the first to be made available as domestically-pressed discs obtainable through regular channels, some four years after it was released in England:

Mozart: Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-Flat, K. 495
Dennis Brain, with the Hallé Orchestra
conducted by Malcolm Sargent and Laurence Turner
Recorded June 21, 1943
Columbia Masterworks set MX-285, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 51.45 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 32.16 MB)

The double conductor attribution requires some explanation. The story is that Sargent was late for the recording session, so Turner, the orchestra's first violinist, took over and conducted the recording while waiting for him to arrive. English Columbia solved the problem of wording the record labels in a most frustrating manner for record collectors, by leaving off the conductor's name(s) entirely. At least they were honest, I suppose. Victor, when issuing Stokowski's 1939 recording of Saint-Saëns' "Carnival of the Animals" with the Philadelphia Orchestra, credited everything to Stoki, even though one of the sides was a retake conducted by Saul Caston.

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 2 (Mitropoulos)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

This weekend - March 1 - marks the 119th birth anniversary of the great Greek maestro, Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896-1960), principal conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra from 1937 to 1949. From 1939 to 1946 the orchestra and its conductor recorded exclusively for Columbia, afterwards signing on with RCA Victor. From their last series of Columbia sessions came this exciting version of Tchaikovsky's "Little Russian" Symphony:

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Op. 17 ("Little Russian")
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos
Recorded March 10 and 11, 1946
Columbia Masterworks set MM-673, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 85.70 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 58.08 MB)

Isaac Stern in Music from "Humoresque"

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

With another Academy Awards ceremony looming (the 87th!), it seems a fitting time to share this album of music from the 1946 Warner Brothers romantic melodrama, "Humoresque." This story about an aspiring young violinist's doomed affair with a wealthy socialite, played by Joan Crawford, has long been admired by Crawford's fans as one of her finest performances on film. I can see why, but for me, the film only works because of its glorious music, played on the soundtrack by Issac Stern and Oscar Levant, who also plays the part of best friend to the on-screen violinist (played by John Garfield). My problem with the picture is that neither of the lead characters seems particularly likable; in fact Levant's character is the most sympathetic in the film, unusually for him! Nor did I care for the underlying message, which seems to be: "don't get involved with a musician; they're all crazy and will drive you to suicide if you're so unfortunate as to fall in love with one!" When I watched the movie for the first time, it felt like I was sitting through endless periods of bickering dialogue while waiting for the all-too-brief musical interludes.  I'm sure that my little review probably tells more about me than about the film, but having said that, the best part of it, for me, is right here:

"Humoresque" - Selections from the film:
Dvořák: Humoresque
Rimsky-Korsakov: Flight of the Bumblebee
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde - Fantasie (arr. Waxman)*
Sarasate: Zigeunerweisen
Bizet: Carmen - Fantasy (arr. Waxman)
Isaac Stern, violin; *Oscar Levant, piano;
Orchestra conducted by Franz Waxman
Recorded August 14, 1946 (except the Wagner)
Columbia Masterworks set MM-657, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 87.39 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 55.99 MB)

The Wagner fantasie is the only work played uninterruptedly in the picture (as its climax, in fact), so it was dubbed from the soundtrack; the other pieces were studio recordings.

The story goes that Warner Brothers originally wanted Jascha Heifetz for the job of playing the violin on the soundtrack, but he demanded more money than Jack Warner was willing to pay, So "J.L." said "we'll get a talented kid to do it," went to San Francisco to hear Stern in a recital, and hired him on the spot. It was undoubtedly a big boost to Stern's career. He was all of 25 years old, and had just begun recording for Columbia.

Mozart: Symphony No. 39 (Szell)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss
(restored by Peter Joelson)

Growing up in the 70s, I would hear the term "Big Five" bandied about as it applied to American orchestras - those of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and Cleveland.  Thirty years prior, the number was the "Big Three" - neither the Chicago nor the Cleveland orchestras reached that exalted status until Fritz Reiner took over the one, and George Szell (1897-1970) the other.  Szell assumed the directorship in Cleveland in 1946, and held the post until his death, transforming the orchestra in the process.  Among the first of their many recordings is the following:

Mozart: Symphony No. 39 in E Flat Major, K. 543
Cleveland Orchestra conducted by George Szell
Recorded April 22, 1947
Columbia Masterworks set MM-801, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 66.44 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 43.76 MB)

This wasn't Szell's first recording of the Mozart E Flat Symphony.  One of his earliest recordings featured it, an acoustical version for German Odeon with the orchestra of the Berlin Staatsoper in 1924.  Of great rarity, I should imagine - I've never encountered it.

The Cleveland Orchestra was already a fine one when Szell took it over, as many recordings with it by Nikolai Sokoloff, Artur Rodzinski and Erich Leinsdorf prove.  One of the first I ever owned is this one by Rodzinski of an old warhorse:

Tchaikovsky: Marche Slave, Op. 31
Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Artur Rodzinski
Recorded December 14, 1940
Columbia 11567-D, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 22.00 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 13.59 MB)

This is one of the reclaimed records that I talk about in this post; I bought it new from Clark Music in Decatur, Ga., in 1974, when I was 11, and I have been, so far, the only owner of this copy.

Tristan Love Duet (Traubel-Ralf, 1947)

Helen Traubel and Torsten Ralf
(as pictured in the liner notes for the present set)

For the end of 2014, a little Wagnerian treat featuring that great exponent of the master's soprano roles, St. Louis-born Helen Traubel (1899-1972), along with the Swedish tenor Torsten Ralf (1901-1954), whose birthday, incidentally, is next Friday (Jan. 2).  This is the duet from Act II, Scene 2 of "Tristan und Isolde" - actually a trio, because it's interrupted at two points by Brangäne, Isolde's maid, offstage, but her music is often either omitted from concert performances of the duet, or sung by the soprano taking Isolde's role (as Kirsten Flagstad did in her 1939 studio recording with Lauritz Melchior).  This recording appears to be the only one made during the 78-rpm era with a third singer taking her rightful lines - the Vienna-born Herta Glaz (1910-2006):

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde - Love Duet
Helen Traubel, soprano (Isolde)
Torsten Ralf, tenor (Tristan)
Herta Glaz, contralto (Brangäne)
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra conducted by Fritz Busch
Recorded March 16, 1947, in the Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Columbia Masterworks MX-286, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 49.90 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 33.00 MB)

My thanks to Adam Schweigert for sending me this set and several others as a result of discussions originating in the comments section to this post.  And my thanks to Peter Joelson for his restoration work on the cover image, another beautiful Steinweiss design:

My best wishes to everyone for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2015!

Mozart: Piano Concerto, K. 491 (Casadesus)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

I grew up on Robert Casadesus' recordings of the Mozart piano concertos, in his incomparable collaborations with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra from the 1950s and 1960s.  These were my introduction to these magical works, when I was a teenager, and ever since, this has seemed to me the right way to play Mozart.  So I was delighted to find recently the very first Mozart concerto recording made by the great French pianist (and although the pressing is not ideal, perhaps, being a postwar one, it does at least boast a Steinweiss album cover I hadn't encountered before):

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K. 491

Robert Casadesus, pianist

Orchestre Symphonique de Paris conducted by Eugène Bigot

Recorded December 20 and 21, 1937

and

Mozart: Rondo in D Major, K. 485

Robert Casadesus, pianist

Recorded December 8, 1937

Columbia Masterworks set MM-356, four 78-rpm records

Link (FLAC files, 86.04 MB)

Link (MP3 files, 58.56 MB)

Schumann: "Spring" Symphony (Leinsdorf)

Erich Leinsdorf

Spring is finally here, and after such a winter as we have had in the USA - one of the coldest I can remember - it's doubly welcome. And so here is Schumann's "Spring" Symphony, conducted by a young Erich Leinsdorf (1912-1993) in what appears to be his only commercial recording of the work. This was made during his first appointment conducting a major symphony orchestra, that of Cleveland, a position Leinsdorf would later characterize as "the bridge between the regimes" of Rodzinski and Szell. He was there for only three years, and all of his recordings with the orchestra were made over a period of three days in February, 1946. These include first American recordings of Dvořák's Sixth Symphony, Rimsky-Korsakov's "Antar" Symphony, and a suite from Debussy's "Pelléas et Mélisande" - the latter two sets released belatedly, after five Cleveland sets conducted by Szell had hit the market. The first of Leinsdorf's Cleveland recordings to be issued was the Schumann:

Schumann: Symphony No. 1 in B-Flat Major, Op. 38 ("Spring") and
Brahms: Chorale-Prelude "Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen" (orch. Leinsdorf)
The Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Erich Leinsdorf
Recorded February 24 and 25, 1946
Columbia Masterworks set MM-617, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 79.06 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 55.08 MB)

Curiously, neither the cover nor the record labels indicate the symphony's familiar nickname, even though it originated from the composer himself - as discussed in Paul Affelder's liner notes. The Steinweiss cover does, however, graphically portray the transition from winter to spring.

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss
(restored by Peter Joelson)

Bill Gale - Let's Polka!

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

"Who can resist the twinkling two-four tempo of the Polka?" So begin the liner notes for this album. Who indeed, especially when they are as well-played as here? More's the pity, that I can find out so little about the artist who presents these specimens of the dance. All I can establish with certainty is that his real name was Wasyl Gula, of Ukrainian ethnicity (that beleaguered country of late), that he fronted a number of different polka bands throughout his career, both under his birth name and under his Americanized name as Bill Gale, and that he also composed quite a number of polkas (including two in this album). The band here contains not only the expected accordions and clarinets, but also some surprising instruments like slide whistle and xylophone (quite startling it is to hear the latter instrument break into a virtuoso riff in the middle of Smetana's "Bartered Bride" Polka!). Irresistible, too, is the inspired silliness of the "Laugh Polka," and the nautical overtones of the "Goofy Gob" Polka (one of Mr. Gale's own). Here are the particulars of the set:

Let's Polka
Bill Gale and his Music Makers
1. Clarinet Polka
2. Smetana: Bartered Bride - Polka
3. Bell Polka
4. Laugh Polka
5. Helena Polka
6. Goofy Gob Polka
7. Beer Barrel Polka ("Roll Out the Barrel")
8. Gypsy Polka
Recorded March 25, 1941
Columbia set C-56, four 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 71.31 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 39.46 MB)