Thor Johnson in Cincinnati: Decca Recordings

The conductor Thor Johnson (1913-75), while not a familiar name today, did make quite a few records. The ones that are remembered are principally with the Cincinnati Symphony on the short-lived Remington label. But before those sessions, he and the orchestra recorded in 1951 for the Decca company of the UK (London in the US).

UK Decca seldom if ever recorded in the States until the those sessions in the Cincinnati Music Hall. This was to be the only such recording date for the orchestra; even so, it resulted in three LPs worth of material, most of which has been assembled for this post, including music by Hugo Alfvén, Edvard Grieg, Hector Berlioz and Franz Schubert.

These are good records of - for the time - unusual repertoire. I believe only the Berlioz songs have been reissued.

About Thor Johnson

Johnson was born in Wisconsin to a family of Norwegian and German descent. His father was a Moravian minister, and he himself devoted quite a bit of time to music ministry for that denomination.

I've read that he studied with Serge Koussevitzky, but this is not mentioned in the biographical material available today, the most detailed of which is on the site devoted to Remington records. Before his 1947 ascent in Cincinnati, he had conducted the North Carolina Symphony, the Grand Rapids Symphony and, during World War II, a US Army band. For the 34-year-old Johnson to be appointed in Ohio was quite an accomplishment. His predecessors there included Leopold Stokowski, Eugene Ysaye, Fritz Reiner and Eugene Goossens.

Thor Johnson

Johnson led the Cincinnati ensemble until 1958, when he became a professor at Northwestern. He then headed the Interlochen Academy from 1964-67, becoming music director of the Nashville Symphony from 1967 until his death.

Johnson and the Cincinnati orchestra have appeared here once before - with a Remington recording of Robert Ward's Symphony No. 3 and Leon Stein's Three Hassidic Dances. (That recording is newly remastered in ambient stereo.) Johnson had a strong commitment to contemporary music, personally commissioning dozens of new works.

Alfvén - Midsommarvaka, Grieg - Suite from Sigurd Jorsalfar

We start with music reflecting Johnson's Scandinavian heritage: Hugo Alfvén's Midsommarvaka ("Midsummer Vigil"), the composer's Swedish Rhapsody No. 1, and a suite from Edvard Grieg's incidental music for Sigurd Jorsalfar, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's play about King Sigurd I of Norway.

These works played to Johnson's strengths - orchestral discipline and, in the Alfvén, his ability to build tension throughout the performance of an episodic work. Here and in the records below he also chose unusual pieces that were not in the catalogue.

Midsommarvaka actually had been recorded several times before, but only once outside Scandinavia. The Cincinnati recording was made a few years before the opening theme of the piece became famous as the "Swedish Rhapsody," in a pop performance by Percy Faith. (Go here for an elaborate discussion of the two popular Swedish Rhapsodies, along with several disparate performances.) The Cincinnati performance also took place a few years before the composer's own early-stereo recording, which can be found here.

The Sigurd Jorsalfar incidental music consists of three pieces: a prelude, "In the King's Hall"; an intermezzo, "Borghild's Dream"; and a vigorous "Triumphal March." This suite also was not often heard at the time. The Classical Discography shows only 1925 recordings conducted by Georg Schneevoigt and Frieder Weissmann.

Second cover - I have no idea what is going on here, but Johnson seems fine with it

The Gramophone's verdict was as follows: "The Grieg incidental music I find enchanting; he had a highly individual touch with the orchestra, making his points with care; and those points Thor Johnson treats with understanding, and holds Grieg’s exquisite balance between harmonic epigram and broad statement... As in the Grieg work, we meet in Alfvén’s Swedish Rhapsody excellent playing, sympathetic conducting, and excellent recording - more uniform in its best qualities, indeed, than its partner is... The Swedish Rhapsody is engaging enough as music - immensely skilful, painstaking, energetic, even inventive."

Saturday Review's Irving Kolodin added that "the really superb performance of Alfvén's colorful score leaps off the disc with startling vitality."

LINK to Alfvén and Grieg

Berlioz - Les Nuits d'été

Like the works on the disc above, the songs from Hector Berlioz's cycle Les Nuits d'été had not often been recorded before this disc came along. The English reviewers of this LP mention two numbers that had been done by Maggie Teyte, and the discography also suggests that Tito Schipa had recorded some or all of the six.

Not only was the material unusual, it demonstrated the range of the orchestra and conductor, and introduced US audiences to the Belgian soprano Suzanne Danco (1911-2000), who had begun recording extensively for UK Decca after the war.

Suzanne Danco

Desmond Shaw-Taylor wrote in The Gramophone: "Suzanne Danco earns our gratitude by singing, for Decca, the entire cycle of Nuits d’été, which shows Berlioz at his most lyrical, fresh and inventive. It is evident that these songs are not all intended for the same type of voice; 'Sur les lagunes,' for instance demands a high baritone of the type of Gérard Souzay. There is some monotony in the shrill tones of Mme Danco’s upper register, and in 'Absence' and 'Le Spectre de la Rose' she cannot match the warmth and subtle coloration of Maggie Teyte’s famous record. (By the way, she sings the 'Spectre' in the original key of B; Maggie Teyte transposed it up to D.) Whatever the drawbacks of this recording, made in Cincinnati with the Symphony Orchestra of that city, I count it as a most valuable possession..."

Irving Kolodin in the Saturday Review: "One is conscious at times of a little acidulous bite, a shrill edge in her vocal sound, but also - and much more consistently - of her really fine musical intelligence and sense of poetic line. I'd scarcely call Thor Johnson's direction of the score a magical evocation of mood, but he makes few false moves. The total may be termed satisfactory if not deeply satisfying."

For those curious about Maggie Teyte's record, I've just posted it to my singles blog.

The LP download includes texts and translations.

LINK to Berlioz - Les Nuits d'été

Schubert - Symphony No. 3

Schubert's third symphony, written when he was 18, is a delightful work that was seldom heard then, or now. The discography and reviews suggest that there was at most one other recording in the catalogue at the time the Cincinnati LP came out.

The Gramophone reviewer's comment on the symphony: "To have this work available on gramophone records is valuable indeed, for it makes a permanent possession of a work seldom played in public, if ever. It is lovable music, bubbling over with cheerfulness, and laughter, and love, and tenderness; but I should not call the whole a great work of art. The first movement shows much promise as well as considerable achievement. The second movement is couched melodically in too nearly a nursery-rhyme idiom to appeal to my taste. The scherzo is amiable. On the whole, I consider the last movement the best of the four."

The US cover - I detect a pattern here

As for the performance, Irving Kolodin in the Saturday Review was reserved in his comments, noting that it did not show Johnson as a distinguished stylist, but adding that "he obviously has the orchestra playing with zest and unflagging attention."

In the US, the Schubert symphony was coupled with one of Johann Christian Bach's attractive Op. 18 symphonies. For this post, I worked from an Internet Archive needle drop of that London release, but the J.C. Bach side of the disc was severely damaged. I could not find another copy, so I haven't been able to include it. That's why at the top of this section I used the cover of the UK Decca 10-inch LP, which is devoted solely to the Schubert symphony. 

LINK to Schubert Symphony No. 3

Solomon's Final Recordings

A debilitating stroke ended the career of the great English pianist Solomon (1902-88) in late 1956, a few months after he had made several concerto recordings with the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Herbert Menges.

Today's post gathers those four works together - Beethoven's first and third, and the Grieg and Schumann concertos. These are all mainstays of the repertoire, just as Solomon's recordings have been standards by which others have been judged for nearly 70 years.

This is a follow-up to my recent post of Solomon in works by Bliss and Liszt, which was well received. Some personal sentiment enters into it as well, for I have owned all these recordings for several decades, and remain fond of them.

The artist who recorded these four concertos was different from the phenomenon who had dispatched the difficulties of the Bliss concerto seemingly effortlessly. These final sessions were afflicted with technical problems that left the pianist almost in despair. Solomon's biographer, Bryan Crimp, wrote that the Grieg concerto sessions "proved to be a desolate and wholly demoralizing experience, with Solomon's incapacity at its worrisome height, possibly exacerbated by the intensive work of the previous days." Even so, none of these travails are evident on the final product. The success of the recording, Crimp noted, "is a reflection of the skill and patience of all concerned: producers and editors, orchestra and conductor, but above all to the supreme effort of the soloist." The slow movement is a particular delight, with lovely horn playing, presumably by Dennis Brain.

Herbert Menges

The conductor Herbert Menges had been Solomon's friend since they were fellow piano students of Mathilde Verne. Menges had been associated with the Old Vic and was the conductor of the Brighton Philharmonic and its successors. EMI engaged him fairly frequently as a concerto accompanist, and these performances are successful in that regard.

Contemporary reviews of these recordings generally fall into two camps - those who were satisfied with the pianist's refinement and poetic playing, others who longed for more passion, which Solomon may no longer have been able to summon. Reviewing the Beethoven first concerto in the American Record Guide, C.J. Luten writes, "He has a pearly, singing tone, a genuine legato, and a fine mechanism. Moreover, his general culture and musical manners are as refined as anyone could wish for. His work invariably gives the pleasure of order and beauty of sound. Solomon's playing would be unforgettable if only he had temperament."

The wonder is that these performances have seldom been out of the catalogue since they were issued, a few years after they were made. Despite what Luten wrote above, I find the Beethoven concertos to be entirely successful, as is the Grieg. But to me, the Schumann finale would benefit from the some of the fire Solomon brought to the Bliss concerto, but may have no longer been able to ignite.

On the LP, Beethoven's first concerto is paired with his Sonata No. 27, which Solomon also handles well. (Note that the Sonata also appears on the transfer of the Beethoven third concerto that I used.) The sonata comes from an August 1956 session, also in stereo.

The recordings were all made in Abbey Road Studio No. 1 and are in true stereo, which is one of the delights of the set. Later reviewers would complain that there was little "stereo spread," having become accustomed to the use of multiple microphones in orchestral recordings. But these simply-miked performances have a convincing coherence that is unobtrusively right. My only cavil is that there is little bloom on the strings, possibly an artifact of the studio, which is not all that large. 

The HMV covers

I did not transfer my well-used records for this post, relying instead on good copies I found on Internet Archive and refurbished for the purpose. The Beethoven Concerto No. 1 is from a US Angel pressing, the Concerto No. 3 is from a EMI reissue from the 1960s, and the Grieg and Schumann are from a Classics for Pleasure 1976 reissue. The downloads include complete scans along with the original HMV covers. The latter were designed in a simple, elegant form by Atelier Cassandre, which did quite a few such covers for EMI at the time, probably through its French associate, La Voix de son maître. The download also has many reviews of the three LPs.

 

Hollingsworth Conducts Humperdinck and Grieg

The English conductor John Hollingsworth (1916-63) was a fine talent who died too young. We recently heard him conducting Malcolm Arnold's Tam O'Shanter Overture in a 1955 Philips LP where he shared conducting duties with the composer. Today he leads the Covent Garden orchestra in music by Engelbert Humperdinck and Edvard Grieg.

John Hollingsworth

These are good, well-recorded performances that came out on EMI's Parlophone label in 1953 and have not been seen again, to my knowledge. The M-G-M folks issued the recordings in the US.

At the time of the recordings, Hollingsworth had already gained experience in film industry working with Muir Mathieson, at Covent Garden both in opera and ballet, and at the Proms assisting Sir Malcolm Sargent. Hollingsworth would continue his film work in later years and was very active in that realm until his early death from pneumonia. The download includes a 1954 Music and Musicians article about him.

His commercial recordings, which are not many, are primarily of lighter music. The current selections fit into that category, and are most enjoyable.

The most recent Hänsel und Gretel production at Covent Garden

The German composer Humperdinck these days is remembered primarily for one work, but an enchanting one - his children's opera Hänsel und Gretel, based on the brothers Grimm story. Hollingsworth recorded five selections from the orchestral suite, all memorable.

The second side of the LP contains music by Grieg. First is a three-movement suite that the composer extracted from his incidental music for a production of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's play Sigurd Jorsalfar.

Grieg's Two Elegiac Melodies were orchestral transcriptions of two songs from a set of 12 with texts by Aasmund Olavsson Vinje. The melodies' titles, "The Wounded Heart" and "The Last Spring," are taken from those songs.

I've enclosed several brief reviews of the US M-G-M pressing; the reactions to the performances ranged from "admirable" to "competent."

Bonus - Ibert's Circus

In 1952, Hollingsworth recorded the Circus music that Jacques Ibert wrote for Gene Kelly's film Invitation to the Dance (a film that did not come out until 1956). The conductor led the Royal Philharmonic for that assignment.

M-G-M issued the music on a soundtrack disc, where it was paired with Andre Previn's brilliant pastiche, Ring Around the Rosy. Truthfully, neither the Ibert piece nor the recording is as good as Previn's music and his spectacular piano playing. As I wrote in 2014 when I first posted the soundtrack recording, "You will hear echoes of Britten, Khachaturian (!) and Gershwin, Kenton-style stentorian jazz, blues piano, salon music, mood music and much more."

I've now remastered the record, clarifying the sound of the Ibert while doing additional cleaning on the awful M-G-M pressing. You can find the link in the comments both to this post and the original item. 

Back to Hollingsworth: I also have his recording of Constant Lambert's Meyerbeer ballet score, Les Patineurs, which I'll post later on. It's coupled with the first recording of Bliss' Checkmate score, led by Robert Irving.

Hanson's Piano Concerto with Firkušný

Howard Hanson made a long series of recordings of music by himself and other American composers for the Mercury label in the 1950s. The stereo recordings are fairly well known, mostly for their supposed audiophile qualities; the mono recordings less so.

I recently featured one of those early mono Mercurys, and the response was good. So I'll be revisiting some of the other LPs in Mercury's Modern American Music Series soon.

But first, one of the few recordings that Hanson and the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra made for Columbia, this one issued in 1951. The main item of interest is the conductor's piano concerto in its first recording, with soloist Rudolf Firkušný, who introduced the work with Hanson and the Boston Symphony in late 1948.

After an opening reminiscent of Hanson's second symphony, we quickly are off into territory that is more like Prokofiev, and none the worse for that, particularly with Firkušný in excellent form.

Hanson's Mercury recordings were all-American, but here he backs up his own music with that of Grieg -not the most vibrant Holberg Suite in my experience. I suppose the connection is Nordic (as the cover suggests). These recordings have not been reissued, to my knowledge.

NEW LINK