Cellist Joseph Schuster in Schumann, Bruch and 'J.C. Bach'

Joseph Schuster (1903-69) was an exceptional cellist who was neglected by the record companies. To my knowledge, these are his only solo recordings with orchestra. [Correction: I'm told he also recorded Boccherini and Tartini concertos with Jonel Perlea.]

Schuster, born in Constantinople,  achieved prominence as the first cellist of Furtwängler's Berlin Philharmonic from 1929-34. He moved to the US after the Nazi ascension, becoming the leader of the New York Philharmonic cello section. He embarked on a solo career in 1944.

Joseph Schuster

Schuster moved to Los Angeles in 1947, where he came to the attention of film composer Franz Waxman (1906-67). The latter had formed the Los Angeles Orchestral Society in 1947, eventually recording two classical LPs for Capitol and one for US Decca as a conductor. Schuster never appeared in concert with Waxman's orchestra, suggesting that it was Capitol that brought the soloist and conductor together. The cellist was to record a second Capitol LP in 1953, Rachmaninoff with pianist Leonard Pennario.

Franz Waxman

This, the first of Waxman's Capitol LPs, dates from December 1952, and offers two standard items from the cello/orchestral repertory, and one unusual piece. The major work is Schumann's Cello Concerto, a gorgeous creation that here benefits from Schuster's golden, burnished tone and eloquent approach. Some find him emotionally cool; I think his style is ideal.

The Schumann is complemented by another treasurable cello work, Max Bruch's Kol Nidrei of 1880, which again finds an expressive advocate in Schuster.

The final work is announced as a Cello Concerto in A minor by J.C. Bach, supposedly found in the effects of Camille Saint-Saëns by Henri Casadesus, and introduced by Schuster to the US concert halls. Even back then there was some doubt as to its provenance. High Fidelity reviewer Paul Affelder guessed that Casadesus had a hand in composing it. It turns out Casadesus had both hands in it, and these days it is presented as a Henri Casadesus concerto "in the style of J.C. Bach." Also, the work was published as a viola concerto, but neither Schuster nor Capitol make mention of this fact. Regardless, it is an attractive anachronism that is an effective foil to the Bruch and Schumann works, and the cellist is again a persuasive proponent.

Such faux antiquities had a vogue in the early decades of the last century. Another example is a Toccata supposedly by the 17th century composer Girolamo Frescobaldi that turned out to be the work of 20th century cellist Gaspar Cassadó. It was recorded in 1940 as a Frescobaldi composition by Hans Kindler with the National Symphony, and can be found here.

1948 Musical America ad

Capitol's recording is kind to the soloist, while seemingly indifferent to the orchestra, which is set in a boxy acoustic. I have added an ambient stereo effect to help address the cramped sonics. Ambient stereo usually has little to offer, but here it does lend a bit of space to the orchestral sound without altering the mix.

Waxman's only other Capitol recording with the Los Angeles Orchestral Society involved settings of love duets from Romeo and Juliet by Gounod and Tchaikovsky-Taneyev. I have the record and will transfer it later on. The Waxman-LA recording on Decca was offered here years ago and is still available. It couples works by Lukas Foss and Waxman himself. 

Also available here on this blog is an LP of Waxman conducting his music for the 1946 movie Humoresque. The record features Isaac Stern in several arrangements, and Oscar Levant in a Tristan und Isolde concerto that Wagner never contemplated.

Schuster recorded a fair amount of chamber music for Vox, along with the Brahms double concerto and Beethoven triple concerto. This is his first appearance on the blog.

The download includes reviews from The Gramophone, The New Records, Saturday Review and New York Times, along with the High Fidelity article mentioned above.

Lukas Foss and Franz Waxman

The talented and energetic American composer-conductor-pianist Lukas Foss died Sunday at age 86. Coincidentally I had one of his LPs in the queue to be featured here - but this is not it. That album was of Foss as performer only. I decided instead to present this LP of Foss performing his own music, in this case his imaginative second piano concerto in an excellent performance by the composer as soloist with Franz Waxman and his Los Angeles Festival Orchestra, from about 1957.

Waxman, best known as a film composer, also presents some of his concert music here, a Sinfonietta for Strings and Timpani.

Foss wrote in many styles. Some thought this made him a dedicated follower of fashion; I wonder if instead he was always open to new sounds and new ways, and unafraid to be influenced by others. Whatever the source of his inspiration, inspired he was, and so is this concerto.

I do plan to share the other Foss LP soon - in that recording he is heard as pianist with the Zimbler Sinfonietta in Hindemith's The Four Temperaments.

Love in the Afternoon

This certainly is not the best soundtrack album I own, but it's probably the shortest - 3 songs.

This is the only soundtrack ever issued for the Hepburn-Cooper-Chevalier opus Love in the Afternoon, a somewhat odious young girl - old man comedy. There sure were a lot of those in the 50s, with other examples also involving Chevalier (Gigi) and Hepburn (Funny Face).

I don't recall why, but the music features the cimbalom, which hardly seems the thing for its Parisian setting. There must have been a reason.

The listed musical adapter for the movie is Franz Waxman, but these songs were not written by him. The big hit here was Fascination. An old song, but its use in the movie inspired the recording of a vocal version by Jane Morgan, which became quite popular.

I confess that this is not a 10-inch record. It is a 7-inch EP, but there was no 10-inch or 12-inch version, and it's from the right era.

NEW TRANSFER

Humoresque

Here's one of those movies from the 40s that used classical music (or classical music by-products, anyway) in the service of melodrama.

Like our last venture into Golden Age Hollywood, this was a Joan Crawford vehicle. Fresh from her Mildred Pierce triumph, she was paired this time with smoldering prole John Garfield. I like the IMDB summary: "A classical musician from the slums is sidetracked by his love for a wealthy, neurotic socialite."

Well, you can probably imagine what happens with that plot (as IMDB says, "Tragedy ensues"). But you may find it hard to imagine what happens in the score when Franz Waxman decides that Wagner's Tristan and Isolde really needs the assistance of Isaac Stern and Oscar Levant in solo roles. What ensues is not exactly tragic, but it's not exactly Wagner either. Waxman, Stern, and Levant were all wonderful musicians, but this was not a good idea.

Stern has better luck with Waxman's arrangements of Dvorak's Humoresque and Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumble-Bee. Waxman also does an arrangement of Sarasate's arrangement of themes from Bizet's Carmen (if that makes sense). For some reason, he left Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen alone.

This record must have been aimed at the market for fiddlers (Stern was then an up-and-comer) because it has a nice drawing of the violinist rather than a photo of Garfield or Crawford on the cover. Thank goodness the result looks nothing like the gaudy movie poster.