Morton Gould - After Dark and Movie Time
The second LP is Movie Time, another 10-incher, from circa 1952. Here, Gould takes on songs from musical productions, casting himself in the role of solo pianist. The results are just right.
Gould has often appeared on this blog as composer, arranger, pianist and conductor. Follow this link if you want to check out some of my earlier uploads, which go back many years.
Pre-Climate Change Christmas
David F. has completed his second Christmas compilation, and it it just as delightful as his first. Dubbed a "Pre-Climate Change Christmas," this collection again looks back to when we all were much younger. It includes several songs I have not encountered before, so I am particularly excited to cue them up for the holidays. David tells us that "these selections mostly date from the 1930s and 40s when winters were expected to be white and, in 1941, bitter enough to stop Hitler in Russia."
UPDATE: the link I posted previously contained only 17 of the 30 songs in David's collection. I've now uploaded the complete set - you can download it by following this LINK.
More Paul Whiteman
A quick note for those of you who have been following Lee Hartsfeld's massive upload of Paul Whiteman 78s from the 1920s and early 30s. Lee has posted his fifth compilation (go here) and promises more to come. His transfers are amazingly vivid.
Limited-Time Uploads
Speaking of skilled artisans in sound, here are the latest products from the workshop of the industrious 8H Haggis. As always, see the comments to the posts below for what 8H has for you. I suggest searching on the composer or artist to minimize scrolling. Note that these are limited-time uploads - the links may not last for more than a few weeks.
In the A Little More Bizet from Rodzinski comments
Bizet - Symphony in C/Artur Rodziński
Franck - D-Minor Symphony/Artur Rodziński
Saint-Saëns - Piano Concerto No. 4/Artur Rubinstein, Artur Rodziński
In the More Limited Time Uploads comments
C.P.E. Bach - Orchestral Symphonies/Leslie Jones
J.C. Bach - Sinfonias for Double Orchestra/Leslie Jones
Haydn - Symphonies Nos. 3, 39, 73/Leslie Jones
In the Reups, Remasters, Limited-Time Uploads, and the Christmas Season Begins Comments
Brahms - Double Concerto/Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Enrico Mainardi, Wilhelm Furtwängler
Bruckner - Overture in G minor, Symphony No. 7/Willem van Otterloo
Chopin - Piano Concerto No. 2/Menahem Pressler, Hans Swarowsky
Glazunov - Stenka Razin/Leo Borchard
Handel - Water Music/Eduard van Beinum
Haydn - "Quinten" and "Joke" String Quartets/Pascal Quartet
Mendelssohn - Piano Concerto No. 1/Menahem Pressler, Hans Swarowsky
Mozart - Piano Concertos No. 17, 24/Menahem Pressler, Wilfried Boettcher
Mozart - Piano Concertos No. 12, 13/Cor de Groot, Willem van Otterloo
Nielsen - Symphony No. 1/Thomas Jensen
Rodgers - "Victory at Sea" Suite/Charles Gerhardt
Saint-Saëns - Violin Concerto No. 3/Arthur Grumiaux, Jean Fournet
Schubert - Rosamunde Excerpts/Jean Meylan
Schubert - Symphony No. 8/Hermann Scherchen
Schumann - Piano Concerto/Walter Gieseking, Wilhelm Furtwängler
Shostakovich - Symphony No. 7/Arturo Toscanini
Suppe - Overtures/Georg Solti
Plus these series:
Westminster Keyboard Kornucopia
Albéniz - Iberia/José Echániz
C.P.E. Bach - Keyboard Works/Nina Malkina
Cimarosa - Harpsichord Sonatas/Robert Veyron-Lacroix
Schumann - Fantasy Pieces, Fantasy in C/Jörg Demus
Historic Recordings of Edvard Grieg
Holberg Suite/Boyd Neel
Homage March from Sigurd Jorsalfar/Constant Lambert
Lyric Suite/Landon Ronald
Norwegian Dances, Symphonic Dances/Erik Tuxen
Peer Gynt Suite No. 1/Eugene Goossens
Peer Gynt Suite No. 2/Fabien Sevitzky
Violin Sonata/Fritz Kreisler, Sergei Rachmaninoff
Recordings by Werner Janssen
Henry Cowell - Ancient Desert Drone
Henry Gilbert - Dance in the Place Congo
Villa-Lobos - Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1
Friedrich Witt - Jena Symphony
Henry Cowell - Ancient Desert Drone
Henry Gilbert - Dance in the Place Congo
Villa-Lobos - Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1
Friedrich Witt - Jena Symphony
In the Hanson Conducts MacDowell comments
Chávez - Toccata for Percussion/Gotham Percussion Players
Granados - Dances/Georges Sébastian
Respighi - Brazilian Impressions/Georges Sébastian
Schubert - Symphonies No. 3, 6/Georges Sébastian
In the Prokofiev Suites for Children comments
Reicha and Voříšek - Symphonies/Prague Chamber Orchestra
In the Whiteman, Previn and a Profusion of Limited-Time Uploads comments
Grieg - Piano Concerto/Yuri Boukoff, Artur Rodziński
Scriabin et al. - Concert Works/Paul Badura-Skoda, Artur Rodziński, Henry Swoboda
Follow @BusterBig10Inch
29 comments:
Links:
Morton Gould - After Dark
https://mega.nz/#!eUFH2SaD!xknWsTKDtfa8SURbYj4Fsr_M4CxYk6lBUhoBkCuvh68
Morton Gould - Movie Time
https://mega.nz/#!rZUhVKYb!zMK-WJiF3ImSQbm_xGaq0MXa9kLsZdRdFfubC3Y_4WM
Pre-Climate Change Christmas
https://mega.nz/#!zRUhlKRa!rkVbhwU7SpgV1xF_MFmM26UVemMN4Abs6qqpiRSFfqM
More 20th-century music conducted by Bruno Walter, to add to some of my previous uploads.
Here are two rare performances by Walter that shed a rather different light on his style as an interpreter, and on his repertoire choices, than one might infer from his commercial records.
Debussy's La Mer was a work he deeply revered; indeed, a large part of his late-life book "Of Music and Music-Making" (W. W. Norton, 1961) was devoted to the interpretation of this work, and also of Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin. One thinks of Walter, typically, as a specialist in the German repertoire, from Mozart through Beethoven to Wagner; but that overlooks his adoption of French citizenship after the fall of Vienna to Hitler, and his devotion to French composers from Berlioz through Ravel. In this, Walter absolutely paralleled the dedication of his friend and colleague Toscanini. A 1941 New York Philharmonic live rado broadcast of La Mer came to modern light about 40 years ago, in a 2-LP limited edition set released to subscribers of the Philharmonic; the Bruno Walter society released that on LP and later CD. I have done some reprocessing to remove record scratch in my transfer of the first BWS vinyl release, and to balance the sound quality and varying audio levels; it is still rather primitive and substandard compared to state of the art recordings of this date--but it well conveys the great intensity and propulsion of his approach.
Richard Strauss's works formed a core part of Walter's repertoire, and he continued to record the composer up until 1952; but as a conductor and man, Walter was sorely tried when he was removed from his conducting posts in Berlin in 1933, in the beginning of the Third Reich. Though Strauss and Walter had been close conducting colleagues at the Berlin Staatsoper in 1900, the amoral and socially apathetic Strauss took over Bruno Walter's concerts without turning a hair. And yet Walter continued to be one of the most persuasive interpreters of Strauss, with B. H. Haggin writing appreciatively of his 1930s New York Philharmonic performances of Don Quixote, attributing a sense of wit and whimsy to the conductor's insights into the work that the composer's OWN performances lacked. In the middle-fifties, Walter even contributed an extremely eloquent analysis and defense of Strauss's Don Juan to a special Columbia Record Club reissue of his 1952 New York Philharmonic recording--with nary a reference to their personal difficulties. Here, only months after the conclusion of WW2 and the defeat of Nazi Germany (where Strauss had continued to live and work, with the authorities' patronage), Bruno Walter conducted the Philharmonic-Symphony of NY in one of the most committed, expressive, intense -- almost manic and occasionally nearly *demonic* -- performances of Strauss's 1903 "Sinfonia Domestica", which the composer actually described as a "tone poem." I found this now-PD broadcast on a Russian blog, and some parts of it were so murky, boomy, and indistinct that I suspected that some local incompetent had ineptly processed it. An effort has been made to add 'clarification' to some passages, and to try to reconstruct SOMETHING of the original musical dynamics, severely compressed in a "5 kc AM broadcast network" type recording.
{140 MB folder of two mp3s + a cover pic; LIMITED TIME AVAILABILITY as ZS does not guarantee its presence more than 30 says after the upload on 11/14/18.}
https://www28.zippyshare.com/d/lkC8dzlN/50764/BWLaMerSD.zip
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https://www28.zippyshare.com/v/lkC8dzlN/file.html
8H Haggis
Another rare Richard Strauss recording by Bruno Walter:
Here is an HMV 78-rpm early electrical set of Strauss's Don Juan, with Bruno Walter conducting the Society of the Royal Philharmonic (*not* the later RPO, formed in 1946 by Beecham) in recording sessions of June 13 and Nov. 17, 1926 in London. I found this on a now-deleted Italian CD in an awful transfer from records that were noisy and "swishy" and which sounded dry and thin, little better than an acoustical type recording of 1924 and earlier. I reprocessed this no fewer than THREE times over the years, until I felt satisfied and could listen to it for as much pleasure as it is capable of inducing.
{40 MB, mp3, LIMITED TIME AVAILABILITY, as ZS does not promise this to be on the net after 12/14/18.}
https://www52.zippyshare.com/d/gHYWBVLQ/13369/RStrauss_Don_Juan_Royal-Phil-Soc_Walter_06-13%2c11-17-1926.mp3
-or-
https://www52.zippyshare.com/d/gHYWBVLQ/13369/RStrauss_Don_Juan_Royal-Phil-Soc_Walter_06-13%2c11-17-1926.mp3
8H Haggis
Bruno Walter Bruckner's Te Deum - LP transfer
This famous Columbia LP features Bruno Walter conducting the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York on 7 March 1953 in the 30th-Street Studio of Columbia Records (the old Liederkranz Hall), with Frances Yeend (S), Martha Lipton (MS), David Lloyd (T), Mack Harrell (B); and the Westminster Choir, John Finlay Williamson, Chorus Master. It was released on Columbua ML 4980, the overside being a licensed issue of the Decca recording from 1949, with the Vienna Philharmonic and Kathleen Ferrier, of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder.
I offer the Bruckner here, in my own transfer from a mint LP copy, as I have felt that the vinyl issue had more "ooomph" and presence than the somewhat sanitized Sony CD transfers. The Decca recording is available in numerous official Decca transfers that are actually a bit better sounding than on this old LP.
I've embedded the original Masterworks cover image in the mp3 file.
https://www61.zippyshare.com/d/3hHGmjSj/9882/ABTeDW.mp3
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https://www61.zippyshare.com/v/3hHGmjSj/file.html
8H Haggis
Fascinating stuff on Walter. He was an early enthusiasm of mine - I had his picture on the wall. I didn't know of his affinity for French music. I am trying to recall whether I even have an LP of him conducting a French work.
I do have that Bruckner Te Deum, though!
Thanks for the Gould. Big fan here. You may want to know that there are only 17 files in the Xmas mega.nz backup link.
the we-xfer link https://we.tl/t-Bu2ipyLBs2 is already dead but it contained 30 files.
Thanks for letting me know, Joe. For some reason, when I downloaded the original link, it only gave me 17 of the files. (Probably my error, although I don't know how!)
David F., Joe S. or some other kind soul - Can you reupload the complete set of files to some service for me? I'll then repost them and try to create some order out of this chaos.
thanks so much for the Gould links. I, too, have been exploring his music for a few years.
Here is a second upload of "A Pre-Climate Change Christmas," again at WeTransfer for a week only--unless Buster gives the mix more permanent storage on Mega.
https://we.tl/t-K4j07YRwbV
I am working on a New Year's mix, one which I believe will conclusively prove my thesis about the amazing, easy adaptability of vintage music to very specific occasions like year's end. Before I go, however, some kudos:
I want to thank Buster for the Morton Gould albums. Gould is always gold for me. Also Mr. Haggis deserves praise for the Bruno Walter. My father was a Mahler lover and bought whatever Walter versions of his music were available (Toscanini and Walter were his favorite conductors). I surprised him as a teenager by buying him the HMV 2-LP reissue of Walter's 9th with the VPO from 1938. Although of great historical importance, the French horn soloist was having a bad day and, compared to his 1960 remake, Walter's tempi in 1938 always sounded to me like he was in a rush to leave town--maybe because the gestapo were after him?). I think his later reading for Columbia far better. But I do love that "Te Deum," which my father also owned and played occasionally (despite the fact that he was a devout atheist). I can't wait to hear his "La Mer," although I admit I approach it with trepidation. But then I thought Van Karajan couldn't conduct French music until I heard his remarkably revelatory reading of "La Mer."
Buster, your blog is starting to become a collective. I hope you don't mind.
{Part 1 of 3}
"Missing Mercury Monos" - Dorati's Respighi, Copland, Tchaikovsky
Until very recently, these three Mercury "Living Presence" monophonic LPs were amongst the most sought-after collectors' items of this genre. Now, we finally have 'official' Mercury transfers but you have to buy a large collection--and any long-time enthusiast of this label will have *already* purchased almost all of the items in CD. Frustrating!
Pierre Paquin (of Cape Cod) has been producing very professional LP to CDR transfers for many years, and has long listed his own issues in his large online discography. But the ones I offer, below, are NOT from his, nor any other, "semi-pro" LP rips offered commercially (such as from Naxos or Klassichaus.) Two of them were done entirely by me, from vinyl record to digital form; the third was a composite effort that I completed.
These do sound rather different from any others (either Pierre's or Mercury's CDs) and, since they were produced from antique records that (in most countries) are now public domain, I offer them as Fair Use, for editorial and scholarly purposes, in comparing the technical aspects of their unique sound qualities. Pressings used were, according to their label design, from post-1954 RIAA-curve frequency compensated issues, with proper playback EQ and a minimal of sonic intervention.
1. Copland's Symphony No. 3; Antal Dorati, Minneapolis Symphony (Mercury MG-50018, recorded on 5-7 February, 1953, Northrup Auditorium, by C. Robert Fine.) This LP copy was transferred by my good friend on the east coast, a professional musician and classical record collector. I had an earlier pressing of this in my library, plus the later reissue (MG50421) of 1965, that had Copland's Quiet City, and Harris's Third Symphony, as disk-mates. The old pressing I'd owned had what Pierre Paquin so vividly described as "the ripping oilcloth sound"; the later one was re-transferred and edited by audio specialist John Eargle, and had MUCH sweeter high frequency response. The raw transfer by my friend was of the earlier, darker tone quality; and I wanted to try to go at least *part way* to the more vivid and crisp response of the Eargle processing. The one remaining defect is a subtle pitch variance due not to an offcenter or warped copy but to the *master* recording itself; the new Mercury restoration uses special costly software to stabilize the old tapes, made with relatively primitive tape decks that had less speed regulation than today's recording systems.
{End of Pt 1 - 8H Haggis}
{Part 2 of 3 Parts}
2. Respighi Vetrate di Chiesa (Church Windows); Feste Romane; MSO, Dorati (Mercury MG 50046, recorded 20 November 1954.) This was a hi fi demo album *par excellence*, with a mighty tam-tam roar at the end of the second movement of Church Windows that could SHAKE YOUR FLOORS. (I still prefer this effect on the LP to any subsequent modern digital CD recording.) This was my third attempt at making a digitized version, the first one failing to satisfy as it was from the Mercury Wing re-issue that suffered from a mild artificial stereo that caused extra tape hiss and weakened solidity; then I was lucky enough to find an ABSOLUTELY MINT copy at a San Jose used record store about 15 years ago, and did it over. I was dissatisfied with THAT one, and produced another one with -- I hoped -- a little MORE energy and presence. Today, listening critically, one cannot fail to realize that C. R. Fine overloaded his tape more than a little bit.
My east coast friend is a classical musician and arranger. He reported to me his irritation with Toscanini's famous Victor record of Feste Romane, and his preference, with respect to at least one important textual detail, for Dorati's. I mentioned this detail in an article on my website, and quote part of it:
"...he pointed out to me today yet another example of Toscanini failing to obey the score, or perhaps intentionally CHANGING the composer's explicit instructions: I refer to p. 149 (Ricordi 1929 edition) of Respighi's 'Feste Romane'. On both the Lp and CD issues of the 1949 commercial recording by Toscanini, the conductor fails to acknowledge the sudden change of common time (4/4) to cut time (2/2) at the marking 'Stringendo molto', the fifth measure after letter 46. Toscanini sails right over this detail with no change (to my amateur ears it sounds to me as if in many different recordings, at this point there is a very slight 'luftpause' effect; he explains that it should be rendered as 'an abrupt meter change resulting in the same rhythmic figure simply going into double time.') Toscanini's performance here seems oddly wrong if one is reading the score or is used to performances by conductors who CORRECTLY play what is written (we checked Dorati and Maazel today, and they're precisely right.) My friend calls it a 'serious interpretive error' and adds, 'Knowing the piece as I do…I've played it in a band in college and transcribed it... So I know the piece intimately. Having searched out numerous recordings while working on the score, I encountered both interpretations. If AT were the only one to do it that way, I MIGHT be persuaded that it was a [master tape] editing problem. But as a few other conductors did the same thing (including, alas, my college band director), I think it's an interpretive decision…and a wrong one in my view. Of course, it *could* be an editing anomaly and all those other conductors are just 'doing it like Toscanini'. Wouldn't that be a hoot?'"
Original article quoted above at:
https://filedn.com/lgyQ0Uu5laX4REarxi2Tv9B/8-h-haggis/jottings12.htm#BURNOUT
{End of Part 2 of 3}
{Part 3 plus DL links}
3. Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture; Capriccio Italien; commentary by Deems Taylor - Mercury MG 50054. MSO, Antal Dorati; University of Minnesota Brass Band, Gerald Prescott, director; Bells of Harkness Memorial Tower, Yale University, Princeton, N. J., Bronze cannon (Strasbourg 1761) fired at West Point United States Military Academy. 1812 recorded 4 December 1954; effects recorded January 4 & 20, 1955; Capriccio Italien recorded December 22, 1955--in mono. This album "put Mercury on the map". But for many years after the introduction of stereo, the mono performance -- a FINER interpretation, played and conducted in a superior manner, with more precision -- was overlooked, as the "stereo version" of this album, SR-90054, had completely different musical performances, recorded in 1958. I always found that to be a let-down compared to the original mono album.
I no longer consider myself a "cutting edge audiophile" and haven't pursued that frustrating hobby since the 1980s; now I call myself "merely" a phonofile and music-lover and collector. It may frustrate my readers that I'm uploading these items as mp3s, further degrading them (slightly); but if you want STATE OF THE ART versions, I'd recommend, instead, that you purchase the official Mercury CD transfers, mastered in a superior manner and using the original session tapes--not merely old LPs. So, in a way it is INTENTIONAL that I am not trying to compete with the official releases, but rather to present them more or less in the way we might have heard them in bygone days.
A final observation: you will note that in all these performances, there is a consistently rich, full acoustical ambience. This was an actual "on the fly" effect created by engineer Fine during each recording session. The Northrup Auditorium is rather "dry" without a long acoustical delay; Fine deemed this unpleasant, and developed a system using Altec A7 "Voice of the Theatre" speakers, spaced around the rear periphery and outside the closed hall, to introduce the live pickup and reproduce this and generate acoustical echo. The 'mixing' was acoustic, in that it was picked up by the mike used in front of the orchestra: producing just the right 'blend' that offset his close perspective. I find this to be very well judged and accomplished in the true-MONO Mercury Living Presence issues; but when Fine attempted to do the same thing -- in stereo -- in his 1960s Pittsburgh Symphony records with William Steinberg, for Command, the echo seemed oddly disembodied, overly bright, and alien: very much "added on" and not fully integrated, as it is here in ALL of these older Mercurys.
Before zipping and uploading, I compared these mp3 tracks with the original archived CDRs to assure a maximum of fidelity, and listened intently to each item with full attention to make sure there were no discontinuities, noises, or problems. I think I can 'stand behind' this effort as being a very serious work representing my careful and complete dedication.
{111 MB, mp3s plus original covers & track info & producer notes; LIMITED TIME AVAILABILITY, as ZS will not promise to keep these files available after 12/15/18.}
https://www32.zippyshare.com/d/qOYdPeGf/24707/MissingMercMonos-OR%2cPIT%2cAC.zip
-or-
https://www32.zippyshare.com/v/qOYdPeGf/file.html
8H Haggis
Ernest Ansermet, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande - Stravinsky Petrushka
This is my own "minimalist" or "purist" transfer of a virtually mint-copy of the 1950 London ffrr LP release, LL-130, which I was delighted to discover about 15 years ago at a San Jose used record shop--one which, I might add, did not charge "$150" for such things of rare quality, but merely around 5-6 bucks, the rock'n'roll clerks CLEARLY not understanding the collectors' market for precious classical music artifacts!
The pressing had scarcely any ticks or pops, and was thick and flat: demonstrating the definite superiority of the first generation of longplay disks (RCA Victor's LPs were also equally good--but the deterioration soon set in, however!)
There was ONE technical defect, however, that I endeavored to correct. I consulted with Barry Coward, the technical director of Beulah in the UK, and he informed me that Decca's producers were still mastering directly to disk at the time of this session, in November of 1949; so this is the purest example of "direct to disk". However, the harmonics of the muted trumpet slightly overloaded the electrical/mechanical chain and created an unpleasant "foldback" IM distortion down into the lowest bass-frequency region (at near-DC.) I discovered that, non-intuitively, one could reduce (almost nearly eliminate) this distortion effect by filtering NOT the top end, but the BOTTOM end, with an extreme (-80 dB cut) HIGH-pass filter that started acting BELOW 20 Hz. This had to be applied smoothly *only* during the passages with muted trumpet in order not to alter the low frequency phase or cut bass audibly. Thus I'm rather proud of this effort since, some years later, I had the occasion to hear the SOMM (UK) CD reissue of this same performance--done from a NOISIER record!--and heard that same distortion which jumps out at one, in irritating manner; and yet is barely evident in MY transfer!
Among my numerous email correspondences with the gifted Cape Cod recording engineer Pierre Paquin, I mentioned this problem and discovered that HE TOO had independently discovered that he could reduce the IM distortion in some old RCA Victor stereo records (notably, Aaron Copland's Tender Land suite with the BSO) by doing *exactly the same kind of thing* by cutting the response near DC--one might jest and say that this is an example of "two great minds thinking alike" (and, frankly, I'm only the *slightest* bit kidding, as I think it was a big, important discovery that can definitely aid audio restoration efforts in the reduction of certain types of IM distortion.)
This Ansermet performance is a bit more energetic than the later FFSS stereo version from the end of the fifties and, at the same time, is much better -- in every way -- than the Stravinsky recordings Ansermet did for early Decca ffrr in 1946 in London. It's interesting to compare this to Dorati's 1953 Mercury: they sound rather alike, both technically and interpretively (though Ansermet is ALWAYS the more insightful, poetic, rhythmically flexible, and delicate conductor!)
The pauses between the tableaux replicate those on the original LP.
{83 MB, FLACs, plus original cover and track notes; LIMITED TIME AVAILABILITY, as ZS guarantees to keep the file on the net only up through 12/15/18, barring the continuation of further requests for DLs.}
https://www32.zippyshare.com/d/djZNbvjI/19475/Stravinsky%20Petrushka%20-%20OSR%2c%20Ansermet%20%5b1949-50%5d.zip
-or-
https://www32.zippyshare.com/v/djZNbvjI/file.html
8H Haggis
David,
You folks are certainly lively, and I am sure you are adding a feature that blog followers appreciate.
My favorite Mahler works conducted by Walter are the first and fourth symphonies. But then I prefer the shorter works to the more sprawling ones.
Karajan's reputation fell out a cliff after his death, but I still enjoy some of his records, including (oddly) his Sibelius symphonies and his early stereo recording of Bartok's Music for Strings, etc.
I'll provide a Mega link in a few moments.
Here is the new link to the complete set of 30 songs:
https://mega.nz/#!aV91EYjD!SMbJvnE8htYtFinyUkivDHmbeY3nd2aTD5vN7QmVyF8
I just remastered a recording made in Northrup Auditorium by the Minneapolis troupe under Mitropoulos (Schumann 2). The sound as captured was harsh and clotted. I managed to clarify it somewhat and a small amount of convolution reverberation did a lot to make the sonics more pleasing. I'll probably share that here.
Very interesting discussion of what Fine did to improve the sound from that site.
Bruno Walter's "La Mer" is one of the greatest performances of this work I have ever heard. It is supremely dramatic and nuanced. Oh, how I wish he had made a studio recording. Thank you for this treasure.
{Part 1 of 4 Parts}
An 8H Haggis Historic Schumann Symphony Cycle:
Buster said in one of his brief responses to a listener post that he prefers Schumann symphonies to those of Schubert. I personally have a hard time making a binary choice but if forced, I'd have to take the opposite point of view, if only because of the *existence* of the Great C Major symphony (no. 7 or 9 or even 8, depending on your musicololological reference), without which I simply would NOT find life worth living!
At any rate, I promised to find some interesting Schumann records in my collection, so if you will indulge me, here is a symphony cycle featuring some performances I've scrounged from the Net in posts made since about the year 2000.
Symphony No. 1, "Spring", Philharmonic-Promenade Orchestra of London (Perhaps the LPO; but it also might be the RPO, which appeared under this pseudonym on *many* Westminsters) conducted by Sir Adrian Boult; Westminster WST 1443. The complete cycle was recorded by Boult, c.1956, in early (rather binaural-like) stereo; it has been reissued on CD from (allegedly) the archival tapes--but it doesn't sound like that TO ME. I'd guess that issue is rather FAR down the line from the master session recordings; but probably not from LPs. This particular, different, transfer from an old Westminster vinyl issue was posted -- if my recollection is correct -- on a link given on RMCR more than a decade ago by the gifted Cape Cod engineer and phonofile Pierre Paquin. I can remember that when this record was relatively new, it caused more than a few raised eyebrows, due to the use of the infamous 1911 painting "September Morn". Maybe Schumann acquired his -- err -- disorder from such a risqué lady!
I find this to be a wonderful reading, bristling with the energy typical of the mid-period Boult records of the 1950s--but not as hectic or manic as his Westminster Mendelssohn Third. I have more than 40 version of this work merely on CD in my current library; and I'd place this performance amongst the very TIP-TOP, rivalled only by one or two of the "period" versions that have a slightly lighter touch and even better articulation.
{End of Part 1}
{Part 2 of 4}
Symphony No. 2 in C, Op. 61. Georg-Ludwig Jochum, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (live broadcast, January 1958.) This performance was available, for a short time, on a now-defunct page of classical concerts by Swedish Radio; I had to do a bit of EQ-sweetening and NR to make it sound more pleasing. The German conductor (1909-1970) was the younger brother of the better-known Eugen Jochum; the evidence of numerous old (now long deleted) records by G-L suggests he was at least as talented. In fact, he had been tapped by Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels to record a "definitive" cycle of Bruckner symphonies in the mid-forties, upon the publication of the critical edition of those works by Robert Haas (it is said that *Bruckner* -- not Wagner -- was Adolf Hitler's favorite composer!) In fact a special ensemble -- "Bruckner Reichs-Orchester" -- was organized in Linz, Austria (Hitler's birthplace) for the purpose. G-L managed to make early magnetic tape recordings of Bruckner's Second and Fifth (plus a truncated Sixth, missing some parts of the finale) in 1944 before conditions in the Reich made a continuation impossible; in fact, THOSE performances (on early-50s Urania LPs, made from "liberated" tapes) were my own introduction to the pieces, in the early sixties. At the time, I was politically clueless and had no idea that those performances had *originally* been released as The Reich Bruckner Orchestra; now they were simply "The Linz Bruckner Orchestra". But G-L was apparently apolitical himself and eventually engendered so much enmity that he very nearly escaped being sent to the Russian front as cannon-fodder; soon after the Reich lost the war, he was "de-Nazified" and resumed his public conducting career in Europe, to some significant success (but always rather in the shadow of his brother Eugen.) He was not known to have ever been anti-Semitic, and after the war recorded with the Polish born (American emigre) pianist Jakob Gimpel, member of a famous family of prominent Jewish musicians and virtuosi.
At approximately the same time as this performance of Schumann's Second, G-L Jochum also conducted the ensemble in the accompaniment to a live Glenn Gould performance of the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24, which has been released on several media and is now on CD. John Berky's website abruckner.com offers free downloads of several late-career G-L Jochum Bruckner performances (plus his early WW2-era records), here:
https://www.abruckner.com/downloads/downloadofthemonth/
{End of Part 2}
{Part 3 of 4}
Schumann: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat, Op. 97: "Rhenish". NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini conducting (NBC live broadcast concert of 29 January 1938, not officially released.) Toscanini probably never conducted any of the Schumanns except Nos. 2 and 3, and he did the latter during his years with the NBC Symphony also in 1949: a recording that was in print during much of the LP and CD era. The earlier of the two performances is a bit heavier and weightier than the latter, and of course has less transparent sound; but I rather prefer it by at least a small margin. I "restored" this performance (if I can be pardoned for using this pretentious, abused term) from a direct transfer of an audio aircheck tape of the WRVR-FM rebroadcast from the early 1960s: via a small FM station in Riverdale, NY, the community where Toscanini lived during the years of his NBC Symphony career until his death in 1957. The rebroadcast was a special series that drew upon original archived transcription disks in the Toscanini family collection, taped (with rudimentary editing) by NBC/RCA audio engineer John Corbett. The results were often imperfect, but have provided a rich harvest to some of the Toscanini enthusiasts, and certain small independent LP record and CD entrepeneurs, since about the 1980s, when RCA's former diligent efforts to *squash* any such alleged "piraters" (led by Wanda Horowitz Toscanini, furiously brandishing her cane to swat any such imposters) seemed to fade away.
Please note that the fidelity rather dramatically improves during the last two movements, the subsequent transcription disk used having a much wider bandwidth. The high frequency partials on the previous disk are simply missing--nothing can be done to bring them up and match with the last movements. Is this why no "official" release has ever been accomplished?
{End of Part 3}
{Part 4 of 4, plus DL links}
Symphony No. 4 in d, Op. 120: Cincinnati Symphony under Eugene Goossens (rec. c.1941 or thereabouts.) This is hard to pin down with TODAY's net; Discogs does not list this under their collection of "Cromwell Symphony Orchestra" performances on RCA Victor's Camden records ("Cromwell" was the pseudonym used--for some odd reason--for the Cincinnati Sym. Victor 78 issues, used by that label), nor on its Goossens page; but I did locate the actual album release number: CAL-188, issued c.1954-55 on Camden LP, coupled with Serge Koussevitzky's 1934 recording of Mozart's G-minor with the LPO. I don't have the cover image. Even THIS record was mis-attributed in a very obscure online Camden discography, which got the two performances' conductors/orchestras reversed.
http://yktc.us/MusicRack/33/Label%20List/Camden/list%20Camden.html
Just to be absolutely certain, I cross-referenced the CDR I made of this transfer, obtained by me from a very old post to RMCR about 12-15 years ago, against some old 78 rpm versions that are more familiar; and determined it is definitely NOT Stock's (as evident from the very first chord) nor Ormandy's (whose scherzo is MUCH faster and crisper.) And, sonically, it definitely sounds vastly superior to Bruno Walter's 1928 records. So, if it is NOT actually Eugene Goossens' record, I wouldn't have a clue as to what it MIGHT be. All I can say is that I saved it and labelled the CDR as being Goossens and the Cincinnati Symphony...but try as I might, with different search engines, I cannot find another single reference to its existence on the Net, at present. The sound quality of this transfer, which definitely seems to me to be on the "purist" side, rather resembles the better of the Camden transfers that were not defaced with heavy echo (and as such isn't too much different from the Tchaikovsky records by Sevitzky and Kindler that Buster has transferred from Camdens and placed on this very blog.)
I then recalled the very self-effacing and unaltered transfers by Neal's Historical Blog; the links are all dead but the only Goossens item that turns up is a collection of tidbits by the Hollywood Bowl Symphony in the 1920s. So, I simply CANNOT place this transfer with absolute scientific certainty that would pass muster in a court of law, as it were; nor who did it. That being said, it's an excellent performance in very clear, but antiquated, sound: a bit overbright, needing a treble cut; but otherwise completely acceptable to the 'historical record crowd' with whom I pal around--at least until recent years, when I've become positively alienated and hermitic!
{150 MB, mp3s, LIMITED TIME AVAILABILITY: as ZS will not guarantee to keep this zip file online *after* 12/16/18, unless continued requests for DLs are made.}
https://www59.zippyshare.com/d/StXkhQFt/8068/SchumannCycle%2cAB%2cGLJ%2cAT%2cEG.zip
-or-
https://www59.zippyshare.com/v/StXkhQFt/file.html
8H Haggis
Or, perhaps I should have typed "Wanda Toscanini Horowitz". Either way; like a palindrome, it means the same no matter which way you read it. Put down that cane!
8HH
Thanks for the Schumanns! I have never seen the Goossens on Camden. I do have a couple of the Boult records with the nudie covers, in stereo.
With respect to some of the great Morton Gould albums...
I don't think that there is an in-print commercial CD version available now, as an official RCA/BMG/Sony (or whatevah) release of the contents of the old sixties' RCA Victor album LSC-2719, with Gould conducting a crack pickup orchestra of NY musicians in: RVW's Greensleeves and Tallis Fantasias; RVW English Folksong suite; and Coates London Suite.
Ergo...here is a pretty much "high end" transfer of the album, done for me by my friend A.D. in Chicago, using excellent gear (OWL Preamp, very fine Shure cartidge, etc.) using a MINT, virtually perfect copy that did not even require declicking! (This was pretty rare though as I recall, Gould must have been blessed, momentarily, by the Recording Angel when this was issued: because *my* copy of the LP was practically flawless, too. Pity that this kind of peak experience, with LPs, was relatively rare; I probably dubbed 20,000 disks for broadcast tapes, and shudder in revulsion, thinking of my travails, agonies, and disappointments.)
This album still stands up as a landmark of Gould's classical issues. I can recall contemporary critics, at the time of its release, opining that he beat the Brits at their own game. Now, I am not second to ANYBODY with respect to appreciation for Boult, Barbirolli, etc.; but while there are many UK-orchestra performances in this same league, you will have a hard time convincing people -- in a blind test -- that there are a significant number of performances of these pieces that are actually superior in any way.
I FLAC'ed this in a zipped folder of 223 MB. Limited time availability, as Zippyshare does not promise to keep this online *after* 12/16/18, though you never know...
https://www38.zippyshare.com/d/p6cXXUlO/13324/MGcondRVW%2cEC-LSC-2719.zip
-or-
https://www38.zippyshare.com/v/p6cXXUlO/file.html
8H Haggis
Thanks, 8H - I have this LP, it's a great one, and I commend it to everyone.
The After Dark LP is actually a reissue of a 78 set recorded in 1944 and released in early 1945 (with a much less nondescript Alex Steinweiss cover!). Your blogger colleague Bryan posted it here a number of years ago. Also, I don't know where you got the 1951 date, but the LP was actually released around May 1949; by 1951, the Columbia ML 4000 series was already in the high 4300s and the 4400s.
The Movie Time LP was mentioned as a new release in Columbia's weekly ad in the 4 October 1952 issue of Billboard, so your 1952 date is correct for that one.
Thanks for the correction! I must have picked up the date from somewhere; I should have known it was an earlier issue.
Walter's pre-war recording with the major |French orchestra of q certain symphonie is FANTASTIQUE -- set me in a Berlioz. Excelled only by the celebration in Mendelssohn by Bruno and Nathan Milstein, New York 1945, though that day the general news or prognosis was doubtless even better than the music, apart from what remained to be discovered. I have beard fine things from John Eliot Gardiner, but he did rather miss the point that a Furtwaengler date between Bruno's Berlioz and the Mendelssohn could hardly have been purely joyful (shallow, self-enclosed) under the circumstances.
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