The composer is William Wordsworth, who had a famous name to be sure, and in fact he was a descendant of the poet's brother Christopher. Wordsworth the latter lived from 1908-88.
This CRD album, from 1981, was one of the few recordings of Wordsworth's music during his lifetime. The performers (the Alberni String Quartet and tenor Ian Partridge) are most sympathetic and the sound is excellent.
To my ear, the best music on the disc is the composer's setting of three of his namesake's poems, which help give his music some shape and color (although the music for "On Calais Beach" is strangely glum). The string quartets are closely argued, as the liner notes outline, but they also have a dogged quality that I don't care for.
Lyrita's recent CD of Wordsworth's Symphonies No. 1 and 5 have brought his name to the attention of more people. I have an earlier Lyrita issue of the second and third symphonies, which is worth investigating. If you want to learn more about the composer, a good remembrance can be found on MusicWeb. Wordsworth is seen with the recording artists below.
9 comments:
Link (Apple lossless):
http://www.mediafire.com/download/pot56p7tagpkpb4/William_Wordsworth_-_String_Quartets_5%2C_6%2C_Three_Songs.zip
Thank you very much for this share!
Thanks Buster!
Thanks Buster!
Thank you, Buster!
very worth knowing, thank you immensely. -cheers, a.v.
Buster, thanks for this rare item.
You don't have many (any other?) string quartet items on your blog, so here's my contribution:
Debussy and Ravel quartets, recorded in 1950 in a Bronx church by none other than the famed early audio figure, Norman Pickering! It was released on early LP on his own label Philharmonia (PH104) in 1950, and I was lucky enough to nab a mint, good sounding copy in the seventies.
Earlier, I had the Nonesuch LP reissues (both mono and fake stereo) that were put out in 1954, and though I *loved* the performances, the sound was just dreadful! The tape used was improperly transferred and over the years it obvious warped a bit (problem with early acetate based magnetic tapes)--and nobody bothered to use a carefully positioned HALF TRACK head on the full track original: the only way to avoid the edge warp and consequent "shortwave sounding" phase distortion that causes the highs to fade in/out rapidly. By positioning a narrower track head, you can fix this problem!
Well, not only did the Nonesuch LPs have this defect (plus, the fake stereo was awful: blowsy and hollow), but also when the thing was reissued on CD, THEY STUPIDLY USED THE SAME FAKE STEREO TAPE TRANSFER DONE IN c1964! Sheesh...
I made my own minimalist transfer in 1999, and did not even at the time have a good, effective modern declicker--you can hear a few ticks and pops from time to time. But the frequency balance is unaltered.
However, both sides had a HIDEOUS mains hum, which I notched out.
The result is a vastly cleaner, more transparent sound than ANYBODY has ever heard, if they have been limited to the Nonesuch and later CD reissues!
I once sent this to a blogger who was a Toscanini fan: "Abbedd". He was enamored of Toscanini and the NBC Symphony and especially interested in this, as the players were all members of that orchestra.
I told him, "use this at your pleasure, but DO NOT mention me, even by nickname!" For, you see, Abbedd *always* re-EQd things using a screwy response that cut the midrange at about 1 kHz...by as much as THIRTY DB! He must have had AWFUL speakers.
Well--wouldn't you know it! He did his dreadful "remastering" and the proudly posted it as MY work!!!!!!! I was infuriated and embarrassed, so now I can at last *set the record straight* as it were, with the ORIGINAL sound quality I achieved.
https://www66.zippyshare.com/v/TR4yyw0v/file.html
(42 MB zipped mp3s)
File expires in 30 days.
Link to the Discogs page for the Nonesuch reissue:
https://www.discogs.com/Maurice-Ravel-Claude-Debussy-Stuyvesant-String-Quartet-String-Quartet-In-F-Major-String-Quartet-In-G/release/2485118
8H Haggis
Err, Nonesuch of course reissued these in 1964 not 54, as I mistyped.
8HH
You're right, I don't have many string quartets here, although I recently did upload an excellent performance of the Schubert Quartettsatz by the Koeckert Quartet.
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