Ida Haendel in Bruch, Plus Many, Many Reups in Ambient Stereo

One of the most popular posts of the nearly 1,200 on this blog is the one devoted to Ida Haendel's 1953 traversal of the Brahms Violin Concerto, recorded in company with Sergiu Celibadache and the London Symphony. Rightfully so - it's a splendid performance and well recorded.

For this post I've turned my attention to another superior Haendel recording - that of the beautiful Violin Concerto No. 1 of Max Bruch.

The second part of this post is devoted to new ambient stereo remasters of a dozen classical recordings that have appeared here over the years - starting with Haendel's Brahms concerto.

Ambient stereo helps to give the narrow and recessed sound of mono recordings a feeling of spaciousness and to bring them forward, seemingly in front of the speakers - without adding anything at all to the recording. When the channels are combined, the mono image is restored. (More explanation is at the end of the post.)

Let's start off with the Bruch concerto disc, then address all the remasters.

Ida Haendel in Bruch, Plus Encores

Ida Haendel's Bruch concerto recording dates from 1948, when she was just 19. Her recording career had begun even earlier, at age 11, with recordings of short works.

Haendel's collaborator in the concerto was the eminent conductor Rafael Kubelik, who just that year had taken refuge in Britain following the Communist coup d'etat in his native Czechoslovakia.

Ida Haendel and Rafael Kubelik

The two musicians work well together in this lovely work, not often heard in today's concert halls. The Abbey Road sound is most pleasing in ambient stereo.

This transfer comes from side 1 of an early 1950s LP pressing on RCA Victor's budget Bluebird label. Side 2 contains a passel of encore pieces, probably selected from the violinist's recital programs and first issued as 78 singles. The main attraction of those pieces, aside from Haendel's performances, is the presence of the remarkable pianist Gerald Moore.

Gerald Moore learns the contents of the recital program 

The encore items are generally in soupy arrangements, such that a Gramophone reviewer termed two of them "equally nauseating." I can't say that I reached for the Dramamine while working on these pieces, but they are not really my thing either. Haendel and Moore seem to be having a good time, though.

Remasters in Ambient Stereo

As noted, to go along with the Haendel LP, I have re-uploaded about a dozen classical recordings enhanced with ambient stereo. The links below take you to the original posts. The download links will be at or near the end of the comments. (The link to the Bruch concerto disc discussed above is in the comments to this post.)

Brahms - Violin Concerto (Ida Haendel). This 1953 recording is notable for being the last studio appearance by conductor Celibidache. As with all the posts below, I have added new graphics, generally photos of the artists. In this case, it's a photo of the violinist and conductor together.

Works by Robert Sanders, Bernard Rogers and Burnet Tuthill. The first post on this blog 16 years ago was this LP of works by three mid-century American composers. Most enjoyable in worthy performances from a disguised Vienna Symphony and conductor Max Schönherr.

Rawsthorne - Piano Concerto No. 2 (Clifford Curzon). Another early post was this fascinating concerto from mid-century English composer Alan Rawsthorne, in a brilliant performance from pianist Clifford Curzon. The LP has never sounded better.

Schumann - Cello Concerto; Bruch - Kol Nidrei (Joseph Schuster). The exceptional cellist Joseph Schuster made only a few solo recordings, including this Capitol release with backing by Franz Waxman and a Hollywood orchestra. Bruch's Kol Nidrei, plus the great Schumann concerto.

Quincy Porter Conducts Quincy Porter. Ambient stereo has enhanced the sound of this 1955 LP, and in doing so enhanced my appreciation of Porter's Symphony No. 1, Concerto Concertante and Dance in Three Time. The composer conducts a Parisian orchestra.

Violin Sonatas by Delius and Robert Russell Bennett (Louis Kaufman). Kaufman is too febrile for the meandering Delius work, but he was just right for Bennett's sonata. The composer and violinist were well acquainted, both based in Hollywood.

Americana for Solo Winds and Strings. This is surely one of the most pleasant recordings of the 1950s. Howard Hanson conducts pastoral works by himself, Aaron Copland, Wayne Barlow, Homer Keller, Bernard Rogers and Kent Kennan. Fine sound.

Randall Thomson - Symphony No. 2 (Dean Dixon). The American composer Randall Thompson was mainly noted for his choral works, but he also produced three symphonies. I believe this was the first to be recorded. Dean Dixon leads the orchestra.

Rangström - Symphony No. 1; Larsson - Little Serenade for Strings (Tor Mann). As I mentioned in a recent post of Ture Rangstrom's third symphony, the composer's first effort is worth knowing, here in a classic recording from Tor Mann, with a Lars-Erik Larsson makeweight.

Beethoven Concertos No. 2, 4 and 5, Mozart No. 15 (Solomon). I've redone the uploads of historic Beethoven concertos from Solomon, along with his Mozart No. 15, in ambient stereo. These are memorable readings, now sounding even better.

About Ambient Stereo

I suspect that most followers of this site won't have many scruples about the use of ambient stereo in these remasters. But for the skeptical or curious, a few words of explanation.

The term "ambient stereo" can be misleading. It doesn't refer to directional cues but rather the spread of ambiance to provide a sense of space otherwise missing.

I will admit that until now I have not been a great proponent of the effect, although I dabbled in it as far back as 2015 to enhance a few dry recordings. It never struck me as especially helpful until I began experimenting with the Ozone Imager plug-in for the Izotope RX10 audio software. Used in moderation, it often provides strikingly good results.

The Ozone module relies on the so-called "Haas effect." This article explains the effect and its implementation in the Imager plug in.

 

Song Settings by Finzi, Butterworth and Vaughan Williams

Gerald Finzi

Recently I have been posting recordings of the Walton-Sitwell entertainment Façade, including the original 1929 version with Dame Edith and Constant Lambert, Walton conducting. That edition came from a LP that also offered the first recordings of two notable sets of English song - Gerald Finzi's Dies Natalis and George Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad. Today I am posting my transfers of that music, together with the initial recording of Ralph Vaughan Williams's On Wenlock Edge - three landmarks in 20th century English song setting.

For Dies Natalis, Finzi set poems by Thomas Traherne, a 17th century poet and clergyman whose work is generally grouped with the metaphysical poets although his writings were virtually unknown until the 20th century. Dies Natalis is in form a cantata, with an orchestral introduction and then settings of four striking poems that convey the wonder and innocence of the newborn child.

Joan Cross

The performance is by soprano Joan Cross and the Boyd Neel Orchestra, dating from October 1946 and January 1947. The legend is that neither the composer nor the singer were happy with the results, and today the set is seldom heard. There is something to that: Cross was a noted actor, but wonder and innocence were apparently not in her artistic arsenal. Still and all, the records are not as bad as one might think. They convey Finzi's gorgeous string writing well, and the singer is sympathetic, clear and in tune.

The full power of Finzi's work would not be displayed on record until 1964, when it was taken up for EMI by tenor Wilfred Brown and the composer's son, Christopher. This remains my own favorite, one I played for myself the night my first child was born nearly 40 years ago.

Gervase Elwes

Both Vaughan Williams and his younger colleague George Butterworth set poems by their contemporary A.E. Housman, drawn from his popular collection A Shropshire Lad. The older composer set six of the poems for tenor, piano and string quartet. The work is here performed by tenor Gervase Elwes, the work's dedicatee, with pianist Frederick Kiddle and the London String Quartet. Elwes and Kiddle both took part in the first performance, in 1909. The recording dates from 1917, and is thoroughly remarkable. Elwes is more declamatory than is the norm a century later. His sense of time is flexible; he and the instrumentalists draw out the concluding "Clun" to powerful effect. It's impossible not to reflect that the sense of loss and impending doom - always implicit in Housman - were especially pronounced during the recording sessions, which took place three years into the horrific first world war.

George Butterworth

Butterworth himself was a victim of the war, killed in the Battle of the Somme in 1916 at age 31. He left relatively few works; notably this collection and the orchestral work The Banks of Green Willow. Both he and Vaughan Williams set Housman's ironic "Is My Team Ploughing?" As you might expect, given their similar styles and close association, the settings have some similarity. Vaughan Williams left out the poem's two stanzas that dealt with football, to Housman's irritation. The composer thought the poet ought to be happy he left out a passage with the clunky couplet "The goal stands up, the keeper / Stands up to keep the goal."

Butterworth set 11 poems from A Shropshire Lad; this is the first set, which strictly speaking is called Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad. The second set, not included here, is Bredon Hill and Other Songs.

Roy Henderson

The present recording comes from 1941, with Roy Henderson, one of the finest baritones of his generation, and Gerald Moore, the most famous accompanist of the time.

The sound on all these issues is well balanced and pleasing - even the Vaughan Williams from a century ago. Using modern tools, it's possible to get good results from many such acoustic recordings, within the limits of their constricted frequency range.