From the beginning, the Academy's repertoire was heavily tilted toward the baroque and classical eras. Its first record, from 1961, included music by Handel, Corelli, Locatelli and Torelli, for example.
This present LP dates from 1974, during the height of the orchestra's fame. It veers toward the most popular side of its repertoire, including the two pillars of the pop-baroque, the so-called Albinoni Adagio and the Pachelbel Canon. Also included are crowd pleasers from Handel, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and Mendelssohn.
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| October 1974 Gramophone ad |
The Adagio has a curious story. Albinoni scholar Remo Giazotto claimed to have found the music among the composer's manuscripts during the 1940s. He published his arrangement of the music, which became popular. But no documentation has ever surfaced that would definitely attribute the strain to the Italian baroque composer. It's likely that what is sometimes called the Albinoni-Giazotto Adagio is actually the Giazotto Adagio.
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| Iona Brown |
The download includes scans, as always, along with the slightly different UK, Dutch and German covers, the vintage Gramophone ad above, and a review from that magazine by W.A. Chislett, who also wrote the LP's liner notes. Unsurprisingly, he liked the record.
The sound from Abbey Road Studio No. 1 is excellent. Several of the items on this record - notably the Beethoven Contradances - have not been reissued, to my knowledge.
I plan to present the Academy's first recording (mentioned above) in the near future, and possibly other items. While performance styles in baroque and classical music have moved on from the refined and subtle approach of this modern-instrument ensemble, to me the ASMF will always represent a high point in 20th-century recorded music.
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Link (Apple lossless):
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Funny, I just a day or two ago recorded The Toy Symphony by these same folks. All I knew of them was their music from that Amadeus movie. Thanks for filling me in on their history. :)
I have to admit that Pachelbel's Earworm is my least-favorite classical composition. But I can always skip that track.
I know many musicians who get a little snooty about these recordings today, as our attitudes to the performance of early music has changed so greatly, but at the very least these performances are a window onto a time when the full-fat, high cholesterol performances of Bach and Handel were gradually receding...and the Academy's recordings played an important part in that transition. Many thanks Buster.
Phillip - I am tremendously fond of these type of performances. I well remember the rise of more modern approaches, and was initially enthusiastic, particularly because of the transparency that could be achieved with period instruments. But that didn't last for me because of the peculiar interpretations and performance practices that became common.
I, too, was intrigued by period performances initially but it soon wore off. Does anyone believe that composers would have written for a collection of wheezy, clanging, scratchy sounding instruments seemingly tuned by a demented madman with a tin ear if something more beautiful had been available? The older I get the more prevalent period performances are and the less I understand them. Thank you for this lovely recording. Gary
Ah, but they did and I, at least, am still interested, both for historical and musical reasons, to experience how they would have sounded to an audience when composed.
There is also the question of whether, purely as a thought experiment, if Bach et al. had modern instruments available, they would have composed their music in the same way, if at all.
Still, I do believe that, ultimately, preference is up to the listener, and am happy to have that choice, as well as your interesting comments.
Let the debates continue!
Thanks Buster for this compilation : transparent and refined interpretation under Marriner.
In my opinion, the Beethoven is outstanding.
The Gramophone is well worth an online subscription just to read the old reviews of W. A. Chislett, who wrote for it from 1925 all the way to 1984. He comes across as a truly appealing sort of human being, for whom music was primarily a source of joie de vivre. And he never makes the sort of idiotically vituperative remarks characteristic of some of the magazine's jazz and pop reviewers, for instance, who never missed a chance to come down like a ton of bricks on something they personally happened to dislike. I even have a 1968 Beatles tribute LP (The Best of the Beatles by the Léo Chauliac Orchestra) with the notes by Chislett in his usual winsome style, which is not an area you'd expect someone born in 1895 to venture into!
For me, the problem with "period performance" is not the instrumentation, but the fact it's just about the only thing that is "period" about it. Hardly any period performers use a constant scooping portamento or wildly fluctuating tempo rubato, or eschew the use of vibrato almost totally, although we know from textbooks and other sources that this was deep-rooted standard practice in the 17th to 19th centuries – to such an extent that a supposedly "period" ensemble of today, transported by time machine to that time, would have to expect rotten tomatoes from the audience instead of applause.
It so happens that I personally quite like these old performance practices, but to hear them on record I have to go to 78s from roughly the first third of the 20th century, when they were still common especially among older performers...
This intermediate phase is truly underrated these days. Not just Marriner, but Thurston Dart, Noah Greenberg, David Munrow, Renato Fasano and the Virtuosi di Roma, Karl Haas and the London Baroque Ensemble... As Oliver Twist would say, "More!"
Boursin - I have about 40 years of Gramophone issues in my basement. I think all of them have "Nights at the Round Table." As for performance practice, one's early exposure helps determine preference, to a degree. I know that's true in my case.
Oh yes. Personally I came to this stuff through jazz and other music with blue notes in it. And I'm certain that the my liking for the looseness and sense of not quite "colouring inside the lines" that can be heard in early-20th-century classical recordings comes straight from that source.
I still think that there is a fundamental difference between "preference" and "echt,"and while the latter may constitute a theoretical ideal, as Boursin suggested above, it's never realized in practice.
Nor, at least in my view, should it even be considered an ideal: This would, among other things, automatically eliminate all transcriptions. And what about repeats?
As for jazz and show music, what do we do about (say) Frank Sinatra, who recorded "Night And Day," among many other song, in both ballad and up-tempo versions? And what about revivals of classic musicals vs. John McGlinn's concert versions using "original" orchestrations
I vote in favor of choices.
Indeed. Considering that it has a memorable melody and that it is well-constructed, it is surprising just how tedious a piece it is.
And I know hindsight is always 20-20 but listening to the "Albinoni" adagio I could not help but wonder how anyone could have believed it to have been composed in the 18th century. And it is far too long.
Having said which the rest of the disc is a delight. Does anyone know whose transcription the Mendelssohn is? I've heard the Octet done by string orchestra, but I don't recall ever hearing any of it performed by a full orchestra before.
hkitt42 - I am in favor of choices myself, which ought to be apparent from what I post here. But I am always specially interested in what we can glean about how music was originally performed. Records allow a glimpse into these practices for at least 20th century music.
dgrb - I wondered that myself, but there is no indication on the sleeve, etc.
And in that list, don't overlook Benjamin Britten, whose Brandenburg Concertos are in many ways still my favorites. But in any case, it's not an either/or; we can enjoy all these approaches simultaneously, if we choose.
Two of my favorite ASMF recordings have always remained very popular and in print, so they won't appear on this blog: they happen to feature respectively their most stellar violin soloists in that period: the one with the nimblest fingers & bow (Alan Loveday, The Four Seasons) and the one with the sweetest sound (Iona Brown, their Vaughan Williams program).
JAC - Those are favorites of mine, as well - along with the Argo recordings of Handel's Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music. They set a standard for orchestral grace, style and elan that would be hard to match.
Agreed--and you are, indeed, consistently ecumenical--my point with respect to those who routinely favor modern performances (Beecham's garguantuan "Messiah?") is that, with respect to earlier periods, as Voltaire noted, "We should not allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good."
Smaller orchestral and vocal forces, pitches of A=416, wooden flutes and oboes, harpsichords, fortepianos, falsettists/countertenors, straight tone--all add value, regardless of whether they are perfect replications of earlier performance practices. In mathematical terms, they are, of necessity, asymptotic.
For the record (no pun intended), I do enjoy Stokowski's orchestration of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor--with or without "Fantasia!"
hkitt42 - I do own that Beecham Messiah. But I draw the line at Stoki's transcriptions!
Fair enough.
Toscanini recorded his own arrangement of the Octet with the NBC Symphony string section in 1947 (and the scherzo only in 1945.) I hadn't listened to it for years but pulled it out and that's some virtuoso string playing! The Maestro is in his best form, precise but also expressive and frequently delicatissimo. The sound is studio 8-H-y, although recent reviews say that Richard Caniell's Immortal Performances transfer is much easier on the ears.
I still prefer the original but I don't see why an orchestra shouldn't have a go at it, when the musicianship is at this level.
Say, Buster, speaking of the Argo label.
They issued three LP's of piano transcriptions in the 1960's. One was of the tragically under-recorded Josef Lhévinne. The second featured several different pianists, including Emmanuel Rosenthal and a young Ervin Nyiregyházi whose whereabouts were unknown when the Argo record came out. Both of these were highly convincing, not to mention dazzling, and came from sophisticated Ampico system rolls.
The third, unfortunately, was not at all convincing. They tried to transfer Rachmaninoff's Duo Art rolls using an Ampico mechanism and it didn't work. (Nor have later attempts, BTW. Duo Art was cheaper but cruder than its competitors.)
They were in Mono (in 1966!) but good mono. Unfortunately, my copies eventually warped to the point of becoming unplayable. Ever hear them? Any chance of a resurrection?
In case you are wondering, I stand in awe of your knowledge and broad range of musical interests.
Charlot,
Thanks so much for the kind comment! My broad interests do extend to the Argo label (a favorite), but not, sad to say, to piano roll transcriptions. I was just reading last night a few old articles on them - one swore they were better representations of the artists than 78s; the other said precisely the opposite. I have no idea what to believe, and have thereby never picked up LPs or CDs that collate them. Sorry!
Almost all recordings made from piano rolls that I have heard have been horrible, clunky, mechanical travesties. Some of the systems were inherently crude and approximate. Others were sophisticated but so complicated that any little difference, even the barometric pressure, could throw them way off. So there was a series in the 1950's on Columbia records. Awful. Everest had a lot of them. Dreadful.
The only exceptions I know of are those two of three Argos and the series currently and slowly emerging on the Pierian label, and even there some tracks don't quite seem right.
Anyhow, you cover so much territory on your site that I can't complain.
Being a fan of transcriptions, I don't even have a problem with Stoki's (though in fact I don't recall when I last listened to one: I go in more for different realizations of Pictures at an Exhibition, or Les Sylphides).
JAC - I have nothing against transcriptions. I just don't like Stoki's!
For that matter, I prefer Spike Jones--is he "modern" or "original?"
Couldn't resist!
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