The delightful and striking cover seems to pay homage to Copland's "Quiet City," and perhaps Kent Kennan's "Night Soliloquy." An alternative cover used for an EP issue (at the end of the post) switches to a rural motif more in keeping with the conductor's "Pastorale."
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| Howard Hanson |
A few words about the lesser known composers:
Kent Kennan, an Eastman School graduate, spent most of his life teaching, but he was an active composer earlier in his career and near the end of his life. He wrote a few widely used instructional books.
Homer Keller was another product of the Eastman School. He wrote three symphonies and spent much time teaching.
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| Kent Kennan and Homer Keller |
Homer Keller was another product of the Eastman School. He wrote three symphonies and spent much time teaching.
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| Bernard Rogers and Wayne Barlow |
Bernard Rogers was head of Eastman's composition department for several decades.
Wayne Barlow earned undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees from Eastman, then taught there for many years. "The Winter's Past" is also known as "The Winter's Passed" - either makes sense, as would "The Winters Past," for that matter.
The recordings were made in October 1952 and May 1953. The sound has been remastered in ambient stereo and is very good. The download includes several reviews.
Wayne Barlow earned undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees from Eastman, then taught there for many years. "The Winter's Past" is also known as "The Winter's Passed" - either makes sense, as would "The Winters Past," for that matter.
The recordings were made in October 1952 and May 1953. The sound has been remastered in ambient stereo and is very good. The download includes several reviews.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of my personal "desert island disk" choices; and of the number of transfers I've seen on blogs, I believe that Buster's is the best.
DeleteI thought that perhaps your fans and advocates would like some now-rare Mercury items, not by Hanson, to round out their collections: things from the early fifties that were supplanted by later stereos on both Mercury and other labels, and soon fell out of the consciousness of hi fi aficianados. Al of these were conducted by Antal Dorati, and some were my own LP-to-digital tranfers from authentic, near mint copies. Here goes:
Dorati No. 1: Tchaikovsky Sleeping Beauty Suite; Symphony No. 5; Stravinsky Le Sacre du Printemps - all monos, c.1952-4
The first item was transferred by me directly from a c.1961 Mercury "Wing" reissue; it has a very mild, innocuous form of "electronic stereo" that I do not find at all offensive (ahem: the original 3-disk set of the ballet, in pure mono masters, is just a tad shrill and "tight" sounding; this version is smoother, richer, and a bit more spacious. Purists mono fans will no doubt disagree, though.)
The PIT 5th is from an old defunct blog whose upload was quite lacking in Mercury's famed "Living Presence". I fancy that I've recovered the original sound quality with reasonable success, if I do say so myself. (I actually like this performance just as much, if not more, than Dorati's LSO stereo recording.)
Petrushka was recorded, I believe, at the end of '53 (as was the PIT ballet, perhaps?) and is, IMO, a much more satisfactory performance than the later Mercury stereo version by the same artists.
https://www8.zippyshare.com/v/Owpkg8TZ/file.html
(183 MB, FLAC and mp3, with cover images embedded in each file)
Time-limited service that ends at 8/23/18, so get ASAP!
TWO more Dorati folders to come!
8H Haggis
Dorati Monos Folder 2:
DeleteHere are Antal's monaural Minneapolis Symphony performances of: Beethoven Sym 5 and Overtures (ahem--a bit too straight and fussy for MY taste, but full of energy.)
Mendelssohn "Italian" Symphony (a very fine, characteristically sunny performance, transferred NOT from an authentic Olympian series pressing, but rather from a Euro Philips issue--with some tweaking by me to sound more "American Mercurian", as it were.) This is coupled with an *excellent* Mozart g-minor, a worthy complement to Dorati's stereo version that appeared on the same label about a decade later, showing what fine achievements he'd achieved in building and training the MSO.)
Then, Schubert's 8th, plus PIT's Romeo and Juliet, with the CSO, done around 1954 and released early the following year. It was uploaded on a blog by a sort of tone-deaf individual, who seemed to be *utterly unaware* that his phono preamp was picking up RF from his computer. I explain in the attached note in this item's folder what my diagnosis and cure consisted of; I think the end result is probably not TOO FAR from the original sound; and it surely is much easier on the ear than the very offensively "buzzy" original upload!
https://www8.zippyshare.com/v/PKqFStZ7/file.html
(354 MB, FLAC and mp3s, plus cover images)
Expires around 8/23/18...
8H Haggis
Mercury/Dorati Folder No. 3:
DeleteModern works, consisting of the following quite splendidly exciting performances, in vivid sound:
Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, taken down (I believe) in 1953. The transfer was my resuscitation of one given on a now-departed blog and unfortunately was from a copy that was a bit more worn than the mint Olympian Series pressing I had in my old library of 13,000 vinyl albums; but I did what I could, as that precious disk was sold to another collector in 1992.
Gershwin: Porgy and Bess Suite (arr. RR Bennett); An American in Paris. Porgy Suite recorded JUST before Mercury adopted stereo techniques, and Paris done soon afterward; but this c.1956 or 7 Olympian Series monaural issue has just the single-channel version of the latter: it sounds so good here that one ALMOST overlooks the absence of stereo separation. I found the Porgy suite on a Russian upload from a nearly-TRASHED copy of the LP, and must have spent as much as *two days* trying to straighten it out--it nearly has the impact of my old personal pressing on MG50394, one of the old Mercury mono reissues that were re-transferred by John Eargle in the sixties. What a WALLOP this performance of the Porgy suite has--wow!
Finally, another personal choice of a great "desert island disk": Dorati's 1953 mono Le Sacre, a savagely powerful performance in razor-sharp sound, my favorite pre-stereo recording of The Rite of Spring. I transferred this originally from my own mint condition (nearly unplayed) copy of MG 50030, a 1955 re-cut re-release that used the then-new RIAA curve, as a special gift to an audiophile friend and expert, a full professor at NYU: who was suitably impressed! IMO, this is probably VERY close to the master-tape sound that exists in the Philips archives; will they EVER release a modern digitizing of it (especially now that Mercury's beloved producer Wilma Cozart Fine is deceased)?
Dorati's stereo remake, also with the MSO, has slightly lower voltage; and I agree with restoring engineer and recordist Pierr Paquin that C. R. Fine's SINGLE MIKE balances are often much better than his stereo mixes. Apologies for not going into storage to get out the archival copy I made more than a decade ago in lossless format; this mp3 transfer preserved almost ALL of the impact in the sound on my original LP.
https://www8.zippyshare.com/v/JcSobabP/file.html
(282 MB, FLAC and mp3, with cover images)
Time-limited availability only until approximately 23 August 2018; sorry!
8H Haggis
And now, a request to Buster and all the helpful and generous readers of his blog:
DeleteCertain old collectors and enthusiasts of the Mercury issues of the 50's have told me that they had some regard for Antal Dorati's monaural performances of Beethoven's Fourth and Eighth symphonies, with the MSO, originally issued on Mercury MG 50100 (probably its SECOND edition release, with the RIAA curve compensation) plus the later 'cheapie' Mercury "Wing" MGW14042 (mono; also in fake stereo, and I'm assuming its number was SRW18042. I just missed getting the latter when I was in high school and college, and haven't seen ANY copy of it since then; nor has there been a CD issue or a blog upload. Does anyone have it and wish to share; and -- btw -- is it *any good*? That is, will a "Dorati collector" like it, if not a broader fan of Beethoven performances? To calibrate me, I'm not at all enthusiastic about Dorati's old mono LvB 5th; but I *love* his c.1958 MSO Eroica, which is smashing, thrilling, and splendid: reminding me very much of Toscanini's 1953 b'cast. In the Fifth, though, Dorati's MSO approach seems too static. Whereas, his approximately contemporary MSO Mozart g-minor and Mendelssohn 4th are absolutely splendid! He really seldom disappoints me.
8H Haggis
8H - I know I do not have the Dorati record you're seeking. I have only a few of his records; he has never been one of my favorites, sad to say.
DeleteThanks. Dorati would be to a "fundamentalist's" taste, for sure--like Toscanini. I am often in a mood for a more introspective, 'creative' approach, however--so, how about another Mercury reminiscence folder, which I shall title "Kubelik Kornucopia"!
DeleteRafael Kubelik was a modernist who ran afoul of Claudia Cassidy, the Chicago newspaper critic who was the female counterpart of Ayn Rand's character, Ellsworth M. Toohey. Despite RK's ability to breathe life into traditional repertoire, she was so offended by his tendency to play Hindemith (or even -- gasp! -- Schoenberg) that he HAD TO GO.
From today's perspective, looking over his concert repertoire lists (much more inventive than his Mercury or Decca records of the time), he would be utterly mainstream. Reiner seems to have been willing to play more Beethoven than RK had done; so HE got the Cassidy seal of approval.
Mercury CDs have issued the best-sellers from their mono period in Chicago: Dvorak 9th, Mussorgsky-Ravel Pix, Mozart Prague, Smetana Ma Vlast, and Bartok MFSPC (yes--even Hindemith and Schoenberg.) But here are some items to fill in the cracks.
The Bloch Concerto Grosso No. 1 was transferred by me from a VERY old, mint copy of the first edition. I was always perturbed that there was clear aural evidence of the use of a peak limiter (contrary to the boilerplate text assuring Mercury purchasers that they'd NEVER do such a thing!) So I fixed several spots where the volume audibly "ducks down" in amplitude due to a sustained low string tone from the bassi that triggers the compressor. I also took huge pains to try to reverse-engineer the actual recording curve used in this pressing, which was definitely pre-RIAA.
The Mozart 34th was disk-mate to the excellent Prague now released on Mercury CD. Various LP issues have severe coloration -- particularly the "Wing" reissue -- that is totally missing on this first-edition pressing, used by a friend on the east coast to make his fine transfer.
The Brahms 1, plus PIT 4 and 6, were transferred and provided to readers of RMCR many years ago. The gentleman was a huge Toscanini enthusiast -- like me -- and especially appreciated performances that seemed to him to be equivalently selfless and accurate. These are not indulgent in the Furtwaengler manner (though in later years, RK could perhaps have been judged to share certain characteristics of approach as the great German.) The PIT performances are strict and unmannered: not particularly "slavic". This was my own introduction to the 4th, c.1960; so when I hear (say) the Bernstein versions, I tend to wince a bit...such imprinting tends to be very strong, setting one's taste. I obtained cover pics of the original issues but I do suspect that these three items were transferred from "Wing" reissues, as they don't seem QUITE to have the sharp edge of the initial Olympians.
https://www65.zippyshare.com/v/AvjLUeDQ/file.html
(164 MB - limited upload, pulled after around 8/24/18.)
8H Haggis
Buster, you know I have all these mercury monos in their MG 5xxxx format, with some duplications as mono mercury wings. I would gladly send them to you for postage, to get them transferred if you want, but I cannot retrieve anything from Zippyshare as it is an extraneous download deathtrap that I have not found a way to work around. You can contact me via email, which I believe you have.
DeleteIf it's Mercury LP MG 50100 8H Haggis wants. I have a rip (not mine). Gimme a couple days and I'll dig it out, give it a listen and and post a link.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteRootie - That is so gracious of you, but honestly, I have more Mercury monos than I could possible transfer in this lifetime! The Zippyshare items are not my uploads, but if you have one in particular you want, I can put it on another service for you.
DeleteJoe - Thanks, very good of you!
The transfer I have came to me via Mr. Paul Goldstein, an expert transfer artist, so we are in luck. He has kindly allowed me to post his work here. I played the audio again twice tonite and it sounds very well indeed. The perfs may strike some as a bit hard driven but I found them exciting—anyway I'll zip these into an archive along with Paul's brief note and cover art and post a link in this space tomorrow.
DeleteBtw with jdownloader, 8H's zippyshare files download with nary a hiccup nor a pop up.
DeleteWith thanks to Paul Goldstein, here is Mercury LP MG 501000, Dorati-MSO playing LvB's 4th and 8th Symphonies. Flac format, monaural, 133mb, with front and back hi-res scans of covers.
DeleteMega.nz link shortened with TinyURL
https://tinyurl.com/y8z4n2bh
Claudia Cassidy also drove Jean Martinon from Chicago--to me, a far better conductor than Reiner. By the way, while doting on Dorati, don't forget his scorched-earth 1953 reading of the suite from Bartok's "The Miraculous Mandarin" with the CSO. The ending still leaves me breathless. One last thing: I bought Antal's mono recording of 'Le Sacre' and was chastised by friends for preferring it to Ormandy's recording. But we were kids, then, right?
DeleteFor David: in case you don't have the 1953 Sacre in digital form, here is *my own* transfer from a mint, virtually unplayed copy of MG 50030; I do have the lossless original somewhere here, but the mp3 I put on my network music HD was at hand so I used that for convenience. In apology for that minor drawback, I've added the other two famous Stravinsky ballets in Dorati's mono Mercurys from the fifties: the Firebird Suite (with Debusssy's Nocturnes) on Merc MG 50025, and Petrushka on MG 50058; those two transfers are NOT mine and are in fact a sort of composite that I drew from acceptable copies I obtained on one or two (now nonexistent) blogs, plus a YT video soundtrack. I no longer have those LPs in my personal collection, having sold off my 13,000+ vinyls starting in the 90s, after I retired from classical music broadcasting (having been the PD and Music Director of 5 stations, and the chief engineer of all of those, plus dozens of other AM and FM stations in California.)
DeleteI agree that Dorati's mono Sacre is more visceral and savage than Ormandy's old fifties' Columbia Masterworks version, which does sound very good in a recent reissue, but still takes less chances at some key points where Dorati just goes directly for the jugular.
Years ago there was a small disagreement about this performance on the newsgroup Rec.music.classical.recordings. The Texas enthusiast Ed Cowan and I got into quite a discussion of it; he claimed he'd been told by a member of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's brass section that when Dorati made this MSO recording, he HAD to superimpose some tapes of the Texas brass section members, using some friends of his from the Dallas Orchestra, who had played under his direction when Dorati was their music director, before his stint in Minneapolis, asserting that the MSO players weren't up to snuff.
Well--I wasn't having ANY of it! I listened to my copy as if "under a microscope", over and over--and simply could NOT tell that this had been done; the acoustic was consistent in every moment. It was simply, I believed, beyond the technology of 1953 (using single-track Ampex 300 decks) to do such a thing in a foolproof, transparent manner. Ed was insistent: I *had* to be WRONG, going merely from the impression of my 'liar ears' as it were, and he was RIGHT.
I contacted my occasional correspondent friend, Mike Gray (very well known expert discographer) and HE LOOKED UP THE OFFICIAL C. R. FINE SESSION NOTES of this recording, reporting back to me that there was NO EVIDENCE at all that any such thing had happened...and there was no precedent for that, and no other recorded instance of this having been done. Mike concluded that this was preposterous: today we'd call it "a conspiracy theory" or "fake news"--and, when I presented Mr. Cowan with Mike's report, he graciously accepted it, expressing that he now felt he'd been MISINFORMED by his Dallas musician friend. So--no "insert" or "overdub" by Dallas players, preposterously recorded in a different hall -- in Dallas! -- and added to the MSO master tape.
I think it's quite evident, from all of Dorati's MSO records, that his players WERE indeed up to anything demanded of them.
Three Famous Stravinsky Ballets in Mercury Monos by Dorati -
Zippyshare "bypass the junk" link:
https://www102.zippyshare.com/d/IFxZXlC5/40958/Stravinsky%20Three%20Famous%20Ballets%20-%20MSO%2c%20Dorati%20Merc%20Monos.zip
Or, if that doesn't work, the main regular ZS link:
https://www102.zippyshare.com/v/IFxZXlC5/file.html
(180 MB zipped folder, with mp3s, cover images, and Discogs info; file will expire around 10/6/18.)
8H Haggis
THANKS immensely to J Serraglio and Paul Goldstein for the LvB 4 and 8 by Dorati. I just played 4 (for the first time) and found it to be better than ANY of the Toscanini's (including the BBC SO!) so I'm a happy camper. It's not, err, Furtwaengler BPO 1943, or Kondrashin, or Bruno Walter Columbia Sym, or Klemperer...or any number of other performances of this that I cherish, but has not a few virtues. The transfer sounds perfectly fine to me. I have yet to hear the 8th.
DeleteI was curious about this due to 2 things: (1) years ago, I got a book by (if I recall) somebody named, perhaps, Herbert Ruscol, a huge paperback that must have had 400 pages, in which he recommended his personal choice of performances from then-current BUDGET records (an odd thing to publish, but it matched my pocketbook at the time.) I quickly became a bit disenchanted with it, growing to suspect that it wasn't REALLY an honest, thorough discographical analysis at all, but "received wisdom and informed guesses" as to which items to recommend above others; but at any rate, this LvB 4 and 8 *were* highly recommended. Never even turned up the "Wing" reissue, anywhere in N. California. Then, (2) a few years ago, Andrew Rose got a copy and transferred it into his line of commercial Pristine Classics offerings, praising it TO THE SKIES with purple prose. That did it for me: I *had* to hear it; but I do NOT like Andrew Rose's phony overprocessing (preferring, say, Frank Martin's OTHER "Pristine" blog, with files offered free to collectors unless one is moved to donate.) So Rose's "edition" was avoided by me--who needs over-manicured XR processing and fake stereo? (Not I.)
Well--Paul's transfer satisfies my meager, modest requirements. To quote Arthur Fiedler: "no futzing."
Now: another challenge to Mercury Completists. I am looking for a STEREO transfer of the "missing" symphony on Mercury SR 90196, the Schubert 4th with the LSO under Walter Susskind. The Mercury Living Presence CD reissue series BYPASSED and overlooked this, but did put out the other work, Schubert's 6th with HS-I (no doubt another BAD idea by the BAD BOY of Philips, one "TD", the most obnoxious trolling poster to RMCR.) I did find a monaural, scratchy copy on (if I recall) the late lamented Random Classics blog--but not the STEREO original which, though pretty hissy in my recollection, was a *terrific performance* worthy of the other fine ones by Susskind.
And, here's an even MORE OBSCURE Mercury stereo: Schumann's Sym 4, with Antal Dorati and the LSO, on Mercury stereo SR90511. Discogs' page for this, sans label, is here:
https://www.discogs.com/The-London-Symphony-Orchestra-Antal-Dorati-Schumann-Symphony-No-4-Mozart-Symphony-No-40/release/7149312
Rumor has it that *the master tape disappeared* so it couldn't be added to the MLP CD reissues; if true, we're stuck with the potential project of some kindly soul who takes pity on us 'deprived' Mercury completists. (We subsist only via 'the kindness of strangers', doncha know?) Here, I'm probably going to absolve TD of responsibility for the oversight. ReDiscovery has issued a very good transfer of the Mozart 40th, from the open reel commercial tape, here:
http://rediscovery.us/conductors.html#159
The cost is...nada!
So, anybody have the 4th Syms of Schubert and Schumann, with Susskind and Dorati, respectively?
8H Haggis
Sorry, I don't have the Susskind or Dorati you are seeking. I do have that Herbert Ruscol book, however!
DeleteThank you for another special treat, in time for the weekend, Buster!
ReplyDeleteYou'realways welcome, Don!
ReplyDeletethe eclectic nature of this blog always delights me. This looks to be right up my alley, so I will download and listen! thanks Buster for this treat.
ReplyDeleteSD - I am sure you will enjoy it! (At least I hope so.)
ReplyDeleteHanson did so great job to support contemporary composers of his time....thanks for that post.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this music--most of which I've not heard before.
ReplyDeleteHappy Firecracker to all! I used to have most of music, except
ReplyDeleteCopland and Hanson, in their Victor 78 incarnation. good to
have the musics again. Thanks for sharing.
Mike in Plovdiv
Hi everyone - thanks to all, and Happy 4th to US visitors!
ReplyDeleteI heard the EP version in the "tv and radio" store of my rural Minnesota home town of 1100 people in the mid-1950s and have been searching for it ever since. I managed to find the EP but without a cover, and the one displayed here is the first I have seen for over 60 years. Amazing! I'm still searching for a copy of the EP with a cover but am resigned to probably never finding one. Fortunately, I have the Mercury LP and the Mercury stereo re-recording with Hanson, et al. Thanks so much.
ReplyDeleteHuguenot - Ah, yes, the "tv and radio" store with the record department. Or in the case of my town, a camera store with a record department. Do you have an email address? If so, leave it here (I will delete the message after reading).
ReplyDeleteMost of these pieces are unfamiliar to me, so looking forward to hearing them! Thanks!
ReplyDeletePlease, Buster, I'm new here. How could I do to find the clarinet solo pieces (Copland's concerto, for instance)? Thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much, Buster, for this revision of one of my "dozen favorite" albums of all time (my, what a strange fellow is this 8HH...) Your newer work has a more extended top end, and I have just given it priority, removing both your earlier one from my HD, plus the one I personally worked over from...um...that certain blog whose name may not be mentioned. If any one Mercury mono deserved the attention of Wilma Cozart Fine in the Mercury Living Presence CD collection, THIS one is such an item (ah, along with the Barber, Harris, and two dozen others. Sigh.)
Delete8HH
Buster, here's an early Christmas present, for your excellent improvement to the Americana winds album.
DeleteFrom the "Missing Mercury Monos" - the esteemed Walter Piston Third Symphony, which was one of the Golden Lyre issues by Howard Hanson that drew most critical favor. The work *still* has not really entered the repertoire, but one cannot imagine a more persuasive account than this c.1953 performance (which does it more justice than any other I've heard.) Another blog -- which shall be nameless -- has uploaded a rather grotesque sounding version, drawn from the late sixties' Philips Golden Imports pressing, which had fake stereo; but the amateur transfer had the CHANNELS REVERSED...so, the highs were all WAY over to the far right, and the lows on the far LEFT. Bizarre...
The blogger's frequency response was problematical: there was at least a 10 dB peak at about 5500 Hz, which is NOT characteristic of the vinyl issue copy I had in my library for at least 25 years--when played back CORRECTLY. I made the alteration for a flatter response and less obnoxious, shrill highs. (Plus, I seamlessly removed the myriad of *easily* fixed ticks and pops in his copy.)
In addition, there was a varying level ~14,000 Hz tone in the background, which disappears from time to time (and isn't present in the lead grooves between movements); methinks this is the 'famous' resolving tone used by the Fairchild film recording/editing system (employing standard magnetic tape) that C. R. Fine used at Fine Recording. This tone has to be filtered out, and it wasn't done. I *tried* to zero in on it -- but at the same time, to do it so narrowly that it wouldn't audibly alter the phase response and top end; I managed to REDUCE it a bit (at least below my audibility) without affecting other frequencies.
And, I converted the signal back to the original solid single-channel format.
{Piston: Symphony No. 3 - Howard Hanson, Eastman-Rochester Orchestra; Mercury MG 40051 (Golden Lyre) or MG-50083 (Living Presence), rc. c.1953. Uploaded as 75-MB zipped folder with mono lossless FLACs, plus cover image and track information. LIMITED TIME availability; we cannot guarantee that Zippyshare will continue to offer this file after 12/4/18.}
https://www79.zippyshare.com/d/NPOq6vQ0/2603/WP3-HHEroMG40051.zip
-or-
https://www79.zippyshare.com/v/NPOq6vQ0/file.html
8H Haggis
Nice! The eye candy-covers look very attractively interesting.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Buster!
Remastered version in ambient stereo, Apple lossless format:
ReplyDeletehttps://mega.nz/file/HEtAzIiL#kdJCI7xpiDdRjENoRXSim8pi5OBqYdxIYG4zbBi8EKw