Mitropoulos Conducts Vaughan Williams and Rachmaninoff

I transferred this LP because I have been reading William Trotter's vivid, if melodramatic biography of Dimitri Mitropoulos, Priest of Music.

The conductor was indeed an unworldly sort who was a mismatch with the all-too-worldly New York Philharmonic. But before his ill-fated Phil follies, he was the long-time maestro in Minneapolis, and a beloved figure there.

Mitropoulos' commitment to modern music extended from the more conservative works heard here (and previous uploads such as compositions from Gian Carlo Menotti and Elie Siegmeister), through the second symphony of Roger Sessions (also previously featured here), to Schoenberg's Erwartung (which I will transfer when I locate the record in my collection).

Mitropoulos was famous for his remarkable memory, control and intensity. These traits serve the Rachmaninoff very well. But his febrile approach may be less suited to the Tallis Fantasia, which needs more room to breathe.

Columbia recorded these works in March 1945 in Minneapolis' Northrup Auditorium. The sound is adequate. This transfer is from an early LP issue.

Mitropoulos in his Minneapolis days

Quincy Porter Conducts Quincy Porter

When I recently asked readers to vote on whether they wanted me to post a variety of music I had transferred, this was one of the most frequently requested items.

There is a lively interest around here in American music of the last century, and Quincy Porter is one of the leading composers of conservative, tonal music from that era.

Porter was literally a son of Yale; a grandson, too - both his father and grandfather were professors there, and Porter himself both was educated at the New Haven school and spent a good part of his career there.

Overtone Records, which issued this disc in 1955, was located in New Haven and drew upon the Yale faculty for its performers. For this particular production of Porter conducting his own works, it contracted the Concerts Colonne Orchestra of Paris, and noted engineer André Charlin.

On the program are two middle-period compositions, Porter's Symphony No. 1 and Dance in Three Time, both from the 1930s, and his Concerto Concertante, which had won a Pulitzer Prize the year before this record was made.

Quincy Porter

I can't say the results met my own expectations, which may be more a commentary on me than anything else. The music left little impression and the sound, while good and no doubt truthful, lacks impact. Porter's grim look on the cover just about sums up my personal reaction. I am sure many of you will enjoy this more than I did.

[Note (May 2023): This is now available remastered in ambient stereo, which has made a marked improvement in the sound - and gave me a far more positive view of the music as a result.]

The download includes cover scans, as always, along with a copy of the detailed program note insert that came with the record.

'Merry Overtures' from Cleveland

I prepared this transfer because I've been reading the recent biography of conductor George Szell written by Michael Charry, and when looking for a Cleveland Orchestra record to listen to, this one came to hand.

It's a collection of overtures - an idea whose time has passed, but one I favor - and this is an especially good one.

Merry Overtures is a vintage 1957 recording, which was the year that the Szell-led Cleveland troupe began to be recognized as a leading orchestra after a highly successful European tour. The group set down these items in the months following that expedition. The Szell discography claims that the first comes from Severance Hall on October 25, 1957, with the following overtures taped in the city's Masonic Auditorium in November 1957 and March 1958. (For many years, Cleveland Orchestra recordings were made in that auditorium, which was more resonant that Severance.)

Szell and bassoonist George Goslee

I've published Cleveland Orchestra recordings from the 1940s, and the playing there is always quite good, but these are of a different order altogether. This collection is superb; it shows why the orchestra gained renown.

This LP has never been reissued as a package, although as far as I can tell, all the pieces and parts except perhaps for the Rossini overture have been parcelled out to other LPs or CDs. This Epic album was mono-only, but I believe some or all of the items were taped in stereo. I am sure I have a stereo copy of the Mozart, and perhaps others. No matter - the mono sound is glowing and does full justice to a great orchestra beginning to achieve its considerable potential.

By the way, the grandees on the cover are not in Severance Hall - a note says the photo was taken in Carnegie Hall. It's not normal for tails and tiaras to be worn at orchestra concerts these days, but perhaps the custom was considerably more formal in the 50s.

Two Recordings of Hanson's Symphony No. 4

Looking through my collection the other day, I came across a 10-inch LP containing a rendition of Howard Hanson's Symphony No. 4, and thought it might be a good candidate for this blog. So I started transferring it, only to realize that the orchestral playing was appalling - scrappy and scrawny, although conductor Dean Dixon and the anonymous ensemble still produced a punchy and heartfelt traversal of a fine work that was Hanson's memorial for his father.

Howard Hanson

Had Hanson himself recorded it, I wondered? Back to the stacks I went, finally finding his own version by accident - it was filed nearby under the composer of the other work on the disc, Roy Harris. Looking at the cover, I knew immediately that I had already had a go at the record and offered it here, four years ago!

So I've decided to present both versions at this time, and you can choose your favorite. I believe the Dixon edition came first; Hanson may have recorded his later in self-defense. Gramphone reviewed the composer-directed LP in early 1953, suggesting a circa 1952 recording date.

The recording quality of both is reasonably good. The Hanson-Harris album is newly remastered.

Prokofiev's "The Prodigal Son"

Several years ago I posted Léon Barzin and the New York City Ballet Orchestra performing music by Virgil Thomson and Hershy Kay, a recording that is still available here.

Barzin and his troupe had signed a contract with Vox in 1954 for three records per year for three years, but I have only encountered the Thomson-Kay disc and this present rendition of Prokofiev's "The Prodigal Son" ballet music.

Léon Barzin

Prokofiev's music was written for Diaghilev and premiered in 1928. It has been little heard since then, although the music is related to the composer's fourth symphony. This was the first recording of the complete (or near-complete) ballet music, and I believe it has been succeeded by only a few other attempts at the score. If not as well known or memorable as some of Prokofiev's other ballet scores, it is nonetheless worthwhile.

This is a good, straightforward performance, although it sounds like it might have been recorded in the Baths of Caracalla. Barzin, a talented conductor, was more noted as a trainer of orchestral musicians, through his National Orchestral Association. He left relatively few recordings, so this LP is a fine remembrance. It was taped in March 1955.

Brahms First Concerto with Serkin, Reiner

Not too long ago I posted the Brahms second concerto in a recording by Rudolf Serkin and the Philadelphia Orchestra. I had a request for Serkin in Brahms No. 1, so here is his first go at it. This comes from February 1946, and is with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Fritz Reiner, rather than the Philadelphians and Eugene Ormandy.

Serkin recorded the concerto four times for Columbia - beside this effort, he addressed it in 1952 with Cleveland/Szell, in 1961 with Philadelphia/Ormandy, and in 1968 with the Cleveland combination once again. According to Michael Gray's discography, there also is an unissued Philadelphia attempt from earlier in 1961.

This is a good performance, closely recorded in Columbia's manner of the time. The Pittsburgh musicians don't possess the sheen of their cross-state counterparts, but the orchestral details are vivid and well balanced. It's not clear why Columbia and Serkin decided to redo the concerto only six years later.

The cover above is from the second LP issue. I actually transferred this from a near-mint first generation LP with a tombstone cover. (Scans of both are in the download.) You'll notice that the inset illustration at top depicts Brahms at the piano behind an open door. The scene is a detail pulled from the 78 album art, below. Making use of the 78 set's artwork to provide some color for the LP was a common technique for Columbia at the time. The illustration is pasted onto the cover, which uses a standard design. The art direction for both covers is by Alex Steinweiss; I don't know who did the drawing of Brahms.

Cover of 78 set

Brahms from the VPO and Böhm

I was so pleased to pick up the latest edition of Gramophone and learn that Karl Böhm has been elected to its Hall of Fame. Not that I have much use for such halls as a concept - but still, Böhm is a musician worth remembering.

The conductor's benediction in print was delivered by the great mezzo Brigitte Fassbaender. Here is some of what she wrote:

Böhm

"'Karl the Great' he most certainly was; he was a consummate musician, his repertoire embracing a wide spectrum from the Classical to the modern. His crystal-clear interpretation of the Mozart operas with the BPO, his deceptively straightforward Beethoven with the VPO and his close artistic collaboration with Strauss in Dresden will ensure his place in the annals."

I while back I prepared a transfer of the June 1953 Böhm-VPO recording of Brahms' third symphony. I find it most enjoyable, although it probably does not represent the best work of either party. The sound from the Musikvereinssaal is good. The download includes the December 1953 Gramophone review, Fassbaender's encomium, and as always, hi-res scans, in case you want to print out and frame that amazingly ugly cover for some reason.

Tchaikovsky Conducted by Rodzinski and (Maybe) Ringwall

A recent post in one of the classical newsgroups led me to undertake this transfer. One of the folks there posted the 1940 Cleveland Orchestra recording of Tchaikovsky's fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet as conducted by Artur Rodzinski, the orchestra's music director at the time.

Ringwall

This elicited a fascinating anecdote from my friend Joe Serraglio, who said that it had been claimed that Rudolph Ringwall, the orchestra's associate conductor for many years, was the actual conductor of the contemporaneous Rodzinski/Cleveland recordings of the Marche Slav and 1812 Overture.

I have a good copy of the early LP edition of the disputed 1812 Overture, coupled with that same Romeo and Juliet recording, and decided to transfer the record to see for myself . . . well, not sure what I wanted to prove, but I did want to listen to it.

Here is what Joe has to say about the claims that Ringwall was the conductor of the 1812, not Rodzinski:

"Don Rosenberg's masterful history 'The Cleveland Orchestra Story: Second to None' mentions Ringwall's claim to have conducted the Marche slav and the 1812 Overture:

'In three days of sessions over a 12-day period, they [Rodzinski and Columbia producer Moses Smith] ... recorded ... Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet fantasy-overture and Marche slav. The label on the Marche slav disks lists Rodzinski as conductor, as does a later performance of the 1812 Overture, though associate conductor Rudolph Ringwall claimed he conducted both recordings.' (180-181).

"Later Rosenberg weighs in on who he thinks conducted the 1812 Overture: '...the musicians and recording engineers didn't get it quite right. The orchestra is alert, occasionally untidy. It is much larger than the ensembles on the 1924 and 1927 recordings and therefore juicier. But this doesn't sound like Rodzinski at the helm. Everything is competent, a bit ordinary, lacking Rodzinski's pervasive zeal. The cannon shots are haphazard and some brass bloopers as well as an exposed cough, can be heard along the battle route. Ringwall would have done himself no favor by taking credit for this recording.' (182)

"And in the CO discography at the end of the volume Rosenberg lists both the 1812 and Marche slav as conducted by 'Rodzinski (probably Ringwall).' (670)"

Now you all can listen and decide for yourself, if such is possible. To me, this could well be a Rodzinski recording, even though there are no telltale signs like pistol shots during the peroration (Rodzinski supposedly carried a gun). The Columbia ad below, for what it's worth, claims the 1812 is played with "new vividness, new impact".

The sound here is good. Michael Gray says the Romeo and Juliet recording was on December 14, 1940 in Severance Hall, and the 1812 was on April 14, 1941.

Life Magazine, May 22, 1944 (click to enlarge)

Brahms Second Concerto with Serkin, Ormandy

1945 Life Magazine ad - click to enlarge

I just transferred this recording, and enjoyed the results so much that I am rush releasing it, as it were, for your enjoyment.

"It" in this case is the Brahms piano concerto no. 2 with the great Rudolf Serkin. The work was something of a specialty of the pianist: he recorded it at least four times - three times with the present accomplices, the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy.

This particular edition is the first, recorded in the Academy of Music on March 15, 1945. It was followed by 1956 and 1960 efforts, and a 1966 go-around with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra.

Original LP cover

The 1945 recording first came out on 78s, followed by this LP, which I believe was among the initial 100 issued by Columbia in 1948, with the generic "tombstone" cover used for the first classical releases. Later the record was sold with one of the better Alex Steinweiss covers (below).

I own two pressings of the recording, with distinctly different sound. This transfer is from the first pressing, which, while not really dry sounding, is distinctly less resonant and glamorous sounding than a later version, which was "enhanced" with reverb. It's fascinating how much different Serkin sounds when he has been aided by the engineer. Reverb is very much of a universal phenomenon these days, which may be why one contemporary orchestral recording sounds pretty much like another. I would prefer to have Serkin and the Philadelphians served without condiments, and that's what we have here.

Serkin in 1943

Serkin is a favorite of mine, although he is very different from some of the other pianists who have appeared here. He was considered both a romantic and classicist. He was not known as a natural virtuoso but he is capable of remarkable feats of pianism. His sound could be both honeyed and very gritty. All that can be heard here. But what comes through most of all is his complete command of both the music and the instrument, and his total involvement.

The sound here is just to my taste, although there is some slight wobble here and there due to a less-than-ideally flat pressing. The orchestral backing is very fine. I want to be sure to mention the superb cello solo in the slow movement, which presumably is by then-principal Samuel Mayes.

Music for Easter with Stokowski

I was casting about looking for records to present for Easter, and had hit upon a Robert Shaw set to transfer - forgetting that it is missing one of the records. But I also had this RCA Camden LP of "Music for Easter" at hand, so that's our selection for today.

For some reason, during the first part of the 1950s, RCA used pseudonyms for the orchestras featured on the budget Camden label. Here we have the "Warwick Symphony Orchestra", which actually is the Philadelphia Orchestra in famous old recordings led by Leopold Stokowski.

How does he make his hair do that?

Stoki was a very popular personality when these records were made. He not only appeared in a famous cartoon himself (Fantasia) but was well known enough to have been caricatured in another cartoon by Bugs Bunny. I have to admit that for this and other reasons, I am one of the snobs who have a hard time taking him seriously. Many people do, of course, and I yield to them for purposes of this post. (And, of course, who am I to make judgments, considering some of the silly stuff I have offered here.)

The cover says "Music for Easter" and comes complete with a Gothic cathedral facade, but this is not music you will hear in church. Instead we have the Act I Prelude and "Good Friday Spell" from Act III of Wagner's Parsifal, together with Rimsky-Korsakov's Russian Easter Overture.

The sound here is quite good (although there is a bit of noise on my pressing), especially when you consider that the Rimsky goes back as far as January 1929. The Parsifal excerpts are from November 1936, when Stokowski was beginning his withdrawal from Philadelphia.

Julius Baker in Works by Foote and Griffes

Flutist Julius Baker made any number of records in the 1950s. During much of the period he was a New York freelance musician, but when these recordings were made, in June 1952, he was the principal flute of the Chicago Symphony. He later was the principal of the New York Philharmonic for many years.

Julius Baker

The repertoire could not be more welcome, consisting of the Poem for flute and orchestra by the American Impressionist Charles Tomlinson Griffes and "A Night Piece" by the American Romantic Arthur Foote.

Assisting in the Griffes is a chamber orchestra led by Daniel Saidenberg, also a busy performer during the period. In "A Night Piece" Baker is joined by the then violins of the Stuyvesant Quartet (Sylvan Shulman and Bernard Roberts), violist Harold Coletta of the NBC Symphony, and cellist Bernard Greenhouse, later of the Beaux Arts Trio.

These are excellent performances that I recommend. The sound is good. They come from American Decca's spartan (no notes) 4000 series of 10-inch LPs, dating from the early 1950s. I have a few more from this series coming up.

By the way, if you are interested in the Stuyvesant Quartet, fellow blogger Bryan over at The Shellackophile offers three different recordings by the group, including one he just posted.

Grace Williams and Gustav Holst

It's been some time since we have had a classical LP appear here. This one features two 20th century composers, one familiar, the other less so.

Boyd Neel

The popularity of Gustav Holst's "The Planets" almost eclipses his other works, but most of his music is of considerable interest. The St. Paul's Suite is a very attractive folk-derived work named for the girls' school where the composer taught. Here it is well performed by Boyd Neel and his orchestra, which made many records for English Decca at mid-century.

Grace Williams

To me, the real interest is in Grace Williams' lovely Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes, from 1940. This, the first recording of any music by the Welsh composer, is from October 1948. It was made for the Welsh Recorded Music Society and issued on 78 in 1949. It then was reissued with the Holst on 10-inch LP in 1951.

Mansel Thomas

Mansel Thomas, a notable figure in Welsh musical life, conducted the Fantasia. He was at this time the director of the BBC Welsh Orchestra, although here he leads the London Symphony.

The sound is adequate. The download includes contemporary reviews from The Gramophone.

Inghelbrecht Conducts Fauré

There has been quite a selection of recordings by the French conductor Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht appearing on the classical newsgroups lately, so I thought I would do my part by transferring this recording of Fauré's surpassingly beautiful Requiem, which I had at hand.

Inghelbrecht, who died in 1965, had little reputation outside France, although his recordings did circulate in other countries - I have several of them on US labels. This recording of the Fauré Requiem and other choral works by that composer comes from 1955, when the conductor was 75.

D. E. Inghelbrecht

It is not entirely a success, in truth, both as a performance and as a recording. I have not been able to track down where the recording of the Requiem was made, but it sounds like a church - a church with  truck idling outside the windows. The balances can be awry as well - the first entrance of the male voices sounds like they are outside the church and down the block (perhaps they were looking for the idling truck making all the racket).

Inghelbrecht was a dry-eyed conductor, and he did not let the emotional temperature get too high in this performance. The rendition of "Pie Jesu" is much too fast, whether at the choice of the soloist or conductor. (Or maybe the idling engine was their waiting car?)

The other pieces are better done, seemingly in a different location, and the Madrigal and Pavane (with its optional choral part intact) have not been reissued, as far as I can tell.

Although the Requiem is attributed to the Champs-Élysées orchestra, I believe that is a pseudonym, and the actual musicians are from the Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française.

Mitropoulos Conducts Sessions

The music of American composer Roger Sessions has a reputation for being forbidding. To me, it is not that it is "difficult" so much as it makes no attempt to be "easy" in the way that Randall Thompson's own Second Symphony does.

Sessions in 1948

This exceptional performance provides perhaps the best window onto Sessions' sound world. In it, Dimitri Mitropoulos and New York's Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra sound entirely at one with the music. It is a very serious work, written from 1944-46 and dedicated to the memory of Franklin D. Roosevelt. But paradoxically the performance also communicates a constant spirit of delight because of its extraordinary sympathy.

The excellent sonics, too, convey a sense of a real performance. The simple miking helps to provide an integrated sound to the orchestra - so different from the synthetic approach that has been the norm for many years. The symphony was recorded in Columbia's 30th Street studios in January 1950.

The liner notes below provide a good introduction to Sessions and this music. The only negative to this issue is the completely inappropriate front cover art.

Randall Thompson's Second Symphony

Looking at the cover, you might expect this record to dance band music that would make you want to get up and do the Lindy hop.

Well, not exactly. Randall Thompson's 1931 Symphony No. 2 is not something that you would find in the Paul Whiteman book. It is a relatively conventional symphony, although it makes use of simple materials - even simplistic, in the case of the first movement. Thompson, one of the leading American composers for many years, is today much better known for his choral works than his symphonic efforts.

Randall Thompson

The performance is a good one, led by the American conductor Dean Dixon with what is probably a Viennese orchestra. This was among the first issues by the American Recording Society, a non-profit organization that was set up in 1951 by the Alice Ditson Fund to promote American music. This recording is now rebalanced and enhanced with ambient stereo to counteract the bony acoustic.

Dean Dixon

Vittorio Giannini's IBM Symphony

Sorry about the lack of posts lately - it's been a combination of work, preparing to move and sheer lethargy. Fortunately I have friends who have come to the rescue with interesting items to present.

This 78 set comes to us courtesy of my great pal Ernie (of the Ernie Not Bert blog). Ernie collects all kinds of music, although he only presents Christmas music on his own site. The set presents what must be one of the few symphonies ever written in honor of a capitalist organization - there are far more communist hymns of praise to collective farms and the like. It is an "IBM Symphony," commissioned by that company from the talented if hopelessly unfashionable neo-Romantic composer Vittorio Giannini in 1937.

The occasion was the opening of the IBM Building in New York. The composer conducted the Columbia Broadcasting System's orchestra, and this set is a memento. It opens with a spoken introduction that oddly starts in the middle of a thought - apparently it is an excerpt of an address at the opening ceremony, or such is my supposition.

The symphony, which is fairly brief, makes use of an IBM song called "Ever Onward," and as notes for the symphony suggest, this is intended to identify "the spirit of IBM with the world movement for international understanding" - or "World Peace Through World Trade," as it says on the record label.

Hailing IBM in 1939: Vittorio Giannini, critic Olin Downes,
Eugene Ormandy, Thomas Watson

Giannini was a favorite composer at IBM. He next appears in 1939 with a song called "Hail to the IBM" (not clear why "the" is needed here), which was presented at IBM Day at the New York World's Fair, grandly presented by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy.

The download includes excerpts from both "Ever Onward" and "Hail to the IBM," both from the IBM website archive. The excerpt of the latter hymn ends before it gets to this embarrassing panegyric about IBM founder Thomas Watson:

Our voices swell in admiration;
Of T. J. Watson proudly sing;
He'll ever be our inspiration,
To him our voices loudly ring;
The I.B.M. will sing the praises,
Of him who brought us world acclaim,
As the volume of our chorus raises,
Hail to his honored name.

You can learn more about Giannini here. Thanks again to Ernie for this fine transfer of a fascinating footnote to both musical and business history.

Masses by Harrison and Killmayer

I have had very little time to prepare new items for the blog for a while, so I will be posting some transfers that I made a while back and didn't complete for one reason or another.

In this case, I didn't follow through because while I am very fond of one work on the LP, the other leaves me cold.

The record in question is part of a series on Epic Records presenting contemporary compositions sponsored by the Fromm Music Foundation. This "Twentieth Century Composers Series" included works by Elliott Carter, Luigi Dallapiccola, Lukas Foss, Leon Kirchner, Ernst Krenek and Ben Weber, as well as these Mass settings by Lou Harrison and Wilhelm Killmayer.

I just don't care for the stiff Missa Brevis by the German composer Killmayer, but I will comment on Harrison's beautiful Mass, which is usually called the "Mass to St. Anthony". This record memorializes the second of three versions of the Mass, which has more conventional orchestration than the percussion accompaniment of the version Harrison began in 1939, when he was in his early 20s. He restored the original orchestration, with some additions, in 2001, a few years before his death.

Margaret Hillis

The excellent performances are led by Margaret Hillis with her New York Concert Choir and Orchestra. Hillis, a Robert Shaw disciple, would soon move to Chicago to head the Chicago Symphony Chorus, where she became possibly the most well regarded choral trainer in the US, Shaw aside. I believe these recordings were made in 1955, probably in Columbia's 30th Street studio.

Orchestral conducting was Hillis' first love, but opportunities for women were then even more restricted than they are now. Nonetheless, she left many fine recordings, this among them.

By the way, Blogger's photo function has become dysfunctional, so many of the images on this blog are not appearing at all. I had to use a work-around to post the photos seen here.

Chicago Symphony Woodwind Quintet

Here's a fairly rare example of classical music from the small Audiophile label of Saukville, Wisconsin.

This is one of four LPs that the Chicago Symphony Woodwind Quintet made for the company in December 1953. Audiophile's founder, Ewing Nunn, recorded relatively few classical recordings - primarily organ music. His main line was revivalist jazz. There is an interesting site about Audiophile here.

The program includes three excellent works by then-living composers:

Ibert: Trois Pieces Breves
Milhaud: La Cheminée dur Roi René
Hindemith: Quintet for Wind Instruments 

The quintet members were:

Wilbur Simpson, bassoon (in CSO from 1946-91)
Philip Farkas, horn (CSO 1936-41, 1947-60)
Jerome Stowell, clarinet (CSO 1936-73)
Robert Mayer, oboe (CSO 1931-56)
Ralph Johnson, flute (CSO flute, 1934-72; librarian, 1973-83)

The record was in excellent condition, and the sound is quite vivid.

Vaughan Williams and Robert Palmer from Cornell

This Concert Hall Society release from 1954 demonstrates the high quality of music making in upstate New York at the time. It presents one of Vaughan Williams' most unusual works and compositions from Cornell University composer Robert Palmer.

The English composer is from an earlier generation than the American Palmer, but in fact Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on the Old 104th Psalm Tune was written at the same time as Palmer's Chamber Concerto, and both were nearly new when this record was made.

John Hunt

The fantasia oddly combines a barnstorming piano part (played here by John Hunt) with a choral hymn tune, somewhat in the manner of Beethoven's Choral Fantasia. This was almost certainly its first recording, and I don't believe there was another until an Adrian Boult-led performance in 1970. Also on the record are three of Vaughan Williams' most attractive folk song settings for choir.

Robert Palmer

Robert Palmer comes from the great American lineage of Roy Harris, Howard Hanson and others of the preceding generation, although he was as much influenced by Bela Bartok. "Robert Palmer exerted an influence on the development of American music far greater than his current obscurity would suggest," writes composer Steven Stucky in an insightful remembrance of his teacher available here. "Fashions come and fashions go, but Palmer's music is ripe for rediscovery by a wider public."

Robert Hull

The performances, all very good, are from the Cornell A Capella Choir and the Rochester Chamber Orchestra, led by Robert Hull, then a professor of music at Cornell. He left to become dean of fine arts at Texas Christian University in 1956.

In the Palmer concerto, violinist Millard Taylor was the concertmaster and Robert Sprenkle the principal oboe of the Rochester Philharmonic. Both were longtime faculty members at the Eastman School.

Robert Tear

I did not want the recent death of Welsh tenor Robert Tear to go unremarked. Although he has not appeared on this blog before, he was one of my favorite artists, with a particular affinity for English music.

While I am not in the habit of posting material that is in print, in this case I can think of no better tribute than Tear's performance of the quasi-folksong The Captain's Apprentice, here in Vaughan Williams' arrangement for voice and piano. This is one of the most doleful songs in the English language, sung by a sea captain whose cruelty had killed an impoverished boy who had been apprenticed to him out of penury. Tear's interpretation of this extraordinary (and extraordinarily beautiful) song is deeply affecting.

Robert Tear at a 1970s recording session

The Captain's Apprentice may remind you of the story of Peter Grimes. Britten's opera is based on a verse narrative by George Crabbe, which was modelled on a early 19th century broadside that told the tale of a cruel sea captain who had killed an apprentice and was tried in King's Lynn. This broadside also was apparently the source of the song that Vaughan Williams gathered in 1905 from a King's Lynn fisherman, and published in 1908.

The haunting Captain's Apprentice was a favorite of Vaughan Williams and appeared more than once in his orchestral music. The Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1 makes use of the tune and another from Norfolk called On Board a Ninety-Eight, also gathered from a fisherman, and also based on a broadside from a century before. (You can find Adrian Boult's mid-50s recording of the Norfolk Rhapsody over at my friend Fred's blog, Random Classics.)

On Board a Ninety-Eight (that is, a 98-gun ship) tells the droll tale of a young man so bad that his parents gave him up to a pressgang looking for "recruits" to go to sea. (Pressgangs were paid bounties both to secure such "recruits" and also to round up deserters - goodness, what a time). This post also includes Tear's perfect performance of the song. This time, the unwilling sailor turns into a hearty tar who survives Trafalgar and getting an arm shot off, and eventually retires a pensioner.

The pianist on these recordings is Philip Ledger. Here is a link to a review in The Gramophone of the original 1978 issue.