We've had a British thread underway here for a while without any contribution from the legendary Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor and eccentric. Here's one that combines Beecham's talent with that of an English composer who is not Delius, for once. It's Elgar.
For many years I read that Beecham and Elgar did not mix. Beecham didn't like Elgar's music and seldom performed it.
It's true that he did not perform Elgar that often - but then there were quite a few holes in Beecham's repertoire. Whether he liked it or not I can't say, but I can say that he conducted the Enigma Variations beautifully - and here is the evidence.
When conducting Elgar he did not evoke a unique atmosphere, as he did with Delius. But then this is much different music. What you get is superbly performed, well shaped, and seemingly sincere. You can't ask for much more than that.
This performance is from 1954. Recording venue was Walthamstow Town Hall.
15 comments:
Good old Tommy Beecham. When he was asked whether he had ever performed any Stockhausen, he answered, "No, but I once trod in some!"
You have tended to so many marvelous strands. Keep them going. I agree with your assessment of the Beecham. Any Myra Hess vinyl in your library?
@ Mel,
That's a good one! Never heard that before.
@ David,
You know, I don't think I have any Myra Hess on vinyl, but I'll look around. She didn't make very many records, if I remember correctly.
Thanks for this. Beecham has been a favorite of mine since I was a teenager (a long, long time ago), but I don't have any Elgar by him. Despite his witticisms, where he said lots of things for the effect they would have, he often conducted quite admirably composers he ostensibly couldn't abide. Even Wagner. His Covent Garden Wagner productions were supposed to be superb. This performance of the Enigma Variations doesn't exhibit the magisterial Edwardian pomp of so many recordings. But Tommy always did have a way of cutting through the crap. He knew how to make the first suggestion of an important theme suggestive, letting loose to deeply satisfying effect when the score finally said to bring it forward. Lovely, subtle, deeply musical. I love the man!
Lovely recording, thanks Buster. BTW i think the track no's should have been reversed. Var i-ix show as track #2.
@Daver88, Thanks! - There are some track anomalies on these early rips because o my inexperience. I think I may have been picking up track numbers from Audacity.
Buster:
Thank you for all the time necessary to rip, clean up and post all of these rare old 10 inch LPs. Were I ever able to retire, I might go through my considerable holdings of LPs and post some. Until then, They remain on the shelves and I turn instead to your offerings. Last week, I made up a CD from your Leo Sowerby orchestral LP for our church choir director, who is a fan of the late Mr. Sowerby. He was amazed and pleased that I (through you) had found this recording. Again, Thank you for all...and especially for your witty comments!
-Dan in West Michigan, USA
@OBHS_DNA:
Dan, thanks so much for your wonderful note. Really made my day. I do very much want to provide music to people like you and your choir director who respond to people like Sowerby. By the way, one of these days I am going to get around to a rare performance of Sowerby's Classic Concerto, composer conducting, with Marilyn Mason, recorded in Westminster Abbey in 1957.
Re up? at your earliest convenience. Thanks a bunch
Re up? at your earliest convenience. Thanks a bunch
Remastered version (Apple lossless):
https://mega.nz/#!yNNwUBQL!ZVaRY4UpKK1CMBnStM54F9KRoCVu3AqXCD8fGIZ720o
thanks!
"Rather like a cow looking over a gate" was allegedly Beecham's response after a playing of RVW's Third. Yet he DID love more lyrically engratiating British impressionistic/ethnic/folk and nature influenced music--and SOME modern works.
Case in point: the film composer Brian Easdale's ballet suite "The Red Shoes" which TB was tasked to conduct with the Royal Philharmonic for the film. I've worked over the sound a bit.
Other items in my folder, linked below, are 78 and Lp transfers that were collaborations between me and a certain Chicago area friend who may or may not want attribution: in particular, Atterberg's Sixth. I was horribly disappointed by the Dutton CD, having been spoilt by the World Record Club issue, transferred by the legendary AC Griffith; but that was thin and had clicks and pops. My friend and I tried to work over the noises and I made an attempt to "help" the last 30 seconds of the final side, which sounded oddly distorted and thin.
The Handel and Haydn added were an old Columbia Masterworks LP issue from 1950 masters (presumably; maybe as early as '49) and I have always dearly loved this Beecham arrangement of "The Faithful Shepherd." I think, too, that this older mono Haydn 93 was even better than his later c.1958 EMI recording, done in France but oddly in mono--in an era when everybody else was doing stereo. The EMI LP and CD issues are in fake stereo (though pretty nicely accomplished at any rate); this transfer we've worked over is of course pure mono. I think the sound is just a BIT more robust than a UK CD reissue of the Handel; and I must add that my friend and I made some effort to correct the erratic pitch shifts in the Haydn at some obvious edit-joins.
https://www70.zippyshare.com/v/f7pczKIk/file.html
(75 MB zipped mp3s)
Upload will be deleted by the web provider by around August 15, 2018.
8H Haggis
Incidentally, our transfer was done from the original 78 rpm set of the Atterberg, by the early "Royal Philharmonic Society" orchestra, not the same ensemble as the postwar RPO that Beecham established. So the general surface noise is much greater than the WRC LP transfer, as Griffith used (I believe) EMI's stampers and struck new vinyl pressings from them; we were limited to the shellacs but STILL got much more vivid sound than the dessicated, wrung out, and "squinchy" sounding Dutton issue--yuch!
8HH
I was just listening to another Beecham recording of the Enigma Variations the other day - very good!
It seems to me that I had a go at the Atterberg myself a while back, for my own amusement. I don't recall the source.
The commercial recording of the Easdale is elsewhere on this blog, Muir Mathieson conducting. Looking forward to hearing the Beecham original.
Thanks again!
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