Ravel with the Pascal Quartet, Oscar Shumsky and Bernard Greenhouse

Here, as the result of a request on another site, is another performance by the violinist Oscar Shumsky, who has also been featured in two recent posts.

On this record, Shumsky presents the Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello with Bernard Greenhouse, previously heard on this site in the Carter Sonata for Cello and Piano.

Pascal Quartet

Also on the LP is Ravel's String Quartet in F major in a sophisticated performance by the Pascal Quartet: Jacques Dumont and Maurice Crut, violins, Léon Pascal, viola, and Robert Salles, cello.

Léon Pascal had been in another notable ensemble, the Calvet Quartet, in the 1930s. The Pascal Quartet was in existence from 1941 to 1973, and made many recordings for this label (Concert Hall Society) in the 1950s. This taping dates from 1951.

Bust by Léon Leyritz

My own tastes lean more to Ravel's Quartet than the later Sonata, although this is a very good performance of the latter work. It apparently was first issued on 78s in 1948, according to fellow blogger Neal of Neal's Historical Recordings, who did a transfer many years ago that is no longer available.

The striking cover art is based on a bust of Ravel by his friend Léon Leyritz. The LP sound is very good.

More Mozart from Shumsky, Plus the Haffner Symphony with Wallenstein

Following up on my recent post of violinist Oscar Shumsky in Mozart sonatas, here is his circa 1956 reading of the Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219. It is coupled with a fleet performance of the Symphony No. 35 in D major, K. 385, from Alfred Wallenstein and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The LA forces play strikingly well under the baton of Wallenstein, who was completing his 13 years as LAPO maestro when this record was issued in 1956. Shumsky is backed by the New York-based Little Orchestra, which does not display the same discipline as the West Coast musicians. Thomas Scherman is the conductor in the concerto.

Oscar Shumsky

As always, Shumsky is perfectly in control - perhaps even a little too much so in the finale's quasi-Turkish music, which benefits from some abandon. The sound is good throughout.

These recordings come to us from Music-Appreciation Records, which had been started a few years previously as a mail-order subscription effort by the Book-of-the-Month Club. As with the similar efforts before and later, the pitch was getting cultured. In one widely-placed ad, publisher and TV personality Bennett Cerf exclaimed, "In a few minutes Music-Appreciation Records taught me more about Beethoven's Fifth Symphony than I learned in a month in a course in college!"

Many of the Music-Appreciation records contained both a performance of the work and an audio analysis; sometimes they came on separate discs. My own collection has both orphaned performances and analyses with no performance. This particular record did not have an recorded analysis; at least I don't have it. There are notes on the back cover by Deems Taylor, but of course this is not any different from most classical recordings then and now.

Wallenstein himself appears in some of the Music-Appreciation ads, providing a not-entirely-disinterested rave (see below).

Mozart Sonatas with Shumsky and Mittman

The American violinist Oscar Shumsky (1917-2000) was a celebrated instrumentalist, but most of the acclaim came relatively late in his career - post 1977, when he returned to recordings and then concerts.

Much of his earlier activity had been confined to being the concertmaster of the NBC Symphony, chamber music with the Primrose Quartet, teaching, radio appearances (often with Earl Wild), and latterly some conducting.

Oscar Shumsky

His first recordings (other than with the NBC orchestra), were as first violinist of the Primrose ensemble, a starry group that also boasted Josef Gingold, William Primrose and Harvey Shapiro. Victor engaged them for Haydn, Schumann and Smetana 78 sets in 1940-41. In 1947 he accompanied tenor James Melton in four Rachmaninoff songs; then in 1950 he backed soprano Erna Berger in two Mozart arias, both for RCA.

This present disc was a one-off effort for the small Allegro label in 1951, comprising splendid readings of Mozart's Violin Sonatas K. 454 and K. 526 with pianist Leopold Mittman. The two work beautifully together. Mittman was a well-known accompanist who also recorded with Mischa Elman and Nathan Milstein. Shumsky would go on to record the complete Mozart violin sonatas with Artur Balsam in 1977.

For those who enjoy such things, you can hear a car horn at 3:09 of the Andante of K. 526. Either that or Harpo Marx attended the session. Otherwise the sound is reasonably good from what was probably a bare-bones recording session.

I also have 1950s LPs containing Shumsky's Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5 with Thomas Scherman and the Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello with Bernard Greenhouse, and will post them over time.