Dobrowen Conducts Haydn, Borodin and Wagner; Also, Six Ambient Stereo Remasters

Here is a second serving of music conducted by Issay Dobrowen (1891-1953). This is a follow-up to a recent post of works by Russian composers. Today we broaden the focus to include the music of Haydn and Wagner, along with Borodin. All recordings are with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Also new today - six more remasters of classical recordings in ambient stereo. But first, the Dobrowen discs.

Haydn - Symphony No. 104 (London)

Dobrowen's 1946 recording of Haydn's Symphony No. 104 may be the only symphony he recorded from the classical era that was released. He did set down Beethoven's fifth symphony the day before this Haydn work, but that performance remains unissued. He also accompanied Artur Schnabel in two Beethoven concertos.

The Haydn is well played by the then-new Philharmonia, which had just begin recording a year before. (Its first date was led by Walter Susskind, the second by Constant Lambert.) Dobrowen's performance is not particularly romanticized, as was common practice earlier in the century. He makes the minuet of the third movement rather like a peasant dance, in keeping with the theme of the finale, which is derived from a Croatian folk song, and the first movement, which has folk-like elements.

The sound (from Abbey Road Studio No. 1, as with all these recordings) is quite good, its impact enhanced by ambient stereo processing.

Borodin - Prince Igor, Overture and Polovtsi March

Haydn's symphony, his last, dates from 1794. Almost a century later we are in a different sound world with music from Borodin's opera Prince Igor, premiered after the composer's death in 1890. The excerpts here begin with the overture, which in actuality was composed by Glazunov making use of themes from the opera.

The Polovtsian music, too, required the assistance of another composer, in this case Rimsky-Korsakov, who orchestrated it. Here we have the March. It is often coupled with the Polovtsian Dances;  Dobrowen did record the Dances, but I don't have a transfer of that set. The conductor's other Prince Igor selections are vividly characterized, in keeping with the Russian romantic music contained in the first Dobrowen collection.

The Borodin recordings date from 1949 and again benefit from good sound. You can hear another take on the music via Walter Susskind's 1952 recording.

Wagner - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - Prelude to Act I

Wagner began working on Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in 1868, which is about when Borodin started on Prince Igor. It became Wagner's only comic opera; also the longest opera in the standard repertoire.

Perhaps recognizing the lighter nature of the proceedings, Dobrowen takes swift tempos throughout his 1947 recording of the Prelude to Act I. This music is often given a much more weighty performance (which it can well stand). The light treatment is accentuated by the recording, which in this RCA Victor LP transfer had very little bass. That aspect of the recording is not helpful in this music, which has important lower brass lines. I rebalanced the sound to alleviate this problem, with some success.

Quite a few posts featuring the vintage Philharmonia Orchestra have appeared here lately. It's natural and perhaps unfortunate to write about symphonic performances as if they were the work of one person, the conductor, instead of 100 professionals. So let me just mention that the recordings of this period are graced by the presence of the Philharmonia's then-famous wind principals, depicted below. (The photo is circa 1950.)

Sidney Sutcliffe, oboe, Gareth Morris, flute, Dennis Brain, horn, Cecil James, bassoon, Harold Jackson, trumpet, Frederick Thurston, clarinet

The catalog of Dobrowen's recordings is relatively slim. EMI had pegged him as an accompanist, and he was adept at handing those assignments. He assisted such artists as Ginette Neveu, Bronislaw Huberman, Solomon, Boris Christoff, Kirsten Flagstad as well as Schnabel. Otherwise, he may have been seen as a specialist in Russian music. That said, his earliest recordings, dating from 1929, were of Grieg, Dvořák and Sinding.

The recordings in this post were sourced from my collection and needle-drops on Internet Archive. Coming up is Dobrowen's recording of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, in a splendid performance, again with Solomon, with whom the conductor had an evident rapport.

Ambient Stereo Remasters

As before, the links below take you to the original posts. Download links are near or at the end of the comments. We start off with three M-G-M classics from the 1950s, by request.

Lenore Engdahl Plays Griffes. The late pianist Lenore Engdahl did not make many records, but this one is a gem, consisting entirely of piano music by the American impressionist Charles Tomlinson Griffes. This excellent recording dates from 1955.

Music by Paul Bowles and Peggy Glanville-Hicks. Paul Bowles was equally well known as a writer and composer. Here we have two of his best works, along with Peggy Glanville-Hicks' Letters from Morocco, based on Bowles' correspondence to her.

Copland and Weill Suites; Contemporary American Piano Music. Arthur Winograd conducts Copland's Music for Movies and a Weill suite of his own devising. Also, pianist Andor Foldes turns up with contemporary (c1940s) music by American composers.

Swanson - Short Symphony, Diamond - Rounds. Two of the best and best-regarded works by their composers on this vintage American Recording Society release - Howard Swanson's Short Symphony and David Diamond's Rounds. Dean Dixon and Walter Hendl conduct.

Solomon Plays Bliss and Liszt. Another in the series devoted to pianist Solomon. The first recording of Arthur Bliss' bravura Piano Concerto, along with Liszt's Hungarian Fantasia. Sir Adrian Boult and Walter Susskind lead the orchestras.

Boult Conducts Vaughan Williams' A Pastoral Symphony. This Vaughan Williams symphony may be his greatest, and there is no better recording than this one, led by Sir Adrian Boult in 1953. Excellent sound.

Małcużyński and Susskind in Liszt and Borodin

Małcużyński and Susskind smoke and stare

My friend Jean ("Centuri") asked if I could post the other side of a US Columbia LP I recently offered that contained Cyril Smith's 1944 recording of Dohnányi's Variations on a Nursery Theme. Jean was seeking a 1947 performance of Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2, with pianist Witold Małcużyński and the Philharmonia Orchestra under conductor Walter Susskind.

I am happy to post that recording - and am adding to it the same team's 1953 remake of the concerto, along with Małcużyński's recording of Liszt's Sonata in B minor.

Jean, a conductor himself, is particularly interested in Walter Susskind's work. So I am also adding an LP of Borodin's music that Susskind and the Philharmonia set down in 1952.

Details on these recordings are below.

Liszt - Piano Concerto No. 2 (1947 recording), Chopin - Étude, Op. 25, No. 7

Witold Małcużyński (1914-77) was a Polish pianist who escaped to Portugal from France when that country capitulated to the Germans. He then moved to Argentina, the US, and, after the war, Switzerland.

The pianist specialized in the Romantic repertoire, particularly Chopin. Here we have his first recorded venture into the music of Franz Liszt.

Not surprisingly, views of Małcużyński's pianism diverged. Some critics, such as a writer in the American Record Guide, were impressed:

"With the sympathetic assistance of Susskind, who is developing rapidly as a conductor, he delivers a stunning performance that makes the most of the many opportunities for dramatic effectiveness and virtuosic brilliance, yet thankfully does not indulge in the 'interpretative' orgies that have often been the feature of this work's appearance in local concert halls."

The other reviews were equally kind both to pianist and conductor.

This transfer is from LP; the original 78 album included the Chopin Étude in C sharp minor, Op. 25, No. 7, so I've appended that recording to the download as well.

The Gramophone, May 1948

Liszt - Piano Concerto No. 2 (1953 recording), Sonata in B minor

As it did with Cyril Smith's 1940's recording of the Dohnányi, UK Columbia waited only a few years before getting the pianist and conductor back for a remake of the Liszt concerto - presumably warranted by the success of the earlier recording.

As before, the orchestra was the Philharmonia, and again the site was Abbey Road for these March 1953 recordings. This time, the fill-up was more substantial - Liszt's Sonata in B minor.

This time, not all the critics were impressed, at least by the pianist. Andrew Porter wrote in The Gramophone, "Małcużyński seems to me to be an odd pianist - sometimes very poetical in his treatment of a singing phrase; then suddenly brash and harsh." The New York Times' Harold C. Schonberg concurred: "He sentimentalizes, he breaks rhythm; his playing tends to be disconnected...And yet, every once in a while a potentially great pianist is at work."

Borodin - Orchestral Music from Prince Igor

Walter Susskind (1913-80) made quite a number of recordings for EMI in the postwar years, almost all of them as accompanist. Much later he had a chance to record a wider repertoire with his St. Louis Symphony, and via other discs for various labels. Today we have one of his few orchestral outings for EMI, a 10-inch disc done for EMI's Parlophone marque in 1952.

Susskind was a Czech-born British conductor who left his native land in 1939 upon the Nazi invasion. In 1942 he joined the Carl Rosa Opera Company, and his first recording was soon thereafter in support of that company's Joan Hammond. This set him on the path of being one of UK Columbia's most prolific orchestral accompanists.

Walter Susskind

When the Borodin recording was made, he was the music director of the Scottish National Orchestra; soon he would move to Australia to lead the Melbourne Symphony, followed by seven years in Toronto, and a productive spell in St. Louis. He concluded his career with a few years as artistic advisor to the Cincinnati Symphony.

Parlophone advertises the music as an "Orchestral Suite" from Prince Igor, but it is that true only in retrospect. This is actually the orchestral excerpts from the opera - the Overture, "Polovtsian March" and the famous "Polovtsian Dances." Borodin himself never finished the opera. After his death, Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov arranged and orchestrated a performing edition of the work. The Polovtsian music was orchestrated by Rimsky. Glazunov is credited with arranging the Overture, but he did more, drafting it himself using Borodin's opera themes "roughly according to Borodin's plan," as he explained.

Regardless of the patchwork nature of the performing edition, the orchestral works are highly enjoyable. The Philharmonia played well for Susskind, and the critics were generally kind.

The Borodin comes from my collection; the other works were remastered from needle drops found on Internet Archive. The sound is very good in all cases. In addition to the usual reviews and scans, the Borodin download includes a 1972 Gramophone article on Susskind.