This post is in response to a request by friend of the blog David Federman. David says he has never heard a version of Copland's Appalachian Spring to rival the first recording, by the Boston Symphony and Serge Koussevitzky. So here is that mid-40s recording for David, and I imagine many others, in a mid-50s transfer on RCA - and a pretty good one, too.
This also includes Koussevitzky's 1938 first recording of El Salón México, also sounding well, if enshrouded in reverb.
This pressing of Appalachian Spring had a fault toward the end of the side, so I patched in a short section from a much later Victrola pressing, which almost certainly used the same tape transfer for its master.
The latter album also included the BSO/Koussevitzky version of A Lincoln Portrait, with narrator Melvyn Douglas, so I have added that to the download as a bonus. Here the sound is a little cloudier and there is more pitch instability, possibly caused by making a new disk master from an old and creaky tape transfer. I am not that fond of Douglas' histrionic approach to Lincoln. Copland's words tell us that Lincoln was "a quiet and a melancholy man," but Douglas seems to disagree. Give me Charlton Heston with Abravanel, a more monumental approach that is well suited to the stylized (and much criticized) narrative and to Copland's music.
UPDATE - This has been remastered and the Appalachian Spring is a new transfer.
17 comments:
Obviously, I am VERY anxious to hear this one, Buster. Thanks... MAY I???
Scoredaddy - certainly!
Hi Buster,
Fine offering here! Been wanting to hear Koussy's Appalachian Spring for years...thanks much, nice job!
What is it that sets apart Koussevitzky's performance of "Appalachian Spring" from all others? Okay, maybe not all others. Bernstein's is very memorable, also. It's just that I feel this recording is incomparable in the way I feel Toscanini's very jazz-agey 1945 recording of "An American in Paris" is incomparable. I remember that I played that record (paired, I believe, with Prokofiev's "Classical Stmphony") nearly to death in high school and couldn't wait until the part where Toscanini wisely substituted Harry Glanz's trumpet for an English horn in one very memorable obligato part. To this day, this work doesn't sound right without Arturo's wonderful improvement. In any case, thanks for giving me the chance to hear this wonderful recording of "Appalachian Spring" again. I inexcusably missed its much-acclaimed reissue on Dutton. Maybe you could post Serge's equally memorable recordings of Roy Harris and Howard Hanson. Thanks.
David/Buster: do either of you know if these recordings have ever been issued on CD?
Scoredaddy, I think they have, although they are out of print - variously on Biddulph, Dutton and Pearl.
Thanks, Buster. Just finished listening to all three pcs. Interesting peformances, much different from other interpretations I have heard. I tend to agree with you, Buster, about the performance of Melvyn Douglas: unnecessarily over the top. my own personal favorite is still Henry Fonda's understated performance with Copland conducting, perhaps the EXACT opposite of Douglass' ranting.
Any chance of re-upping this one? I have been trying to find a copy for a long time. Thanks for the great work keeping these treasures alive!
I'll reup, assuming I can find the originals!
Hello Buster,
could you perhaps reupload this album once again? Thanks!
New link:
https://mega.nz/#!vN80hLYB!DnOP5G0mPMXeu9dlmXBYvADOkaZ-_ud2hHaXqPBLbwA
Great, thanks a lot!!
Buster:
These performances are ESSENTIAL to *any* historic collection, and -- as usual -- you've done them justice! I now prefer your upload to one I had on a commercial import CD.
Here's my quid-pro-quo. The Koussevitzky Prokofiev Classical Symphony is a very hi fi postwar Victor release of 1947, mastered originally as 33.3 rpm lacquers. Unfortunately there was one CD reissue of some years back that -- due to copyright reasons, as explained to me by its producer -- that had to use the Victor 78s, which were noisy and dim. I took a 30+ year old Lp called "The Aristocrat of Orchestras" that was a sampler of BSO recordings by Muck to Munch for my source.
I have included my own transfer of the RCA Victrola release of the 1970s of the 1950 performance of Sibelius' Second. If memory serves, I made an attempt to TRY to reduce some of the dreadful peak limiting that causes some havoc in the last movement. Otherwise it is an especially vivid recording.
Finally, here's the celebrated 1950 Victor Lp of a 1949 recording of the Tchaikovsky Serenade in C, taken down at the Tanglewood Music Shed in quite impressive hi fi sound. I somehow found an absolutely mint, unplayed copy of this in the 1960s, which I carefully preserved. I transferred this to digital around the year 2000 with a minimum of intervention: illustrates how good early Lps *could* be, at best. Spellbinding performance!
(Apologies for a gaffe I made when zipping the material; I had intended to include the Arthur Foote Suite but left it out accidentally. It will be appended separately.)
https://www37.zippyshare.com/v/Bxe9vLvG/file.html
8HH
(File available only for 30 days)
(69 MB, mp3s, zipped)
Koussy Upload No. 2:
My transfers of some further items.
I forgot to include the Arthur Foote Suite for Strings in my previous folder. It was wax-mastered at 78 rpm in 1940 in Symphony Hall; but it has the defect that some have called "The Whistling Victors". Apparently as the big wax blank cooled, the cutting stylus started to resonate near the end of some disk sides, and the last movement sounded VERY irritating on the late-sixties deluxe 3-record RCA Victor reissue box. Later it also came out on Vox. I personally transferred this years ago (cannot for the life of me remember which LP I used; but I added the Vox/Turnabout cover to the file); I had to employ a very sharp notch filter to the last movement to eliminate the "whistle". I *love* this piece, and the performance.
The Haydn Sym 94 was a very late Koussevitzky recording, and the 'surprise' had ENORMOUS oomph and impact; for once, the Victor engineers did not grotesquely squash it to death!
The lovely 1949 Satie Gymnopedies 1 and 3 were reissued on Lp in the sixties as part of an historic sampler record from RCA Victor called "The Aristocrat of Orchestras" commemorating some recordings by Muck, Koussy, and Munch. I believe it was bundled for a short time with one of Leinsdorf's early Dynagroove releases--maybe the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra. I used this disk for the transfer I made, also supplying the Prokofiev Classical Sym in the previous folder I have supplied. As you can hear, there was a faint complex mains buzz in the background in both, which I *assume* happened when these two recordings, of 1949 and 1947, were compiled for this particular LP. The buzz has so many faint harmonics that it couldn't be notched out. I doubt it was on the master since I did not hear it on the Biddulph CD of the Prokofiev, which was produced from the 78 rpm release DUBBED from the 33.3 rpm lacquer masters.
https://www67.zippyshare.com/v/v7BnBqt0/file.html
(36 MB, mp3s, zipped)
File expires in only 30 days.
8H Haggis
8H Haggis
Thanks! I have the Aristocrat LP but never thought to transfer it. There is a Hanson reading of the Foote suite on this blog, but I don't know if the link is still active.
Beautiful! Thanks so much.
Richard - My pleasure, as always.
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