Bruckner: Mass in E minor (Aachen Cathedral Choir)

Aachen Cathedral

Today I present an early recording of a Bruckner Mass, sung by the Aachen Cathedral Choir under its Domkapellmeister, Theodor Bernhard Rehmann (1895-1963).  This is the last of Bruckner's three masses (although published as the second), the Mass in E minor, and the only one to receive recordings during the 78-rpm era, doubtless because its smaller scale - it is accompanied only by wind and brass instruments - enhanced its feasibility for recording.  The work, in fact, was recorded three times in the 1930s: first for the obscure Christschall label, an Austrian company specializing in religious music, by the Liebfrauen Church in Zürich; and last by the Hamburg State Opera Chorus under Max Thurn, for Telefunken (released in the USA by Capitol), in the summer of 1938.  Between them came the present recording, for Electrola:

Bruckner: Mass in E minor
Aachen Cathedral Choir, with wind orchestra, conducted by T. B. Rehmann
Recorded April 1, 1938
Victor Musical Masterpiece set DM-596, six 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 114.46 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 59.32 MB)

Weber: Sonata No. 1 (Claudio Arrau)

Claudio Arrau, 1941

The Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau (1903-1991) left a vast recorded repertoire (a complete discography can be found here).  However, the portion of it dating from the 78-rpm era is quite meager, and it really only got underway when Arrau moved to New York in 1941 and began recording for Victor.  His output for Victor was not large (only five sets, plus a fascinating account of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" that didn't get released until 1988), but it featured large-scale works for the first time in his recording career.  The first recording he made for Victor was of this Weber sonata, a work he did not record again:

Weber: Sonata No. 1 in C Major, Op. 24
Claudio Arrau, piano
Recorded February 20, 1941
Victor Musical Masterpiece Set M-884, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 51.09 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 30.22 MB)

A PDF file, reproducing the original booklet for Set M-884, is included with the download.

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.

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.

A Gallery of Steinweiss Covers: Postscript

About a year ago, I was posting on this blog a series of album covers by the great illustrator, the late Alex Steinweiss, who passed away last July, aged 94.  Well, four more sets featuring his designs came in the mail just yesterday, courtesy of Larry Woodlee at Vinyl Rehab, and so I post them here.  The first three of these date from 1946, and the last from 1947:

The Schumann cover was slightly disfigured by a sticker and a couple of address stamps of its previous owner, Aquinas College in Nashville, Tennessee; and so, my heartfelt thanks go to Peter Joelson for his work on restoring this image.

I'll be back with some more Ormandy uploads in my next post - stay tuned!

Casadesus: Two Early Concerto Recordings

One of my all-time favorite pianists, the Frenchman Robert Casadesus (1899-1972) (pictured above in characteristic pose with pipe in mouth) is the subject of today's post.  Heir to a musical family - his uncles, Henri and Marius, were founding members of the Société des Instruments Anciens which pioneered in the use of historical stringed instruments - he remains unsurpassed to this day as an interpreter of the music of his friend Ravel, and I grew up on his wonderful recordings of Mozart concerti with George Szell conducting.  Here are two early concerto recordings by Robert Casadesus, the Weber work being a recorded première:

Weber: Konzertstück in F minor, Op. 79, for piano and orchestra
Robert Casadesus with orchestra conducted by Eugène Bigot
Recorded June 6, 1935
Columbia Masterworks set MX-59, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 36.69 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 18.69 MB)

Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 4 in C minor, Op. 44
Robert Casadesus with the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York
conducted by Artur Rodzinski
Recorded February 5, 1945
Columbia Masterworks set MM-566, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 62.6 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 32.91 MB)

Cover by Alex Steinweiss

My thanks again to Ken Halperin of Collecting Record Covers for supplying me with the Saint-Saëns set.

For those interested in Robert Casadesus, there's a wonderful website, with a complete discography, contributed to by (among others) members of the Casadesus family.

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.

Lalo: Cello Concerto (Maréchal)

Edouard Lalo

Like so many other composers, it has been the fate of Edouard Lalo (1823-1892) to be remembered for one work above all others, in his case the Symphonie Espagnole for violin and orchestra, written for Pablo de Sarasate.  Perhaps his best-known work after that is this Cello Concerto of 1876, which also boasts a connection with the great Spanish violinist.  If one of the themes of the last movement sounds oddly familiar (the one first heard in the slow introduction), it's because Sarasate borrowed it for his Habañera, Op. 21, No. 2, published a few years after this concerto was written.  Here is the Lalo concerto's first recording, made by the eminent French cellist, Maurice Maréchal (1892-1964):

Lalo: Concerto in D minor, for cello and orchestra
Maurice Maréchal, with orchestra conducted by Philippe Gaubert
Recorded June 5 and 6, 1932
Columbia Masterworks set MM-185, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 71.32 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 35.17 MB)

Maurice Maréchal

It's worth mentioning which other cello concertos were available on records at the time this Lalo concerto recording was released.  W. H. Squire had recorded the Saint-Saëns A minor and Elgar concertos for Columbia; Beatrice Harrison another version of the Elgar concerto with the composer conducting, for HMV; Feuermann had recorded the Dvořák concerto for Parlophone; and Guilhermina Suggia the Haydn D major for HMV, a recording I have posted here.  Incredibly, neither the Schumann nor the Boccherini-Grützmacher B-Flat were yet available on records.

Gould: American Concertette

Cover by Alex Steinweiss

The more works by New York-born Morton Gould (1913-1996) I hear, the more I am convinced that he is one of the most seriously underrated of American composers.  I'm sure the abundance of popular-music stylings that pop up in his pieces hasn't helped his case any, nor has the fact that, in the 1940s and 1950s at least, he made his share of Kostelanetz-like arrangements of popular tunes which he recorded with his own orchestra.  But the best of his work has wit, charm and craftsmanship second to none for an American composer.  Typical is this gem of a miniature piano concerto from 1943, which he originally called "American Concertette" - it didn't receive the subtitle "Interplay" until turned into a ballet two years later:

Morton Gould: Interplay (American Concertette), for piano and orchestra
Robin Hood Dell Orchestra of Philadelphia
Morton Gould, pianist and conductor
Recorded August 1, 1947
Columbia Masterworks set MX-289, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 39.55 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 20.96 MB)

The piece is in four short movements, the second of which is a quirky Gavotte, and the third a Blues that took on a life of its own as a solo piano piece.  Incidentally, the suffix "-ette" to denote works of smaller structure than full scale ones (e.g., "Concertette," "Symphonette") was Gould's invention, which he subsequently came to regret.