Happy Birthday, Claudio Monteverdi!

Claudio Monteverdi. c. 1630

We have a very important composer anniversary this month - the 450th anniversary of the birth of Claudio Monteverdi (May 9. 1567), and so I present the first complete recording of his first opera, "L'Orfeo" (1607). This may not be the first opera ever written - that honor goes to "Dafne" by Jacopo Peri (now lost) - but it is the first acknowledged masterpiece in the new genre.  It is also the earliest opera to be in the standard repertoire, although that was probably not the case in 1939, the year this recording was made:

Monteverdi: L'Orfeo - Favola in Musica
Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra under the direction of Ferruccio Calusio
Recorded December, 1939
Musiche Italiane Antiche 014 through 025, twelve 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 282.17 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 174.67 MB)

And how does this recording stack up today, in the wake of over three-quarters of a century of a performance tradition of this music? Quite well, in my opinion. The producers of this set took pains to ensure that the sound of Monteverdi's orchestra was reproduced faithfully, within the confines of what was possible at the time. True, most of the instruments are modern, and the singers are all of the Verdi-Puccini operatic tradition. But the singing - led by Enrico de Franceschi in the title role - is never less than beautiful, and, in the case of Albino Marone (singing the dual parts of Caronte and Plutone), full of character. The string playing is a little lackluster, perhaps, but the continuo work is all excellent, particularly that of Corradina Mora on her Pleyel harpsichord. The whole performance was obviously a labor of love for all involved. One can imagine them glorying in the positive aspects of their Italian heritage at a time when the world was falling apart around them.

Incidentally, at the Library of Congress' "National Jukebox", it is possible to sample what are probably the earliest recordings ever made of Monteverdi's music - two excerpts from "L'Orfeo" as sung by Reinald Werrenrath and accompanied by the usual Victor studio orchestra, recorded in 1914 for the company's educational series.

Oscar Seagle in Two Sacred Songs

Oscar Seagle

Born in Ooltewah, Tennessee (now a suburb of Chattanooga), baritone Oscar Seagle (1877-1945) enjoyed a successful career as a concert singer and teacher during the early 20th century. A student of Jean de Reszke, in 1915 he founded a music school. the Seagle Music Colony, which is still in existence, and which claims to be the oldest summer vocal training program in the USA. Seagle recorded prolifically for Columbia between 1914 and 1926, with 96 issued sides to his credit. A measure of his enduring popularity among record buyers can be gauged by the fact that of 11 acoustically recorded discs listed as still available in the 1937 Columbia Catalogue, one of them was Seagle's (a coupling of "Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms" and "When You And I Were Young, Maggie"). About a third of his recorded output was of hymns and sacred songs such as the two presented here:

Tillman: Life's Railway to Heaven*
Lorenz: The Name of Jesus Is So Sweet
Oscar Seagle, baritone, with orchestra and *male quartet
Recorded March 28-29, 1921
Columbia A-3420, one 10-inch 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC files, 19.56 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 11.25 MB)

I find "The Name of Jesus" a rather saccharine song, though Seagle sings it well. "Life's Railway to Heaven", however, with its railroad allusions, is a song I've loved since childhood, when I knew it from a George Beverly Shea album my grandmother had. In later years the song has become a standard for country and bluegrass artists, perhaps most movingly in this performance by Johnny Cash with a large backup group including the Carter Family, Earl Scruggs and a young Mark O'Connor.

Happy Birthday, George Frederick Handel!

The 330th anniversary of the birth of George Frederick Handel is Monday, February 23, and to celebrate, I'm revisiting the reclaimed record pile, which had a number of single 78s of Handel's music.  Here are a couple of the most interesting ones:

Handel: Nel dolce dell'oblio - Cantata, HWV 134
Ethel Luening, soprano; Otto Luening, flute;
Sterling Hunkins, cello; Ernst Victor Wolff, harpsichord
Recorded c. 1936
Musicraft 1010, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 25.30 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 13.53 MB)

Handel: Chaconne in G Major (with 21 variations), HWV 435
Yella Pessl, harpsichord
Recorded June 3, 1936
Columbia 68599-D, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 27.95 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 15.58 MB)

The Musicraft record was one of that company's very first releases.  It features Otto Luening (1900-1996), later to gain fame as an electronic music pioneer, and his then-wife, Ethel (neé Cobb).  The record by Yella (Gabriella) Pessl (1906-1991) is one of about eighteen issued by Columbia in 1936 and 1937; she then defected to Victor, where she concentrated on recording chamber music, while Ernst Victor Wolff (1889-1960), a mainstay of the early Musicraft catalog, replaced her as Columbia's resident harpsichordist.  Both Pessl and Wolff, incidentally, used a Maendler-Schramm harpsichord (a German make in production between 1906 and about 1960), and the recording careers of both seem to have petered out after about 1940.

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!

Roll Over "Holly Jolly Christmas"!

Burl Ives, c. 1949

The commercialization of Christmas that has taken place over the last hundred years or so gave rise, during the 1940s through the 1960s, to a cottage industry in secular Christmas songs to supplement the traditional carols of yore.  These have ranged from inspired ("Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" - especially as sung by Judy Garland in "Meet Me In St. Louis") to great fun ("All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth") to insipid drivel ("Have a Holly Jolly Christmas").  For me, it is one of the tragedies of the age that Burl Ives (1909-1995), with all his talents as a folk singer and actor, seems destined to be remembered by younger generations only for his hammy rendition of that stupid song, a rendition that has always sounded to me like he hated it, too.  With this week's offering I attempt to redress the balance, by presenting the second Columbia album featuring his inimitable and beautifully sung stylings of folk-song material:

The Return of the Wayfaring Stranger:
1. On Sourwood Mountain
2. Little Mohee
3. Troubadour Song
4. Lord Randall
5. Bonnie Wee Lassie
6. Colorado Trail
7. Roving Gambler
8. John Hardy
9. The Divil and the Farmer
Burl Ives, vocal with own guitar accompaniment
Recorded February, 1949
Columbia set C-186, four 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 60.43 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 39.79 MB)

Nelson Eddy the Operatic Whale

Walt Disney's 8th animated feature film was (by the company's own count) the 1946 collection "Make Mine Music." This hodgepodge of ten short musical films is sometimes referred to as "the poor man's 'Fantasia'" because it featured mostly popular music, rather than the Stokowski-led classical selections in the earlier feature, and did so most entertainingly with the likes of Dinah Shore, the Andrews Sisters, and (in two of the film's best sequences) Benny Goodman.  There were two exceptions to this: an abridged version of Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" in which story elements were rearranged - a segment that would have nothing going for it if it weren't for the delightful narration of Sterling Holloway, better known as the voice of Winnie-the-Pooh, and this touching finale of the film, a vehicle for the multi-tracked talents of Nelson Eddy:

"The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met"
Nelson Eddy, with orchestra conducted by Robert Armbruster
Recorded c. 1946
Columbia Masterworks set MM-640, three 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 47.77 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 31.30 MB)

This recording is taken directly from the soundtrack of the picture, with the exception of about two minutes' worth of introductory material in which Eddy demonstrates the "Willie-the-Whale Method" of multi-voiced singing by performing "Three Blind Mice" as a round.  The package is an object lesson in how material from films were marketed for home use in those days long before videocassettes or DVDs.  The inside front and back covers (included as JPG files with this download) are illustrated with line drawings of the story, so that the listener who hadn't seen the movie could get some idea of what was occurring.  I won't give the story away here, but will say that there is plenty of good music in the telling of it, from "Shortening Bread" to excerpts from Rossini, Donizetti and Wagner, with Eddy providing the narration and all the voices - even the soprano in a fragment of a duet from "Tristan und Isolde"!

There is a DVD available of "Make Mine Music" which is well worth owning (and quite reasonably priced, too), but it unfortunately omits the first segment of the film, "The Martins and the Coys," because it contains "graphic gunplay not suitable for children."

Maggie Teyte in 18th-Century Arias

Cover design by Henry Stahlhut

The great British-born soprano Maggie Teyte, née Margaret Tate (1888-1976) made her reputation as an interpreter of French art songs, especially those of Debussy, who actually coached her for the role of Mélisande in his opera Pelléas et Mélisande when she replaced its originator, Mary Garden.  As the vast majority of her discography is of music written after 1850, it is something of a surprise to hear her in music that is mostly from a century earlier, as in this rather rare album:

French Operatic Arias

1. Pergolesi: La Servante Maîtresse - Air de Zerbina

2. Monsigny: Rose et Colas - Le Sagesse est un trésor

3. Grétry: Zémire et Azor - Rose chérie

4. Dourlen: Les Oies de Frère Philippe - Je sais attacher des rubans

5. Monsigny: Le Déserteur - Adieu. chère Louise

6. Grétry: Le Tableau Parlant - Vous étiez, ce que vous n'êtes plus

Maggie Teyte, soprano, with orchestra conducted by Jean Paul Morel

Recorded September 21 and 23, 1946

RCA Victor set MO-1169, three ten-inch 78-rpm records

Link (FLAC files, 51.97 MB)

Link (MP3 files, 27.1 MB)

Actually, of course, Pergolesi wasn't French, but as the liner notes to this set make clear, his opera La Serva Padrona (which Teyte here sings an aria from, in French) was a big influence on French opera, and, by extension, on Mozart.

As I was working on this transfer, I found myself thinking of one of my earliest record-collecting influences, William P. (Bill) Brooks, who was a big fan of Maggie Teyte.  Mr. Brooks was a kindly old gentleman in his 70s when I first knew him (I was 11) with a little white mustache that reminded me of Arthur Fiedler; he himself had been collecting records since his teen years, and that was when Caruso was an active recording artist!  His house in the Virginia-Highlands neighborhood of Atlanta was crammed with records of all speeds and sizes, and he would invite me over and sell me 78s cheaply to encourage my own budding hobby.  Through records I got from him I discovered the genius of Koussevitzky, Albert Coates, Vaclav Talich, Schnabel, Gieseking, the Flonzaley Quartet and countless others; he even introduced me to the delights of Florence Foster Jenkins!

His musical tastes were idiosyncratic, to say the least.  He disliked Bach, my favorite composer, and I would rib him about this mercilessly, which he took with his usual good nature. On the other hand, he liked Handel, and preferred Haydn to Mozart.  His favorite composer was Berlioz, and he admired Mahler long before Mahler was fashionable; he had long owned the Bruno Walter 78 sets of "Das Lied von der Erde" and the Ninth Symphony.

Not one to sit around the house after his retirement, Mr. Brooks worked until the end of his life, manning the exit desk four hours per day at the library at Emory University, where I often would go and chat with him.  Mr. Brooks passed away in 1986, aged 86, when I was 23, and I feel privileged to have known him.  His birthday, I discovered through a Google search, was August 18, so I am putting this Maggie Teyte set up today in his honor.  Happy birthday, Bill Brooks, wherever you may be.

Bill Brooks at his library post, c. 1978
(talking to my little brother, Gregory)

Wagner: Die Walküre, Act II

Richard Wagner, 1871

"Richard Wagner, I hate you - but I hate you on my knees."  Thus spake Leonard Bernstein about the composer whose bicentennial (May 22, 1813) we celebrate this month, and the quote gets to the heart of a curious paradox about Wagner: that the most anti-Semitic composer in music history, whom Hitler idolized above all others, should have among his most persuasive interpreters a number of Jews, from Hermann Levi in his own time to Klemperer and Bruno Walter during the Nazi era.  The set I present today offers a graphic example of this dichotomy.  One-fourth of this set features the inspired direction of Bruno Walter with Lotte Lehmann and Lauritz Melchior, recorded in Vienna in 1935 (at the same time as their famous recording of Act I).  The remainder, recorded three years later in Berlin (after the Nazis' annexation of Austria), features the reliable but relatively workmanlike direction of Bruno Seidler-Winkler, with a young Hans Hotter as Wotan.  EMI has offered this recording as a CD reissue, but in order to fit it complete on one disc has cut out one of the orchestral interludes.  I offer it complete, but with a choice of downloading one long file (82 minutes) or, for those who like to burn CDs from their downloads, in two files of 43 and 39 minutes respectively:

Wagner: Die Walküre, Act II (nearly complete)
Hans Hotter, Marta Fuchs, Margarete Klose and Lauritz Melchior with the
Berlin State Opera Orchestra conducted by Bruno Seidler-Winkler and
Lotte Lehmann, Lauritz Melchior and Emanuel List with the
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bruno Walter
RCA Victor set DM-582, ten 78-rpm records
Link (one FLAC file, 218.57 MB)
Link (two FLAC files, 217.35 MB)
Link (one MP3 file, 110.10 MB)
Link (two MP3 files, 108.81 MB)

This act contains five scenes, of which 1, 2 and 4 were recorded in Berlin, and 3 and 5 in Vienna.  The description "nearly complete" is necessary because five cuts, totalling 97 bars, are made in Scene 2.

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13 (Ormandy)

Cover design by Thomas Upshur

Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony, based on five poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, is one of the Russian master's most powerful works, and represents the closest he ever came to outright public dissent against the Soviet government.  So close was it to the composer's heart that he celebrated the date of its completion, July 20, 1962, as an anniversary for the rest of his life; only the date of the première of his First Symphony enjoyed a similar honor.  The Soviet authorities, naturally, did their best to suppress the Thirteenth Symphony, banning it after two performances.  An unofficial recording of the second of these performances, conducted by Kiril Kondrashin, somehow turned up on Everest in 1967, in terrible sonics made worse by their unfortunate application of fake stereo.  This recording by Ormandy was the first professionally made one, done in the wake of the Western première, from a score that had to be smuggled out of the USSR:

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13, Op. 113 ("Babi Yar")
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
with Tom Krause, baritone, and the Male Chorus of the Mendelssohn Club
Recorded January 21 and 23, 1970
RCA Red Seal LSC-3162, one stereo LP record
Link (FLAC files, 293.23 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 113.5 MB)

I'm very fond of this recording; I got to know the work through it some thirty-seven years ago from, believe it or not, an 8-track tape!  Ormandy went on to make early recordings of Shostakovich's last two symphonies; I also had the Fifteenth as an 8-track.

Links for my previous posts are now restored going as far back as April, 2011, and I hope to have everything back up and running within the week.

Mendelssohn: Elijah (Sargent, 1947)

Felix Mendelssohn died on November 4, 1847, and to commemorate the 100th anniversary of this, Columbia issued this set of one of his grandest works, the 1846 oratorio Elijah.  This set actually was intended to replace an earlier (1930) recording of the work, conducted by Stanford Robinson, which featured two of the same soloists on the present recording - Isobel Baillie, soprano, and the great Harold Williams, bass-baritone, in the title role.  The other two soloists are Gladys Ripley, contralto, and James Johnston, tenor.  Except for Williams, these are exactly the same forces (soloists, chorus, orchestra and conductor) that were heard on the previous year's recording of Handel's Messiah which I uploaded around this time last year.  (Sargent would go on to record the work again, about ten years later, with the same chorus and orchestra but with different soloists.)

Mendelssohn: Elijah - Oratorio, Op. 70
Soloists, Huddersfield Choral Society and Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent
Recorded May 29 - June 1, 1947
Columbia Masterworks Set MM-715, sixteen 78-rpm records in two volumes
Link (FLAC files [part 1], 175.22 MB)
Link (FLAC files [part 2], 161.05 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 154.12 MB)

Ormandy's Beethoven Ninth

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

Here's another treat for you Ormandy fans out there - the first of his two recordings of the Beethoven Choral Symphony, recorded only two weeks after V-E Day in 1945 (incidentally, at the same time as the Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky Cantata I uploaded earlier).  It features the Westminster Choir, directed by John Finlay Williamson, and soloists Stella Roman, Enid Szantho, Frederick Jagel, and Nicola Moscona.  This recording boasts two "firsts" - it was the first commercially-available recording of the Ninth made outside of a German-speaking country to have the vocal portions sung in the original German, and it was the first available on LP (in 1949).  It's also one of the few 78-era recordings to take the second repeat in the Scherzo - the only others I'm aware of are the two by Albert Coates (acoustical and electrical).

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125
Soloists, Westminster Choir and Philadelphia Orchestra
Conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded May 20 and 21, 1945
Columbia Masterworks set MM-591, eight 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 147.71 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 80.87 MB)

This is one of the few Columbia 78 sets to circulate with two distinct Steinweiss covers.  The other one looked like this:

(Please excuse the poor scan; it was lifted from an eBay ad.)  I suspect that this graphic illustration of "alle Menschen werden Brüder" was thought too hot to handle in some markets, although I once had a copy of the set with this cover, and the price sticker inside revealed that it had originally been purchased at Rich's Department Store - in Atlanta!

UPDATE (July 3, 2017): Since writing the above, I've found one source that seems to indicate that the blue cover was actually a replacement for the pink cover - see this article called "Beethoven in a Pink Cloud" in the Saturday Review of Literature (October 30, 1948).

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.

Ormandy: Two Prokofiev Premières

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

Eugene Ormandy had a natural affinity for 20th-century music, and he also had an affinity for Russian music.  When the two intersected, as in the works of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, the results were usually memorable.  Here are two recordings of major Prokofiev scores, in each case a first recording:

Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky - Cantata, Op. 78
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
with the Westminster Choir, and Jennie Tourel, mezzo-soprano
Recorded May 21, 1945
Columbia Masterworks ML-4247, one vinyl LP record
Link (FLAC files, 102 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 54.53 MB)

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 6 in E-Flat minor, Op. 111
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded January 15, 1950
Columbia Masterworks ML-4328, one vinyl LP record
Link (FLAC files, 107.28 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 52.55 MB)

Both recordings also appeared as 78-rpm sets, the Symphony concurrently, the "Alexander Nevsky" four years previously.  Ormandy re-recorded both works in stereo, the Symphony for Columbia in 1961, and "Alexander Nevsky" for RCA in 1975.

Danny Kaye's First Album

This weekend I bring you the first album by that wonderful American comedian, Danny Kaye (1913-1987).  Eight songs are presented here (two of them by his wife, Sylvia Fine) which demonstrate his gift for mimicry, affecting Russian, French and British accents.  (I have borrowed Ken Halperin's image of the album cover, pictured above, from his site Collecting Record Covers, as my copy of the cover is in terrible shape, disfigured by coffee stains.  This cover is unsigned and therefore probably not by Steinweiss.)  Here are the details:

Danny Kaye
1.  Let's Not Talk About Love (Cole Porter - "Let's Face It")
2.  Minnie The Moocher
3.  Farming (Cole Porter - "Let's Face It")
4.  Anatole of Paris
5.  The Babbitt and the Bromide (Gershwin - "Funny Face")
6.  The Fairy Pipers
7.  Eileen
8.  Dinah
Orchestras conducted by Johnny Green and Maurice Abravanel
Recorded 1941-42
Columbia set C-91, four 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 61.32 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 25.98 MB)

A few words about individual songs: "Eileen" (one of those by his wife) is the only one here to be sung straight.  "The Fairy Pipers" is the oldest song here, published in 1912; a straight version, sung by Sigrid Onegin, can be heard on YouTube here.  "Farming" must surely be the earliest song to use the word "gay" in its modern sense as "homosexual" - and it's used in its original sense as well.

"Is Everybody Happy?" - Ted Lewis

Here's a complete change of pace - my first upload of vintage popular music on this blog.  I hope those of you who have come to expect classical recordings from me will indulge me here, but I have loved the unique stylings of Ted Lewis, the "high-hatted tragedian of jazz," ever since discovering them about 20 years ago.  And when Ken Halperin of Collecting Record Covers very kindly sent me a copy of this set (and several other 78 sets) after having featured the Steinweiss cover on his blog, I was moved to share it here.  So here it is:

"Is Everybody Happy?"
Ted Lewis and his Band
1. Blues (My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me)
2. Good Night
3. Some of These Days (with Sophie Tucker)
4. On the Sunny Side of the Street
5. Somebody Stole My Gal
6. Tiger Rag
7. Have You Ever Been Lonely?
8. The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise
Recorded 1926-33
Columbia Set C-69, four 10" 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 72.72 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 28.95 MB)

Four of the above sides feature Ted's vocals, with a lazily spoken delivery that surely influenced the Ink Spots several years later.  Three of the sides feature his rather squawky clarinet playing.  Many people find these recordings corny, and because of that, many jazz historians tend to downplay Ted Lewis' influence as a jazz artist.  But in his heyday (the 1920s and early 30s) he was highly respected, and a number of great jazzmen came through his band, including both Dorsey brothers and Benny Goodman.

The First Electrical Beethoven Ninth (Weingartner, 1926)

Just in time for Beethoven's birthday later this week, here is the first electrical recording of what is, for many (myself included), his greatest symphony.  It features the London Symphony Orchestra, with chorus, conducted by Felix Weingartner, and a solo quartet consisting of Miriam Licette, Muriel Brunskill, Hubert Eisdell and Harold Williams.  The vocal portions are sung in English, as they are on Albert Coates' two recordings of the Ninth - the acoustical one of 1923 which I posted earlier, and the electrical one dating from seven months later than Weingartner's:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 ("Choral")
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Felix Weingartner,
with soloists and chorus
Recorded March 16 and 17, 1926
Columbia Masterworks Set No. 39, eight 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 154.21 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 68.98 MB)

I had a request for this recording when I posted Weingartner's acoustical recordings of Beethoven and Brahms last month. Although I was a little leery of attempting a transfer, given the rather worn condition of the records, nevertheless they cleaned up better than I had any reason to hope, and so I offer my transfer here.  Happy Beethoven's Birthday, everyone!

Sargent's 1946 "Messiah"

The Christmas season is upon us again, and, to help us get into the spirit, here is Malcolm Sargent's complete 1946 recording of Handel's "Messiah," the first of four he was to make of the oratorio, and the first of three with the Huddersfield Choral Society and Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.  This was intended to replace Beecham's pioneering 1928 set in the Columbia catalogue, and would, in the American catalogues at least, come into competition with Beecham's second recording when RCA Victor released it in 1948.  Sargent's account of the work is not quite as individual as Beecham's, perhaps, but on its own terms it is very satisfying, and boasts superb lady soloists in Isobel Baillie, soprano, and Gladys Ripley, contralto - neither of whom returned for Sargent's subsequent recordings.  The male soloists are James Johnston, tenor, and Norman Walker, bass.

Among the many felicities in this performance I would like to single out just one - notice what an absolute pianissimo the chorus achieves by the end of "All We Like Sheep."  I don't think that the sense of horror over "and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" has ever been conveyed more forcefully on record.

Handel: The Messiah
Soloists, Huddersfield Choral Society and Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Conducted by Malcolm Sargent
Recorded July 12-16 and September 26, 1946
Columbia Masterworks Set MM-666, nineteen 78-rpm records
Link 1 (FLAC files, part 1, 173.77 MB)
Link 2 (FLAC files, part 2, 189.86 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 174.7 MB)

As I mentioned earlier this year, when I posted several galleries of Steinweiss record covers of which this "Messiah" set was one, somebody at Columbia had a really wicked sense of humor, making this Masterworks Set No. 666!  I suspect Goddard Lieberson himself had a hand in this - he was head of Masterworks by this time.  Am I the only one who finds this funny?  Look at this picture of the two spines for the two albums - dotted with crosses, as if to ward off the evil influence of the fatal number:

Bach's "Wachet auf" Cantata (Robert Shaw)

One of the best-loved Bach cantatas, that on the Nicolai chorale "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme," is presented today in a recording by that greatest of choral conductors, Robert Shaw (1916-1999).  This cantata was written for the 27th Sunday after Trinity, a Sunday that occurs infrequently, only when Easter is particularly early in the year - in fact, I don't think the next 27th Sunday after Trinity will happen until 2035.  Well, I wasn't willing to wait that long to share this recording.  Taking note of the fact that the 27th Sunday after Trinity was also, always, the last Sunday before Advent, and also of the fact that this coming Sunday is the last Sunday before Advent for 2011, I decided that this weekend would be a liturgically appropriate time to present this recording, so here it is:

Bach: Cantata No. 140, "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme"
Soloists, RCA Victor Chorale and Orchestra conducted by Robert Shaw
Recorded June 25-26, 1946
RCA Victor Red Seal set DM-1162, four 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 64.47 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 32.57 MB)

The soloists are Suzanne Freil, soprano, and Paul Matthen, bass, who sing two duets, and Roy Russell, tenor, who sings the recitatives preceding these duets.  For the first of the duets Joseph Fuchs provides a violin obbligato, and for the second, the oboe obbligato is played by Robert Bloom.

Robin Hood on Young Peoples Records

Well, this is a little bit of a change of pace.  I present today a pair of records that I had and loved as a kid, Young Peoples Records' 1950 presentation of the Robin Hood story.  Admittedly, the tale is a bit sugar-coated in this version, with the Sheriff of Nottingham presented as a cowardly buffoon (one can hardly imagine the real Sheriff submitting as meekly to his eventual fate as this one does) - but how well-characterized he is, by the Metropolitan Opera tenor George Rasely (1889-1965).  And how wonderful are the tunes!  I really repsonded, as a youngster (and still do), to the maddeningly memorable, ersatz-Elizabethan songs, and the Sportsman's Song on side 3 owes quite a bit to Gilbert & Sullivan with its choral repetitions of the soloist's words.  The music was written by Herbert Haufrecht (1909-1998), about whom I can find out little other than that contained in his New York Times obituary here.  The narration is by Alexander Scourby (1913-1985), best-known as the first person to record the entire Bible, on talking books for the blind in the early 1940s - click here to see the American Federation of the Blind's page about Scourby.  And the script and lyrics are by Raymond Abrashkin (1911-1960), a frequent collaborator on Young Peoples Records, as was the conductor, Max Goberman.

Abrashkin-Haufrecht: Robin Hood
Soloists, chorus and orchestra conducted by Max Goberman
Recorded c. 1950
Young Peoples Records 1010-11, two 10-inch vinyl 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 39.16 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 22.31 MB)

As I said, I had these records as a child, but I re-acquired the set about five years ago from an online dealer, and therefore obtained what I didn't have previously, namely, the original double sleeve (the front of which is pictured above).  The lyrics and text of the story are reproduced inside, and they are provided as JPG files with this download.

I had several dozen Young Peoples Records (and records on its affiliated label, Children's Record Guild), which, even in the early 1970s, were still available as 78s in specialized outlets.  Therefore I was fascinated by David Bonner's book about them which appeared in 2008.  (David's blog, named after his book, "Revolutionizing Children's Records," is among my blog links at right.  His first post of 2009 contains a bit written by yours truly.)  In the wake of the book's appearance, I transferred four Young Peoples Records on classical music subjects, all dating from the late 1940s, and posted them to the RMCR newsgroup.  These are still available, along with a new FLAC version; here are the details:

The Wonderful Violin (script and narration by Douglas Moore)
Mischa Mischakoff, violin
Young Peoples Records 311, one 10-inch vinyl 78-rpm record

Said the Piano to the Harpsichord (script by Douglas Moore)
David Allen, Gilbert Mack, Sylvia Marlowe
Young Peoples Records 411, one 10-inch vinyl 78-rpm record

Round and Round - Fun and Facts on the Fugue
David Allen, Gene Lowell Chorus, Horace Grenell (piano)
Young Peoples Records 431, one 10-inch vinyl 78-rpm record

Weber: Rondo for Bassoon and Orchestra
Eli Carmen (bassoon) with orchestra conducted by Max Goberman
Young Peoples Records 1009, one 10-inch vinyl 78-rpm record

All four records in one ZIP file with JPGs of the covers.
Link (FLAC files, 63.66 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 31.51 MB)

At the same time I uploaded a ridiculously abridged recording of Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf," from a Cricket 78 that has been in my possession since I was seven years old (and, I'm afraid, sounds like it!):

Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf (abridged)
"Reginald Carol" (narrator), with orchestra
Cricket C-11, one 7-inch vinyl 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 15.36 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 6.39 MB)

UPDATE (Aug. 25, 2015): I have just learned the actual provenance of the abridged "Peter and the Wolf" - it derives from a Royale LP, No. 1246, where the narration is credited to Bob Danvers-Walker (1906-1990), best known for his narration on British Pathé newsreels.  The anonymous orchestra is conducted by Reginald Leopold (1907-2003). Royale, of course, was an Eli Oberstein label, and "Obie" was known to license a bunch of children's material to Cy Leslie, founder of Pickwick Records, to jumpstart his Cricket Records line. This recording was one of those. The Royale issue was a full-length recording of "Peter and the Wolf" - which Cricket hacked down to a six-minute length, while cloaking Mr. Danvers-Walker in pseudonymity by borrowing the first name of his conductor!

Robert Shaw's Bach Magnificat

This week I present the first-ever recording of Bach's great Magnificat in D, the Virgin Mary's hymn of praise uttered while pregnant with the Christ Child (Luke 1:46-55).  This features the dean of American choral conductors, Robert Shaw (1916-1999) in one of his earliest recordings.  The chorus is the RCA Victor Chorale; the soloists are Suzanne Freil, soprano; Blanche Thebom, mezzo-soprano; Ernice Lawrence, tenor; and Paul Matthen, bass; and the orchestra is made up of New York musicians including William Vacchiano (of the New York Philharmonic), trumpet; Robert Bloom (of the NBC Symphony), oboe d'amore; and Arthur Lora (also of the NBC Symphony), flute.

Bach: Magnificat in D, BWV 243
Soloists, RCA Victor Chorale and Orchestra conducted by Robert Shaw
Recorded June 18, 1946
RCA Victor set DM-1182, five 10-inch records
Link (FLAC file, 72.59 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 35.29 MB)

It would be impossible to overestimate the influence that Robert Shaw had on American choral singing.  Toscanini famously said, after a 1945 performance of the Beethoven Ninth for which Shaw had trained the chorus, "in Robert Shaw I have at last found the maestro I have been looking for."  Shaw's influence on the musical life of my native city, Atlanta, is also incalculable.  To this day Atlanta is a city with many enthusiastic choral groups.  Shaw was music director of the Atlanta Symphony during my formative years (from 1967, when I was four, to 1988) and his choral concerts with the ASO and the ASO chorus were always big events.  In the spring of 1998 I was fortunate enough to hear one of his last performances, of the Bach B minor Mass.  I was sitting in the front row of Atlanta's Symphony Hall, and from the very start, with that big shout of "KYRIE" from the chorus I was jolted out of my seat, and remained on the edge the entire evening.  A magnificent performance in every way, the fruit of over fifty years of living with this great music.