From the Back Room: Bloch and Herbert

No sooner had I posted Buster's Back Room, where I listed some of the many projects I had completed but never offered on this blog, than a few people asked for this record.

It's a good one - from 1952 and the American Recording Society, it includes two relatively neglected works: Ernest Bloch's Trois Poèmes Juifs and Victor Herbert's Cello Concerto No. 2.

Walter Hendl

The works are split between two conductors: Walter Hendl, an American who at the time was the music director of the Dallas Symphony, and Max Schoenherr, an Austrian whose recorded works tended to be on the lighter side, such as operetta. Both were accomplished musicians.

Max Schoenherr

The record did attract some notable critical acclaim. John Briggs of the New York Times led his column about recent recordings with these thoughts: "The American Recording Society, aided by a grant from the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, is continuing to turn up unusual and interesting works over-looked in the rush of ordinary commercial recording.

"Such a piece is the Victor Herbert Cello Concerto, newly available on records as performed by Bernard Greenhouse and the American Recording Society Orchestra, Max Schoenherr conducting.

Victor Herbert

"The concerto is a workable piece, designed for practical performance, affording the soloist ample opportunity to display his virtuosity. It is by no means a trivial work. The composer of Naughty Marietta and The Red Mill was also first 'cellist of the Philharmonic-Symphony and for some years conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony. His concerto is the work of a musician trained in the thoroughgoing nineteenth-century German school, writing for an instrument which he knows at first hand. Herbert’s manipulation of the orchestra is easy, fluent and unforced."

Bernard Greenhouse

Cellist Bernard Greenhouse, who was then a solo artist, would help found the famed Beaux Arts Trio in 1955, with pianist Menahem Pressler and violinist Daniel Guilet.

Ernest Bloch

Bloch's superb Trois Poèmes Juifs also received praise from the Times and the Saturday Review. The Times: "On the same recording is heard a fine performance of Ernest Bloch's sensitive and moving Trois Poèmes Juifs, played by the American Recording Society Orchestra under the direction of Walter Hendl." The Saturday Review added that the piece was "beautifully formulated" and "well-performed," and that Hendl directed with "eloquent effect."

The Bloch may be the sole recording of the work: A Classical Discography does not list another. Herbert's two Cello Concertos have each been recorded a few times.

Both of these performances are listed as being by the "American Recording Society Orchestra," which generally turned out to be a European ensemble. A Classical Discography lists the Herbert as being recorded by the Vienna Symphony, but does not have an ID for the orchestra heard in the Bloch composition.

The recording of the concerto was tubby (I've addressed that characteristic), although the cello was and is well caught. The Bloch is nicely done.

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