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WINTER 2008
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 CRC Winter 2008

editorial
Classic I n our Spring edition (page 104), I recalled that in 2007 the previous
owners of the magazine had decided to increase its price by 50 per cent
Record and to remove it from the retail trade. I commented that as the new CRC

Collector
settled down I would be looking for ways of providing our supporters with
more value for money. I also pointed out that the magazine was no longer
a commercial operation and that any profits would be ploughed back into
Editor and Publisher the enterprise.
Alan Sanders It is thanks to the support of readers, advertisers and everybody else
editor@classicrecordcollector.com concerned with the magazine that CRC is in a healthier state than I dared
hope when I looked forward to the coming months in February of this
Contributing Editor
Tully Potter year.
Tully.Potter@btinternet.com I have always been uncomfortable with what I feel to be too high a
price for our product, and so it is with relief and pleasure that I am able to
Editorial office
announce considerable reductions in both the cover price and subscription
8 Locksmeade Road
Richmond TW10 7YT rates. You can hardly have avoided seeing a reference to the new shop price
tel: +44 (0)20 8940 1988 on this issue’s front cover: new subscription rates are set out on page 102.
While the changes mean that I can now go out and publicise the
Production & Design,
magazine with more conviction and enthusiasm, I must also think of
Advertising
Jiří Musil those existing subscribers who have loyally borne the increased rates. To
S2DO Ltd them I shall be offering renewal terms that will compensate for the extra
tel: +44 (0)7846 407464 amount they have paid to receive this and forthcoming issues: for example,
crcjiri@me.com
a subscriber who paid £29.95 for four issues before the Summer edition
Website will have had two numbers at the existing price and will receive two more
Ivor Humphreys at the lower rate of £20.00. Since a ‘loss’ of £5.00 is involved, a renewal rate
Good Imprint of £15.00 (£20.00 less that £5.00) will be offered as compensation. I hope
http://goodimprint.co.uk
this formula is acceptable – for me simply to extend the subscription period
Printers would leave us dangerously short of income.
The Manson Group Ltd The deaths of two great British music champions, Vernon Handley
8 Porters Wood and Richard Hickox, come as a grievous double blow. Hardly any of
Valley Road Industrial Estate
St Albans AL3 6PZ
Hickox’s recordings come within CRC’s timespan, but you can read a
www.manson-grp.co.uk brief tribute to the conductor by Chandos’s Ralph Couzens on page
43. Handley’s recording career went back to the early 1960s, and many
Circulation will recall his brave recording debut in Bax’s Fourth Symphony with his
Mailings Direct
Unit 18
Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra – only the second recording of any
North Orbital Commercial Park Bax symphony, and the first for 20 years. The playing was not so good
Napsbury Lane as in more recent versions, or the sound quality, but the performance
St Albans AL1 1XB has a feeling of excited discovery that still impresses (Concert Artist
www.mailings.co.uk
L SLPA1097). No highly prolific recording conductor devoted so large a
© Classic Record Collector 2008 proportion of his studio work to British music, so it’s worth recalling that
in the days of analogue LP Handley made two very good but now almost
ISSN: 1472-5797
forgotten versions of Dvořák’s New World Symphony, also Tchaikovsky’s
Number 55 Pathétique Symphony, Hamlet, Francesca da Rimini, Capriccio italien and
Cover
1812; and Debussy’s La mer.
Griller String Quartet Not much to report so far on our enquiry into why there are so few
Photo Tully Potter Collection younger record collectors. I recently took part in a Karajan centenary
celebration at the Royal Academy of Music. Plenty of older people attended,
www.classicrecordcollector.com
but where were the students? They didn’t have far to come.
Alan Sanders
1
CRC Winter 2008
contents
1 Editorial
4 Rarissima
Goossens conducts Bridge
5 Letters
Tournemire transfers; Fried, Adler and
Klemperer; Martinů’s Oboe Concerto
8 Obituaries
Peter Glossop and Marjorie Thomas
12 From Bliss to Bloch
The rise and fall of the Griller Quartet is
documented by Tully Potter
19 The Ballets Russes
In the first of two articles Jon Tolansky
discusses the origins of Diaghilev’s
legendary ballet company
24 Joseph Joachim and his recordings
Gusztáv Fenyő examines the life, career
and recordings of a violinist who worked
with Mendelssohn and Brahms
2
19 24
30 Mindru Katz – The Science and Art of
Playing the Piano
Mordecai Shehori recalls his intensive
study with the Rumanian-born pianist;
Colin Clarke considers Katz’s recordings;
and problems with a flexatone
39 Thirty years of Chandos
Ralph and Brian Couzens talk to Colin
Anderson about the history of their
company
43 Papa Gauk – the father of Russian
conductors
Gregor Tassie investigates the life, career
and recordings of an influential
Soviet artist
50 Noble Bass of the Bolshoi
The astonishingly long career of Mark
Reizen and his extensive discography are
explored by Joshua Cohen
57 Audio News
New MF preamplifier; Wadia
iTransport; Tron 7 mono phono stage

30 50
58 Audio and the Record Collector
Andrew Hallifax, CHARM’s head of
transfer engineering, is interviewed by
David Patmore
62 Surface noise
Leslie Gerber says goodbye to his
customers
63 Continental Report
Norbert Hornig finds treasure in radio
recordings on disc
64 Letter from America
Mortimer H. Frank ponders the
unceasing flow of reissues
65 Reviews
65 Book Reviews
68 DVD Reviews
73 CD Reviews - Walter conducts
live Bruckner; Du Pré and Fournier play
Elgar in performance; the complete York
Bowen; Goodall’s Parsifal
CRC Winter 2008
contents
58
96 Voice Box
John T Hughes makes his selection
104 The other side of the counter – a retail
manager’s viewpoint
Colin Clarke
KEY TO SYMBOLS
C Compact Disc
L Long Playing Record
m 78rpm Record
A Compact Cassette
V VHS
l DVD
F Full Price £11 & over
M Medium Price £7-£10.99
B Budget Price £6.99 & under
Classic Record Collector is published in the spring,
summer, autumn and winter
While every effort has been made to ensure the
accuracy of statements in this magazine, we cannot
accept responsibility for any errors or omissions, or
for matters arising from clerical or printers’ errors, or
for an advertiser not completing his contract.
www.classicrecordcollector.com
3
CRC Winter 2008
rarissima
H istory has not always been
kind to the posthumous
reputations on disc of some of
the more important twentieth-
century British conductors,
and the large and extensive
recorded legacy of Sir Eugene
Goossens (1893-1962), is surely one which is
ripe for investigation by companies specialising in
this area. His recordings, beginning in 1919 and
ending six weeks before his death, span acoustic to
stereo; additionally, he was one of only a handful
of musicians who appeared on commercial records
in four categories – as a string player, pianist,
composer and conductor (of music by other
composers, as well as his own).
Goossens’s discography contains first recordings
of varied works, including Bach’s Third Brandenburg
Concerto, with the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra
(HMV m D683/4), Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto,
with Frederic Lamond and the same orchestra (m
D625/9), Stravinsky’s Petrushka, also with the
RAH Orchestra (m D853/6), Sibelius’s En Saga
(slightly cut) with the New Symphony Orchestra
(HMV m C1994/5), and Stravinsky’s Le chant du
rossignol with the Cincinnati Symphony (Victor
set m M1041); alongside first recordings of British
music, including Delius’s Brigg Fair with the RAH
Orchestra (m D799/800), Bax’s Tintagel and
Mediterranean with the New SO (m C1619/20),
and the Walton Violin Concerto with Heifetz and
the Cincinnati Symphony (Victor set m M868).
He also recorded the first complete Madama
Butterfly (m D893/906 – sung in English). All of
these form part of a discography containing well
over 200 items, recorded in London, Los Angeles,
Cincinnati, Vienna and Sydney. Mention should
be made of his Cincinnati recording of the second
version of Vaughan Williams’s London Symphony
(Victor m Set M916), for he was a member of the
Queen’s Hall Orchestra’s first violin section on 27
March 1914, and took part in the first performance
under Geoffrey Toye. I have been able, thanks to
the Sir Eugene Goossens Archive, to hear many of
his rare recordings, and have been very impressed by
the quality of his conducting and the consistently
fine standard of playing he obtained from a variety
of orchestras.
4
The neglected Eugene Goosens
In the early years of Goossens’s recording career
he was entrusted to accompany Kreisler, Chaliapin
and Gigli – amongst many other world-famous
artists – evidence of the high regard in which he
was held in the profession, and the range of his
sympathies was extraordinary – he conducted the
first concert performance of Stravinsky’s Le sacre
du printemps in Britain, for example, in 1921, in
the presence of the composer. A number of his
later post-war tape recordings have been reissued
on CD, but one in particular has to be counted the
rarest of all.
Goossens made three famous recordings for
Decca of music by Britten, with the strings of the
New Symphony Orchestra. In November 1953 they
recorded the Serenade with the tenor Peter Pears
and the horn player Dennis Brain (L LXT2941);
also the Simple Symphony (L LW5163), and
the Prelude and Fugue, Op. 29, which remains
unpublished. In January and March 1954 they
recorded Les illuminations (L LXT2941) with
Pears and in some spare session time they added
Frank Bridge’s Two Old English Folk-Songs: Sally in
Our Alley and Cherry Ripe.
These two Bridge miniatures were issued on
a 45rpm Decca pop single (71071), presumably
because at that time the company did not have
a corresponding classical series. Since the record
was classed in the pop category I doubt if a review
appeared in any classical journal. And because the
music was, stretching a point, folk-based, it could
hardly be expected to be stocked by dealers who
specialised in music of a more obvious popular nature.
Barely stocked and hardly mentioned, this
little disc seems to have disappeared without trace.
But it was issued, and must have been bought by
somebody. In over 50 years of collecting, I have
neither seen a copy, nor heard it. Interestingly, in
the early 1920s, while playing second violin in the
Philharmonic String Quartet, Goossens recorded
Bridge’s arrangements of Sally in Our Alley and
Londonderry Air (m HMV D14), and Nos. 1 & 3
of Bridge’s Three Idylls (m D479). It was the third
of these Idylls that Britten took for his Variations
on a Theme of Frank Bridge – was it through this
acoustic recording that Britten, as a boy, first
encountered that music?
Robert Matthew-Walker

Tournemire transfers
In his review of our Charles Tournemire issue
on Arbiter 156, (CRC Summer issue, page 87),
Jerrold Northrop Moore describes our approach to
transferring recordings as one that “savagely” cuts the
bass. We wish to alert listeners that savages are kept
out of our studios and that we do not cut anything!
The French set favourably upheld as a model by Dr
Northrop Moore suffers from a hefty addition of
bass while most of its high frequencies have been
eliminated, destroying the organ’s proportioned
registration implemented by Tournemire in each
specific work. As for the presence of surface noise,
we are glad to have overcome the terrible limitations
that have imposed a dulling blanket over historic
recordings for decades, making them a nuisance to
hear, as one had to mentally reconstruct what was
missing due to the “restoration”.
For too long, many have aimed to equalise the
bass and treble into a “harmonious balance” that, in
terms of historic veracity, becomes a falsification of
the document and the performer’s art, also insulting
to listeners who are treated as if they were incapable of
coping with a vivid signal encapsulated on an archaic
noisy medium. This unmusical limiting of sound is
similar to coffee table art books published before
the 1970s in which garish and distorted colour
reproductions gave readers living far away from
museums their first opportunity to gain an idea of
the colours present in a work of art. How dreary and
unnatural the reproductions now seem.
The same has plagued historic recordings and
it is time for a change towards capturing the music
first and foremost. One can toy with treble controls
and equalisers (hopefully on good equipment) to
fashion something into a semblance of being “well-
rounded”, but this “easy listening” goal is exactly what
alienates new listeners, who become stressed when
having to listen to quiet and compressed de-natured
music, further endangering a renewed interest in the
sounds of our past. This is exactly what our transfer
philosophy opposes. Authenticity must be preserved,
the sound set free and clarified.
Northrop Moore states his familiarity with
Cavaillé-Coll organs and bemoans our inability
to capture the instrument’s lower
frequencies. We are familiar with
these instruments and must
CRC Winter 2008
letters to the editor
point out that the organ at Ste Clotilde was rebuilt to
a great deal of controversy shortly after Tournemire
recorded his discs in 1930-31: one must be of a certain
age to have heard the original organ before its drastic
alteration began in 1933. In all of our restorations,
we never cut nor equalise the bass, midrange or upper
registers, leaving everything flat, except for a minor
increase of the highest frequencies when necessary,
to liberate overtones, room ambiance, and nuances.
In Franck’s Pastorale, there is an obvious weakness
in the bass, as some sustained tones do not even
sound until several seconds have passed after the
pedal had been depressed, a mechanical defect on
the organ, and via Tournemire’s own registration
that de-emphasised the bass’s presence. Yet on other
recordings by Tournemire heard on our CD, such as
his Te Deum improvisation, the bass is boldly present.
As his sessions occurred over a year long period,
undoubtedly with varied microphone placements,
with more than one producer and engineer
supervising, we may assume until documentation
is located, that much testing and consultation took
place to capture the difficult instrument’s spectrum,
also taking into consideration Tournemire’s precise
registrations. One hears this sonic variability in our
results.
Allan Evans, Director, Arbiter of Cultural
Traditions, www.arbiterrecords.com.
Jerrold Northrop Moore writes:
Mr Evans’s philosophy of re-recording, as set out
in his letter, shows a fundamental contradiction.
The contradiction is neatly summed up in the last
sentence of his first paragraph: “Authenticity must
be preserved, the sound set free and clarified”.
Authenticity, if historical recording means
anything, is what emerges from the grooves of decent
78rpm recordings. Tournemire’s recordings have
decent sound. None of my copies (I have all but
two) suffers from Mr Evans’s “terrible limitations” of
surface noise, when a proper stylus is used. And these
discs reflect quite adequately the Cavaillé-Coll sound,
without the interference of much “compensation”.
The fact is that every listener of my acquaintance
– a fairly broad spectrum – who has listened to the
Arbiter transfers of Tournemire’s records deplores
and condemns their results. It was such a great idea
– so badly realised.
5
CRC Winter 2008
letters to the editor
Oskar Fried, Klemperer and
F. Charles Adler
Lewis Foreman’s extended article on Oskar Fried
(CRC Spring issue, page 14) is very useful at a purely
factual level. Where it succeeds less well is in the
area of interpretative analysis. What was the nature
of the “Fried sound” or the “Fried art”? Many of us
have a basic grasp of these elements in relation, say,
to Furtwängler or Beecham, but even after Lewis
Foreman’s article they remain vague and ill-defined
where Fried is concerned.
I have spent long hours going over and over
Fried’s recordings in the attempt to answer this
question, and offer the following. Far more than has
been generally realised, or than Otto Klemperer was
himself later willing to admit, Fried was the model
on which Klemperer initially based himself, both
musically and in other ways.
Klemperer in his later years grew away from the
“Fried model”, becoming more architectural and
less romantic. Nothing illustrates that development
better than the slow movement of Brahms’s First
Symphony in Klemperer’s three recordings (the
studio Electrola version of 1928; the live 1955
performance issued by Cetra, and EMI’s studio
recording of 1956-57). The 1928 version is
“beautiful” and “romantic” to a degree which will
startle those who know only the older Klemperer,
but Klemperer in 1928 mirrors precisely Fried’s 1923
DG/Polydor recording. There is the same clarity of
separation between strings and woodwind and the
same plastic moulding of phrase and texture. And
in works which remained outside the Klemperer
mainstream, such as Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique,
Fried’s influence lingered later. Listen to Fried’s live
1937 recording of this work and Klemperer’s 1963
EMI recording, and you will see a common matrix.
Klemperer is in the end even better than Fried, but
they share things not found in any other recordings.
And, above all, this “twinning” is evident in
Mahler’s Second Symphony, if one compares
Klemperer’s 1951 Vox recording and also his live
performance of that date, issued on Decca, with
Fried’s DG/Polydor version of 1924. But Fried’s
influence on Klemperer ran beyond the purely
musical. “In 1924 I went to Russia and I continued
to go there for six weeks every year until 1936”
(Conversations with Klemperer, Peter Heyworth,
6
Gollancz, London, 1973 – page 56). Why? Because
Fried had already been a regular visitor to Russia.
And Klemperer’s left-wing reputation at this period
– not necessarily true of Klemperer himself as he
matured – may have resulted from the influence of
Fried’s avowed Socialism.
In all sorts of ways Klemperer outgrew and
eventually went beyond Fried’s remarkable
achievements. But, as I observed in a centenary
tribute to Klemperer in 1985 (The Maynooth Review
12, May 1985), one cannot properly understand
the early Klemperer without being thoroughly
immersed in the musical method of Oskar Fried.
On a separate note, I would add one name to the
“legendary trio of German conductors ... associated
with Mahler” (Walter, Klemperer and Fried)
mentioned by Foreman.
F. Charles Adler was born in London (in 1889),
but his parents were German, and he too was a pupil
of Mahler in Vienna. Adler’s recordings of Mahler’s
First Symphony (Tahra), and his SPA recordings of
the Third, the Sixth and the opening Adagio of the
Tenth (in Krenek’s score), have never been bettered
by anyone, and Adler’s quite incredible performance
of the First Symphony gives the lie to Klemperer’s
strange dismissal of this work (Conversations with
Klemperer, page 33).
Martin Pulbrook,
Enniscoffey, Mullingar, Ireland
Serge Koussevitzky
I heartily applaud Kenneth Morgan’s assessment
of the merit of Serge Koussevitzky’s recorded
legacy in his review of the Naxos Wagner/Brahms
release (CRC Autumn issue, page 76). It is good to
see that Naxos are bringing back a number (five to
date) of the maestro’s recordings with the superb
Boston Symphony Orchestra which he brought to
greatness.
Koussevitzky took great care over his recorded
legacy. It was especially so with his 1938 recording
of Debussy’s La mer, which I take to be one of the
supreme recordings of that fine work. Pearl have
now deleted their Koussevitzky issue of “French
music”, and it would be good to have La mer again.
Perhaps Naxos could oblige with the help of the
superb Mark Obert-Thorn.
Ralph Key, Chesterfield, Derbyshire

Rodzinski and Stokowski
I’m delighted that Jon Tolansky was so taken
with Rodzinski’s recording of “El Corpus en
Sevilla” from Albéniz’s Iberia (CRC Autumn
2008, page 36) because the “lavish orchestration”
which so entrances him isn’t by Arbos at all
but by Leopold Stokowski! I’m indebted to
Mark Obert-Thorn for having pointed this
out to me many years ago, so I’m surprised
that the EMI CD gives the incorrect credit.
Stokowski’s version, as can be heard on his two
recordings (Philadelphia Orchestra of 1928 and
the National Philharmonic in 1976) begins, as
does Rodzinski’s, with a suspended roll on the
cymbals and the opening phrase played on the
bassoon. Arbos’s far sparer arrangement has no
suspended cymbals and begins with a solo flute.
Rodzinski was Stokowski’s assistant at the time
of the first Philadelphia recording, so either he
copied the score and parts for his own library or
hired them for his 1958 RPO sessions.
Edward Johnson, London
Jon Tolansky writes:
I am most grateful to Edward Johnson for
pointing out that the orchestration of Albéniz’s
Iberia in the recording by Artur Rodzinski
was in fact made by Leopold Stokowski. I
have often wondered why the orchestration in
this performance is quite different from other
recordings of Iberia, such as Fritz Reiner’s, and
I should have made an effort to try and find out
why before writing the article. Now the mystery
is solved.
Might I use this opportunity to add a
small personal anecdote about Stokowski that
came to mind when reading the Autumn CRC
edition correspondence about his accent? In my
musician days I played quite a few times for the
great man, and after some hesitation I finally
plucked up courage one day to approach him
after a recording session and ask if he would sign
a programme of the concert he had conducted
a few days earlier (with the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra, a body of players he liked very much).
He looked appalled that I had dared to come up
to him and for a few seconds that felt like an
hour he stared right through me. Then he said,
CRC Winter 2008
letters to the editor
“Give me programme”. He took it, looked at it
and then said, “But I can not make my voice
on this”. And I was sent away – but without my
programme, which he kept. The next day we
had another recording session – and after the
interval break, I found my programme on my
music stand. It was signed “Leopold Stokowski”.
Martinů’s Oboe Concerto
Chronology is inadvertently reversed in David
Patmore’s statement that Martinů wrote his Oboe
Concerto in 1955 “for the first oboe of the Czech
Philharmonic Orchestra and later Melbourne
Symphony Orchestra, Jiří Tancibudek” (CRC
Autumn issue, page 84). Rather, it was for the
principal oboe of the Victorian (later Melbourne)
Symphony Orchestra, who had formerly been
first oboe of the Czech Philharmonic. That was
before he fled Communist Czechoslovakia in
1950, with virtually nothing but his oboe, and
settled in Australia.
Martinů’s concerto, composed in response to
two requests from Tancibudek in Melbourne,
was in the nature of a fraternal greeting from
one expatriate Czech to another. Tancibudek
premiered the work with the Sydney Symphony
Orchestra under Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt on
8 August 1956 and later recorded it with the
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra under Elyakum
Shapirra (ABC Classics C461 703-2).
A. A. Cane, Newtown,
New South Wales, Australia
LETTERS SHOULD BE SENT TO
The Editor, CRC, 8 Locksmeade Road,
Richmond, Surrey, TW10 7YT, UK
Email: editor@classicrecordcollector.com
The Editor does not necessarily agree with
any views expressed in letters printed, and
reserves the right to edit correspondence where
necessary.
7
CRC Autumn 2008
obituaries
Peter Glossop (1928-2008)
The British baritone Peter Glossop died on 7
September, aged 80. One of the first British opera
singers to be lauded in leading international
theatres, he will perhaps most famously be
remembered for his powerful and idiomatic
performances of dramatic Verdi roles. He
received particularly high critical acclaim at La
Scala, Milan, where he was loved and revered, and
virtually adopted as a native.
As a schoolboy growing up in Sheffield, where
he was born on 6 July 1928, he saw a performance
of Rigoletto given by the touring Carl Rosa
Opera Company, and, as he has described in
his autobiography, Peter Glossop – The Story
of a Yorkshire Baritone (Guidon Publishing,
Cirencester, UK, 2004), he immediately set his
heart on a singing career.
After long years of study and times of hardship,
and appearances with amateur opera companies,
Glossop became a member of the Sadler’s Wells
Opera Chorus in 1952. Within a year he was
offered small principal roles, and quite soon it was
evident that here was a singer with an outstanding
technique, a very wide range of vocal colours, an
imposing stage presence, and an impressive grasp
8
of musical styles. He soon appeared in major
roles at Sadler’s Wells and rose to become one
of England’s leading dramatic baritones, with
particular successes in parts such as Eugene
Onegin, Di Luna, Wolfram, Gerard (in Andrea
Chénier), Scarpia, and Rigoletto. We can hear how
impressive he was during his nine years at Sadler’s
Wells in his earliest commercial recordings from
the late 1950s. He appeared in highlights of
three Verdi operas – Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La
traviata, all sung in English, yet notably revealing
his great potential as an Italianate master of legato
line and dramatic projection.
Those very qualities flowered spectacularly
when Glossop became a principal at the Royal
Opera House in 1962. He took the world by
storm in 1964 when he substituted for Geraint
Evans in a new Zeffirelli production of Rigoletto,
with Georg Solti conducting. His performance
possessed both vocal and psychological stature,
as did subsequent appearances as Di Luna, in a
Visconti production of Il trovatore, conducted by
Carlo Maria Giulini, and Iago, with Jon Vickers
singing his first Otello on stage. The complete
Trovatore has just been released on the Royal
Opera House label, and is reviewed on Page 94.
A wonderful memento of his subtle and chillingly
convincing Iago can be heard and seen on a DG
DVD, in the famous recording with Vickers,
conducted and stage-directed by Herbert von
Karajan. Although Glossop had reservations about
Karajan, he admired him, and Karajan thought
very highly of Glossop, as did other musicians
such as Giulini, Tullio Serafin, and Benjamin
Britten, who selected him to sing the title role
in his 1967 Decca recording of Billy Budd. That
followed a 1966 BBC Television performance
of Budd conducted by Charles Mackerras under
Britten’s supervision, which is now on a Decca
DVD, so we can see and hear just what it was that
inspired the composer to say to Glossop, “Finally
I have found my Billy Budd”.
For 20 more years Glossop enjoyed a
flourishing career in England, Europe and
America, notably at the Metropolitan Opera,
where he made an impressive debut as Wozzeck.
Yet this outstanding artist was never given an
honour in his own country. He should also have

made far more recordings, but we do now have
live performances to fill a few of the gaps, such
as his acclaimed interpretation of the title role of
Verdi’s Macbeth, in the original version, and Don
Carlo in the original version of Verdi’s La forza del
destino (both on Opera Rara). An ideal epitaph
would be the commercial release of an electrifying
1964 Rigoletto from Covent Garden, for here
Glossop’s thrilling vocal mastery and profoundly
moving interpretation showed the world that
England had produced one of the greatest of all
Verdi baritones.
Jon Tolansky
Marjorie Thomas (1927-2008)
Though she hailed from Sunderland and was
famed as an “English contralto” Marjorie Thomas
– who died on 12 September aged 85, after a long
illness – was half Welsh and half Scots. Born on
5 June 1923, Thomas moved aged two with her
family to Oldham, starting piano lessons at five
with her mother and continuing with William
Walton’s brother Noël until she won a scholarship
to the Royal Manchester College of Music. She
CRC Winter 2008
obituaries
completed her piano studies but also learnt
singing with Elsie Thurston. She taught music for
a year at Stockport High School for Girls while
singing in her spare time.
In 1945 Barbirolli booked her for Elgar’s Sea
Pictures with the Hallé; and that December she
was Konchakovna in Beecham’s radio production
of Borodin’s Prince Igor. At her audition Sir
Thomas asked for more emotion, then said: “But
how could you have experienced emotion – 22
and living in Manchester?”. Still, he asked her
back for his 1946 Delius Festival and his 1947
Messiah recording; and while rehearsing at Maida
Vale Studios she met her future husband Edwin
“Teddy” Gower, the sound engineer for the
broadcast.
In 1951 Thomas sang for Sargent with both
the Royal Choral Society and the Huddersfield
Choral Society, and she was a favoured soloist
from then on, often singing his orchestration
of Brahms’s Four Serious Songs with him. In
1950 she was the Dryade in Ariadne auf Naxos
at Glyndebourne and the Edinburgh Festival.
In 1951 she sang Nancy in Albert Herring with
Britten’s English Opera Group at Cheltenham
and she was Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s
Dream at Aldeburgh, the Holland Festival and
Covent Garden. At Covent Garden she was a
Rhinemaiden and a Valkyrie in Kempe’s Ring and
Magdalena in Kubelík’s Meistersinger.
Though not voluminous in voice or person –
she stood just 5ft 3ins – the attractive Thomas had
an easy, unforced production. This natural method
was passed on to pupils at Manchester and then at
the Royal Academy of Music in London (1963-
90), where she succeeded Astra Desmond and
became the first head of vocal studies. Most of her
records were made with Sargent, including The
Dream of Gerontius (her finest memorial), two
versions of Messiah, Elijah, Vaughan Williams’s
Serenade to Music and Gilbert and Sullivan
operas. She also did Mahler’s Third with Kubel’k
and both sets of Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes.
She took part in EMI’s first stereo session, on 26
January 1955: Bach’s Cantata No. 6 with the Bach
Choir and the Jacques Orchestra under Reginald
Jacques.
Tully Potter
9
w

TESTAMENT
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SBT 1428
Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie · Horn Concerto No.1
Alan Civil · Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

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Mahler: Symphony No.1
Strauss: Tod und Verklärung
London Philharmonic Orchestra / BBC Symphony Orchestra
Broadcast live from the Royal Albert Hall, November 1947
& Royal Festival Hall, 1955

SBT 1430
Beethoven: Symphony No.4 in B flat, Op.60
Strauss: Ein Heldenleben – Symphonic Poem
Leon Spierer – solo violin
Berliner Philharmoniker

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The Last London Concert
Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht, Op.4
Brahms: Symphony No.1 in C minor, Op.68
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Recorded live in stereo at the 1955 Bayreuth Festival, 2nd Cycle with Cast Changes
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Joseph Keilberth
Martha Mödl · Wolfgang Windgassen
Josef Greindl · Hans Hotter

SBT 1440
Final of the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition · Previously Unpublished
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor, Op.23
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No.3 in D minor, Op.30
Kabalevsky: Rondo in A minor, Op.59
Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra/Kyrill Kondrashin

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Don Juan · Burleske for piano & orchestra
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Philharmonia Orchestra
BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Strauss

SBT 1442
Previously Unpublished
Schumann: Fantasy in C, Op.131 (arr. Kreisler)
Franck: Sonata in A
Szymanowski: Myths, Op.30
Ravel: Tzigane
with Vladimir Yampolsky

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Bromley
Kent BR2 0QQ 11
From Tully Potter charts the inexorable rise and tragic
downfall of the Griller Quartet, which in the 1930s
Bliss and 1940s held a place in British musical life later
to Bloch occupied by the Amadeus Quartet

I t is just 80 years since the Griller String Quartet

took its definitive form. Over the next three
decades the group would become the finest in
Britain and would gain a worldwide reputation.
It would forge links with a number of composers,
notably Ernest Bloch, and its exceptional precision
of ensemble and stylistic cohesion would attract
collaborators of the stature of Myra Hess and
William Primrose. It would present an almost ideal
vision of the work ethic and of comradeship for
art’s sake. Yet it would finally disband in a miasma
of accusations, hurt and bitterness leading to the
death of one of its members. Its guiding light, the
driving force of its success and the root cause of
its eventual catastrophic implosion would be its
leader, Sidney Aaron Griller.
He was a child of the East End slums, born
(on 10 January 1911) and brought up in Cannon
Street Road – “the harshest part of London”. His
Polish-born father Salter (originally Selig Grillak)
kept a provision shop and although the family
was not musical, Sidney somehow asked for a tin
violin. Salter miraculously found a wooden one
and, evacuated to Reading during the first world
war, the lad had lessons from a lady trombonist.
Back in London, enlightened mentors helped
him to enter the Royal Academy of Music part-
time at 12 and full-time (on a scholarship) in
October 1925. His teachers were Hans Wessely,
then “this marvellous woman, Editha Knocker”,
12
and finally Rowsby Woof; but the major influence
was his ensemble coach, the viola player Lionel
Tertis. Their relationship was not easy – Griller
was thrown out of the class three times – but the
older man, who had emerged from the same East
End Jewish community, recognised a kindred
spirit. Various combinations of players were tried
and by May 1928 the first violin was Woof ’s South
African pupil Arthur John “Jack” O’Brien, born
in Grahamstown on 25 October 1909; Griller
was playing second; the viola was Philip Charles
Burton, born in Daventry on 1 May 1907 and a
pupil of Alfred Gibson, Woof and Tertis; and the
cellist was Stephen Blythe. By the autumn Griller
was leading and O’Brien was second violin. This
combination performed Schubert’s A minor
Quartet at the RAM and on 8 November 1928
they repeated the work in a Schubert centenary
recital at a St John’s Wood music club, by which
time the cellist was Colin Hampton (originally
Hampton-Smith), born on 6 June 1911 in London
and a pupil of Herbert Walenn. Preparation with
the single-minded Tertis could be fraught: “He
spent a whole session on the Schubert A minor”,
Griller recalled, “concentrating on the two-bar
introduction [in which second violin, viola and
cello play an accompaniment without a main
melody]. In two hours, I never came in once.
He went on and on at the intonation, and at the
ensemble between the viola and the cello”.
Railway carriages
The Griller Quartet was now complete. Its father
figure Philip Burton was already a sub-professor
of viola but he, Griller and Hampton would not
graduate until 1929 and O’Brien not until 1930.
On 4 February 1929 they appeared at Wigmore
Hall accompanying the soprano Dorothy Helmrich
in songs. She would be a good friend, as would the
harpist Maria Korchinska and the pianist Harry
Isaacs – who spent 7s 6d taking Emmie Bass (later
Tillett) out to lunch and got them on to Ibbs and
Tillett’s books. It was not a propitious time to be
starting a quartet: two other Tertis groups, one
made up of Jean Pougnet, Hugo Rignold, Harry
Berly and Douglas Cameron, the other an all-female
quartet who gave a complete Haydn cycle at the
RAM, split up and most of them spent the 1930s
working in light music. The Grillers succeeded
by sheer determination, taking theatre or cinema
jobs and going to live in two old railway carriages
at Pagham Beach on the south coast, rehearsing
in a third carriage 12 or 14 hours a day. Hearing
the Quatuor Pro Arte in Debussy and Ravel was
crucial. “Their playing was so superb”, Griller said,
“and they derived such pleasure out of it, that we
determined to stick it out no matter what”. For
six weeks in the summer of 1929 the foursome,
two of them still teenagers, studied intensively in
Aberystwyth with Arthur Williams, who had been
cellist of the Klingler Quartet of Berlin before the
Great War and had worked with Joachim. They
would return in 1930 and would always speak in
awe of his teaching. He played in the old way,
without an endpin, but had unique musical insights.
From him the Grillers acquired Joachim’s seating
pattern, with the violins facing each other. In the
autumn of 1929 they became the Academy’s first
professional quartet, playing student compositions
and having students as guests in quintets and
sextets. They bought a Buick sedan car and a house
in St Albans, where trades-people were generous
with credit – at one stage they owed the milkman
£30. When Griller married the pianist Honor
Linton in 1932, she kept house for all of them;
by then they were able to afford a London home.
Hampton moved out after his marriage in 1933.
Burton and O’Brien were a couple, a fact which
often needed to be glossed over at a time when
homosexual relationships were illegal, although it
was an open secret in the profession.
They steadily expanded their repertoire and
their career. On 1 December 1929 they made the
first of 34 appearances in the South Place Concerts
at Conway Hall in London, with two works in D
minor, Dvořák’s Op. 34 and Mozart’s K421. When
this concert series celebrated its golden jubilee in
1937, the Grillers would play a quintet with the
venerable organiser, Alfred J. Clements, as second
viola. On 18 June 1930 they made their first BBC
broadcast and thereafter they were frequently at
Broadcasting House, often sharing a programme
with a singer – once it was the celebrated French
mezzo-soprano Claire Croiza. All broadcasting
was live in those days but they became adept. On
one occasion Maria Korchinska joined them in the
Bax Harp Quintet; their BBC repertoire included
Kodály’s Second Quartet, the Ravel and Sibelius’s
Voces intimae; and they often broadcast the Biscay
Quartet by the RAM principal J.B. McEwen.
Their first European tour, with Korchinska and
her flautist husband Konstantin Kony in 1930-31,
took them to Holland and Berlin with such works as
Bax’s First Quartet and Harp Quintet and Roussel’s
Serenade. On 5 April 1934, at the ISCM Festival
in Florence, they premiered Britten’s Fantasy Oboe
Quartet, Op. 2, at the Teatro Comunale with Léon
Goossens – “Mrs Robert Mayer [soprano Dorothy
Moulton] lent O’Brien the money to come too,
even though he wasn’t playing”, Griller recalled.
During their first decade, in which they notched
up 800 concerts, they would also visit France,
Belgium and Scandinavia. At home they forged
friendships with Myra Hess – first appearing with
her in Elgar’s Quintet at the 1932 Three Choirs
Festival – and the clarinettists Charles and Haydn
Draper and Reginald Kell. Composers Ludomir
Rozycki and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco played
their quintets with them. They also worked with
the pianists Irene Scharrer, Edwin Fischer, Harold
Bauer and Clifford Curzon and made music in
private with Felix Weingartner, Mischa Elman
and Yehudi Menuhin. A major thrill was to give
two performances of Mendelssohn’s Octet with
the Quatuor Pro Arte at the Courtauld-Sargent
Concerts in 1936. On their tours they usually
took British music and Bax, whom they had met
through Korchinska, was a favourite. They played
at his fiftieth birthday concert in 1933; and on 11
December 1936 they participated in three Bax
first performances: the Octet with Harriet Cohen,
13
Myra Hess
piano, Aubrey Brain, horn, Frederick Riddle, viola,
and Eugene Cruft, double bass; the Threnody
for bassoon, harp and string sextet, with Archie
Camden, Korchinska, Riddle and Cruft; and the
Septet, with John Francis, flute, Helen Gaskell,
oboe, and Korchinska. It was Abdication night
and at 10.00 pm the concert was interrupted so
that everyone in the Aeolian Hall could listen to
Edward VIII’s broadcast. On 29 October 1937 the
Grillers premiered the newly knighted composer’s
Third Quartet at the same venue. They were also
close to Arthur Bliss – characterised by Griller
as “a very good man” – and did the bowings and
fingerings for his Music for Strings.
The Bloch connection
Undoubtedly Ernest Bloch was the composer with
whom they were most closely involved. The Grillers
played his First Quintet with Isaacs as early as 1933
and got to know him when they were asked to
perform the First Quartet over the BBC network
and for the inauguration of the Bloch Society,
at the Aeolian Hall on 10 December 1937. At a
second concert in the Grotrian Hall they played
the First Quintet with Louis Kentner; and at a
third in January at the Aeolian they repeated the
Quartet, also playing Night and two of the three
Landscapes. The connection with the composer
was made by Alex Cohen, former leader of his own
quartet and the City of Birmingham Orchestra,
14
and one of Sidney Griller’s mentors. After the war,
when both ensemble and composer were based in
the United States, the relationship deepened until
the Grillers became Bloch’s friends and favourite
interpreters. He assisted them in preparing his
quartets and dedicated his Deux pièces of 1951 to
them. The vigorous Third Quartet of 1952 was also
dedicated to the Grillers, who unveiled it in New
York on 4 January 1953. They gave the premieres
of the 1953 Fourth (in London on 18 July 1954)
and the 1956 Fifth, and often performed the two
piano quintets (Solomon was a favoured partner
for the First). After the final rehearsal for the US
premiere of the Second Quartet, Bloch told them:
“It is a composer’s dream come true to hear his
work played as you have played it”.
Determined to get to America, the four
borrowed £800 and accepted very poor terms in
order to make their New York debut at Town Hall
on 5 February 1939, playing Bax’s First, Mozart’s
Dissonance Quartet and Beethoven’s Op. 95 – the
latter two had been studied with Arthur Williams.
“Youthful vigour and enthusiasm worked with
irresistible effect in the superior playing put forth
by the Griller Quartet”, wrote Noel Straus of the
New York Times. The highlight of 1939 was playing
to entertain the Queen while Augustus John painted
her portrait. The outbreak of the second world war
saw the foursome about to make their second US
tour. They decided to go anyway and performed
the Bloch First with Mozart’s Hunt Quartet at
Town Hall in January 1940. “Quite remarkable
was the purity of tone maintained in every measure
of the four movements, the unswerving fidelity
to pitch and the suppleness of phrase everywhere
present, even in the most complicated passages”,
wrote Straus of the Bloch, although he felt it was
too restrained. At a New Friends of Music concert
the Grillers framed Elisabeth Schumann’s singing
of six Mozart Lieder with Mozart’s Trio, K564,
and Brahms’s Piano Quintet. Mischa Levitzki
was their partner; it should have been Myra Hess,
but she was in London, organising her National
Gallery Concerts. Back home, the Grillers went
into the RAF Orchestra, which they hated, apart
from a 1944 US tour. Thankfully they were able to
function as the official RAF quartet, with Denis
Matthews as their pianist. They encountered good
receptions from armed forces audiences, although
one RAF officer sent word to them to play more
quietly and another, when they asked to practise
before the concert, exclaimed: “Good God! You’ve
come all the way down here and you don’t even
know your stuff ?”. They made some 60 appearances
in uniform at Hess’s concerts, often performing
quintets with her; and they regularly appeared in
the Gerald Cooper Concerts at Wigmore Hall
– where in 1943 they premiered Gordon Jacob’s
Clarinet Quintet, dedicated to them and their
friend Frederick Thurston, alongside the first British
performance of Britten’s First Quartet. They struck
up a fruitful partnership with the viola player Max
Gilbert, their guest in numerous quintets. Their
time in uniform ended when they played for the
world leaders at the Potsdam Conference.
California bound
In September 1946, having copied their parts out
themselves, they gave an ‘unofficial’ rendering of
Bloch’s Second Quartet in Birmingham, where its
dedicatee Alex Cohen was based; and on 9 October
they gave the official premiere at Wigmore Hall.
Early the following year, having worked on the
Quartet with the composer, they performed it
in Washington, at the University of California,
Berkeley, and in New York. In 1949 they ceded their
British crown to the fledgling Amadeus Quartet
and took a residency at the Berkeley campus.
The USA was a difficult place in which to keep a
quartet going, as there were far fewer chamber
music societies than in Europe, spread over vast
distances; but the steady income of a residency
made it possible to live quite well, with the bonus
of Californian weather. They continued to appear
in New York – in 1950 Myra Hess joined them in
the Brahms and Dvořák quintets at Town Hall.
While spending four months a year at Berkeley for
the rest of their career, as well as teaching summer
courses, they returned regularly to Britain, giving
important premieres: Bliss’s Second Quartet,
dedicated to them for their twentieth anniversary,
at the 1950 Edinburgh Festival; Rubbra’s beautiful
Second Quartet, also dedicated to them, in London
in May 1952; and Rawsthorne’s Second Quartet at
the 1954 Cheltenham Festival. Griller was made
a CBE in 1951 and played in the Coronation
orchestra in 1953, the year they celebrated their
silver jubilee at the Royal Festival Hall. They
toured Australia and Hephzibah Menuhin went
with them to New Zealand. In America they had
coaching from Schoenberg, gave public rehearsals
with Casals and played a certain amount of music
by US composers: William Denny, Seymour
Schifrin, Jerome Rosen, Edward Lawton and
Roger Sessions. They performed Barber’s Dover
Beach with a contralto rather than a baritone. They
gave the first public performance of Milhaud’s
overlooked Third Quartet with baritone voice,
and he wrote a quintet for them. Their colleagues
Sir Arnold Bax
15

William Primrose
included William Primrose and the former Roth
Quartet viola player Ferenc Molnar.
In March 1961 it was announced that the
quartet would disband. O’Brien and Burton
had resigned, fed up with Griller’s dictatorial
ways – the fact that his Tertis-like tunnel vision
had guaranteed the group’s quality for 32 years
was neither here nor there. “He was a complete
autocrat”, Max Gilbert told me, “and we always did
exactly what he said, but I adored working for him.
Even after I’d done 100 performances with them,
Sidney Griller still wanted six hours’ rehearsal and
I always thought it was worthwhile”. But Burton
was ill and depressed – he had never come to terms
with his sexual orientation and in 1948 had tried to
kill himself. On 19 May 1961 he committed suicide.
The distraught O’Brien destroyed everything in
the house relating to the quartet, including Burton’s
painstakingly compiled scrapbooks. Devastated
but with their livelihood threatened, Griller and
Hampton – both only 50 and at the height of their
powers – tried to start again in the autumn of 1961
on the Davis campus with Willard Tressel as second
violin and Primrose as viola. But Primrose’s hearing
was going and by December Milton Thomas had
come in. That chemistry did not work and next
year they tried again with Jacob Krachmalnick –
an over-confident player who thought he should
be leading – and Harry Rumpler. In 1963 Griller
16
called it a day and came back to the British Isles,
where he had a fruitful second career as a teacher,
first in Dublin and then at the RAM. He died on
20 November 1993. O’Brien taught in California,
as did Hampton, apart from a brief interlude at the
RAM.
The Griller Quartet was one of the earliest
ensembles in the modern mode, with four players
of more or less equal talent and power; the tone
was quite homogeneous, with the vibrato well
matched and on the quick side for the lower
instruments. Sidney Griller’s own playing,
which featured some delightful portamento, was
technically immaculate and often very beautiful;
but like all the best leaders, he was more interested
in the musical line, rhythmic impetus, precision of
ensemble and clarity of texture than in personal
display. The group played an enormous amount of
music, ranging from Matthew Locke and Purcell to
Prokofiev, Toch, Schoenberg and Bartók, and made
a huge contribution to chamber music in Britain.
The recordings
In my view the Griller Quartet excelled especially
in three areas: Bloch, Mozart and British music. All
three are well represented in the discography. The
first records came about through an initiative by
the Daily Telegraph, which held a chamber music
competition in 1932. First prize went to Edric
Cundell’s Quartet in C, Op. 27, second prize to
Elizabeth Maconchy’s Oboe Quintet and third
prize to Cecil Armstrong Gibbs’s Quartet, Op. 73.
The Grillers did their bit, recording the Cundell on
18 April 1933 (HMV m B4442/4), the Maconchy
with oboist Helen Gaskell on 21 April (m
B4448/9) and the Armstrong Gibbs on 3 May (m
B4450/2). They also played the works in sundry
places after doing a live broadcast of all three on
13 May. But HMV put them out on ten-inch discs,
which guaranteed poor sales and a short catalogue
life. They are now as rare as snakes’ legs but after
much scratching around for copies, they have been
reissued (Dutton C CDBP9762). The next Griller
sessions took place at Decca’s West Hampstead
Studios on 29 and 30 August 1935, when they and
Frederick Thurston set down a mellow account
of Bliss’s Clarinet Quintet (Decca m K780/3;
Testament C SBT1366; Clarinet Classics C
CC0037). The five men had already given at
least two joint performances of the work, at the
Grotrian Hall in 1933 and at the Royal Institution
in 1934, in connection with a lecture by Bliss. The
sessions were Thurston’s first for the gramophone,
although as principal of the BBC SO he was
used to the microphone. The players began on 29
August with the finale, then the first movement
– on the second side of which they had to fit the
first part of the Scherzo. Next day they finished the
Scherzo and gave their beautiful performance of
the “Adagietto espressivo” – the third and final part
of this movement was the only side which needed a
third take. The quintet took up seven sides and the
filler – Bliss’s Polonaise for piano, played by Cyril
Smith – went on Side 1 of the set. Next the Grillers
moved back to Abbey Road on 1 February 1937,
for Bax’s Nonet with Léon Goossens, Thurston,
Joseph Slater, flute, Victor Watson, double-
bass and Maria Korchinska, harp (Columbia m
ROX182/4; Dutton C CDAX8014).
They did not record again until a notable
Decca series began on 17 and 25 April 1941 with
a gorgeous version of Bax’s First Quartet (m
K1009/12; C CDBP9762). Brahms’s Clarinet
Quintet with “Jack” Thurston followed on 15
May but was not liked (matrices AR5738/45).
Fortunately test pressings survived and it is now
available (C SBT1366). It is a fine, forthright
reading, interesting because the players go straight
into tempo at the start, rather than observe the
Mühlfeld tradition, sanctioned by Brahms, of
treating the opening bars as a slower introduction.
Later, when the Grillers restudied the work with
Kell, they changed their minds. To save precious
materials, Decca tried to restrict most sides to one
take during the war and on these occasions they
did well – all 16 sides of the Bax and Brahms were
single takes. Not so lucky was Bliss’s First Quartet,
perhaps because the composer was fussing over
every detail, even the side turns: the entire first
session was scrapped and on the successful day,
6 May 1943, 15 takes were used for eight sides,
making 32 in all (m K1091/4). Meanwhile
on 25 August 1942 the BBC had taken down
Brahms’s Piano Quintet with Myra Hess at the
National Gallery, the only souvenir of this prolific
partnership (APR C APR5646). On 7 April and
24 May 1943 the Grillers recorded the Octet by
Howard Ferguson, whom they knew from the
RAF and the Gallery; with them were Pauline
Juler, clarinet, Cecil James, bassoon, Dennis Brain,
horn, and James Edward Merrett, double-bass
(m K1095/7; C CDAX8014). Haydn’s Seven
Last Words were begun on 20 September 1943
but not completed until 14 December 1946 (m
AK2139/47; C CDBP9739). Griller, just one
of many Jewish players who succeeded in this
very Christian music, told me of the time when
he thoughtlessly scheduled the work for one of
the ensemble’s many concerts at the Young Men’s
Hebrew Association in New York. The last wartime
recording was a trim Mozart Horn Quintet, set
down on 6 October 1944 by Dennis Brain, Griller,
Burton, Max Gilbert and Hampton (m K1138/9;
C CDBP9717).
The first post-war sessions, on 9-11 December
1946, were devoted to Mozart’s G major Quartet,
K387 (m K1652/5), and the Haydn Serenade
(L LX3087). Haydn’s Bird followed next day
(m K1668/9), and Bloch’s Second, with Night
as a filler, on 10 June 1947 (m K1758/62; C
CDBP9713). “We just played the records of
the Second Quartet last night”, Bloch wrote to
Griller in March 1949. “They are admirable as
interpretation and recording.” Mozart’s D minor,
K421, and Purcell’s Ninth Fantasia took four
days, 16-18 and 20 June 1947 (m K1719/22);
and Mozart’s Dissonance, K465, was done during
a cold spell with a fluctuating power supply on 3-5
May 1948, with its filler, Purcell’s Third Fantasia,
following on 10 May (m AK2049/52; Mozart on
C CDBP9717). The ensemble’s first Beethoven,
Op. 18 No. 3 in D, was meanwhile made on 30
April (m AX439/41; C CDBP9752). For some
reason Dvořák’s American Quartet from 10
May was given two separate ‘automatic’ 78rpm
issues before it reached LP status (m AK2080/2,
AK2176/8; L LXT2530; C CDBP9713). One
of the greatest Griller recordings, Mozart’s G
minor Quintet, K516, with Max Gilbert as second
viola, was made on 15 and 16 November 1948
(m AX343/6; AK2241/4 allotted but not used;
L LXT2515; C CDBP9717). The LP issue was
a little dim but the Dutton CD is fine. On the
following day Beethoven’s Op. 95 was allowed six
sides, as opposed to the Busch Quartet’s four, yet
involved breaks in the second and third movements
(m AK2185/7; L LX3026; C CDBP9752). In
the same sessions the Grillers recorded Mozart’s
Adagio, K546, adding its Fugue on 27 November
(m K2224; C CDBP9713).
17
Freedom of tape
In common with many other performers,
the Grillers heaved a sigh of relief when tape
recording came in. Hampton’s recollection
that they did the Sibelius (L LXT2575),
Bliss’s Second (L LX3038; C CDBP9780)
and Beethoven’s Op. 132 (L LXT2573; C
CDBP9755) in five days in September and
October 1950 does not tally with the facts, but
certainly life was easier than with 78rpm. Bliss
attended their listening session and a fair amount
of drink was consumed. Then they noticed
three chords missing from Beethoven’s Heiliger
Dankgesang. “Can we record it now?”, the Decca
team asked. The players had no music with them
but they did have their instruments; however
their alcohol-relaxed fingers took an hour to
get those chords right. Three Mozarts, K159 in
B flat (L LX3087), K168 in F (L LXT2728)
and the Hunt (L LXT2728), followed with
Rubbra’s Second (L LX3088) in June 1952
before the grand project of recording all four
existing Bloch quartets was achieved in 1953
and 1954 under the composer’s supervision.
Any list of great quartet records must include
this epic version of the massive First Quartet (L
LXT5071). The remade Second (L LXT5072)
is fractionally trimmer than the 78rpm version
in the first three movements, fractionally more
relaxed in the finale. The Third, the earliest to
be taped, was issued on its own (L LM4558)
and then with the Fourth (L LXT5073).
The connection with Decca ended in
confusion. The Grillers wanted to record in
America, rather than cram sessions into British
visits. In about May 1956 they taped the five
mature Mozart quintets with Primrose playing
first viola. Although numbers were allocated
(L LXT5235/7), with the C major having a
disc to itself, these mono only recordings were
overtaken by the onset of stereo. The players
moved to the US Vanguard label, which issued
K406 and K515 (Vanguard L VRS1029, Top
Rank L XRK504) but then re-recorded all five
works in stereo at Hertz Hall on the Berkeley
campus in September 1959 (L VSD2060/2; C
OVC8024/5). The finale of K593 came at the
end of a day’s sessions and Griller set a tempo
so fast that Primrose could not manage it. They
packed up for the day and next morning Griller
18
tried a friendlier speed, only to be stopped by
Primrose. “No. The tempo you had yesterday”.
He had been up all night practising it – playing
with Heifetz had accustomed him to competing
rather than conversing as chamber musicians
should. The published movement is a blemish
on the set; but a test pressing of the mono
K593 survives and there the tempo, while still
fast, is not so unmusical. The only other Griller
Vanguard recordings were the six quartets of
Haydn’s Op. 71 and Op. 74, made in February
1959 (L VSD2033/4; C SVC62/3). Stereo
pointed up the separation of the violins in the
quartet’s seating formation.
It is a discography of amazing consistency. I
would not especially recommend the Beethovens,
good as they are. Griller himself admitted that
they jumped in at the deep end in the early
1930s with Op. 95 and Op. 127. “We had to play
Beethoven. I didn’t have much understanding of
it at that stage and the only way I could put it over
was to play technically really well”. Complete
understanding of Beethoven never came, but
everything else I think is excellent. I would pick
Bloch’s First Quartet to represent the composer –
it is the best Griller recording of anything – and
the G minor Quintet with Gilbert to represent
Mozart. For the British strand of the repertoire,
the Rubbra Second has something special and
spiritual to communicate. British string players
have not always been credited with really heroic
virtuosity but I would put up the Grillers’ Bloch
(and Hindemith’s First String Trio recorded by
Jean Pougnet, Frederick Riddle and Anthony
Pini) to challenge anyone.
Thanks to John White for much research; also to
Lewis Foreman, David Hermann and Malcolm
Walker. CRC

The Ballets
Russes
In the first of
two articles
Jon Tolansky
celebrates the
centenary of
the birth of the
revolutionary
Russian ballet
company
“The London season, which was now in full swing,
was running its usually placid course when, like a
visitation from another plane, there burst upon it
the Russian Ballet... People thought and talked
of nothing but ballet, and extremists went as far
as to assert that the downfall of opera was well in
sight... At long last London had the opportunity
of witnessing a theatrical representation in which
every constituent was of the highest beauty and
splendour”.
Sir Thomas Beecham – a very tough critic
to impress – describes the impact that Sergey
Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes made on their first
visit to London in 1911, in his autobiography
A Mingled Chime (Hutchinson, London, 1944).
The Company was just two years old and already
it had revolutionised not only concepts of ballet
performance but also, as Sir Thomas tells us,
general standards of musical theatre. As he relates,
Diaghilev had been able:
“to enrol under his banner a group of the most
gifted composers and scenic artists of the day. Men
like Bakst, Benois, Roerich, and Sert succeeded in
lifting the whole craft of stage decoration out of the
condition of dull decline into which it had fallen
over a long period of years”.
And:
“Diaghilev was also the first to decree that no
music but the best should be used by the Ballet, and
that it must be executed with the same technical
efficiency which the public at that time could count
upon with certainty only in the concert room”.
These are very important recollections of
a great musician, who at that very time was
also passionately devoted to changing musical
and theatrical attitudes and standards. It was
Beecham who initiated the visit of the Ballets
Russes to London for its Drury Lane season, and
in due course he conducted some performances,
first of all taking over one from Pierre Monteux,
the Ballets Russes’s music director in 1911, and
then rehearsing and conducting again when
the company returned the following year. He
engaged his own Beecham Symphony Orchestra
for the runs of performances, and we have a few
retrospective mementos of parts of the seasons in
the form of 1915/16 recordings with the Beecham
Symphony Orchestra of the “Polovtsian Dances”
from Borodin’s Prince Igor (Columbia m L1002)
and extracts from Stravinsky’s L’oiseau de feu
(Columbia m L1040). A particularly interesting
point Beecham raises is that concerning technical
standards of performance. As he says, Diaghilev’s
aspiration was unprecedented in this field – and
the great impresario fulfilled it to a degree that
has generally not recurred since the halcyon days
of his company, when Monteux and later Ernest
Ansermet were his music directors. Diaghilev
commissioned an extraordinary array of great
musical landmarks from Stravinsky, Ravel,
Debussy, Falla and Prokofiev, and some highly
fascinating scores too, from Satie, Strauss, Schmitt
and Milhaud – and he wanted conductors of
outstanding ability to introduce these works to
the world. Their contribution to the astonishing
Ballets Russes phenomenon was as vital as the
composers, dancers, choreographers, painters and
designers of genius that Diaghilev engaged.
19
Sergey Pavlovich Diaghilev
Nikolay Tcherepnin
Diaghilev’s very first music director for the Ballets
Russes is little remembered today as a conductor,
and not that much more as a composer, but at
the time Nikolay Tcherepnin had a formidable
reputation in both fields. He was highly thought
of at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg as
a conductor both of opera and ballet (Rimsky-
Korsakov asked for him to conduct whenever
his works were performed there), while his
compositions in the ballet genre were considered
particularly important as choreographic creations
that brought impressive drama and lyricism to the
art form. His Le pavillon d’Armide was featured
in the very first Ballets Russes season in Paris in
1909, and its “Grande Valse” was recorded seven
years later when the Company went to the United
States, accompanied by a very gifted and ferociously
demanding young Music Director. His name was
Ernest Ansermet – more about him later.
Meanwhile, riding high after the first very
successful season, which had drawn considerable
attention for the novel dynamism and sophisti-
cation of the stagings, Diaghilev and his company
began to race forward on to unprecedented new
experimental heights. He was delighted with
his discovery of an exceptionally brilliant young
Russian composer called Igor Stravinsky, whom
he had brought over from Russia, and after
Stravinsky’s magnificent achievement of L’oiseau
de feu in 1910 (conducted by the distinguished
Gabriel Pierné), Diaghilev realised that in this
20
Nikolay Nikolayevich Tcherepnin
musician’s fertile imagination and virtuoso
wizardry were the seeds of what he envisaged
as a totally new kind of music. His vision led to
the extraordinary Petrushka of 1911, and we can
again savour how its novelty struck the theatre-
goer of the time through Sir Thomas Beecham’s
recollection of the London premiere in 1913:
“Nothing before it had been so unquestionably
a work of art...With the coming of Stravinsky, the
creative capacity of the Russian Ballet attained its
full maturity. In Petrushka, the charm and poetry
that peer out of nearly every page of his earlier
tour-de-force, L’oiseau de feu, rarely make their
appearance, the chief characteristics being a rhythm
of extraordinary variety and vigour, a bizarrerie
which, although totally different from that of Strauss,
is equally individual, and a fleeting hint of pathos
that we find nowhere else in Stravinsky’s work.”
These qualities – so splendidly described
by Beecham – demanded a level of artistic and
technical mastery from a conductor unheard of
then in the ballet world, and it fell to a brilliantly
gifted young Frenchman who was making his
name as the assistant of Pierné – who was then the
permanent conductor of the Colonne Orchestra
– to take on the challenge. In the biography of
Monteux by his wife (It’s All in the Music, William
Kimber, London, 1966), the conductor relates
how he was only originally asked to take some
rehearsals because Pierné had refused to rehearse
as a substitute for Tcherepnin, who was billed to
conduct the performances.
Gabriel Pierné
“At first I wasn’t the least bit interested, I must
say. However, as the rehearsals proceeded, I felt a
certain fascination for the score, which presented
great difficulties to the orchestra”.
And he goes on to tell us that he was soon
“completely subjugated by the music and the
composer”, who after a few rehearsals insisted
that Monteux must conduct the performances of
his work. Is it fanciful to suggest that the magical
colours and macabre atmosphere that Monteux
so tellingly captured in his several, much later
recordings of this strangely haunting masterpiece,
partly derived from the lasting first impression
that the wonderfully original score had made on
him? Whatever the case, he almost unfailingly
seemed to bring to life very vividly and subtly
those characteristics which Beecham so astutely
analysed (as indeed did Ernest Ansermet in his
performances). As for Diaghilev, he not only
realised that he had found an exceptionally
talented conductor, but most important of all
he persuaded him to become his music director.
“Diaghilev found it necessary to dispense with
Nicholas Tcherepnine’s services as first conductor
for various reasons unknown to me at the time”,
recounts Monteux. Looking back now, with
respect to Tcherepnin’s admirable qualities, one
wonders how he would have coped with the
demands of the brave new world that the Ballets
Russes was now unveiling.
So it was to be Pierre Monteux who conducted
the world premieres of three more vitally important
Sir Thomas Beecham
new musical works of the twentieth century that
were created for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. All
so different, and all so unique, Ravel’s Daphnis et
Chloé, Debussy’s Jeux and Stravinsky’s Le sacre du
printemps remain to this day, like Petrushka, great
historic landmarks of both dance and music.
Monteux made his famous recording of
Daphnis with the London Symphony Orchestra
47 years after he had launched the ballet, in 1959,
and ever since then it has been rightly acclaimed
as outstanding, particularly in its congenially
stylistic and subtly characterised playing (Decca L
SXL2164). I hope, though, that Monteux admirers
– and I am an avid one – will not be put out if I
wonder whether his tempo for the final “Danse
générale” had been as measured in 1912 as it was
in 1959.
Jeux and Le sacre
Then came two major works within a fortnight
of each other in 1913. Jeux was premiered on 15
May, and it generally puzzled the audience with
its seemingly un-balletic scenario of a tennis game
played by two girls and a boy, and its strangely
elusive music seemed to evoke a constant stream
of hallucinatory images rather than any concrete
character description. A recording of a 1955
concert performance by Monteux with the
Orchestre Nationale of France was issued by
FNAC (L RAPPEL2) and, apart from a private
recording of a performance in Boston in 1951, it
is the only document we have of an interpretation
21

Pierre Monteux
by the conductor who premiered this great and
remarkable Debussy work – which soon faded into
the background, temporarily, in the light of the
happening of two weeks later.
The first performance of Le sacre du printemps
on 29 May 1913 was maybe the most famous
musical and theatrical scandal in history, and of
course a unique turning point in the history of
musical composition. Pierre Monteux relates how
completely bewildered he was when Stravinsky
first played the score for him on an upright piano
in a little room in Monte-Carlo in 1912, with
Diaghilev present.
“I must admit I did not understand one note of
Le sacre du printemps. My one desire was to flee
that room and find a quiet corner in which to rest
my aching head. Then my Director turned to me
and said, ‘This is a masterpiece, Monteux, which
will completely revolutionise music and make you
famous, because you are going to conduct it’. And of
course, I did.”
What an enlightened prophet was Diaghilev.
As for the famous day in May 1913 when there was
a real riot at the first performance in the Théâtre
Champs-Elysées, the trauma of the occasion was
graphically described by the composer in his
celebrated narrative, A propos Le sacre, recorded
in 1959 (CBS L 72054). On a later occasion he
recalled that “after the big incredible scandal of
the first performance of the Sacre du printemps
in the Theatre of Champs-Elysées, I must say that
Diaghilev was delighted – delighted with the
22
scandal”. That delicious recollection was also issued
on record some years after A propos Le sacre, as part
of a wonderfully vibrant document of the composer
as he revisited the room in Clarens, Switzerland
where he had composed the work in 1911.
There had been six months of rehearsals for the
dancers and 17 days of orchestral rehearsals for
the premiere of Le sacre, so completely new and
unfamiliar was its style. Stravinsky tells us that he
felt Monteux had mastered the score, which was a
powerful compliment, as some decades were to pass
before new generations of conductors and orchestra
players began to take its rhythmic and harmonic
innovations in their stride. When the first three
recordings were made, all in 1929, by Monteux
with the “Grand Orchestre Symphonique” (HMV
m W1016/9); by Stravinsky with the “Orchestre
Symphonique de Paris” – said to be the Walther
Straram Concerts Orchestra (Columbia m
LX119/23); and by Leopold Stokowski with the
Philadelphia Orchestra – completed in early 1930
(Victor m 7231/4), this music was still frightening
for many, if not most, players and conductors.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that for
me this very element, which generally continued
to be present until after the second world war,
could sometimes help to heighten the senses of
shock and fear that are so central to Stravinsky’s
vision of a violent, pagan sacrificial rite. I feel that
those qualities come across in the first Monteux
recording of Le sacre, for all its shaky moments
(which are nevertheless offset by some remarkably
secure playing sometimes), although I think that
few people would say that is the case with the
composer’s first recording of his work, alas. Perhaps
the Stokowski version reaches, for that time, an
ideal and quite remarkable synthesis of nervous
tension and outstanding discipline, and on this
occasion the usually cavalier conductor made only
a few alterations to the composer’s writing.
Le sacre in Berlin
By this time, Le sacre had been acknowledged
as one of the seminal masterworks in musical
history. Even Wilhelm Furtwängler and the Berlin
Philharmonic Orchestra had performed it in 1924,
a year after its Berlin Philharmonic premiere under
Ernest Ansermet. The late Berthold Goldschmidt
once told me how electrifying the atmosphere
was in Berlin at the Ansermet premiere, and

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky
how in his long life he could remember no other
occasion, except for the premiere of Berg’s Wozzeck
two years later, that tensed up an audience so
much. Mind you, Le sacre still could offend some
audience members – “Hoy! The man must be out
of his mind!”, reported Time magazine in 1928 as
the words of “a bony, nervous lady who had just
listened to the first part of Stravinsky’s Le sacre
du printemps as played in Philadelphia last week
by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra [sic],
conducted by Pierre Monteux. Having so spoken,
the bony lady left the auditorium as did many
another ignorant Philadelphia music listener”.
Time itself recognised the music’s greatness, as
did the New York Times in the same year, saying
of Le sacre that it was “to the twentieth century as
Beethoven’s Ninth is to the nineteenth”.
By the time of the unique occasion when
Monteux, aged 88, conducted the fiftieth
anniversary of the premiere to a packed Royal
Albert Hall on 29 May 1963, Monteux, Le
sacre and Stravinsky were all legendary. That
performance, with the London Symphony
Orchestra, is preserved in an archive recording
that can be heard at the Music Preserved listening
centres in London and York, and although it was
far from ideal, I can vouch (as I was present),
that the atmosphere that evening was thrillingly
riveting. The broadcast faithfully conveyed that
atmosphere, and about half a minute after the end
Monteux raised his right hand to greet a figure
in a box high up in the hall, and up there we saw
Stravinsky waving back with his handkerchief.
The BBC announcer covering the event, Alvar
Lidell, broke the then strict Third Programme
rules of no personal comment and spontaneously
gave himself over to a description of the scene,
crying out that Stravinsky was in a box applauding
as heartily as everyone else. “Stravinsky and
Monteux stand facing each other on this historic
occasion”, he continued, and then, while the
BBC faded out their transmission, the audience
saw Monteux walk all the way up to the box to
embrace Stravinsky. I shed tears as I write this and
still see in front of me the tiny figures of Monteux
and Stravinsky and feel the intense emotion in the
hall on that unique Wednesday night more than
45 years ago.
It was all just part of the legacy of the
extraordinary Ballets Russes of Sergey Diaghilev
that had exploded on to the artistic scene like a
massive volcanic eruption in 1909. Its seismic
effects were to reach far and wide for a long time.
In part two of this centenary celebration we will
continue the story with the coming of Ernest
Ansermet in 1916, whose conducting is preserved
on quite a number of recordings made on the
Ballets Russes’s American tour that year. We
then go on to the commissioning of ballets from
Richard Strauss, Erik Satie, Manuel de Falla and
Sergey Prokofiev, and the discovery of two artists
who became major twentieth-century conductors
– Roger Désormière and Igor Markevitch. CRC
Stravinsky and Diaghilev in 1926
23

I n 1843, Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn, the
composer’s sister, wrote from Leipzig about
“a most dear 12-year-old Hungarian boy, who
is such a skilful violinist that Mr [Ferdinand]
David has nothing more to teach him, and such a
sensible lad that he travelled here alone by train”.
The boy was a child prodigy, born the seventh
of eight children, to Jewish parents, in 1831, in
Kittsee, near the old Hungarian Coronation
town of Pressburg (Pozsony) and the modern
Bratislava. He had studied with several teachers,
in Pest, where the family had moved in 1835, and
in Vienna, and progressed to study with Joseph
Böhm, a man with the classical credentials of
having played for Beethoven and Schubert. A
move to Leipzig meant not only studies with
Ferdinand David, a pupil of Spohr and technical
adviser to Mendelssohn, but contact with the
great composer himself, who in no time invited
him to appear with his Leipzig Gewandhaus
Orchestra in the company of the famous pianist
Clara Schumann and the legendary singer Pauline
Viardot.
Mendelssohn then took him on a tour of
England, where he played Beethoven’s Violin
Concerto, aged all of 13, and where he was
introduced to the great and the good. From then
on, Joseph Joachim’s career was successful at
every level, and his friends and colleagues during
24
Joseph Joachim
and his recordings
Gusztáv Fenyő, a professional pianist
and a great-great nephew of Joseph
Joachim, examines the life and art of
his famous ancestor
a long, productive life included some of the
greatest musical figures of his time: Schumann,
who revered him and wrote for him; Liszt,
Wagner, Berlioz and, most importantly, Brahms.
His training, his appearance and demeanour,
his musical friendships and leanings, his style of
playing and choice of repertoire were all in the
classical tradition and, in time, led to a breach
with Liszt and his followers: to Liszt he wrote,
politely but frankly, in 1857, “your music is
entirely antagonistic to me”. Joachim eschewed
technical brilliance and performing exuberance
for its own sake, to the extent where Hanslick,
the famous Viennese critic, writing about his first
adult appearance in Vienna in 1861, suggested
that the playing of others might appeal more to
the heart than Joachim’s unbending earnestness.
From his early years he stayed for relatively
long periods in Britain, appearing frequently
as soloist and quartet leader, and promoting
much music through contacts and colleagues.
Joachim’s reputation was, and is, as a violinist (he
also played the viola), both as soloist and leader
of the Joachim Quartet, as well as composer,
editor and promoter of classical works, and as a
teacher. Equally importantly, of course, he was
an inspiration to composers such as Dvořák,
whose concerto, however, he refused to play. In
the case of Brahms, with whom he had a close
relationship spanning several decades, he was also
a collaborator and adviser, especially in the Violin
Concerto, for which he wrote the cadenza as
well as writing fingerings and making important
suggestions, amongst them, famously, the non
troppo addition to the finale. A century after his
passing, however, we may try to be fully objective
and reflect whether this reputation is, in fact,
more than the sum of its parts.
Clara Schumann
Joachim’s compositions
If we look at Joachim the composer, there is
little question that here was an impressive, even
original, talent. Furthermore, not only did his
rather privileged background enable him to
develop literary interests that stimulated his
writing, but in his early works he was already
encouraged by the immortals: Liszt sent him his
sincere compliments, from Weimar in 1853, on
his Hamlet Overture, Op. 4, as much about the
“distinction and integral worth of the ideas as on
their noble and vigorous presentation”. Schumann
had expected a “lively overture for the concert
hall”, but as he read through the work, “Ophelia
and Hamlet gradually stood forth”. Listening
to it we can certainly understand these masters’
enthusiasm: the influence of Mendelssohn’s
Hebrides and Schumann’s Manfred overtures are
there in the material, the orchestration and the
mood of the work. The second subject hints at
Liszt and early Wagner. The Kleist Overture, Op.
13, on the other hand, is frankly Brahmsian in
some of its devices. These early overtures contain,
perhaps, some of Joachim’s finest, most ambitious
music.
The three concertos for violin are well-written
vehicles for the soloist, while the two series of violin
and piano pieces, Opp. 2 and 5, comprise some very
interesting pieces, several of them harking back
to Schumann and Mendelssohn, others looking
forward to Liszt, Wagner and Berlioz. Opus 5
No. 2 is a most personal, melancholic outpouring,
one of three pieces inspired by Joachim’s love
for Gisela von Arnim and containing both the
letters of her name and his own motto, FAE, Frei
aber einsam (free but lonely). Joachim seems to
Pauline Viardot
have all but stopped composing in the last 30
years of his life and one wonders whether it was
disillusionment with or insecurity about his own
achievements, or simply that he was too busy with
concerts, promotions and a busy family and social
life. His letters point to the latter.
Joachim as teacher could certainly boast of
many students who made remarkable careers as
players or, indeed, teachers: he founded the Berlin
Hochschule in 1868 and taught there for many
years. Whether they actually learnt the basics
from him or whether they went to him for advice
as fully-formed players needs to be looked at in
each individual case. The list includes, amongst
many others, fellow Hungarians Leopold Auer,
a legendary teacher, and Jenő Hubay, Bronislaw
Huberman, Karl Klingler of the Klingler Quartet;
Andreas Moser, who wrote the first biography of
Joachim; Maud Powell, the famous American
player; Camillo Ritter, who taught William
Primrose, and Franz von Vecsey, who, however,
was only a boy when Joachim died.
Joachim the violinist
The aspect of Joachim to be considered here,
ultimately, is his legacy as violinist. He was the first
to play Bach’s partitas and sonatas, producing his
own edition of them, and he presented the great
range of chamber music to the new nineteenth-
century, middle-class public, in particular with
his Joachim Quartet. Was he a great violinist or,
at any rate, as great as his reputation suggests?
Accounts about his virtues and defects vary. He
was evidently the first to conquer the difficulties
of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto – but how many
people attempted the work, and in any case what
25
Joachim Quartet in 1890

do we mean by “conquer”? Did he manage, with with different scales; furthermore, in Joachim’s
difficulties here and there, to give an idea of the case, he had learnt his craft in the 1830s and
work, or did he play with the sovereign command 1840s at a time when “well-tempered” intonation
of the great players of the twentieth century, post- had not yet quite settled down. The matter is
Heifetz? On the evidence of extant recordings by made even more complex by non-musicians,
many nineteenth-century born violinists, I think such as the physicist Helmholtz, who found
it unlikely. And would he have coped with the that Joachim’s intervals were a better reflection
difficulties of Tchaikovsky’s Concerto, deemed of scientific truth than was the case with other
unplayable by Auer, had he wanted to play it? violinists. (As a pianist, I sometimes wonder how
We may never know the answer to that, but what in tune Mendelssohn’s and Liszt’s pianos really
about the most important and vexed question, were, by modern standards, and how in tune they
that of intonation? remained: this must have made duo and chamber
I feel that, at least, the question of consistency playing with strings even harder!)
of intonation must be related to the specific scale
in which Joachim played: Bernard Shaw, one of George Bernard Shaw
the most important critics of his time, explained
that Joachim played with a German scale, whereas
Sarasate played with a Latin scale, the German
being far more remote. In fact, he was sure that if
Joachim and Sarasate were ever to play in unison
they would each accuse the other of being out of
tune! There is no question that enough musicians
in Britain, including Shaw, who in the acuteness
of his observations was as much a musician as
anybody, held up Joachim as a paragon of great,
classical musicianship and a great violinist, but
some listeners questioned his flat thirds and
other intervals, especially after he came to the
UK from Germany. In fact, Joachim, Sarasate,
Ysaÿe, Reményi, and perhaps others, all played
26
The recordings
Joachim’s acoustic recordings were made by the
Gramophone and Typewriter Company in Berlin,
in early 1903 (these valuable old documents have
long been known as G & Ts): the original pressings
were single-sided and had a flat, red, G&T label.
The few extant copies must be amongst the most
rare acoustics in the world. Reissues had a black G
& T label and were pressed double-sided for the
German market: apparently some of these pressings
were better in quality. The catalogue details for the
five sides are:
Bach: Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV1001 –
Adagio
Matrix number 204y; G & T 047903
Bach: Partita No. 1 in B minor, BWV1002 –
Bourrée
Matrix number 205y; G & T 047904
Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 2 in D minor
Matrix number 217y; G & T 047905
Joachim: Romance in C
Matrix number 218y; G & T 047906
Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 1 in G minor
Matrix number 219y; G & T 047907
In the last 30 years or so the recordings
have been intermittently available, mainly on
transfers by two companies, Pearl and EMI. Pearl
issued an LP (L Opal 804), in 1982, containing
all the recordings of Joachim and Sarasate, with
excellent notes by Jerrold Northrop Moore;
subsequently, Pearl issued a CD version of the
transfer and the sober but effective black cover
with gold letters remained (C Opal 9851).
There have also been several other anthologies
from Pearl, which include one or more of the
sides. EMI issued a gatefold double LP set in
1988, an anthology of early recordings entitled
The Great Violinists (L EX 7 61062-1), which
included all the Joachim recordings. It came
with informative and perceptive notes by
Bryan Crimp, who showed, rightly perhaps, a
certain degree of scepticism when it came to the
extent of Joachim’s achievement and influence.
This transfer was reissued in a two-CD set
by Testament in 2003 (C SBT2 1323), with
the bonus of eight extra tracks by Stanisław
Barcewicz and Karol Gregorowicz, two
wonderful and little represented early violinists,
and a note about them by Tully Potter, as
well as valuable photos from the Tully Potter
Collection.
It is, in a sense, difficult to establish whether
these five sides adequately represent Joachim’s art.
It is fairly safe to say that the 72-year-old master
was well past his prime by then: he was rheumatic
by the last years of the century (a contemporary
photo shows the unnatural position of his thumb),
and in 1901 he wrote to Sir Charles Stanford
that he could not undertake a Spohr concerto
because his staccato had gone. On the other hand,
it is amazing how much is there, allowing for all
that and for the primitive, acoustic recording
technique and the necessity of recording four-
minute sides without edits. His choice of
repertoire, helped by the luxury of 12-inch sides
rather than ten-inch, certainly encompass much
of his musical life: the classicist in Bach, the
composer in his own modest Romance, and his
friendship with Brahms represented in the two
Hungarian Dances, originally for piano duet but
transcribed by Joachim himself, like all the other
19, for violin and piano.
Matters of intonation
The intonation in these recordings can be rather
altered by the pitch of a transfer, as we will see
later. However, no matter how you look at it,
there are chords in the Bach Bourrée which do
not sound really in tune, even by his own scale;
rather out-of-tune double-stops in the D minor
Hungarian Dance – and perhaps not every higher
register note in the fast passages of the G minor
dance passes muster by modern standards. (For
that matter, not every modern performance
does either: there is, to an extent, a reliance on
the listener making-up the off-centre notes to
correct pitch with his own musical hearing.)
On the other hand, the Bach Adagio shows a
noble line, devoid completely of the portamenti
favoured by some later violinists, and a solid
sense of pulse, while the Bourrée has rock-solid
rhythm. In his own Romance we hear his lovely
line and a unique sense of flow and rubato:
modern-day purists, including would-be great
violinists might, perhaps, scoff at his generous,
slow portamenti over wide intervals – to which
I say, “Excuse me, this is Joachim playing his
27
own composition, and that must be the right
style”. (With most musicians the argument ends
right there.) There is a unique command in the
two Hungarian Dances and, when all is said and
done, these are quite wonderfully played: here is
the original, authentic style of these pieces, music
drawn straight from Hungarian gypsy music,
absorbed by Brahms when he toured with the
Hungarian violinist Edouard Reményi, and played
by his closest friend, another Hungarian! The G
minor, one of the most famous dances, is played
here in a rather freer, slower, more brooding
style than we are used to now. The fast section,
with brilliant mordents and semiquavers, is done
with masterly rubato. The D minor, if anything,
is even better played, with rhythmic precision,
the ends of phrases timed to perfection and the
middle section showing a well-timed accelerando.
Joachim’s accompanist, who, as was customary at
the time, is unnamed, is fairly good at following,
but he outdoes himself here, being absolutely
spot on. Throughout the recordings there is a pure
violin sound and little vibrato, though sufficient
in the right places and good control of the bow.
Above all, there is complete identification with
the musical material.
Pitching the transfers
Perhaps the most important aspect in the transfer
of this material to CD is the pitching, i.e. does
it play at the pitch at which it was recorded
(assuming that we know exactly what that pitch
was)? Most seasoned collectors of 78rpm rarities
know that many early recordings were not made at
exactly 78rpm, either knowingly (76, for instance,
often appears on a label), or else unknowingly: in
the latter case the engineer did not know or notice
that the machine was recording at an incorrect
speed. There have been instances of recordings
made at even less than 75rpm, or sides which
began at one speed and ended at a rather different
one. Mercifully, it would seem that this latter kind
of disaster did not befall the Joachim recordings.
I have listened carefully to each item on both the
EMI/Testament and the Opal LP, the latter well-
transferred for me to CD by an audiophile friend
(I am assuming that the Opal CD would not sound
vastly different from the LP version). The pitching
of the two Bach items is very similar in both
transfers – any difference is negligible. Joachim’s
28
Romance, however, has clearly been transferred
about a semitone too high on the EMI/Testament
issue, for it sounds in C sharp. This cuts about nine
seconds off the Opal version, which, given the
approximate 3’ 33’’ duration of the track, means
at least a quite considerable four per cent speed
variation. It would be easy to say that this only
matters to “anoraks” like me, cursed with perfect
pitch and always on the lookout for the latest
mishap by one of the great transfer engineers:
not so, unfortunately. The speed inaccuracy not
only alters the speed of the performance but
also its character and mood, giving the violin a
more whiney, brighter sound and making the
‘out-of-tune’ notes and intervals (if that is what
they are), far more obvious, partly because they
happen more quickly and suddenly. I should say,
having listened many times to both transfers, that
I did not find the EMI/Testament transfer a very
pleasant experience in this track, whereas the
Opal gives a better measure of the violinist and his
piece, the more natural, ‘deeper’ sound giving the
whole performance greater nobility; in fact, here
one doesn’t very much register out-of-tuneness.
The pitching of the two Brahms items is similar, if
not absolutely identical, in both editions.
As regards sound quality, it seems clear to me
that the Opal edition has not been subjected to
any de-clicking, filtering, noise reduction or other
sound-enhancing techniques. Furthermore, there
are patches, here and there, where swathes of
surface noise intrude, probably to an unbearable
degree for some, and instances of repeated clicks
at every revolution, indicative of a scratch in
the copy used. The shellac used for the G minor
Hungarian Dance is in a dreadful state at times and
the Bach Bourrée shows unpleasant ‘peaks’, typical
of a rather worn acoustic shellac copy. At times,
there are repeated bass thuds corresponding to a
78rpm stylus going over a crack on the original.
In other words, the deficiencies of the copies used
have not been masked in any way.
The EMI/Testament has been subjected to a
lot of improvements, or perhaps that should be
“improvements”: the sudden intrusions of surface
noise and pops and clicks are gone, the surface
noise is now an even, stable, mid-frequency
sound, the frequency spectrum is more even, some
resonance has been added and the worst peaks
of the Bourrée, for instance, have disappeared.
Unfortunately, so has some of Joachim: the sound
is not as full or natural, sometimes ‘tinnier’; to my
ears it is rather less immediate, more artificial. This
is, perhaps, less noticeable in the unaccompanied
Bach items. The Romance is, as mentioned above,
fatally compromised in the EMI/Testament issue
by the pitching. But it is in the Brahms items that
we hear how subjective sound improvement can
be. To me, in the EMI/Testament version some
of the piano bass is reduced, some of the high
notes in the violin seem “enhanced”, the interplay
between violin and piano, particularly in the G
minor, is less clear, and there is a feeling that the
sound is “squeezed”, with less top, less bottom and
a thick middle. And there is surface noise, mid-
frequency, however steady. Some people might
find the noise at the beginning of a track in Opal,
without the gentle ‘fading-in’ favoured by EMI/
Testament and other companies, rather sudden;
but I prefer not to be eased into the music.
Conclusions
The Testament CD set containing the five
recordings made by Joseph Joachim in 1903
and many other items, is, generally speaking,
expertly transferred. The Opal issue, on the other
hand, has all of Sarasate’s recordings presented
in a similarly honest, unvarnished transfer. In a
side-by-side comparison of the Joachim items,
we should perhaps prefer the Testament for the
Bourrée, given the awful ‘peaks’ in the Opal; in
the Adagio the spoils are shared – a different
sound but perhaps a matter of taste. In Joachim’s
Romance, the Testament is ruled out of court by
the too-high pitching, the Opal being the only
acceptable version. (I might add that this is not
the only example of faulty pitching I have found
in this Testament issue, taken over from EMI: I
have heard the EMI LP version and it is clearly
the same transfer.) For the two Brahms dances, I
would certainly recommend the Opal as well.
All in all, despite a smoother ride on EMI/
Testament, I advise enthusiasts of early violin
playing to seek out that Opal issue, whether
on LP or CD: the sound you will hear is more
immediate, clearer, and it resembles that of an
acoustic shellac properly reproduced on an early
machine, if sometimes worn. Through crackle and
bumps and a dry, unadorned sound, it really brings
Joachim into your room, as it must have all those
years ago when the records were made. One might
almost say, although it is a factual impossibility,
that in the Opal issue Joachim seems to be playing
a better violin! Incidentally, in both issues we hear
people speaking, sometimes at the beginning and
continuing into the music, sometimes at the end
of an item. Was this the engineer, the accompanist
or are these the only known recorded examples of
Joseph Joachim speaking? Maybe someone will
find it worthwhile one day to amplify, enhance
and slow down these sounds and hear what he/
they are saying.
We often bemoan the fact that there are no
more early recordings from legendary musical
figures. The famous Hungarian Dance cylinder
with Brahms announcing himself is barely audible
as music: had recording been available even 15 or
so years earlier there might have been recordings
from Brahms and Liszt, or perhaps Wagner
playing a little example from Tristan und Isolde.
But I feel we must be grateful for these five early
examples from the legendary violinist, born only
four years after Beethoven’s death, who for such
a long time occupied a central place amongst the
towering musicians of his time and who played
such an important role in the musical life of more
than one country. CRC
References
Letters to and from Joseph Joachim, Vienna House, 1972.
Shaw’s Music, Bodley Head, London, 1981.
Notes by Jerrold Northrop Moore, from Joachim and
Sarasate: the complete recordings, L Opal 804 (1982).
Notes by Bryan Crimp, The Great Violinists, Testament
C STB2 1323 (2003).
29

I t was an attractive one-storey house nestling
in the hills overlooking the Mediterranean
Sea, about ten kilometres north of Tel-Aviv. As
I approached the house, single notes from the
high register of the piano were ringing in bell-
like sonorities: F, C, E, A, D sharp, C… each rang
brilliantly, dissipated gradually, followed by a long
silence. I recognised the notes as belonging to the
right-hand passages of Chopin’s Etude Op. 25
No. 11 in A minor, the so-called Winter Wind.
This was the turning point of my life: in an instant
I realised that I had never heard piano tone of such
volume, beauty, colour and brilliance, and I was
already determined to learn how to produce such
sounds.
Following my timid knock on the door, Mindru
Katz greeted me in his gracious European manner.
There was a fierce intensity in his blue eyes, and
his voice was practically hypnotising. He was
handsome, not tall, only five feet in height, but built
like a prize fighter, his shoulders were broad and
his arms and fingers looked more like a carpenter’s
physique than the “delicate, long-fingered piano
hands” cliché. Later, I found out that his massive
hands were in part a result of working in a Nazi
slave labour camp during the second world war.
He told me that when he was finally freed from
the camp, he could not even close his hands or
make fists due to countless hours working with
30
Mindru Katz – The Science
and Art of Playing the Piano
The pianist Mordecai Shehori studied
intensely with Katz over a period of
four years, and discusses his teaching
and musical philosophy
shovels and picks. He then started to teach himself
how to play the piano all over again and how to
rehabilitate his injured hands. Somehow something
great happened from this tragedy. Katz’s profound
knowledge of the physical aspects of piano playing
undoubtedly could be traced to this period.
Only twice in my life when I met a person for
the first time was it was apparent that I was in the
company of an awe-inspiring genius. The only
other time was many years later, in 1987, when
I met Vladimir Horowitz (1903-89). I played
Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23. When
I finished, Katz told me that I was talented but did
not know how to play the piano correctly. He did
not have to tell me this because I already knew.
The sounds that I heard as I approached the house
had promptly informed me of my shortcomings.
Moreover, playing on his instrument reinforced
the realisation that I had no idea how to produce
such beautiful tone as his.
He then proceeded to tell me the following: “I
will give you two choices: the first choice is that
you will continue to play the piano the same way
and my suggestions will only amount to musical
‘cosmetics’. For example, if you play forte, I will
suggest maybe a little softer, if you play soft I
will suggest a little louder. I could also instruct
you to play with more feelings and with a longer
musical line. After all,” he continued, “this is how
most piano teachers teach these days. However,
if you will choose the second option, I will teach
you how to play the piano correctly both from a
physical and a musical point of view. But in order
to do that properly, and to get rid of all your bad
pianistic habits, you will have to stop playing
the big pieces of the piano repertoire, and start
from the very beginning for a couple of years.” I
responded at once, and very excitedly chose the
second option.
 As far as I know, I was the only one of his many
students who chose that option, and I endured four
years of gruelling technical and musical training.
To teach on such a high level of intensity and detail
was arduous for him. Consequently, he told me
as well other students that he taught on that level
only once and never again. I was very lucky!
The training began
It was 1966, and the lessons were tough and long.
He started by teaching me how to sit properly
near the piano where most of the body weight is
supported by the feet – this allows the whole body
to participate in the act of playing, not unlike
a rider on a horse; how to have the arms before
playing hanging on the side of the torso without
any tension; how to activate only the last finger
joints without creating tension in any other part of
the arms; how to make the arms “float in the air,
like a drop of oil in water”, by employing the large
muscles in the back; how to play the piano with
these light and soft arms as flexible whips and not
as rigid sticks. His metaphor for the arms was to
imagine them as two whips that have ten iron balls
(one iron ball for each fingertip) connected to one
end, while maintaining completely free shoulders.
When the arms are metamorphosed to this state
and propelled upwards, they will naturally travel in
the desired “whip motion” and this will facilitate
a high rate of controlled velocity in the fingertips,
sending the piano keys down to the friction point
without hitting the key bed. When Mindru Katz
played the piano with his feather-light arms, it
appeared that the keyboard became a sort of a
trampoline that bounced his fingers and arms up
in a dizzying display of speed and frequency.
Unknown to most pianists, the friction point
(also referred to as the “let-off ” point) is the
single, most crucial element in the production of a
beautiful piano tone. In the piano mechanism, the
friction point occurs when the rectangular “jack”
rubs the round “knuckle”. As a result, the hammer
is thrown toward the string. This blessed event
happens when the key travels only halfway down
to the key bed. When piano tone originates only
from the hammer hitting the string and without
the thumping noise that comes from the piano
key hitting the key bed, the tone will be pure and
beautiful. When the piano key reaches the key
bed, the hammer has already hit the string and
got caught by the “back check”. Katz was keenly
aware that the widely taught way of playing the
piano using excessive weight, pushing, hitting,
and squeezing, is simply false. Not only are those
approaches incapable of producing artistic results,
but in all probability will cause hand injuries.
Mindru Katz’s method of creating tones by
meticulously controlling the fingertips’ velocity
at the friction point enabled him effortlessly
to generate a tremendous range of tone: from
whispering pianissimos to thundering fortissimos
that never resulted in ugly or harsh sound, neither
Mordecai Shehori with Mindru Katz
Helmut Walcha
31
did it cause any injuries. Historically, most pianists
who had a beautiful sonorous tone, especially in
the higher registers of the piano, never developed
carpal tunnel syndrome.
Using light arms as whips, stroking the keys
only to the friction point is similar to diving into
a pool without hitting one’s head on the concrete
bottom. This method of playing the piano cannot
cause injuries because the pianist’s arms and fingers
are always light (weighing not more than three
ounces, or about 50 grams – the weight it takes to
cause an average piano key to go down).
Katz explained that the only element that
determines the volume of the piano tone is the
velocity of the hammer hitting the string. The
“colours” and “shadings” in piano playing are
realised from other available devices: overlapping
the notes by fingers and/or by subtle pedaling;
voicing chords; assigning a variety of touches to
different voices, and by artistic use of the so-called
“soft pedal”, more correctly referred to as the “shift
pedal”. It must be utilised not only for playing
softer but also for creating a different timbre. Many
of the legendary pianists played even fortissimos
while this pedal was positioned all the way down.
Naturally, a fortissimo played only on two strings
has a linear, more penetrating tone than one that is
played on three strings. On a well-regulated piano,
the shift pedal will allow the pianist to play on
three, two and even one string, and all the points
in between.
About six months into my lessons, and after
countless hours of painfully slow practising of
single notes, chords, scales and arpeggios, I was
assigned my first real piece. It was “Melodie” from
Schumann’s Album für die Jugend, Op. 68. Although
only one page in length and seemingly simple, it
was not an effortless task to perform it up to Katz’s
standards. The first challenge was to articulate the
left hand in a whispering pianissimo, while realising
its two voices, and avoiding its tendency to sound
mechanical (due to the repeated Gs).
We spent long sessions experimenting with the
direction of phrases: when groups of notes lead
to a particular target note and go away from it.
This important element of phrasing, invisible on
the printed score since it is never indicated by the
composer, must be decided by the pianist, since it is
a vital component in creating fluency and ebb and
flow in the melodic lines. We worked on shaping
32
the descending melody so it will gain in volume as
its pitch goes down. Katz explained that the natural
tendency is to make a diminuendo when the pitch
goes down and a crescendo when it reaches up.
Clearly, this concept will be true only about 50
per cent of the time, since many glorious melodies
will benefit from diminishing their volume as
they ascend and increasing their volume as they
descend. He explained that a climax in a melodic
line should not always be the loudest point, but can
also be emphasised with a well-placed colourful
pianissimo.
Quality Versus Quantity
Mindru Katz’s method was to teach a small
number of relatively ‘easy’ works to perfection.
These thoroughly studied pieces became models
of excellence. Through experiencing the process
of bringing such works from infantile stages to
maturity, the student could later apply the same
process to more complex compositions. It is quite
depressing to compare this enlightened method
to today’s maniacal rush to learn as many large
and difficult pieces as possible, quickly and early
in life, which ultimately results in superficial and
mediocre performances. This “short-cut” attitude
stands in sharp contrast to the Golden Age of the
Piano approach, when musicians were proud to
declare that they worked on a piece for many years,
but were still not ready to perform it.
Katz instructed that in order to generate even
one note of the highest possible quality, one needs
to understand the different stages in the life of that
note:
1. There must be a sincere desire to create a
particular tone.
2. A moment of conception follows which
includes all the characteristics of the tone.
From the very first lesson, there was an
emphasis on an ability silently to generate
sounds in the mind and only then to
stroke the piano in order to realise the
same imagined tone from the instrument.
The ability precisely to envision a tone and
then instantly materialise it on the piano is
one of the keys to what will come across as
“playing from the heart.”
3. The “pregnancy” with the note and all its
characteristics.
 4. The birth of the note. Carl Czerny
5. The life-time (duration) of the note.
6. The death of the note (disappearing
suddenly or naturally).
7. The memory of the note.
This was not a California meditation cultish
theory, but an extremely practical and result-
producing technique. The clarity and crispness
of Katz’s playing as recorded are the direct result
of this method. He was capable of applying this
process for each note, not only in adagios but also
in prestissimos. In his memorable performance
of Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto ( Jerusalem,
1967), he physically started lifting his left arm even
before the orchestra began its one-bar tutti. His
arm came slowly down in the prescribed whipping
motion. Then, when he stroked the low B flat on the since “technique is already found in the great
piano, an amazing deep, gong-like tone emerged – masterpieces”, was laughable. He explained that in
a piano tone that I have never heard before or after, the great masterworks technical problems almost
and will never forget. never appear in a pure and basic form, but often
Katz complained that most pianists only contain a myriad of emotions and complexities.
produce a violent birth of notes without concept Therefore, he believed that it is wiser to arrive at the
and preparation – and this was still in the 1960s great masterworks with well-developed technical
(the situation is much worse now). Instead of and musical tools. He emphasised that each one of
intensely listening and following the sounds, they the hundreds of Czerny etudes is based on a musical
resort to clown-like smiles and body contortions problem taken from Beethoven’s 32 sonatas.
which paralyse their ability to hear their own These etudes are exercises in musicianship and
playing. Even if a pianist with this attitude is musical expression and are not mindless tortuous
extremely talented, the results will be heartless and mechanical exercises as they are considered today.
mechanical. For Katz, technique did not exist for its own sake,
but at the same time he passionately worked on
The Czerny Etudes all its aspects in order to achieve supreme artistic
Throughout the years that we worked together results.
and beyond, the study of the Czerny Etudes has
been a daily practice. Carl Czerny (1791-1857), Alfred Cortot
completely neglected today, was admired by Katz.
He explained that as a student of Beethoven and
the teacher of Liszt, Czerny was one of the most
important musicians in history, especially as a
pedagogue who transferred a priceless tradition
to younger generations. Czerny was able to isolate
technical and musical challenges, purify them and
simplify them so that the student could master the
isolated difficulties and not the complex difficult
passages. Later, Alfred Cortot (1877-1962) used
the same thinking as his credo in his celebrated
editions.
For Mindru Katz, the common notion that
“technical etudes and exercises are unnecessary”,
33
 He often mentioned one of the most misleading
and frankly idiotic remarks that many renowned
piano pedagogues have been reciting over the years:
“Just play it with your nose as long as it sounds good”.
Apparently this ‘maxim’ originated from Artur
Schnabel (1882-1951). For some strange reason,
Schnabel, who in his youth played a lot of scales,
exercises and etudes under Theodor Leschetizky
(1830-1915), forbade his own students to do any,
and referred to technical issues as “dirty laundry”.
Schnabel’s sarcastic description of Vladimir
Horowitz as “half man-half piano” unintentionally
turned out to be a great compliment, since it is
obvious that in order to operate any mechanical
tool one should at least have some basic knowledge
of how this tool functions.
Katz observed that piano playing stands alone
in stark contrast to other disciplines, from painting
the Sistine Chapel to plumbing, in which certain
know-how, level of workmanship, and technique
are required. He knew very well that becoming a
great artist largely depends on achieving mastery
of the craft. The hope that all one needs in order
to create memorable performances are some
vague emotions and poetic aspirations is just an
illusion.
The Art of Listening
Vladimir Horowitz told me on numerous occasions
that “piano technique is not only in the fingers
– it is in the ears”. For Mindru Katz listening to
one’s own playing was not an option to be taken
lightly, but a discipline that must be worked on
continually and refined. It is no coincidence that
none of the great musicians of the past – Sergey
Rachmaninov (1873-1943), Artur Rubinstein
(1887-1982), Simon Barere (1896-1951), Jascha
Heifetz (1901-1987), Mischa Elman (1891-1967)
and Emanuel Feuermann (1902-1942), to mention
just a few – engaged in any extra-curricular body
or facial activities when they performed. The
reason for their apparent stillness is very simple; it
allowed them to listen intensely and precisely and
artistically react to their own playing. Katz was
adamant that no theatrics and grimaces should be
employed. For him, musical communication was
made only through the sounds that emanate from
the piano.
Katz’s agonisingly slow practising method
was the process of transforming himself into a
34
Vladimir Horowitz
channel through which music flowed freely.
He used to give the example of a tea kettle: “the
water is boiling but the tea kettle is not melting,
it is still intact”. The “tea kettle” was a metaphor
for the body which, when well trained, allows
the music to flow through it without causing
tension, stiffness and unnecessary movements. He
admired Artur Rubinstein tremendously because
for him Rubinstein was the supreme example
of the combination of great physical form and
superb ability to listen to his own playing. Even at
the age of 90, Rubinstein played the piano better
and more powerfully than many pianists in their
twenties. Another prime example of this way of
playing the piano can be heard and watched in
the 1937 film Moonlight Sonata, where Ignaz Jan
Paderewski (1860-1941) performs a number of
pieces effortlessly and beautifully.
Mindru Katz taught that chords are to be
considered not only vertically but also horizontally
as a combination of three, four or more moving
voices. He was very keen on voicing the chords in
such a way that each note of each chord was assigned
a colour and a specific articulation, enabling it to
connect to the same voice in the next chord. Katz
observed that because of the deceptive nature of
the piano – that the keys will produce sounds
instantly and without much training – most
pianists do not rate highly in natural musicality.
Musicians that rank the highest are singers and
wind players. The reasons for this are two-fold:
first, their need to breathe in order to produce
sounds, and secondly their need to plan how to

Ignaz Jan Paderewski
negotiate the various intervals that make up the
musical phrases successfully. Since they must pre-
map the rise and fall of musical lines according to
these two elements, their performances will often
be musically pleasing.
The second group of players who display more
musicality than pianists are string players. They too
must plan the phrase ahead of time since sooner
or later they will run out of bow. They, however,
can cleverly and stealthily reverse the direction
of the bow and sometimes even get away with it.
Intervals are vital to violinists as well, because
they move from one note to another while passing
through all the notes in between mentally and/
or physically by sliding. In sharp contrast, pianists
often just ‘push’ the keys down, without thinking
and planning. Unfortunately for them, there is
no limit to how many notes they can possibly
play without a necessary respite. And as far as
considering intervals, pianists see no difference in
preparation and/or effort between reaching either
a major second or an octave. For singers, wind and
string players, an octave reach up or down presents
a major event, since they must pass mentally and/
or physically all the notes in between, which will
affect both the tone colour, shaping, and timing of
the musical phrases.
In my lessons with Mindru Katz, planning
when to breathe was an integral part of the
immaculate process of designing the musical
lines. He taught me how to think and breathe like
a singer, and actually stop playing when I ran out
of breath in order to plan better for the next time.
Silently singing and experiencing the distances
of intervals was worked on until the desired
musical designs were achieved. This method not
only injects life in every phrase, but transforms
the piano into what its inventor, Bartolomeo
Cristofori di Francesco (1655-1731), intended it
to be: “a singing instrument”.
Handling the modern piano’s unevenness
One of Katz’s obsessions was to be able to play
evenly on the piano, not only rhythmically but
also sound-wise. On 5 June 1866, when Steinway
invented the metal plate of the piano, heavy
wound bass strings began to appear, and as a
result the instrument began to sound extremely
bass heavy. Until one plays on instruments
made before 1866, one will not be aware of this
predicament. Consequently, when evenly playing
a C major scale from middle C upwards, there
will be a naturally occurring diminuendo as the
pitch becomes higher, or a crescendo as the pitch
becomes lower. In my lessons with Mindru Katz
we spent many hours playing scales slowly, one
hand at a time, attempting to achieve perfect
evenness by gradually increasing or decreasing the
volume of each note as we went up and down the
scales. It is quite obvious that before one attempts
to create complex musical lines, one must achieve
perfect evenness. Without this skill, musical
lines will not have a point of reference and will
sound sluggish and unconnected. Again, Katz’s
recordings demonstrate his ability to “even out”
the piano registers with remarkable precision.
This discussion of some of Katz’s philosophy
and practice of studying and teaching music on
the piano is necessarily very limited. It presents
only a small part of his huge and complex body of
knowledge. But it might be enough to give readers
a glimpse into his unique, rich, and magnificent
musical universe.
Only in 1970, when I arrived in New York to
study at the Juilliard School, and became familiar
with most of the prominent musicians of the day,
did I fully comprehend the greatness of Katz as
a musician, pianist and teacher. In comparison to
him, the professors at the Juilliard School were
mostly amateurs both in knowledge and ability.
Even more troubling was their cynical, pragmatic
and businesslike attitude toward music and the
role of a musician in society.
35
 In the following years, after listening to
thousands of concerts, and to almost every old,
new, and out-of-print recording, I can emphatically
state that never again did I hear those bell-like tones
and wide range of dynamics and colours emanating
from a piano, nor did I witness such unconditional
love, commitment and discipline in piano playing
and teaching on the level of Mindru Katz, one of
the very great musicians, pianists and mentors.
A brief biography
Mindru Katz was born on 3 June 1925 in Bucharest.
At the age of seven, his great musical talents were
recognised by Georges Enescu (1881-1955), who
recommended him to the distinguished piano
pedagogue Florica Musicescu (1887-1969), who
also taught Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950). In 1941
Mindru Katz was expelled from the Royal Academy
of Music in Bucharest following the implementation
of racial laws against Jews. In 1943 he was sent to a
slave labour camp. After the end of the war he was
reinstated in the Bucharest academy and graduated
in 1947 Magna cum laude. In the same year he
made his debut with the Bucharest Philharmonic,
and undertook extensive concert tours in eastern
Europe. He made his western European debut in
Paris in 1957. In 1959 he defected from Romania
to England and made London his home. The
Romanian government took harsh reprisal measures
against his parents and family, as well as erasing his
name from all archives and destroying the tapes of
his many recordings and radio broadcasts.
Although it was not in his best interest for
maintaining an international career, Mindru
Katz felt great affection for the state of Israel and
soon went to live there. He performed in over
40 countries with such conductors as Sir John
Barbirolli, Sergiu Celibidache, Antal Doráti,
Josef Krips and Lorin Maazel. When he joined
the faculty of the Rubin Academy of Music in
Tel-Aviv, he became an important asset to music
in Israel. He died on 30 January 1978 at the
untimely age of 52 while performing Beethoven’s
Tempest Sonata at a recital in Istanbul.
Mindru Katz on record
Colin Clarke
Mindru Katz’s recordings are highly valued. In
their subtlety and integrity, his readings often seem
akin to those of his fellow Musicescu pupil, Dinu
36
Lipatti. His only commercial recordings were made
for the UK Pye company between 1957 and 1959.
A 1959 Pye recording of Beethoven’s Emperor
Concerto, reissued on Dutton (C CDSJB1014)
is radiantly conducted by Sir John Barbirolli,
who gets some truly glowing string sound from
the Hallé Orchestra and injects real vim into the
orchestral contribution to the finale. Katz is always
in control, even when he turns on the pyrotechnics
for the opening’s return at around 12’00” in the
first movement. Darker moments of mystery might
be more relished by an Arrau, say, but Katz’s view
is very rounded.
Other Pye recordings have been reissued on
the US Cembal d’Amour label, together with
Israeli radio recordings. A mainly concerto disc (C
CD109) commences with Prokofiev’s First (there is
some distortion in the stereo sound early on in the
performance), and continues with the Khachaturian.
Recording information, as with all these Cembal
d’Amour discs is sparse: when EMI acquired the Pye
label some years ago they found that documenta-
tion had been lost, but we do know that these two
concertos were recorded at Walthamstow Assembly
Hall, London, on 18-20 December 1958. Sir
Adrian Boult conducts the London Philharmonic
Orchestra. We also know that Katz was in great
pain at these sessions, something that is difficult to
credit on the aural evidence [see an account of the
sessions by John Snashall at the end of this survey].
At the age of 33, Katz offers plenty of youthful elan
in Prokofiev’s Concerto, with biting humour follo-
wing melting lyricism in the twinkling of an eye.
The Khachaturian is given a devoted performance,
never vulgar, despite the composer’s long, über-
Romantic lines. Again, Katz’s delicacy in the more
restrained moments is stunning. Even the flexatone
(just) avoids kitsch, while the finale is stunning. A
bouquet of Russian pieces concludes this disc. A
delightful, glissando-flecked Prokofiev Prelude
Op. 12 No. 7 precedes some wonderfully intimate
excerpts from The Tales of the Old Grandmother (the
last excerpt suffers disconcertingly from “wow”).
Khachaturian’s Toccata buzzes with life.
On C CD136 there is a fantastic lightness
of touch in the sprightlier variations of Haydn’s
Arietta and Variations, Hob/XVII:2. Indeed, it
is Katz’s kaleidoscopic variety of tone that is a
constant feature throughout these recordings. In
his hands, the result is intensely human. Contrast
the Beethoven 32 Variations in C minor, WoO80
on the same disc with Gilels’s more mechanical
approach (EMI C 585761-2). Although Gilels’s
reading is sometimes held above all others
here, Katz’s view is wider reaching, possessed
of juxtapositions between the sublime and the
grotesque.
Beethoven’s Sonata, Op. 27 No. 2 includes a
finale that positively glistens – propulsive and with
accents flying off like sparks. The DVD of this
piece, filmed on 31 January 1978 in Istanbul only
a few hours before Katz’s death (on “Unrivaled”
[sic], Cembal d’amour l DVD123) is the only
visual document that survives. Here some tape
errors, drop-outs et al, mar the experience, while
the sound-only CD source is intact. We can see on
the DVD that Katz’s tonal variety derives at least in
part from very loose wrists and exquisite use of the
weight of the arm. Chopin’s Etude, Op. 10 No. 3 is
a second piece played by Katz on the DVD.
Katz’s grasp of elusive musical structures is
perhaps best heard in the set of Brahms solo works
on C CD136: the B flat minor Intermezzo, Op.
117 No. 2, magnificently crepuscular, the famous
G minor Rhapsody Op. 79 No. 2, muscular and
near-elemental in places, and the E flat Rhapsody,
Op. 119 No. 4, grand and imperious. His virtuosity
is showcased in an elemental and fiery recording
of the Liszt First Mephisto Waltz, like the Brahms
never before published.
A Bach disc, recorded for Pye (C CD112), is
notable for its purity of intent. Katz’s chords are
beautifully weighted, a weighting that was clearly
the result of much thought; nowhere is this more
in evidence than in the intensely concentrated
opening of the Bach/Busoni organ chorale, Nun
komm’ der heiden Heiland, the only non-pure Bach
item on the disc. The Chromatic Fantasy contains
miracles of rapid articulation and tonal variety (no
attempts to imitate a harpsichord here), while the
Fugue itself exudes a grand majesty. The D major
Toccata has a magnetic robustness, an approach
that enables the various tender plateaux to speak
deeply. The Italian Concerto’s recording seems
rather thinner than that accorded to the Toccata.
Katz is jaunty rather than exuberant in the first
movement; it is in the magnificently weighted
Largo that he triumphs over all rivals in the pearly
purity of the melody over an extremely subtle yet
simple accompaniment. The finale is less hell-for-
leather than most, and all the better for it.
The recording of Concertos, BWV1052 and
1056 (with Harry Newstone conducting the Pro
Arte Orchestra), is less focused than heretofore,
being rather muffled. There are still many moments
of magic. On occasion Katz reminds me of Edwin
Fischer, although Katz takes tonal softenings a little
further. Katz’s slow movements, as in a reading of
the Italian Concerto, are the highlights (although
it is likewise difficult to find fault with the variety
he finds in the first movement of the D minor,
BWV1052).
How interesting to be able to compare Katz’s
performance of the Chopin Second Sonata (C
CD132) with the recently-issued Pollini DG re-
recording of this piece (C 477 762-6). Katz takes
the first movement repeat back to the beginning
of the “Doppio movimento”, whereas Pollini
follows more recent scholarship and returns to
the very beginning. The sound for Katz is rather
insubstantial and a little muffled. Yet the pianist
clearly transcends any sonic limitations in the
contrasting sections of the Scherzo. I have yet
to hear a bleaker Funeral March than Katz’s.
The Etude, Op. 10 No. 10 is, for once, no mere
technical exercise. A langorous Third Ballade
leads to a more distantly recorded Fourth Ballade
that nevertheless holds the attention, without
rising to the standard of the sonata performance.
There follows a recorded talk of some six minutes
by Katz, in which he describes how dreams have
solved interpretative problems for him in Chopin.
He illustrates this with three Etudes. Opp. 10 Nos.
5 and 6, plus Op. 25 No. 12. This Chopin disc is
billed as “Volume 1”, which bodes well.
Despite the presence of such perceived “hard
touch” works as the Prokofiev First Concerto,
the recurrent word that kept on cropping up in
my listening notes was “exquisite”. Nowhere is
this description more applicable than in the case
of a disc where Katz and Henryk Szeryng play
the Brahms Third Violin Sonata and the Franck
Sonata (C CD105). The Brahms is one of the
most affectionate accounts I have heard, just like
eavesdropping on two (technically outstanding)
friends making music; the Franck is similarly
intimate, with a prevailing sense of unhurried flow.
The two musicians were temperamentally finely
matched, with sensitivity and tonal beauty being
high on the agenda of each.
37

Finally, a disc of “French Master Works” (C
CD138). A Fauré Nocturne (Op. 63 No. 6),
recorded by Pye, becomes a miniature tone-poem in
Katz’s hands. A performance of Debussy’s Préludes,
Book 1 comes from a live Jerusalem broadcast of
1972. Certainly “Danseuses de Delphes” is possibly
the one of the most robust accounts I have heard,
a comment which extends also to “Le vent dans la
plaine”. There is some stunning playing in “Ce qu’a
vu le vent d’ouest”, although it veers dangerously
close to frenetic, and the dynamics used by Katz
strain the recording uncomfortably. Yet “Puck”
flits elusively and “Minstrels” speaks fluently
the language of the commedia dell’arte. Ravel
rounds off the disc: an astonishingly fleet-of-foot
“Laideronette” from Ma mère l’oye and a jewel-like
Sonatine are most impressive.
For all these Cembal d’amour discs, Mordecai
Shehori writes notes that are openly laudatory in
the extreme. If Katz is not quite the god Shehori
regularly implies, he remains a discovery to be
cherished.
A session memory – taken from The Pye/Nixa
Story, by John Snashall (ICRC, Autumn 1995)
In December 1958, Bob Auger and I were back at
Walthamstow to record the Khachaturian Piano
Concerto and the Prokofiev Piano Concerto
No. 1, with Mindru Katz, Sir Adrian Boult and
the London Philharmonic (Pye L CCL30151).
Strangely, the production of mono and stereo was
still split between the two monitoring rooms as
had happened originally in Manchester. Douglas
Terry sat in the main control room, listening on
one mono speaker and speaking directly to the
artists, while I monitored the stereo recording with
Bob in the Green Room.
Mindru Katz was short and stocky, a sort
of Rumanian Emil Gilels, with a terrific sense
of humour. He had already recorded a number
of solo recitals for us. However, the concerto
sessions turned out to be the most worrying
that we ever experienced. It seemed obvious
that Mindru was suffering from appendicitis.
He could only consume orange juice, heavily
laced with sugar, and was obviously in great
pain. He would not, however, allow us to cancel
the sessions and took full responsibility for his
own welfare. The Khachaturian and Prokofiev
38
No. 1 concertos are probably two of the most
physically demanding in the whole repertoire,
but he played both of them brilliantly, with very
little need for subsequent tape editing.
After the usual “Thank you, everyone” had
been said over the ‘talk-back’, the orchestra started
to pack up their instruments and chat amongst
themselves. Mindru started to play very quietly,
to himself, the Bach/Busoni prelude Nun komm’
der heiden Heiland. Sir Adrian remained on the
rostrum and the players sat down quietly and
listened. As Mindru played the closing bars he
received a genuine ovation from Sir Adrian and the
orchestra. It was a very touching experience.
There was one incident on these sessions which
helped to reduce the tension slightly. The slow
movement of the Khachaturian includes a passage
for a flexatone. This is a metal plate set in a strong
wire frame about the size of a table-tennis bat. On
either side there is a wooden ball on a metal strip.
The player shakes the flexatone rapidly so that the
balls strike the wooden plate, and he can then alter
the note by using thumb pressure on the base of the
plate. The sound produced is rather similar to that
of the musical saws which used to be popular with
music hall artists.
During the first take of the movement the
orchestra stopped during the passage and it was
obvious that something had gone wrong. Bob and
I went out into the hall and there was great activity
in the percussion section. Just at that moment Sir
Adrian called out “What’s happened, gentlemen?”,
to which one of the percussion players replied “I’m
sorry Sir Adrian, but one of his balls has dropped
off !”. It took a few minutes to restore order but
the percussion section somehow managed to
achieve what must have been a very tricky repair
and the movement was recorded without further
mishap. Of course, we received a letter questioning
this strange sound and asking if it was Sir Adrian
whistling the melody! CRC

Thirty years of Chandos
W hen you visit the head office of Chandos
– based in Colchester, Essex – you can see
some of the company’s past history as well as its
current location at the same time. To the right is the
previous, grand-looking building, and to the left is
the current headquarters, a little more utilitarian.
Common to both are Walton the bear (more
anon), father and son Brian and Ralph Couzens,
some long-serving staff, and Molly, Brian’s energetic
and restless dog. She is quite happy to jump on a
stranger and get in on the interview! While being
investigated (and kissed) by Molly, I managed to
ask Brian and Ralph about their backgrounds.
“I was always in the music world”, said Brian.
“I picked up a trombone and joined a dance band
in Southend. I was second trombone, so when the
first was ill, it was a disaster!” (“You had to play
all the first’s parts!”, interjected Ralph cheekily.)
“When I did National Service I wanted to learn
music. I had no education, didn’t pass anything at
school, no music, so for two years I studied scores
and took them to pieces. When I came out I was
determined to get into the music world: you’ve got
to have determination in life, otherwise you drop.
I went to London, found a cheap flat and hung
about the pubs where the BBC musicians go.
“I was friendly with Jackie Armstrong, principal
trombone of the BBC Big Band, and he introduced
me to a person who wanted some copying done.
That was Johnny Pearson, who became quite famous
in the pop world. I copied the score, checked it, and
went through it with the Variety Orchestra; then
every week I had one of those to do, for nearly a
year. Then I joined Robin’s Music as a filler-in of
scores and met Teddy White, composer of Runaway
Rocking Horse, and worked for the BBC as an
orchestrator and composer. I composed ten light-
music tunes. Exotica and Blue Island were recorded
by EMI and played on the radio. The only one that
gets played today, in Japan of all places, is Holiday
Highway. I then met Ron Goodwin. He needed
help with his scores: for ten years I orchestrated films
such as Where Eagles Dare, 633 Squadron and Those
Brian and Ralph Couzens, the owners and
founders of Chandos, have talked to Colin
Anderson about their early experiences
and the evolution of their company
Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines. I learnt
about sound engineering for the recordings, cueing
the sound engineer to make sure things are heard –
there’s a bass drum coming up in a few seconds and
we must hear it – so I got to know how to use the
faders on a mixing desk.
“In 1963 I formed Chandos Music, a company
that published brass band music and orchestral
pieces by Gordon Langford and Ernest Tomlinson.
I made my first record (as engineer) in 1969, with
Brian Culverhouse producing. Brass band was
the first epic! The Scottish National Orchestra,
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and lots of
smaller groups followed – everyone was making
records in the 1960s. Wonderful really. The good
old times!”
Ralph continues the story. “We started
recording brass bands because we wanted to record
the music we published. Those recordings were
made with a mobile recording unit contracted to
RCA, Classics for Pleasure, Polydor and Contour.
I was dragged into it at weekends. Although I played
the clarinet and piano, I was more interested in
technical matters. Brian got a chap at EMI to build
him a mixer and he bought a couple of reel-to-reel
machines, microphones and Tannoy speakers. He
needed someone to lug them around, so that’s what
I did. At weekends we’d go off and record and I’d
help with cables and the tapes. When I left school
I worked for Brian and had a day-release to go to
college to do electronics.”
We have reached 1970. “As ‘Chandos
Productions’, the first orchestral recordings we
produced were the Rossini/Respighi La boutique
fantasque and Sibelius’s Second Symphony.” (These
were with the Scottish National Orchestra and
Alexander Gibson and first appeared on Classics for
Pleasure LPs.) “We specialised in mobile recording
and classical. We built our own mixing desks.”
There were no plans at this stage for a label.
“We had so much work that we didn’t have time”,
commented Ralph, but as Brian then revealed,
“we were clever enough only to have a three-year
39
contract on everything we did; after then the
recordings came back to me”. So, how did Chandos,
the record label, begin? Ralph took up the story.
“We were happy doing what we were doing, but LPs
were getting a bit like CD is now – cut-pricing and
struggling to make money. Digital had started but
CD hadn’t. By the late 1970s we were exclusively
doing RCA’s UK recording work. Then they closed
the London office and we lost all our work in one
go. So we formed our own label and contacted all
the artists we had worked with and they all came
with us. We were forced into it, but recording was
our life, it’s what we did. We had seven releases in
November 1979 with our key artists.”
Why the name of Chandos? Brian: “The BBC
had a music club called the Chandos Club, which
I thought a good name, especially as Lord Chandos
was the first sponsor of the arts; he commissioned
Handel’s Chandos Anthems”. As for developing the
Chandos label, “we knew all about the technical
side, and that went on, but we needed artwork,
administrators, and people to look after royalties,
mechanicals and distributors. All was in place by
May 1979. We had a deal with EMI International to
distribute worldwide, then they closed; we sued and
won. Then we went to freelance distributors.
“We are a quality company and it was difficult
then to find a reliable LP pressing plant, though we
eventually found one in Germany. We started in
1979 and CD didn’t launch until 1983, so we had
four years of LPs – and cassettes! CD was a great
thing for all of us. The heyday was 1983 to 1987 but
we were rationed to 700 units per title and only so
many titles each month. We couldn’t press enough
and I was juggling with what we should issue. It was
a huge time for CD but we couldn’t grow as fast
as we wanted to. It’s different now. We desperately
need a new technology right now.”
Isn’t SACD the answer? “Not really”, answered
Ralph. “SACD is completely different to CD and
designed with a much higher resolution; it’s purer
and the closest to analogue in a current format. CD
is so practical and so cheap to produce, but it can’t
be changed: it has to be 16-bit, 44.1, the format
in 1983. The problem with SACD is that it’s a
multi-channel format and you need five speakers
in the right position, which is impractical for
many households. It can never be mass-market and
factories can’t produce SACD cheaply; yet the retail
market wants them sold at the same price as CD, so
40
we have to take the knock on that. Downloading is
growing all the time and very beneficial, enough for
us to invest in bigger projects. We have a lot of brass
band repertoire, and that’s big on downloads for us.
We have our entire catalogue on our site and also
iTunes – even the deleted recordings. There’s no real
impact of these on new releases and we can’t record
purely for download, but it could be download-only
for some off-the-wall back-catalogue material in the
future.”
For the record, Chandos’s very first release
was L ABR1001, an LP of Ernest Bloch’s Sacred
Service conducted by Geoffrey Simon. Brian: “He
had money and wanted to record it!” Chandos’s
first digital recording was Holst’s The Planets, made
in 1978 with Gibson and the Scottish National
Orchestra. Ralph: “The problem was that we
couldn’t edit it digitally and we went through a
rigmarole of systems in London to do it; we were
very strict on it being all-digital”. I raised the
question of how, back then, digital was considered
in comparison with analogue. Brian responded at
once. “Digital doesn’t match analogue! I have always
said this. But the trouble with LPs is the cracks and
pops. Swings and roundabouts.”
With Compact Disc becoming the new
medium, Chandos was now full-stream into silver
disc and reached a peak in the late 1980s. A move
from London to Essex ensued; or rather back
to Essex: “We are an Essex family and some of us
commuted into London every day and that was
getting too much, but we lost some London-based
staff in the process.”
Let’s jump ahead to 2005. “This was the year”,
continued Ralph, “that we decided to make the
big change. For the ten years before that there had
been a decline in the market. We were unusual in
that we did everything ourselves; Brian has always
maintained that if you want something done
properly then you do it yourself.” (Brian puts great
store on eye-catching artwork.) “But there comes
a point when you ask: ‘can we sustain this?’. In
the other building, which was perfect, we had 50
people and our own distribution including other
labels – and we were good. All the retailers loved
us – our own art department, two mobile recording
units, three studios and all the administration that
went with it. Then we were able to find outside
distribution and our artwork designers decided
to stay with us, as freelancers, and we made a big
decision to reduce our output. So various admin
staff had to go. We got rid of the big building and
became more of a label rather than a company that
does everything; and we’re now breaking even every
year. We were lucky to move just down the road.”
“Sounds like everyone was carrying their own
belongings to the new building”, I suggest. “It was
like that”, answered Ralph. “I was lucky. I was out
that day, at MIDEM [the yearly recording industry
event held at Cannes in France].”
I mentioned Walton, the life-size polar bear, who
greets anyone visiting Chandos. You can’t miss him
or avoid offering him the greetings of the day! Ralph
gives the background. “Walton came from London.
Before Colchester our main office and warehouse
was in London, in Islington, on the second floor of
a huge old factory. On the first floor was an Italian
company that imported stuffed animals, very high
quality products that sold to Selfridges and Harrods.
They went out of business and had a big sale; Brian
had to buy the biggest object there! The bear! He’s
named after the composer and his opera.”
At that time, the Chandos catalogue needed to
be built. As Brian continued, “We were searching
for music not recorded before and which we liked.
British music was always first in our minds”. Ralph:
“We liked British music, we were really big on that,
and the other was the series concept: if we’re going
to start doing something, we do it completely,
such as the symphonies of Bax, Prokofiev, Dvořák
and the Walton Edition. And we caught up with
international developments, too.”
That cues a mention of Mariss Jansons. Brian:
“We put him on the map!” Ralph explained the
Jansons connection. “The managers of the Oslo
Philharmonic Orchestra came to see us in London
and arrived with a recording of Tchaikovsky’s
Fifth Symphony, saying that EMI didn’t want to
know. Brian played it and said it was fantastic:
that’s a performance; we’ll take it’. We did all the
Tchaikovsky symphonies with Jansons.” Brian:
“Then EMI walked in and took him away!”
Ralph: “We did Nigel Kennedy’s first recording,
of pieces by Elgar, and it’s still in the catalogue,
as is his jazz record – and then he went to EMI!
And The King’s Singers’ first record, the original
line-up. We’ve had lots of firsts. We were the first
for digital and the first for CD.”
Another innovation is Chandos’s tie-up with
the BBC, making recordings for commercial release
and for broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Ralph outlines
how this came about. “The BBC Philharmonic
came to us and said that they wanted us to put
them on the map worldwide. Our association has
been enduring and successful.”
How did the distinctive Chandos sound
evolve? Brian explains: “I became a good engineer
and I loved to hear the balance of an orchestra in
its right perspective in three dimensions – you
don’t suddenly hear the woodwinds in front of the
strings, that sort of nonsense. Everything is correctly
placed, and we’re very choosy where we record.”
Ralph: “We went off in a more ‘ambient’ way than
any company. We recorded the way we wanted it
to sound, not to compensate for the deficiencies of
LP. You have to make a master tape that you are
happy with: in a natural way as if you were sitting
in a concert hall in the best seat and in the best
acoustic. We did get criticism that our recordings
were too reverberant, with too much space, but we
have adjusted and others have come in line with us.
You have to produce something that people will
be happy to listen to frequently and also to match
our standards of quality. We maintain the Chandos
sound wherever we record. But nobody really talks
about sound any more. Sound is so important; you
have to talk about it, and most reviewers don’t.”
May 2009 brings Chandos’s thirtieth birthday.
Ralph is delighted to announce that “we’re
producing a special anniversary box of 30 complete
titles – what we regard as our benchmarks,
landmarks and award-winning products, with a
full catalogue and with the original artwork. The
box will be sold at £40! There’s some real sought-
after material in there: our present to everybody.”
But what are Brian and Ralph’s personal favourites?
Ralph: “That would be a different list!” Brian:
“Britten’s War Requiem, conducted by Richard
Neeme Järvi
41

Vernon Handley
Hickox, is the best recording we’ve ever made –
wonderful singing and playing, and Ralph created
a wonderful sound … it knocks you to pieces.”
Ralph: “That recording nearly didn’t happen. It
was expensive and we had cash-flow problems.
Richard rallied around and got the choir to do
it for nothing, the LSO to delay their invoice,
and it was on – a double award-winner”. One of
Ralph’s choices is Neeme Järvi conducting Richard
Strauss’s Alpine Symphony (“a fantastic piece, very
atmospheric and romantic”), and Gibson’s Sibelius
Second Symphony – the first one. Ralph also
nominates one that got away. “We didn’t keep the
rights for Norman Del Mar’s Enigma Variations,
but that recording was ‘something else’. It’s been on
Contour and DG labels.”
Both Brian and Ralph reminisce fondly about
Chandos artists no longer with us – conductors
such as Alexander Gibson, Bryden ( Jack) Thomson
and Vernon (Tod) Handley – “all fantastic
musicians”, remarked Ralph. As Brian explained,
“building a relationship with artists is so important
– they become part of a family.” Ralph: “We’re
quite laid-back at sessions and let the musicians
play; we want real performances. We want people
to play our recordings again and again; part of it
is not about recording one bit, then another bit,
then another bit and then sticking it all together. A
performance has to evolve, it has to have electricity
and chemistry and you can’t do that in short bits.
We’ve always recorded like that, huge chunks or
complete movements and then we edit between
the complete performances: that’s allowed. The
performance comes first.”
What of the future? Ralph: “More of the
same, as well as trying to recruit more upcoming
artists. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has just completed
a successful Debussy survey and is recording all
the Beethoven piano sonatas, and we have Bartók
concertos with him and James Ehnes, also ‘Opera in
English’, and more with Neeme Järvi; he’s recording
42
Prokofiev’s music for a film of Pique Dame that was
never made. I think Edward Gardner needs to be
looked at, and Jennifer Pike. Gianadrea Noseda has
ideas. The future is to plug gaps in the catalogue, as
we’ve been doing, with the quality of the product
always to the fore, and to concentrate on core
artists and promote good ones. And we’re looking
around for good new ideas.
“In a ten-year collaboration with the Peter
Moores Foundation, we have recorded more
than 80 recordings of opera in English – a hugely
important part of our catalogue. That we have won
so many awards over the years shows that we are
getting things right: Brian was even awarded an
Honorary Doctorate by Anglia Ruskin University
this year for his services to British composers.
“Formats and media are going to be an issue.
CD is going to be around for some years and
SACD will eventually die out unless they change
something about it – and downloads will grow and
grow. As long as there is a place for classical music
out there – there are still buyers, we know that –
then there’ll be people like us to provide them with
what they want. That’s what we’re here for.”
After this interview took place, the conductor
Richard Hickox, a prolific recording artist for
Chandos, died suddenly on 23 November at
the early age of 60. Ralph Couzens has written:
“Richard was wonderful to work with, he
understood the whole process of recording, the
limitations of acoustics and microphones, and the
need to pace a recording to make the most efficient
use of time; but most importantly he always got the
best out of people in the nicest possible way”. CRC
Richard Hickox
Papa Gauk – the
father of Russian
conductors
Gregor Tassie discusses
the life and art of
the eminent Soviet
musician

I n the 1940s and early 1950s, Western collectors

became aware of Alexander Gauk’s name
through recordings emanating from the Soviet
schoolboys were not allowed out after 7pm. He
would have to wait another seven years to see him.
At 17 he travelled north to the capital St
Union. This important conductor, head of the Petersburg, ostensibly for study at the University,
main radio orchestra in Moscow, introduced many but he applied to the Conservatory. Professor
new listeners to Russian music – on record he also Klimov assessed him, told him he had perfect pitch
conducted the USSR State Symphony Orchestra, and placed him in Professor Daugovet’s piano
the Moscow Philharmonic and the Bolshoi Theatre class; later he studied with Felix Blumenfeld, who
Orchestra. To him, apart from anything else, we opened his eyes to music interpretation and getting
owe the score of Rachmaninov’s First Symphony, to the essence of a composer’s vision. He also
since the composer destroyed it after the disastrous learnt conducting with Nikolay Tcherepnin and
1897 premiere and Gauk devotedly reassembled it composition with Vassily Callafatti and Iosif Vitols.
from the orchestral material. His recordings include Tcherepnin was an imperfect conductor, one for the
works by Arensky, Glière, Myaskovsky, Rakov, grand gesture rather than detailed technique, and
Scriabin and Vlassov as well as the more expected Gauk gained most from studying the great maestros
composers. Invariably the impression given by a who visited the city. During this era, he rubbed
Gauk performance is of crystal-clear precision in shoulders with Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Chaliapin,
conveying the written score, outstanding orchestral Rachmaninov, Heifetz, Yudina, Shostakovich
playing, and power and panache in performance, and Koussevitsky. The greatest impression was
so that you believe it to be the true way that a work witnessing Nikisch directing the Weber/Berlioz
should be played.
Alexander Vassilievich Gauk was born on 15 Arthur Nikisch
August 1893 in the Black Sea port of Odessa in
the Ukraine. From an early age his dream was to
conduct. His first musical memories were hearing
army bands playing in a nearby park and listening to
his mother singing at the piano – the young Sasha
would conduct her with an improvised baton. He
was inspired by the opera and ballet theatre in his
native city, hearing great singers such as Anselmi,
Battistini and Ruffo. Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of
Spades made the deepest impression. At seven he
began piano lessons with a Herr Bachman from the
Vienna Conservatory. His mother bought a ticket
for him to see Arthur Nikisch conduct, but his
voucher was confiscated by a policeman because
43
Invitation to the Dance, Schubert’s Rosamunde
and Unfinished Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth
and Sixth Symphonies and Francesca da Rimini in
1911. Nikisch, who “electrified his musicians and
audience, his eyes staring out like rays into each
musician”,1 became the paradigm for Gauk. He also
saw Debussy and Strauss conduct.
The apprentice conductor
Gauk’s first conducting experience was in 1912
as a second-year student, when he directed the
students’ choir in excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s The
Maid of Orleans; his classmate Sergey Prokofiev
commented that “he had a fine technique” and
was “very committed.”2 The most important of the
teachers in his final student years was Glazunov;
when Gauk showed him his orchestration of
Mussorgsky’s neglected opera The Marriage,
Glazunov introduced him to the publisher Bessell,
who gave him a contract. Gauk agreed to orchestrate
Boris Godunov, but the 1917 Revolution caused
the project to be abandoned. In later years Gauk
orchestrated Tchaikovsky’s piano cycle The Seasons
and two sets of songs.
In that year of 1917 Gauk graduated with a
performance of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. He
had married in 1914 and needed work: Glazunov
helped him to teach piano and accompany at
concerts. He first conducted professionally at the
Petrograd Musical Drama Theatre in Tchaikovsky’s
The Slippers on 1 October 1917: the resident
conductor was ill and he had just three days
to prepare the performance, but it was hugely
successful, earning him brief celebrity. However,
the theatre closed within a year and alternative
work had to be found until it reopened as the
Grand Drama Theatre, six months later, when
Gauk was appointed Head of Music.
Following graduation he had applied for a
vacant post at the Mariinsky Theatre in what
became Leningrad, but it was not for another
three years that he was able to start at the renamed
Academic Theatre. He made his mark with
Rubinstein’s The Demon on 8 November 1920;
the effect was undermined because many of the
musicians had not played in his rehearsals. He
complained to the chief conductor Emil Cooper,
who said nothing and walked away. Gauk was
left without work for several months. Then an
opening developed for him as a ballet conductor
44
Gauk in 1930
and he spent the next decade working in the
company’s ballet wing. A significant premiere
was Vladimir Deshevov’s ballet The Red Wind,
the first in a chain of new music which was to be
a thread through his career. There followed new
productions including Glazunov’s The Seasons,
Stravinsky’s Pulcinella and Glière’s The Red
Poppy. The orchestra’s concertmaster commented
that Gauk had a predilection for extending the
phrasing, making the music more symphonic.
During his tenure, and following a divorce, he
married one of the company’s ballerinas, Elena
Gerdt, who became one of the most distinguished
dancers of the renowned Kirov Ballet (the
Mariinsky’s name from 1935), and a fine teacher.
Gauk’s gifts as a teacher were evident and
he joined the conducting faculty at Leningrad
Conservatory in 1927, sharing students with
Nicolai Malko. Following Malko’s departure
for Copenhagen in 1929, Gauk became head
of the department, taking over the best pupils:
Alexander Melik-Pashaev, Yevgeni Mravinsky,
Nikolai Rabinovich, Eduard Grikurov, Ilya Musin
and Yevgeny Mikeladze. In 1939 Gauk was invited
to take up a teaching appointment at the Moscow
Conservatory, where he worked with such pupils
as Nikolai Rabinovich and Yevgeni Svetlanov.
“He immediately won our respect for his well
dressed attire”, Rabinovich recalled, “particularly
when few good tailors were to be found in the
city”. He became known affectionately to his
pupils as “Papa Gauk”.
Schnabel and Oistrakh
On 27 January 1925 Gauk made his first appearance
with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra,
which proved a major test, since Artur Schnabel
was playing the Schumann and Beethoven G major
concertos, with Beethoven’s Second Symphony
and Richard Strauss’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme
also on the bill. The concert was successful and
led to a strong relationship with the pianist. “I
was surprised that during the performance Artur
Schnabel did not take his eyes from me, as if he
were an equal partner of the whole ensemble, as
any musician in the orchestra.”3 This remarkable
debut led to concerts including works by Taneyev,
Berlioz, Strauss, Mahler, Prokofiev and Myaskov-
sky; from 1926 Gauk was employed as the matinée
conductor in Leningrad. In 1927 another unique
association began in his home town of Odessa
when Gauk accompanied David Oistrakh at his
debut orchestral concert in a performance of Lalo’s
Symphonie espagnole. Gauk visited Germany in
1925 and was also deeply impressed by Klemperer
and Walter on their visits to Leningrad.
In 1930 he became chief conductor of the
Leningrad Philharmonic in succession to Malko.
This appointment completed the first stage in
Gauk’s career – his arrival as a major conductor
and teacher through the St Petersburg/Leningrad
school of composition and musical performance.
Having assimilated the best of the “Golden Age”
of Russian music, he would now link it with new
music of the Soviet age.
David Oistrakh
He gave several first performances by the enfant
terrible of Soviet music, Dmitri Shostakovich.
On 21 January 1930 he premiered the Third
Symphony, The First of May, and just two months
later he directed a suite from The Golden Age ballet,
prior to its stage premiere at the Academic Theatre
in September that year. Gauk arranged a suite from
The Bolt, with the composer’s approval, unveiling it
on 17 January 1933 at Philharmonic Hall.
By 1932 Gauk had become a familiar artist on
Moscow Radio and was attracted to the capital,
with its greater opportunities. After 23 years in
Leningrad, he assumed the chief conductorship of
the Radio Symphony Collective, as it was called.
The Radio Orchestra was considered the best in
Moscow: at this time Moscow Radio employed
two ensembles each of 60 musicians, which
came together for large-scale concerts. It was on
returning home from a Far East tour in 1936 that
Gauk was appointed chief conductor of a new
orchestra. This arose from an idea of Boris Guzman
of the Committee for Art (the forerunner of the
Ministry of Culture), who wanted to set up elite
ensembles that would showcase classical music.
The first orchestra of Moscow Radio was instantly
recruited, with musicians enlisted from other
Moscow ensembles. The leader was Lev Zeitlin,
previously in charge of the conductorless orchestra,
Persimfans.
The USSR SSO
Gauk now held some of the country’s finest virtuosi
in his hands and this nucleus evolved into the USSR
State Symphony Orchestra, which would dominate
Russian musical life for the next 60 years. It was also
the state’s first large symphony orchestra, with 110
musicians, four-part wind and a minimum of 20
first violins. The government guaranteed funding
and salaries in line with rates paid to players in the
Bolshoi and Kirov Theatres: the musicians received
500 roubles a month, five times the amount paid
to other orchestras. It was one of the conditions
set by Gauk that the ensemble must enjoy parity
with the Bolshoi Theatre in order to attract the
best musicians. Otto Klemperer was appointed as
artistic director but did not arrive until well after
the ensemble had been formed – and he then gave
only one concert. Erich Kleiber assisted in the
preparation of the orchestra, and spent six weeks
training it in the Beethoven symphonies.
45
 The first concert on 5 October 1936 included
Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony and Gauk’s own
orchestration of The Internationale (then the
national anthem). Gauk established a glittering
series of subscription concerts, with evenings
devoted to great works by Beethoven, Mozart,
Brahms and Wagner, performed in Moscow
Conservatoire’s Tchaikovsky Hall and the Hall of
Columns.
At first the repertoire was entirely mainstream,
but Gauk argued that the orchestra should
play contemporary Soviet music – Prokofiev,
Shostakovich, Myaskovsky and Khachaturyan. The
creation of his ensemble provided an impetus for
contemporary composers to write major symphonic
works. The USSR SSO’s first Soviet work was the
Third Symphony by Valery Zhelobinsky (1913-
46), a promising young composer whose life
was cut short. If this work did not attain greater
fame another youthful composer was destined
for worldwide success. Gauk witnessed the
circumstances that led to Shostakovich’s Fourth Nikolay Myaskovsky
Symphony being withdrawn in 1936. “I travelled
to Leningrad to hear the Fourth. I went to a contemporary Russian composer. Apart from early
rehearsal during which the first movement was compositions, almost all of his symphonies from
being prepared. The playing was untidy. [Fritz] the Seventeenth onward were premiered by Gauk;
Stiedry clearly failed to understand the music and he also worked on orchestration with the composer,
the orchestra played poorly. It was an excruciating resolving problems of intonation and orchestral
impression. This period for Dmitri Dmitrievich dynamics. Major successes were the premieres of
was terrible: he was being destroyed on all sides. the Violin Concerto – by David Oistrakh – and
Therefore he withdrew his own symphony from Symphony No. 21, of which the first recording
performance.”4 dates from 1940 (Melodiya L M10 47393 004).
Gauk attended the world premiere of Gauk believed that the last three symphonies
Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony in November 1937, were on a higher artistic level than the rest, and
hearing it twice, since he sat in on the final run- had attained a greater maturity in expression.
through, after which he had to return to Moscow, One of my own favourite records is of Symphony
where on the next day he heard an official say to No. 27 (Melodiya L D0496-7), which seems
Kerzhentsev (who was in charge of the all-powerful to get a deeper and more colourful reading from
Committee for Art), that the Symphony’s great Gauk than from anyone else, including his pupil
success was due to a specially selected audience. Svetlanov. It was appropriate that in 1952 Gauk
Gauk butted in on the conversation, saying that gave the composer’s memorial concert, in which,
this was not true and that the success was due to the apart from Symphony No. 27, Gauk accompanied
music. On 29 January 1938 he gave the Moscow Svyatoslav Knushevitsky in the Cello Concerto.
premiere of the Fifth. At the end of 1940 Gauk was asked to take
part in a festival in the Latvian capital of Riga;
Myaskovsky’s champion however he became seriously ill and was in hospital
If Mravinsky became known as Shostakovich’s for six months. Following the outbreak of war in
conductor, then Gauk became associated with June 1941, he just managed to escape from Riga
Myaskovsky as his chosen interpreter. This now on the last train to Moscow, which was repeatedly
neglected figure was then the most popular bombed by German aircraft. The State Orchestra
46
was broken up because its musicians were
conscripted for army service (it was merged with
the Moscow Philharmonic); and during an air-raid
Gauk’s flat was destroyed. Providentially he was
invited to teach at the Tbilisi Conservatory and
spent more than two years there, evacuated with
other musicians such as Goldenweiser, Igumnov,
Richter, Prokofiev and Myaskovsky. In this idyllic
setting, far from the war zone, Gauk revived the
Georgian State SO, convincing the authorities
to back a concert season, which became a great
success. In Tbilisi every Saturday evening he would
meet Prokofiev and Myaskovsky, who played their
latest compositions. Prokofiev played his opera
War and Peace on the piano and sang the parts to
his friends.
As the war took its final victorious course, Gauk
returned to Moscow, where he worked on restoring
Rachmaninov’s First Symphony from orchestral
parts discovered in the Leningrad Philharmonic
library. The ‘new’ premiere was given on 17 October
1945 by Gauk’s State Symphony Orchestra and to
great acclaim. Regrettably Gauk never recorded
the work. Another major work he toiled on
was Shaporin’s epic oratorio Tale of the Battle
for the Russian Land. Owing to the composer’s
extraordinary slothfulness in orchestrating his own
music (it had taken 20 years for his previous large-
scale On Kulikovo Field to be completed), Gauk
had to spend much of 1944 scoring the work. He
gave the first performance that year.
The post-war years
Gauk chaired the jury of the second Leningrad
conducting competition in 1946; the winners
included Arvid Yansons, Israel Guzman and
Veronika Dudarova. Gauk now concentrated on
conducting the Moscow Radio Orchestra, having a
“gentleman’s agreement” with Golovanov, the chief
conductor, as to repertoire. While teaching at the
Moscow Conservatoire (he became a professor in
1948), he became the chief conductor of the All-
Union Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1953 and
worked with this ensemble until his death on 30
March 1963. In 1954, Gauk was made a People’s
Artist of the Russian Federation, a sign of the
respect he enjoyed. He raised the playing standards
of the Radio Orchestra, transforming it into the
finest virtuoso Russian ensemble apart from the
Leningrad Philharmonic.
Sviatoslav Knushevitsky
Gauk now felt that he had reached full
maturity and his final decade was his finest; he
gave premieres of works by many composers and
continued the partnerships he had developed
with outstanding soloists, notably the cellist
Sviatoslav Knushevitsky, with whom he shared a
close friendship. They were neighbours at their
country dachas and Gauk also worked with
Knushevitzky’s wife, the soprano Natalya Shpiller,
on many occasions, notably in Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony. When Gauk was in hospital near the
end of his life, the cellist suddenly passed away in
a ward nearby; to avoid upsetting the conductor,
family and friends withheld the news.
Gauk just missed out on the era of jet-setting;
that was to come for his pupils. However he toured
Japan in 1958 with the Leningrad Philharmonic
Orchestra, replacing the indisposed Mravinsky.
His fellow conductors were Arvid Yansons and
Kurt Sanderling. “From the first gesture of Gauk’s
baton was revealed dramatic force and talent. The
highest points were in Tchaikovsky’s Fourth and
Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphonies. These works
were, phrase by phrase, performed with a clear
transparency, revealing all aspects of the orchestral
detail. Mr Gauk stood like a field marshal
having the whole orchestra at his command.”5
Recordings were made there of his performances
of the Pathétique and parts of The Nutcracker by
47

Natalia Shpiller
Tchaikovsky (Shinsekai L PEV64 and PLS44
respectively). Gauk wrote a delightful essay about
his impressions of this country and its musical life.
In the following year Gauk toured Mexico, notably
directing the Orquestra Sinfonica National in
Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, a performance
attended by Kabalevsky and Shostakovich. Gauk’s
last years were afflicted with poor health and no
other tours could be scheduled outside the USSR
except trips to Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
Romania and the GDR.
Gauk’s compositions include a large symphony,
several short chamber works for strings, several
chamber pieces and solo piano pieces. In his last
years, he wrote accounts of visiting artists and
orchestras and left an unfinished autobiography.
He regretted that the new conducting generation
(he mentioned Ormandy and Karajan), did
not know how to interpret Beethoven and
that one should study the Beethoven style of
Kleiber, Knappertsbusch and, in particular, Otto
Klemperer. Despite grave illness, he accepted an
invitation in late 1962 to mark the centenary
of the Leningrad Conservatoire by conducting
the students’ orchestra in Shostakovich’s Festive
Overture. Determined to combat sickness,
Gauk continued to work in hospital up to his
death, orchestrating Myaskovsky’s Twenty-Sixth
Symphony and receiving students.
48
David Oistrakh regarded the conductor as
one of his most professional accompanists, with
whom he gave several major premieres: apart
from the Myaskovsky concerto of 1939, they
collaborated on Khachaturian’s concerto in the
following season, and later Shostakovich’s First
Concerto. His greatest gifts as a conductor were
to portray truthful and definitive readings of large-
scale symphonic works. This idée fixe, as with his
celebrated pupil Mravinsky, was the cornerstone
of his career; the symphonies of Prokofiev,
Myaskovsky and Shostakovich were as if made
for him. His recordings are finely performed,
revealing the degree of preparation behind each
work – he often spent as many as eight rehearsals
on a new piece. Gauk opened the Radio Symphony
Orchestra’s 1953 season with Shostakovich’s Fifth
Symphony – with the composer under a cloud,
it was a brilliant success, getting praise from
Shostakovich himself. Gauk was also active in
Western music, preferring the large-scale repertoire
of Bach, Berlioz, Handel and Beethoven oratorios
and masses. His musicians had to prepare their
pieces in advance before every run-through, and
each section had to know the work precisely before
the general rehearsal. Gauk would always ensure
that the best conditions existed for his musicians as
well as paramount acoustics.
Natalya Shpiller described Gauk’s rooms as
almost like entering a museum, with everything
carefully tidy and ordered; he would accompany
a visitor, describing the types of wood or other
materials used in the furniture. He shared a
hobby with Sir Henry Wood, in that he could
construct a room of cabinets built to eighteenth-
century designs.
The recordings
Gauk’s recorded repertoire was colossal, and
only a small proportion of his discography can
be mentioned here. His recordings largely date
from his period with the Radio Orchestra and
represent both the Russian Romantic repertoire
and new Soviet composers. He was first to record
Shostakovich’s Sixth and Ninth symphonies (L
D09618-9928), and symphonies by Myaskovsky
– the Seventeenth Symphony, dedicated to him, is
available in a ten-disc Gauk set (Brilliant Classics C
BRL8866), with works by Prokofiev, Khachaturian
and other Soviet composers. As it happens, a
1955 performance by Gauk of the Shostakovich
Ninth found criticism from the composer: “I was
disappointed. The second movement was terribly
slow; the fifth movement was also slow.” Thanks
to new releases, notably the Brilliant box, collectors
may readily sample his gifts as a conductor. I
have never heard such an idiosyncratic reading
of Shostakovich’s Fifth, bringing to light detail
unheard in other readings. Over the years I have
become accustomed to how Mravinsky and
Kondrashin conduct this work, but here Gauk’s
tempos are dissimilar. There is some poor brass
playing, but the 1957 recording is very good.
One extraordinary interpretation is Shostako-
vich’s great Eighth Symphony in a 1959 live concert
together with the Festive Overture (Revelation C
RV10061). You have to be prepared for a staggering
performance: the first expansive movement is
engrossing in a quite extraordinary way, with
moments that are deeply intense. The Toccata is
fiercely played with a very fine trumpet soloist. The
Eleventh Symphony deserves to be heard; at points
the musicians play so fast that it is incredible how
they stay in ensemble – this is breathtaking playing
from a showcase orchestra and epitomises Gauk’s
magnificent handling of large-scale symphonic
repertoire. The archives of Melodiya and Russian
State Radio hold a vast collection, from Boris
Alexandrov’s Indian Suite to Yurovsky’s Song of a
Hero and Yakushenko’s Concert Improvisations for
Violin. Examples of unusual recordings by more
familiar composers are Balakirev’s Youth Concerto
with Zhilinsky at the keyboard (L D1324), Ravel’s
Introduction and Allegro (L D2494/5), Svendsen’s
Second Symphony (L D3048/9) and the Romance
for Violin and Orchestra with Boris Goldstein as
soloist (L D2932); also Walter Piston’s Sixth
Symphony in stereo (L S0255/56). Gauk left us
recordings of works by Bach, Berlioz, Bizet, Haydn,
Handel, Liszt, Dvořák, Respighi, Rossini, Roussel,
Saint-Saëns, Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, Schubert,
and Schumann. Of his compatriots, Gauk set down
works by Prokofiev including the Fifth and Sixth
symphonies and notably the First Piano Concerto
with a young Lazar Berman; Rachmaninov’s
Second Symphony (L D02520/01); Tchaikovsky’s
Third (L D3592/93), Fourth (L S0651/52),
Sixth (L S0331/2) and Manfred (L D2287/90)
symphonies, Suite No. 4 (L D2285/86), plus
several orchestral pieces and concertos.
There is also a Shostakovich Tenth Symphony
and the Ballet Suite No.1 (L D00803/04), The
Fall of Berlin and The Unforgettable Year 1919 (L
D03402/03), and the Second Piano Concerto
with the composer as soloist (L D06295/98).
Interesting rarities include Cui’s Second and Third
Suites (L D1119/20) and Taneyev’s Symphony
No. 1 in C minor (L D03588/89).
Issues and reissues on CD are also too
many to enumerate in detail. They include
concerto performances with Svyatoslav Richter,
Leonid Kogan, Julian Sitkovetsky, Oistrakh
and Knushevitzky. Other soloists with whom
he worked on record are the pianist Heinrich
Neuhaus in the First Chopin Concerto (Denon C
COCQ83663; APR C 5660), and he accompanies
Maria Yudina in Mozart’s Piano Concerto,
K488 (Vista Vera C WCD00087). Orchestral
pieces by Boris Tchaikovsky are on a quaintly
named Russian label (Northern Flowers C
NFPMA9957), and there is a fine recording of the
Beethoven Fifth and the final movement from the
Ninth Symphony on Venezia (C CDVEO4231).
A disc from a St Petersburg label (Palmira of the
North/Classond C 006) features Gauk’s reading
of Myaskovsky’s Eighteenth Symphony.
Alexander Gauk’s heritage lives on through
conductors who were influenced by him: they
include Mariss Jansons, Valery Gergiev and Neeme
Järvi. And through recordings held by Russian
Radio and Melodiya of his own performances and
those of his pupils Mravinsky, Melik-Pashaev and
Svetlanov, we can appreciate the true status of this
historically important conductor. CRC
A.V. Gauk, Memoirs, Reminiscences, Moscow, 1975
1,3,4
2
S. S. Prokofiev , Diaries Vol. 1
5
Asahi Times ,Tokyo 1958
Rosa Glezer - reminiscences
Microsillons Sovetiques
49
 Noble Bass of
the Bolshoi:
The legacy of
Mark Reizen
Joshua Cohen considers
the life, career and the
recordings of the great
Russian singer, whose
voice retained its fine
quality over a period of
six decades

I t is written in Deuteronomy that Moses

“was an hundred and twenty years old when
he died; his eye was not dim, nor his natural
of his great days. You can feel his confidence
as he steps forward with an impressive sweep
of his hand to launch a firm, resonant high E
force abated”. Mark Reizen, the greatest flat, then executes a beautiful, perfectly graded
Russian bass of the Soviet era, did not attain diminuendo at the words kak solnca lutch (“like
that fabled lifespan – he lived to be 97 – but a ray of sunlight”). Only in the closing phrases,
he preserved into advanced old age enough descending twice to low G flat, can the tone be
of his natural vigour, and phenomenal vocal heard to falter. Never mind, the old campaigner
technique, to become the oldest known singer has triumphed again, and no sooner has the last,
to have assumed a major operatic role in public husky note died away than the entire hall rises
performance. On 4 July 1985, the day after his in an outpouring of astonished gratitude.
ninetieth birthday, the venerable bass stood on
the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre, in powdered
wig and military regalia, to sing Prince
Gremin’s noble aria from Eugene Onegin. The
performance was televised and subsequently
released in a DVD anthology, Russian Opera
at the Bolshoi (l Kultur 2019); it can also be
found on YouTube. It should not be missed, for
to watch that amazing nonagenarian hold an
audience of over 2,000 absolutely spellbound is
an unforgettable experience.
Reizen’s singing is simply extraordinary.
Naturally the tone has dried and loosened
with age, but it grows steadier and warmer as
the performance goes on, so that by the reprise
of the main melody he is shaping the music
with all the elegance and majestic assurance
50
Early years
Mark Ossipovich Reizen was born on 21 June
1895 in the Ukrainian village of Zaitsevo near
the Caucasus. His father was a Jewish coal mining
manager, and his family lived in a large house close
to the barracks where the miners were quartered.
His earliest musical memories were of listening
to the songs of those coal miners, who came
from every part of Russia, and of the folk songs
his parents sang at home. At the age of seven he
was sent to a primary school in nearby Bakhmut,
where his younger brother later joined him. One
evening after classes, Mark wandered into a music
hall where a vaudeville play was being performed,
and commenced a lifelong love affair with the
theatre. The disturbances of 1905 forced Mark
and his brother to return home, where they
found their house destroyed in the wake of the
pogroms. Eventually the entire family moved to
Lugensk, where Mark was already enrolled at the
gymnasium. In addition to his studies he sang in
the school choir, while looking for opportunities
to perform onstage. At 16 he joined a local theatre
company as an “extra”, making his theatrical debut
as a bodyguard in Othello. He had by now grown
to his full adult stature, nearly 6’ 4’’ tall, and his
beautiful treble voice had ripened into a mellow,
resonant basso cantante.
Three years later, the first world war broke out.
His brother Issay was called up immediately, and
Mark’s turn followed a year later. Between 1915
and 1917 he fought on several fronts, was twice
wounded – the second time seriously enough to
secure his discharge – and twice decorated with
the St George Cross. But he also gained valuable
musical experience through singing concerts with
a regimental band organised by one of his officers.
After the Armistice he enrolled at the Kharkov
Conservatory, where he studied for a year with
Frederico Bugamelli, until his teacher suddenly left
and went home to Italy during the fighting in 1918.
There followed a period of privation, personal
loss and growing responsibility. In the summer of
1918, he received word from his fiancée that her
mother had died, leaving an ailing father and seven
younger siblings. The following Spring his brother
Issay was killed fighting the White Russians. By the
time hostilities were over, Reizen was 25 years old,
newly married and responsible for two families. For
some time he had wavered between following his
musical aspirations and developing a career in
technology. But on 25 December 1921 he stepped
in to sing Pimen in a performance of Boris Godunov
at the Kharkov Theatre, and his course was set.
Career
During his four years at Kharkov, Reizen sang
a variety of parts including Prince Gremin,
Orlik in Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa, Nikalantha in
Lakmé, Ruslan and two of his most celebrated
roles, Mephistopheles in Faust and Dosifey in
Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina. Between 1925 and
1930 he sang at the Leningrad Opera Theatre (later
renamed the Kirov), where he added the roles of
Farlaf, Galitzky and Konchak in Prince Igor,
and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Ivan the Terrible, before
ascending the throne of Boris Godunov for the
first time in 1928. The following season he arrived
at a crossroads in his career. At that time it was
still possible for Soviet singers to try their fortunes
abroad. In late autumn 1929 Reizen embarked
on a whirlwind European tour, winning ecstatic
notices in Berlin and Paris before accompanying
Albert Coates to London, where he made five test
recordings for HMV (two of which were issued on
EMI’s The Record of Singing series 60 years later).
In January he went on to Monte Carlo, where he
sang Boïto’s Mephistopheles and Don Basilio
in The Barber of Seville. By the end of the run he
was negotiating a long-term contract at Monte
Carlo and concert engagements in the USA. Then
came word that his wife was pregnant with their
first (and as it turned out, only) child – so home
he went. With that, the window of opportunity
closed.
The following autumn he made a guest
appearance at the Bolshoi Theatre, singing
Gounod’s Mephistopheles. During the interval
he received a surprise visit from Josef Stalin, who
complimented him on his performance and asked
him why he didn’t come to Moscow more often.
When Reizen stammered that he had a job and
an apartment in Leningrad, the dictator replied
brusquely that he would take care of all that. The
next morning a functionary arrived with a car to
take the astonished singer to his new home, close
to the theatre. Thus began his legendary career at
the Bolshoi, which would continue for 25 years. In
1937 he was awarded the title of “People’s Artist
of the USSR”, the first of many state prizes. Two
51
years later he participated in a revival of Glinka’s
Life for the Tsar (renamed Ivan Susanin by the
Soviets), sharing the principal role with Maxim
Mikhailov and Alexander Pirogov. During the
second world war he sang many times at the front,
most memorably at the Mayakovsky Metro station
during the siege of Moscow; and in 1945 he took
part in the victory concert at the Kremlin. Post-
war triumphs included guest appearances at the
Budapest Opera and concerts in Bucharest, where
he sang Wotan’s Farewell. In 1955 he retired from
the Bolshoi, but continued to sing recitals and
make recordings for another 30 years, crowning
his career with that miraculous performance at the
Bolshoi gala honouring his ninetieth birthday. He
died in Moscow on 25 November 1992.
Personal character
Much that has been written about Reizen’s personal
character has focused on his relationship with
Stalin. There is no question that the dictator was
a great admirer, who frequented his performances
and invited him to official banquets as an honoured
guest (without, apparently, expecting him to sing for
his supper). According to Reizen’s granddaughter,
the bass regarded Stalin’s patronage as “a golden
cage”. On the one hand, he enjoyed many privileges
and probably a degree of protection that carried
Maxim Mikhailov as Susanin
52
him safely through several dangerous phases. On
the other hand, he never knew what to expect from
the regime – no one did. He fought stubbornly to
remain aloof from politics: as much, it seems, out
of principle, as of prudence. One evening, in the
spring of 1938, he received a telephone call from
Izvestiya (one of the two official Soviet newspapers),
asking him to comment on the death of Chaliapin,
who had just passed away in Paris. Reizen replied
that the great singer’s death was a loss to the whole
world, and asked to be a shown a transcript of his
statement. The next morning he discovered his
name signed under a scathing denunciation of
Chaliapin accusing him of forsaking his country
for easy money. Although this took place at the
height of the Terror, when most people were afraid
to speak up against the regime, Reizen went on
the attack, demanding that Izvestiya print a public
retraction. He received one within a week.
How much he suffered as a Jew is difficult to
ascertain, since Soviet anti-semitism often took the
form as a looming threat rather than an open policy;
and a number of Jewish musicians – including
the popular composer, Matvey Blanter, and the
great violinist, David Oistrakh – enjoyed great
prestige under the regime. But on one occasion,
at least, he displayed remarkable courage under
perilous circumstances. Following the infamous
“Doctors Plot” incident, in which several Jewish
physicians were falsely accused of poisoning high
Soviet officials, a letter intended for publication
in Pravda was circulated among prominent Jewish
cultural figures. The letter denounced the accused
doctors as instruments of an international capitalist
conspiracy, and called for a mass deportation of
Jews to remote colonies “for their own protection”.
Most of those approached agreed to sign the letter,
and given the nightmarish conditions of the time
one can hardly blame them. Reizen was one of
four known to have refused. Fortunately, Stalin’s
death ended the crisis: the surviving doctors were
released, and the letter was never published.
In professional life Reizen was an exacting
perfectionist, who once summoned the stage crew
after a rehearsal to instruct them in the correct way
of lowering a curtain. His private life centred on his
extended family – which he supported, cherished
and protected to the end of his days – and a small
circle of friends. His granddaughter Olga, who
grew up under his roof, recalls that “he was very
strict about discipline, and though I didn’t like
it… I do appreciate it now. He was the best father,
the best friend, the best grandfather in the world.
And he surely was the best husband possible.
My grandmother (I used to call her Mother and
consider her to be) and he were married in 1919,
so it was 73 years of love, passion, understanding.
Theirs was a perfect marriage”.
The recordings
Reizen’s recordings date from 1929 to 1982, when
the bass was 87. Many have been reissued on CD
since the time of his death, but I would direct the
uninitiated first to a pair of Preiser discs consisting
of operatic arias and scenes recorded in the late
1940s to mid-1950s (Lebendige Vergangenheit
C 89059 & 89080). Volume 1 opens with one of
his most beautiful and expressive recordings: Ivan
Susanin’s aria and scene from Act 4 of Glinka’s
Life for the Tsar (Melodiya L D02941). The aria
itself is composed of the purest Russian lyricism –
a slow, mournful farewell to life unfolding in long
cantabile lines embellished by gentle melismas. The
rest of the scene passes seamlessly through a short
stretch of recitative to a pair of brief, poignant
ariosos as Susanin thinks tenderly of his children,
then breaks out in a mighty burst of grief, before
drawing back at last to a firm, collected resolve.
Mark Reizen as Boris in 1928
Reizen’s performance meets all of these challenges
with magnificent tone and perfect stylistic mastery.
Each successive section is gorgeously sung,
scrupulously phrased and movingly acted.
As for his voice, it is one of the noblest of its
kind on record – a sumptuous, dark chocolate
basso cantante, produced with a subtle admixture
of nasal resonance that gave the tone an affecting
plangency. Magnificently firm and ample
throughout its wide range, it could be scaled down
to a mezza voce of exquisite delicacy. His style
was essentially patrician: he preferred to hold his
power in reserve for climactic moments, relying
principally on a beautifully moulded legato and
superb diction to convey emotion and meaning.
But his most expressive quality lay in the sombre
beauty of his voice, which seemed ideally suited to
roles such as Susanin, Boris Godunov, Dosifey and
even, in certain respects, Mephistopheles – proud,
strong-willed characters marked by a deep interior
sorrow.
His range is well demonstrated on the two
Preiser discs. From Susanin’s elegiac monologue he
turns to a more a heroic vein in Russlan’s big solo
(USSR m15409/10 & 016313), with its vigorous
high-flying cabaletta, followed by the frenetic
patter of Farlaf ’s famous Rondo (m 15685). The
barbaric swagger and rough camaraderie of Khan
Konchak (m 020673/714) give way to the gentler
devotion of Prince Gremin (m 16266/7); and we
hear with what “deep bass relish” (in J. B. Steane’s
words) his voice can sit on a low G flat or F. Yet
it can also rise fearlessly to the baritonal heights of
Rubinstein’s Demon and Rachmaninoff ’s Aleko
(m 035105/12 & L D2491). Then listen to his
Viking Guest from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sadko:
massive, firm and indomitable as a Northern sea-
cliff (L D01480/7). Nor does he lack the resources
to breathe vivid life into character roles such as the
Miller in Dargomizhky’s Rusalka, his Mad Scene
(L D3525) matching up well with Chaliapin’s
famous recording. But he is never more personal
than when playing the grieving father; and his
performances of those great paternal valedictions –
Susanin’s aria, Boris’s Death Scene (m 018550/1),
Fiesco’s “Il lascerato spirito” (m 27802/3) and
Wotan’s Farewell (L D1316) – are profoundly
moving in those passages where habitual majesty
gives way to a more intimate expression of sorrow
and heartfelt contrition.
53
 Not everything is perfect. One is occasionally
aware of some constriction in the higher tones
and moments of uncertain intonation. The three
arias sung in Italian – King Phillip’s monologue
(m 018917/8), “O tu Palermo” (m D1317) and “La
calunnia” (L D1317) – are distinctly less effective
than the other foreign items done in Russian. It
is not so much a question of understanding the
text, as of finding those subtler colours and verbal
inflections that come naturally when he is singing
in his mother tongue. Fortunately, Reizen recorded
most of his repertory (both native and foreign) in
the language of his homeland.
He is remembered as a fine, expressive actor,
if without the magnetism and theatrical flair of
Chaliapin or Christoff. As Steane has observed:
“His characterisations are measured, almost as
though the lesson learnt from Chaliapin was the
avoidance of excess”. Filmed performances of
Susanin, Dosifey and Boris Godunov show how
his impressive height and bearing enabled him
to command the stage with natural authority;
and on records his vocal portrayals are moving
on their own, essentially lyrical, terms. The Clock
Scene from Boris Godunov offers a fair conspectus
of his strengths and limitations. It is not a hair-
raising tour de force, but rather a scrupulously
musical realisation tinged with pathos, in which
the tones are coloured to express the remorse and
desperation of a ruler whose secret crimes have
blighted his kingdom, and a guilty father who
knows his children will pay for his sins.
Reizen’s vocal longevity enabled him to
profit from the post-war boom in full-length
opera recordings. Ten sets of nine different
operas have been published, including Ruslan
and Ludmilla (L M10 46739); Boris Godunov
(L M10 37403/10) and two of Khovanshchina
(L D02269/76 and L D01712/19); Faust (L
M10 45101); Eugene Onegin (L D0253/60);
Prince Igor (m 020672/714); Mozart and Salieri
(L D0588/89); Sadko (L D01480/07) and Il
barbiere di Siviglia (L D01550/55). With the
exception of Ruslan – a relatively early recording
that shows Reizen in spectacular form, pealing
forth on thrilling high notes up to an electrifying
G – all the sets have been reissued on CD,
some in several editions. The version of Boris to
obtain is on Arlecchino (C ARL121/3), since
it includes as appendices marvellous accounts of
54
Pimen’s Monastery Scene and Varlaam’s Scene
at the Inn. His Dosifey is heard at its noble and
sonorous best on the 1946 Kirov set. But the most
striking performance of all of all may well be his
Mephistopheles in Faust: an elegant, sardonic
devil with the voice of fallen angel.
The majority of Reizen’s records during the
first ten years, however, were of Russian romances
and folk songs, starting with his unpublished 1929
recording of Tchaikovsky’s I bless you forests (HMV
matrix Cc18454-1; C EMI CHS7 69741-2),
which was also the song he selected to inaugurate
his official legacy four years later (m 02584). As
a rule, his early discs – which include a searing
account of Schubert’s Der Doppelgänger (m 07521)
– reveal a more vibrant, baritonal timbre than do his
mature recordings. A CD of Russian songs issued
on Aquarius (C AQVR 305-2) features an early
recording of The Song of the Old Man by Ippolitov-
Ivanov, which, on closer inspection, turns out to be
a Russified version of the popular bass showpiece
by Ludwig Fischer (the first Osmin), known to
English speakers as Drinking. Adopting a sensible
bass-baritone key, Reizen gambols nimbly across
a two-octave range (F sharp to F sharp); but one
notices that the ease and fullness of his top notes
are not quite matched at the bottom. Going on to
the next track, a song by Malashkin recorded in
1947, one can hear that his tonal centre has shifted
downward.
As might be expected, a fair portion of Reizen’s
repertory consisted of Chaliapin specialities.
Comparing the two singers, one is struck by how
successfully the younger artist was able to make
Feodor Chaliapin
these songs his own. The richness of his timbre alone
is enough to make his record of Glazunov’s Bacchic
Song (m 4581) as intoxicating as its title implies;
but there is plenty of character and rhythmic
verve in The Midnight Review (m unknown, C
Aquarius AQVR 305-1) and the ubiquitous Volga
Boat Song (m 10616; l AQVR300 09). More
memorable still is his slow, rapturous account of
Rubinstein’s Persian Love Song (L D00620; C
AQVR 305-2), entirely different from Chaliapin’s
flamboyant version, with its parlando histrionics
and interpolated falsetto cadenza. Where Reizen
himself may be regarded as the standard-setter is
in his 1949 recording of Rimsky-Korsakov’s lush
orchestral scena, The Prophet (m 17453; C ARL
A13). On his late acoustic recording, Chaliapin
gives an intense performance, as does Christoff
in his version from 1952, but Reizen’s singing,
surpassing the others in opulence, has also a poise
and dignity that ennoble the music.
Chaliapin built recitals entirely from encores
(he used to hand out booklets with the texts of
over 100 songs, and then announce his selections
from the platform). Reizen assembled more
thoughtful programmes that leaned heavily on the
Russian Romantics. Apart from popular Soviet
composers such as Blanter and Khrennikov, he did
not champion much contemporary music – no
Prokofiev or Shostakovich, for example – though
he did record seven of Kabalevsky’s Shakespeare
sonnet settings with the composer at the piano
(L D2462/63). One wishes he had sung more
Mussorgsky (he would have been wonderful in the
Sunless cycle), but in the late 1940s he recorded
splendid accounts of The Seminarist, Trepak and
Song of the Flea (L D10435/36; C ARL103-05),
repeating all three of them in 1979 – aged 84!–
with the addition of a richly characterised He-Goat
and a gripping, vocally tireless The Field-Marshall
(L C1013671/74). The Aquarius CD includes
lovely renditions of Glinka romances, among
which Doubt (m unknown) and Autumn Night
(L D3690/91) are notable for their deep-toned
sonority and warm feeling.
Missing from Aquarius’s selection is the
composer Reizen championed most faithfully –
Tchaikovsky, whose songs he recorded again and
again over a 45-year period, reaching an interpretive
peak in devastating accounts of Reconciliation (L
D001346/47), Déception (L D035105-12) and
the Op. 73 Night (L D016337/38). Back in the
1930s he had recorded melting renditions of some
of the gentler romances, such as Frenzied Nights
(m 9601), The Nightingale (m 9602) and A tear
trembles (L D00616/17). Most of these records
were made with his longtime accompanist and
childhood friend, Abram Makarov; but in 1974
he returned to the studios for another Tchaikovsky
programme with a new pianist, Vladimir Kvostin
(L C10 05797).
In addition to its Russian song disc, Aquarius
has issued a beautiful selection of Lieder recordings
(C AQVR306-2), drawn principally from the
1940s and 1950s, which offer a good representation
of Reizen’s frankly emotional yet essentially
cantabile approach to Romantic art song. He is
predictably superb in the grandiloquent numbers
– Beethoven’s In questa tomba oscura in Italian
(L M10 43563/64), Schubert’s Aufenthalt (m
017775) and Schumann’s Die beiden Grenadiere
(L D035105-12), and finely responsive in
Der Wanderer (L D00951/52), Die Krähe (m
unknown) and Ich grolle nicht (L D035105-
12): for once, a genuine expression of sorrow
rather than anger. But most haunting of all is
his rendition of Grieg’s Cradle Song, a miracle of
spellbinding softness and aching tenderness.
Aquarius’s third offering is a DVD of operatic
scenes and songs filmed between 1951 and 1980.
Most of these performances are lip-synched to the
soundtracks of previously released commercial
recordings (as was standard practice in those days).
Even in what appears to be a live recital given at
the Tchaikovsky Museum at Klin, it is evident that
Dmitri Kabalevsky
55

Alexander Kipnis
the performance we are seeing is not the same as
the one we are hearing. On the positive side, the
excerpts from Khovanshchina (taken from a 1958
feature film) and Boris Godunov are absorbing
to watch; the song performances show a fine,
dignified platform manner; and the soundtracks
recorded in 1979 (but filmed the following year)
are impressively sung. All the same, I prefer to
conclude this survey with a selection from his last
studio session in 1982 (L C10 19271): a merry
folk song called At the Well, sung with gaiety and
unflagging energy – and crowned with a proudly
sustained high F.
Conclusions
Where does Reizen stand in the pantheon of
great singers? To begin with, he belonged to the
first generation of Russian singers who rose to
prominence under Communist rule – the one
most directly influenced by the bel canto training
and culture that still flourished in Russia during
the final decades of the Empire. Although he did
absorb some elements of Chaliapin’s dramatic
style, he is best remembered as the Soviet
singer who upheld in its purest form the lyrical
tradition embodied by the great stars of the pre-
Revolutionary period: Nezhdanova, Sobinov,
Ershov, Sibiriakov and Kastorsky. Owing partly
to the parochial policies of the Bolshoi Theatre,
56
and partly to his own equivocal status as an iconic
standard-bearer of the regime, his repertory was
relatively limited. He never sang onstage the great
Mozart, Verdi and Wagner roles that Alexander
Kipnis – his exact counterpart in the West – carried
off with such glory; and of course he never attained
a comparable international renown. On the other
hand, he achieved a degree of refinement in his
native repertory that Kipnis never matched; and
his performances of Russian music were a source
of joy, consolation and pride to his compatriots
during the long dark years.
But perhaps it would be better to broaden our
perspective. In a short essay entitled “Singing”,
Will Crutchfield draws a comparison between
two types of singers, which he calls “pioneers”
and “paragons”. To the former category belong
those singers who are “willing to let fall some of
the disciplines and niceties of singing in pursuit of
a new musical and dramatic vision”; to the latter
belong “those whose art encompasses the advances
that have been made and balances them with high
aspiration to the disciplines of vocalism, and whose
understanding of music and drama is embodied in
an ideal of beauty”. As examples of the first type,
Crutchfield cites Caruso, Chaliapin and Callas;
and of the second type, Tibbett, Schorr and
Ponselle – to which I would add the three supreme
lyric basses of the twentieth century: Ezio Pinza,
Alexander Kipnis and Mark Osipovich Reizen.
Thanks to Olga Reizen, Victor Han, Greg Audette,
Larry Friedman and Peter Sullivan. CRC
 CRC Winter 2008

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the 170i Transport is 203 x 203 x 68mm (wdh);
UK price is £350, including accessories, and
distribution is by The Musical Design Company. www.mdc-hifi.co.uk; www.wadia.com.
57
CRC Winter 2008
audio & the record collector
CHARM and the King’s
College Archive
David Patmore has been to see
Andrew Hallifax, who transfers vintage
recordings to digital media at the
Centre for the History and Analysis of
Recorded Music in London.
58
I recently met Andrew Hallifax, a freelance
recording engineer and head of transfer
engineering at CHARM, based at King’s College,
London. First of all I asked Andrew how he became
involved in recording.
“I did a music degree at the University of East
Anglia between 1984 and 1987. Already at that
time I had the idea that I wanted to be a classical
music recording engineer. The trigger had been a
BBC programme about its Radiophonic Workshop,
which I heard on the radio probably before I was
even a teenager – there was something very, very
compelling about it. And the strange thing is that I
have at least two other colleagues who both heard
that same programme at the same time to the same
effect! I didn’t want to be a composer – although
I did some studies in electro-acoustic composition
at East Anglia – what I wanted to do was to record.
The course at UEA was a straight music degree, but
at the same time I was aware that Trygg Tryggvason
was on the staff and that he was teaching recording
in the music department. Trygg had started the
University’s own record label with Peter Aston. In
fact the whole set-up was very special and I think
unique. I don’t know of anywhere now, apart from
the Tonmeister course at Surrey University, where
recording is taught to musicians as a primarily
musical rather than a technical endeavour. Teaching
recording to musicians, who often have no technical
background at all, was quite special, and this was
something that Trygg did extremely well. He was a
remarkable teacher. Given that it was a tiny music
department, with probably no more than about
40 students all told at any one time, the number
whom he taught and who now work professionally
in the recording industry is quite astonishing.
Sadly he was made redundant and the course was
abandoned just after I graduated in 1987.
“Trygg was aware that I was interested in
recording – I’d helped him with one or two
freelance jobs while I was there – and the day I
graduated he asked me to help him with a session
in London. So I drove him down and acted as tea
boy and general dogsbody, the way everyone does
who starts in the business. And it seems now as
though we never went back from London. We were
working flat out all the time – it was astonishing,
and I ended up working with him for ten years! For

audio & the record collector
the first couple of years, in the height of the CD
boom in the late 1980s, we were actively recording
on location six days a week, non-stop. It was mainly
classical music with a lot of orchestral repertoire,
working for labels such as Pickwick, Classics for
Pleasure, and chamber music for Hyperion, ASV
and Chandos – we were working for most of the
classical labels of that time.
An ideal apprenticeship
“I feel hugely privileged that I was able to work
with Trygg and to have had what I regard as an ideal
apprenticeship. I firmly believe that the way one
learns to do this job is not by reading textbooks,
but through direct experience, and learning by
listening. It’s really a process of ‘enculturation’ –
you have to be there in the sessions, learning to
think and to hear the way an engineer does. It’s not
easy: the first sessions that you do on your own are
frankly terrifying. And of course it’s never the same
twice; every session is entirely unique. Gradually
you build enough confidence in your own abilities
to manage what comes along and to cope. And
eventually you do get to the point where, as well as
one ever does, you know what you are doing – or
at least, the terrain becomes familiar. So that’s how
I started!
“While I was with Trygg I was doing other
things when time allowed. Even before I’d
graduated I’d been supplementing my student
grant by working weekends for Ben Turner at
Finesplice, learning basic post-production skills,
which was a tremendously valuable experience.
Trygg had enough equipment to allow us both
to work simultaneously on different sessions, so
gradually I began doing my own projects. But as
the CD boom started to slow down in the 1990s,
so did work gradually die away, and by the end of
the 1990s, it had slowed to a trickle.
“For a while I lived on a houseboat moored near
Richmond and looked after Petersham Church,
which, over the years, was used to make many
hundreds – possibly thousands – of recordings.
It had a beautiful acoustic but is sadly now lost to
recording. Some time later I decided to go and live
in France. I moved to Paris, which I love and which
these days is a brief, inexpensive train journey from
London. So I was fortunate enough still to be able
CRC Winter 2008
to manage a reasonable amount of freelance work
in London and other parts of the UK. I’d be back
here probably twice a month on average.
“As soon as CHARM started, in 2004, I
followed its development with interest, and so
when it advertised for a transfer engineer, I was in
there like a shot, and fortunately got the job here at
King’s, starting work during 2007. And now we’ve
expanded further with the recruitment of Martin
Haskell who used to be an engineer at Decca and
ASV, and we have a grant to create a sound archive
of British and Irish Musicians who recorded on
78s” [see CRC Autumn issue, page 8 – Ed.].
Transfer techniques
I then asked Andrew how he carried out his transfer
work. “Well, the main point is that I’m free of many
of the constraints that commercial release imposes
on engineers. Apart from sets comprising multiple
sides, each disc for me is a unique transfer job: I’m
not obliged to match the tonal characteristics or the
surface noise to any other disc, whereas an engineer
transferring for release on CD needs to ensure that
there are no disconcerting disjunctions in either
the musical or sonic content or in the disc’s surface
noise. Nor do I need to tailor the recordings for
the contemporary market or for modern listeners,
which I think is quite significant. I aim instead
to reveal the tonal and musical balance recorded
at the time and to restore that as faithfully as
possible, which is where, I believe my experience of
session recording and of acoustic spaces becomes
important. CHARM’s aim is to liberate as many
as possible of the vast numbers of 78s which King’s
College has in its own archive. This is built on the
acquisition some years ago of duplicates from the
old BBC gramophone library. Our intention is
ultimately to put these transfers up on the web –
for students, historians of performance and in fact
anyone who is interested, so that they can listen to
what up until now have been lost performances, in
many instances. We’re trying as far as it is practical
to avoid duplicating what is already on CD and
to concentrate on artists who might now be less
well known but who may nevertheless have been
extremely influential in their day, which in terms
of performance practice is clearly quite significant.
I aim to transfer around ten sides a day, which as
59
CRC Winter 2008
audio & the record collector
anyone doing this work for a commercial company
will tell you is quite a rapid rate.
“The actual process of transfer is quite
straightforward. Where I have a choice, I’ll
select the best copy available of a particular disc,
and fortunately in quite a few instances we have
duplicates. Then I’ll clean it with our Keith Monks
machine. Another point to bear in mind is that
because our archive is based on what had been a
working collection, quite a lot of our records show
signs of wear, and unfortunately some are cracked
or broken. Once the record has been cleaned, it’s
on to the turntable, and I select an appropriate
stylus. We have nine or ten of these, all supplied by
the Expert Stylus Company. Then I establish what
I think is the correct pitch with the aid of a variable
speed control, custom-built by Roger Beardsley,
before using Ted Kendall’s invaluable Front End
pre-amplifier to establish what I believe to be the
most appropriate equalisation curve from the many
different ones that 78rpm recording engineers and
companies used. I also record a flat, unequalised
copy for archive purposes. I think it’s important
that the equalisation is carried out in the analogue
domain and there’s really nothing better suited
to the purpose; the Front End offers unparalleled
flexibility, precision and audio transparency.
“Once I’ve got the equalisation sorted out,
I’ll then run the recording through Cedar for de-
clicking and de-crackling, before recording the
digital file on a Sequoia workstation. I’ll take out
any really obtrusive cracks and pops that Cedar has
been unable to deal with, using various software
plug-ins such as Algorithmix Renovator and
Sequoia’s proprietary spectral cleaning – and that’s
about it! Once the process of transfer has been
completed, the finished file is stored digitally in a
60
number of different formats and locations – in our
archive for future uploading, on a network drive
for safety, and on DVD for more immediate use by
researchers working perhaps on current projects,
such as the study of the performance of Schubert
songs on record.”
The recording engineer’s role
Our discussion then turned back to the role of the
recording engineer, a subject on which Andrew
has some lively comments to make. “I’m fascinated
by the way people have a need to regard recorded
performance as a means of either capturing real
performance or documenting it. Either of the
words ‘capturing’ or ‘documenting’ have recently
made me question what happens in a recording
studio, and the extent to which it can be seen as
‘documenting’ and ‘capturing’. I began to wonder
whether it was really possible for people observing
recording sessions to discover what is actually
going on, and even whether the people engaged in
recording ever really stand aside from the enterprise
in which they’re engaged to reflect on the nature
and essence of their practices. After all, almost
everything that happens in a recording session that
is of real interest is entirely invisible – it’s going on
inside people’s heads! It’s all in their perceptions,
that in turn inform intuitive responses. You can
watch what everyone is doing and listen to what
they are saying – producer, engineer, and musician
– but all of this bears only a tangential relation to
what develops. Part of the process of enculturation,
to which I referred earlier, is the development of an
unspoken, common understanding.
“This is especially true when the same producers
and engineers work closely together, and when a
company, such as Decca, has a very strong recording

audio & the record collector
‘house style’. The interesting thing is that those
working in these environments in the past probably
couldn’t have explained it to those wanting to learn
about it, any better than we can explain it now. But
that was one of the benefits of the old-fashioned
apprentice system; it was a process of imbibing
understanding more than acquiring information.
“So I wondered whether I could dig into my
own experience and bring some of this out for
those people who obviously want to understand
what’s happening in recording sessions, but who are
to some extent blocked because it’s not observable,
even though they believe it to be observable. For
instance, photographs of sessions and details
of the equipment used, and so forth, are all a
comparatively small part of what conspires to make
a recording what it is. What we should be after, I
believe, are the tacit understandings and inherent
precepts bound up in the craft.
“For instance, almost all the Decca orchestral
recordings would have used the Decca tree, but
beyond that, those of Kenneth Wilkinson, for
instance, are generally accepted as being different
and special from those recordings made by his
colleagues. So I’ve developed this idea of the
engineer as a ‘beguiling stylist’, that is a person
who applies particular ideas about sound, perhaps
at times even without consciously thinking about
it, because it’s the outcome of many factors, such
as apprenticeship, direct experience – be it with
popular or classical music – and the idea of the
kind of sound that they want to hear. The engineer
is after all able to devise a sound that, within certain
parameters, he wants to hear.”
The producer’s job
I asked Andrew for his views on the relationship
with the producer. “So much about what happens
in recordings is about personalities. Of course it’s
very important that people work with those with
whom they can communicate well. Music is about
communication, and the producer needs to be able
to communicate at a very high level – between the
musicians on the one hand, and the production
team on the other. In essence they have to create
very rapidly an environment in which people can
communicate both ideas and music. In my view the
producer’s job in part is to create that environment,
CRC Winter 2008
which in turn allows the musicians to create
something pertaining to a performance.”
Following on from this I asked Andrew about
his views on the increasing homogenisation of the
sound of orchestral recordings, with the use of
artificial reverberation that give an attractive and
appropriately atmospheric sound. “It’s unfortunate
that so few really fine acoustics are available
for recording today. So it’s not surprising that
engineers turn to artifice in order to supplement
acoustics that are less than flattering. We all do it
from time to time – probably because we’re aware
that in its heyday the record industry led the
public to expect the glorious acoustics of Vienna’s
Musikverein and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw.
Unfortunately though, it isn’t possible to replace
the natural acoustic resonance, only to disguise
it. Digital reverb is a contrivance that simulates
real reverberation, but however realistic the
reverb might at first sound it isn’t real and its
initial impressiveness begins to pall with growing
familiarity. Even modern convolution reverb that
uses impulse responses to model real spaces is
artifice.
“I personally don’t like artificial reverberation
because it tends to stylise everything in much
the same way, submerging the uniqueness of a
particular acoustic space beneath a superficially
attractive sheen. One of the things I like about
very old 78rpm recordings is that in some cases
you can still make out the sound of the room, and
the reality of that is terrifically engaging. It’s as
though you’re transported to a particular room on
a particular occasion where you’re party to a real
live performance.” CRC
61
CRC Winter 2008
surface noise
Leslie Gerber says goodbye to his customers
P arnassus Records closed its mail order operation
on 1 October 2008. While the Parnassus CD
label will continue, I don’t expect that I shall ever
again be involved in a business which involves
direct contact with customers.
This is decidedly a mixed experience. The closing
had become necessary, not only because the business
was no longer making money, but also because the
long, frustrating, unfruitful hours of work were
taking my life away. When asked why I was closing
the business, I told one customer, “I want to be able
to read a book even when I’m not on vacation”. It
wasn’t an exaggeration. When a close friend recently
sent me advance proofs of his new novel, it took me
more than three weeks to finish it, even though it’s
a compelling book (City of Refuge, by Tom Piazza).
The demands of the business were simply too urgent
to allow enough reading time.
But the closing also involves heavy losses.
As anyone who has ever moved to another area
knows, it is very painful to lose contact with so
many friends at once. Many of my relationships
with customers have been completely formal and
businesslike. But since I took so many orders by
phone, I came to recognise dozens of voices, and
often customers would chat to me about a wide
variety of topics.
A couple of decades ago, I was browsing in
a used bookstore in Berkeley, California, clear
across the continent from my home. I recognised a
distinctive voice I’d previously heard only over the
phone, turned to the man, and said, “Michael? Hi,
I’m Leslie Gerber”.
Record collectors tend to be a gregarious
and friendly lot, so I’ve had good times with
many on the phone or in correspondence. One
well-known critic, a customer for decades,
met me in New Jersey almost 30 years ago. We
have continued to talk as friends on the phone
every month. Another customer, also a well-
known writer, ordered so many records that,
instead of writing his last name as I marked off
items in my catalogue they became noted only
by his last initial, “T”. Around the office we
began to refer to him as “Mr T”, after the TV
actor. I mentioned this to him once and he was
62
delighted, introducing himself thereafter as Mr
T when he called.
In my early days I did most of the work myself
with the help of my three daughters, whom I paid
like real employees. Since then, I’ve hired people by
placing newspaper ads. My office manager for more
than two decades was the wonderful Nancy Coager,
who responded to an ad. She had no knowledge
of or interest in classical music, but she is smart
and dedicated and served me and our customers
extremely well. (Her next career is going to be
running a small grocery store!) Our Lord High
Everything Else for 15 years, Mark Zip, is someone
I met when we worked at the same radio station.
He is very computer-savvy and maintained our
web presence and ran all our computer operations.
Although he grew up mostly in the UK and has
an obvious accent, customers often mistook us for
each other on the phone, something we both found
inexplicable.
There have been some customers who were
nuisances, like the Korean fellow who always
insisted on speaking to me or a male employee and
refused to do business with my very competent office
manager, a woman who usually wound up finding
the answers to his questions anyway. This same man
once placed the largest order we ever received, then
after we had prepared it for shipment, cancelled it.
Another customer once accused me of defrauding
him because he had ordered a CD by the Vienna
Philharmonic and received instead one which said
“Wiener Philharmoniker” on the sleeve.
Still, most of my encounters have been
extremely pleasant, and I’ll miss them. I’ll certainly
miss the occasional excitement of hearing from a
well-known musician looking for a recording –
usually one of his or her own, but not always.
While taking orders from my last catalogue,
I received a call from one particularly delightful
customer, a British fellow who lives in North
Carolina and who has always had something
amusing or interesting to share. As we concluded
the call, he observed, “You know, I have always
called you Mr Gerber”. “Well”, I replied, “that’s
hardly necessary”.
“Good”, he said. “Well, goodbye, Leslie”.
“Goodbye, James,” I answered, and hung up with a
tear in my eye. CRC

radio treasures revealed
Norbert Hornig I t is interesting that many
releases of
recordings now come from the archives of
historical
broadcast companies worldwide. ‘New’ old
recordings, never released on CD before, are
being issued by companies in cooperation with
broadcasting organisations. There are still treasures
to discover. In the United Kingdom BBC Legends
and Testament do great work, while in Germany
labels like Audite, Hänssler Classic and Profil
Edition Günter Hänssler have created completely
new editions based on broadcasting tapes. Audite,
renowned for its remastering and high quality
sound, has extended its “Legendary Recordings”
series with impressive new releases dedicated to
Ferenc Fricsay, Karl Böhm and Dietrich Fischer-
Dieskau. A new Herbert von Karajan edition has
been launched this year.
It is always refreshing to listen to the clear and
disciplined music-making of Fricsay. He established
the Berlin RIAS-Symphonie-Orchester as a first-
class ensemble after the second world war. His
recordings of Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 7
and 8 (C 95.593) and Mozart’s Symphonies
Nos. 29, 39 and 40 (C 95.596) are good examples
of his crisp style. Karl Böhm, well-known for his
readings of Richard Strauss’s tone poems, conducts
the same orchestra in brilliant interpretations
of Ein Heldenleben and Tod und Verklärung
(C 95.586). These recordings were made in
the Jesus-Christus-Kirche in Berlin-Dahlem.
This church was an important recording studio,
especially in the 1950s and 1960s: Karajan also
recorded there with the Berlin Philharmonic. The
sound quality and the remastering of the original
tapes by sound engineer Ludger Böckenhoff are
fantastic – this is mono at its best.
Two live recordings of Eugene Ormandy
conducting the RIAS-Symphonie-Orchester are
also amazing: Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4,
taped in the big hall of the Hochschule für Musik
in 1954, and Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 4,
with Robert Casadesus, recorded at the Titania-
Palast in 1952, are both of outstanding artistic
and technical quality (C 95.589). Audite has
also issued new discs in the “Edition Fischer-
Dieskau”, firstly a Lieder recital from two 1951/52
RIAS recording sessions in Berlin, containing
CRC Winter 2008
continental report
selected songs by Brahms and Beethoven
(C 95.601) and secondly a quite sensational
release, Fischer-Dieskau’s very first recording of
Schubert’s Winterreise – a ‘must’ for enthusiasts
and collectors (C 95.597). It is also interesting to
hear two different musical personalities, Wilhelm
Kempff and Karajan, in a recording of Mozart’s
Piano Concerto No. 20, K466. The concerto is
coupled with the Symphony No. 41, Jupiter, both
taped in early 1956 to honour the two-hundredth
anniversary of Mozart’s birth (C 95.602). Live
recordings of Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 3 and
9 (1953 and 1957) with the Berlin Philharmonic
under Karajan give a good impression of the
conductor’s early work with the orchestra (C
23.414, two discs).
Yehudi Menuhin’s first concerts in Berlin after
the war were significant events, since the violinist
was idolised as a bringer of peace and humanity. He
was invited to record the Tchaikovsky Concerto
(his only recording of the work), and Mozart’s
Concerto No. 4, K218, with the RIAS-Symphonie-
Orchester Berlin in 1949 and 1951 respectively,
and with Fricsay and Böhm conducting. Bach’s
“Chaconne”, recorded live in 1948 is far more
than an encore – it is very a very moving sound
document (C 95.588). There is yet another notable
new issue from Audite – the first official release of
Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, taped in Berlin 1952
under the baton of Alexander Smallens (who also
conducted the New York premiere in 1935). The
cast includes stars like William Warfield, Cab
Calloway and the young Leontyne Price in one
of her first recordings. This is quite captivating.
(C 23.405, two discs).
In 2008 Hänssler Classic launched a new
edition called “Historic”, in close collaboration
with the Südwestrundfunk radio station of
Stuttgart. The first CD is entitled “Dietrich
Fischer-Dieskau sings Bach”. All these recordings
from the 1950s are released on CD for the first
time – here the young baritone is at his best
(C 94.201). There is more good news for violin
enthusiasts and fans of Ida Haendel. From
Hänssler Classic come her recordings of the
Mendelssohn and Brahms concertos with the
Sinfonie-Orchester des Süddeutschen Rundfunks
under Hans Müller-Kray (C 94.202). CRC
63
CRC Winter 2008
letter from america
Mortimer H. Frank
W hatever the effects
of the worldwide
economic downturn, it does not seem to have
curtailed the continuing appearance of historical
reissues, sometimes in performances already
available from major labels. Two feature Toscanini
in familiar accounts originally issued by RCA: the
Verdi Requiem from 1951 (Opus Kura C 7040)
and Respighi’s three “Roman” tone poems: Pines,
Fountains and Festivals (Grand Slam C 2029).
Both are currently available from RCA, but each
in individual two-CD sets rather than in the single
disc that accommodates each of these newest
releases. RCA of course had access to original
tapes. In the case of the Verdi, Opus Kura’s source
is HMV LPs. Yet the sound of this new transfer is
hardly distinguishable from RCA’s, lacking only
a modicum of presence and impact that the older
edition features. The big difference between the
two involves Opus Kura allotting a mere seven
bands for the work. By contrast, RCA’s 19 bands
prove far more user-friendly. The Respighi disc has
been taken from RCA LPs having sound well ahead
of their time (1949 and 1953). Only occasional
slight surface noise and rumble intrude, the latter
eliminated when my sub-woofer, which functions
only below 50Hz, was turned off. Even by today’s
standards, these readings impress for their sonic
brilliance and dramatic flair.
For those not seeking EMI’s integral set of the
Beethoven nine symphonies with Furtwängler,
a single disc transfer of Symphonies Nos. 1 and
6 may prove attractive (Grand Slam C 2026).
Drawn from HMV LPs, the sound is typical Vienna
Philharmonic/Grosser Musikvereinsaal of the
period – slightly over-reverberant, with thin string
tone. An EMI LP and CD were both slightly less
coarse in sound but otherwise similar to this transfer.
Each performance, broadly paced, has beautiful
moments, though No. 6 is a bit loose-limbed.
Karajan is featured in three releases, the most
striking among them a live performance of the
Verdi Requiem from the 1949 Salzburg Festival.
With a white-heat intensity that he did not always
muster in the studio and four distinguished
soloists (Hilde Zadek, Margarete Klose, Helge
Rosvaenge, and Boris Christoff ), Karajan secured
a powerfully dramatic reading complemented
64
defying the downturn
by good sound marred only by an over-bright
treble requiring considerable trimming (Audite
C 23.415, 2 discs). With Walter Gieseking,
Karajan collaborated in seven works recorded
for Columbia between 1951 and 1953: Mozart’s
Concertos, K488 and 491, Beethoven’s Nos. 4 and
5, the single concertos of Grieg and Schumann,
and Franck’s Variations symphoniques. All of these
performances are included in EMI’s 88-CD box
of Karajan’s orchestral recordings. The transfers in
this 3-disc set, (Urania C 22.363), feature sound
indistinguishable from that of EMI’s. Throughout,
Gieseking’s typical elegance shines.
Orfeo continues its Szell/Salzburg series, this
time confined to the summer of 1957 and, with
two exceptions (the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto
with Milstein and Mozart’s Symphony No. 29)
a new two-disc Berlin Philharmonic set (C
C774083D) duplicates works that Szell recorded
for US Columbia: Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 and
(with Leon Fleisher) the Piano Concerto, K503,
Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony and Debussy’s La
mer. Owing to inferior sound, all, with little if any
change in interpretative view, are heard to better
advantage in the studio efforts. Of the other two,
the Mozart symphony is occasionally plodding, the
Mendelssohn Concerto magnificent and strikingly
similar to Milstein’s stunning studio account with
Bruno Walter.
Over many years “Transfer Guy” Mark
Obert-Thorn has gained distinction for his fine
historical restitutions. Not surprisingly, he has
just been awarded a Certificate of Merit for
lifetime achievements in the field of audio by
the Association of German Record Critics, the
first transfer engineer to be so honoured. Equally
merited is the recognition his work has received
from Andrew Rose, with whom he has reached an
agreement to produce a monthly release for Pristine
Audio. The first batch has appeared, and includes
Robert Heger’s 1930 recording of Goldmark’s
Rustic Wedding Symphony and rare wartime Czech
Philharmonic recordings with Talich and pianist
Winifried Wolf and cellist Wolfgang Schneiderhan.
Weingartner’s recordings with the Basel Orchestra
and early Monteux accounts of Stravinsky’s Sacre
du printemps and Ravel’s La valse are promised for
this most welcome series. CRC

books
BOOKS
65 Beecham biography
66 Lehmann biography
67 Suggia biography
DVDs
68 Bach/Tortelier
69 Brahms/Cliburn
69 Cilèa Adriana Lecouvreur etc
71 Shostakovich/Nikoleyeva
71 Ashkenazy documentary
72 Cliburn recital
73 Janowitz recital
CDs – ORCHESTRAL
73 Bach/Britten etc
74 Beethoven etc/Solti
75 Bruckner/Walter
75 Bruckner/Walter
75 Egk/Künneke/Schillings etc
76 Haydn/Mozart/F Busch
77 Shostakovich/Rozhdestvensky
77 Strauss/Kempe
78 Wagner/Ansermet
78 Arbós concert
79 Gibson concert
79 Koussevitzky concert
80 Lambert concert
80 Monteux concert
81 Stokowski concert
CDs – CHAMBER & INSTRUMENTAL
81 Bach etc/Bream etc
82 Bartók/Mozart/G Anda
83 British piano music
85 Beethoven etc/Suk Trio
85 Beethoven etc/Fournier
85 Elgar/Fournier
87 Tchaikovsky/Nikoleyeva
87 Y Bowen – complete recordings
88 J Hoffman – acoustic recordings
CDs – VOCAL AND CHORAL
89 Brahms Requiem/Giulini
89 Mahler etc/Baker etc
90 Supervia recital
CDs – OPERA
91 Gounod Faust
92 Moart Don Giovanni
92 Mozart Nozze di Figaro
94 Verdi Trovatore
95 Wagner Parsifal
CRC Winter 2008
reviews
BOOKS
Thomas Beecham: An Obsession with
Music
by John Lucas.
Published by The Boydell Press. 388 pages.
Hardback. £25.00. ISBN 978 1 84383 402 1.
Includes rehearsal CD.
At last: a biography that does justice to the one
English executive musician who bestrode the scene
for half a century here and abroad unchallenged
in his greatness as musical leader, impresario and
conductor of orchestras. Even though it is nearly
50 years since Beecham died there has never been a
biography of real stature. Charles Reid’s was good
on the early years, but at the conductor’s death in
1961 he rushed to completion with the whole of
the period after 1945, one of immense activity,
telescoped to a mere 20 pages. Neville Cardus
produced a memoir, undoubtedly affectionate
but replete with “stories”, a goodly number of the
author’s own invention; two interim efforts, and
a volume of essays lovingly collated by Beecham’s
old friend Humphrey Procter-Gregg, make up
the rest.
But now John Lucas has given us what has
been awaited for so long, a fully comprehensive
chronicle of what was an extraordinary life from
first to last and in a wealth of mesmerising detail,
whole swathes of which have previously been
completely unknown. For most people the main
outlines of Beecham’s career – his founding of
orchestras (notably the LPO in 1932, the RPO
in 1946) and the years of supremacy as head of
Covent Garden during the 1930s – have always
been generally familiar, but now we have an truly
authoritative account of the debacle that arose
out of his father’s plan in 1914 to buy the Covent
Garden Estate, which bedevilled his son’s career
financially for the rest of his life. And Beecham’s
war years, spent mostly in the USA, of which
hardly anything was known, are now unveiled to
reveal a Beecham rampaging around, conducting
orchestras that were frequently inferior, setting
off squibs and occasionally firing rather more
dangerous missiles, the whole scenario suggesting
nothing so much as a frustrated being in the
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wrong place at the wrong time and prevented
from producing his best work.
To recent generations much of this may seem
to have taken place a very long time ago, though
anyone interested in the social history of the time
will find it utterly fascinating. For the rest, at a time
when Beecham’s recordings are much less heard
than they once were and there is a real danger of
him disappearing from collective memory, this
exhaustively researched book could not have come
at a better time. People need to be reminded that
this was a man who commanded 90 operas, whose
orchestral repertoire ran (he once volunteered) to
“590 pieces”, was much sought as a guest conductor
by 75 orchestras around the world and who left a
vastly distinguished recorded legacy amassed over
50 years. When CD gave many of his last stereo
recordings new leases of life they again made their
way to the top of the charts, and now virtually
every Beecham disc has been reissued at one time
or another. It is impossible to single out even a few,
though John Lucas is right to identify Beecham’s
shameful under-use in the opera house, which can
never be pointed up more poignantly than when
one listens to his famous recordings of La bohème
and Carmen.
Beecham may have been a difficult man to deal
with: most artists are. In pursuing the “obsession
with music” of which John Lucas writes so
eloquently he no doubt drove people to their
limits. His personal energy was prodigious, and
associates and supporters alike generally panted
after him. He didn’t suffer fools gladly and he could
be cavalier with any stuffed-shirt who stood in his
way. Lucas calls him “a natural dissembler”, and
that is shown to be true of many of his dealings.
While generally using the BBC for his own ends
he ran rings around its officials, invariably using
his magnificent command of language to good
effect. When they offered him 25 guineas to
broadcast his re-working of The Bohemian Girl
from Covent Garden in 1951 he replied that he
had never in the course of a long career received
“such a preposterously inadequate, thoughtlessly
impudent and magnificently inept proposal or
offer from anyone”. Orchestral players, of course,
adored him, mostly for his uncanny ability to make
them play “miles above themselves”, but because
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he respected them as individuals and often treated
them as equals.
Many stories, true and apocryphal, will
inevitably surround such a colourful figure and
the book is well-stocked with them, although
its author has determined not to repeat any that
cannot be vouched for or shown to be true. It is
a pleasure to find to be true the tale of Beecham
enquiring of a lady after the health and situation
of her brother, only to be told, “He’s very well …
and he’s still King”. Many of the newer ones arise,
like most of the best, out of rehearsal situations.
I like him reprimanding an over-zealous tenor
at the Met: “You’re addressing a charming young
lady – not the US Senate”. There’s more fun in the
rehearsal record, a valuable adjunct, which comes
with the book and again shows different facets
of a remarkable character. But it’s all here in this
vividly entertaining, warts-and-all portrait: the
marriages and the love affairs, the battles with the
establishment and with the BBC, all recorded in
authentic detail. At the last, whatever conclusion
one comes to about Beecham the man, shining
through all the reports of his musical doings
around the world is his unquestioned supremacy
as a conductor. Beecham had genius; and genius
always comes at a price.
Lyndon Jenkins
Never Sang for Hitler: the Life and Times
of Lotte Lehmann
By Michael H. Kater
Published by Cambridge University Press. 416
pages. Hardback. ISBN 978-0-521-87392-5.
£19.99.
Singer biography is a difficult genre. The major
focus is performance and aural legacy. Reading an
unbroken series of triumphs has its limitations.
We often know little about a singer’s private life:
sometimes research seems hardly worthwhile when
we learn more.
Michael Kater’s book is a significant entrant into
the genre: he is the first biographer of Lehmann to
be able to make use of primary documentation,
much of which only became available after
previous works were completed. He gives a well-

books
documented picture of Lehmann’s life and career
even if most references in the 2,000 footnotes will
not be accessible for readers. The personal detail
can seem excessive and the book is not perhaps an
easy read. At the very end, though, the epilogue
is a fine summation of Lehmann the person and
the artist. Kater takes nothing away from her
greatness as a singer with a wonderful career in two
continents. Nonetheless she remained a product
of her own lower middle class background in
provincial Germany and she shared its cultural
limitations and prejudices. I think Kater finds this
juxtaposition rather baffling and it may cast some
light on his apparently strange choice of title Never
Sang for Hitler.
Michael Kater is a distinguished historian of
musical activity during the Third Reich, in which
context he has examined the activities of many
German composers and musicians. Some may recall
Opera 66 – the first and only issue of a new British
annual. Lehmann contributed a piece relating to a
discussion early in 1934 with Goering about the
possibility of a contract with the Staatsoper in
Berlin. The discussion came to nothing; Lehmann
seems never to have sung in Germany again, or
in Austria after the 1938 Anschluss. What has
clearly occasioned Kater’s wrath is that thereafter
Lehmann donned the mantle of a fervent anti-
Nazi even though she had clearly considered the
possibility of accepting Goering’s offer. I suspect
that like me most readers of that old annual had
forgotten all about the Lehmann article and/or
had attached to it no great importance. The truth
is that in 1934 all too few saw the dangers posed
to humanity by the Nazis. Lehmann was a German
national – continuing to live and work in Germany
after 1933 was not necessarily an indication of
Nazi sympathies. Lehmann’s sins were surely little
more than a mixture of naivety and some later
dissembling. As Kater himself has documented,
many musical performers and composers had far
worse records – and the same was true for many in
all walks of life.
This apart, Kater has made a valuable
contribution to our knowledge of the life and
career of Lotte Lehmann and his volume will be
an important addition to any collection of singer
biographies. But it does not necessarily replace
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previous work on Lehmann. Kater’s assessments
of contributions made by previous biographers
are surely unworthy. Although Beaumont Glass
had worked with Lehmann and heard many
of her performances, his Lehmann: A Life in
Opera and Song (1988) is simply dismissed as “in
essence a product of hagiography”. Alan Jefferson’s
Lotte Lehmann 1888-1976 is discarded equally
brutally – “a travelogue and a discography more
than a retelling of an artist’s life”. This is a bit of
a boomerang! For readers of CRC a discography
is surely a crucial element in any full-length
singer biography – both Glass and Jefferson offer
good discographies. Neither undertook a full
chronology – but Jefferson does give listings of
performances in those centres which played a key
role in Lehmann’s career. Kater offers none of this,
although rather curiously in the circumstances
he gives a cross reference to the discography by
Gary Hickling in the Glass volume. Kater’s own
references to Lehmann’s recordings are cursory.
He refers to a three discs Preiser set The Young
Lotte Lehmann, claiming that “since arias for the
Deutsche Grammophon and Odeon sessions were
duplicated and because of the bad technical quality
of the recordings, it is hard to say exactly when,
between 1918 and 1936, they were made”. I do not
know the Preiser reissue, but as a collector of 78s I
have many of the early records in original form and
the technical quality is well up with the best of the
time; and the Jefferson discography includes date
details for the original recordings. And, of course,
when all is said and done Lotte Lehmann will live
for ever through her extensive broad-ranging aural
legacy.
Stanley Henig
Guilhermina Suggia: Cellist
by Anita Mercier
Published by Ashgate
183 pages. Hardback. ISBN: 978-0-7546-6169-6.
£50.00 (or £45.00 from www.ashgate.com)
We needed a book in English on Guilhermina
Suggia and this one, which is handsomely
produced, will tell most people most of what they
want to know. As I made clear in my article for the
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CRC Summer issue (page 12), there is a notable
gap between the image of the Portuguese cellist
that has come down to us from contemporaries –
and especially via the Augustus John portrait in the
Tate Galley, which inevitably adorns the dust jacket
– and the idea we derive from Suggia’s recordings.
Mercier rather skirts this issue, in fact she says
very little about the records, although she provides
a discography in which names familiar to CRC
readers had a hand. She seems to think Suggia
chose to give up recording for HMV, although
as we know she was just one of many prominent
artists quietly dropped by the new EMI company
in the early 1930s.
Teaching and technical issues are also largely
ignored, so this is a biography for the general reader.
It was a strange concert career, virtually confined
to Britain and the Iberian peninsular after an early
flurry of appearances in other European countries.
I do feel more of the performances might have
been teased out – for instance, the three December
1932 Courtauld-Sargent concerts in which Suggia
played Haydn’s D major Concerto are listed in the
chronology, but not the fact that she participated in
the Sinfonia concertante in the same programme.
The life was an unusual one for the time, too:
Suggia lived with Pablo Casals for a time and may
well have had an abortion in 1907, early in their
relationship. Mercier makes some valid feminist
points but I am not sure that Suggia can be counted
among the freer spirits – she pretended to be
married to Casals and later wed an older man who
gave her security. It is pleasant to have the pianist
George Reeves fleshed out a little.
The book is very nicely designed, laid out and
printed; and errors are few. The photographs are
interesting and well chosen, although some are a
little dimly reproduced. Among the appendices are
Suggia’s few known writings.
Tully Potter
DVDs
Bach 6 Suites for Cello, BWV1007/12.
Paul Tortelier (vlc).
VAI mono F l 4481 (156mins; NTSC; Colour);
filmed at Abbaye St Michel de Cuxa, Prades, 7/90.
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Bach’s solo suites were daily bread to Paul
Tortelier, who made highly praised recordings in
the 1960s and 1980s, each time reflecting a new
edition published in conjunction with the discs.
I felt that the later interpretations, taped in the
Temple Church, London, were more integrated
– if some spontaneity had been lost, there was a
gain in wisdom and philosophical content. He
never played the Sixth Suite on the five-stringed
instrument envisaged by Bach but his ‘compromise’
interpretations lacked nothing in flair. These live
performances were filmed by Peter Ammann at
the Casals Festival. Tortelier had been told that he
needed heart surgery; but rather than cancel these
concerts which meant so much to him, he put off
the treatment. He died suddenly just months later.
The six films were made using three cameras and
from the angles involved I calculate that he played
Suites 1, 5 and 6 in one concert and Suites 2, 3 and
4 in the other. Here they are arranged in numerical
order. Why could his order of performance not
have been followed, so that we could have recreated
the full atmosphere?
Apart from that quibble, I have nothing but
praise and, just as I prefer Pierre Fournier’s live
Tokyo recordings to either of his studio cycles, so
this DVD is now my preferred method of hearing
Tortelier in this music. The sound is excellent and
the tiny blips inseparable from a live concert do
not materially affect my enjoyment. We see the
cellist from the left, right and front, this latter
camera being located below him, so that he looms
above us. Sometimes a close-up or a distant front
shot is used. We share fully in the physical aspects
of the performance, as the familiar lean, Quixote-
like figure wields his eloquent bow with terrific
power, intensity, athleticism and rhythmic vivacity.
Preludes are exploratory (with a fantastic fugato
in No.5), allemandes fluent, courantes airborne,
sarabandes grave and profound, minuets, gavottes
or bourrées vitally elegant, gigues straightforward
and emphatic, with plunging and kicking relish in
the dance.
Within those generalisations, of course, are a
host of gradations of energy, rhythm, bow pressure
and so on. Each suite is a miniature drama in six acts
for Tortelier and it becomes so for us too. Strongly
recommended to anyone who loves the music

DVDs
or the performer. Yan Pascal Tortelier provides a
loving, thoughtful booklet note.
Tully Potter
Brahms Variations and Fugue on a theme by
G. F. Handel, Op. 24a. Prokofiev Piano Sonata
No. 6 in A, Op. 82b. Rachmaninov Piano
Sonata No. 2 in B flat, Op. 36c.
Van Cliburn (pf ).
VAI F l 4455 (86mins; NTSC; B/W); filmed
Great Hall, Moscow Conservatory, c1960,
ab1972.
These live solo performances, taken from Russian
television, complement the other volumes in
this series, which comprise mainly concerto
recordings.
The sound for the Brahms is a little harsh.
Although a little grainy, the picture is still nice
and clear. Limited camera angles mean that for
long stretches we see Cliburn emoting but have no
chance of seeing what his hands are doing. When
the opportunity arises we can see just how Cliburn’s
long fingers elicit such a wide variety of tone from
his instrument. His reading is remarkable. He
reveals Brahms’s exploratory journey with a sort
of quixotic grace that runs through the whole,
yet which does not undersell the muscularity. The
more forceful, often staccato-led variations can be
given drily (a quality emphasised by the recording),
and the bass end as relayed is perhaps little light.
Cliburn’s structural grasp of the piece is without
doubt, though. An invaluable supplement to his
RCA audio recording.
The Prokofiev Sixth again reveals a penchant
for the lyrical passages, eschewing the granitic
approach to this repertoire of say, Richter. The
slow movement, in particular, is an oasis of calm,
tinged with the composer’s characteristic harmonic
twists, but this account is most memorable for the
mysterious opening of the finale, captured by the
pianist to perfection. The visual aspect here enables
us to see exactly how the height of approach to
Cliburn’s keyboard attacks helps determine his
tonal variety. As the camera pans away during this
finale, we see the two huge microphones around
the piano.
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It is the original 1913 version of the
Rachmaninov Second Sonata that features here.
If there is one pianist who is going to fight the
composer’s corner against charges of bombast, it is
Cliburn, and so it proves. Lyricism never gives way
to day-dreamy doodling, even in the “non allegro”
central movement. The piano sound is remarkably
true, given the 1960 provenance. Camera work is
generally unremarkable except for the occasional
sudden close-up of the pianist’s face, and some
shots are quite blurry. The finale is impressive, but
Cliburn’s bows and the audience response are cut
very short.
Colin Clarke
Cilèa Adriana Lecouvreur Montserrat
Caballé (sop) Adriana Lecouvreur; Fiorenza
Cossotto (mez) Princess de Bouillon; José
Carreras (ten) Maurizio; Attilio D’Orazi (bar)
Michonnet; Ivo Vinco (bass) Prince de Bouillon;
Piero Di Palma (ten) Abbé; Union of Japan
Professional Choruses; NHK Symphony
Orchestra / Gianfranco Masini.
VAI F l 4435 (147mins; Colour; NTSC); filmed
NHK Hall, Tokyo, 20/9/76.
Leoncavallo I pagliacci Plácido Domingo
(ten) Canio; Elena Mauti-Nunziata (sop)
Nedda Benito Di Bella (bar) Tonio; Lorenzo
Saccomani (bar) Silvio; Piero Di Palma (ten)
Beppe.
Mascagni Cavalleria rusticana Fiorenza
Cossotto (mez) Santuzza; Plácido Domingo
(ten) Turiddu; Attilio D’Orazi (bar) Alfio; Nella
Verri (mez) Mamma Lucia; Gabriella Novielli
(mez) Lola.
Union of Japan Professional Choruses; NHK
Symphony Orchestra / Oliviero De Fabritiis.
VAI F l 4438 (158mins; Colour; NTSC); filmed
NHK Hall, Tokyo, 5/9/76.
These two VAI publications, which began life as
Japanese television broadcasts, offer Italian-opera
performances in which high merit and obvious
weakness are interleaved; as the first part of this
sentence indicates, their provenance and genetic
makeup are a curious mixture. Tokyo’s first
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purpose-built opera house opened for business
only in 1997, so in earlier years its many fans
of European opera had to content themselves
with “seasons” performed in the broadcasting
authority’s concert hall and staffed with
international principals and local choruses. The
artistic ethos and outlook, at least as evidenced
by these 1976 accounts of Adriana Lecouvreur
and the Mascagni-Leoncavallo double bill, are
almost entirely based on and generated out of
Italian touring-company operatic knowhow.
Stock productions (the kind which across the
globe have nowadays largely been eradicated
from leading opera-house practice); the cross-
casting of lesser singers e.g. Attilio D’Orazi as
Michonnet and Alfio, Piero Di Palma, king of
the comprimarios, as the Abbé and Beppe; the
dominance of “house tradition” e.g. Tonio’s
curtain-closing last line in Pagliacci appropriated
by Canio; and a lavish supply of curtain calls –
these are just some of the characteristics which
may induce pleasure, nostalgia and/or mirth
according to the moment.
Exotic flavourings are added by the extreme
discipline of the Japanese supers and choral
groups, also the physical improbability of their
stage interventions as, variously, members of
the eighteenth-century Parisian demimonde
or nineteenth-century Sicilian peasantry; the
uniformly high standard of choral singing is
likewise uncharacteristic of the Italian touring-
company model. (Exotic too the Japanese subtitles
encrypted into both tapes: I minded them less than
the numerous misfires of spelling and translation
in their English equivalents.) Rootedly Italian,
nonetheless, is the determination to present the
works entirely in terms of drama-through-voice
and through what one might call “Leading Singer
Clout”. The Adriana, generously supplied in both
departments, becomes a thoroughly enjoyable
experience – much more so than I, a previously
convinced disliker of both Cilèa and his most
famous work, had been expecting. The conductor
of the double bill, the veteran De Fabritiis,
though he not infrequently allows ensemble to
loosen between pit and stage, paces both works
in the admirably spacious manner that flatters and
enhances their musical mood-painting.
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DVDs
In general, however, this latter DVD
demonstrates to a greater extent the disadvantages
of the Italian way of doing opera. In Pagliacci,
dramatically far the more interesting work, the
Tonio possesses a good strong top, a provincially
brassy manner of baritonal delivery and, in the
opera proper, a hard-worked limp and hump but no
theatrical qualities whatsoever; the Silvio has all the
sex appeal and stage magnetism of a primary school
headmaster. While Fiorenza Cossotto – who after
a full-tilt tragedy-queen “Voi lo sapete” manages to
slip out of role to acknowledge and milk audience
applause – does some tremendously powerful
singing as Santuzza, the hard-boiled personality
she communicates, to me at least, proves at odds
with the character’s essentially passionate, warm-
blooded nature; her top requires gear changes,
not to speak of face-pulling, indicative of wear
and tear to the mighty mezzo instrument (though
nothing like so apparent as when Cossotto showed
London a memorably awful version of the same
performance three years later). I like much more the
gutsy, well-sung Nedda of Elena Mauti-Nunziata,
and am grateful to be able to re-experience the
youthful freedom on stage, generosity of presence
and unstinted vocal outpouring of Domingo at this
period (Covent Garden had admired his Cav-Pag
marathon earlier in 1976). Later he was to become
a still more considered and subtle singer-actor of
Canio. His Turiddu is already a masterly portrayal:
sung with slancio, compelling to watch and look at
(a mama’s boy with chubbily handsome features and
glossy black locks), unafraid of the role’s unattractive
aspects, and lacking only the timbral stamp-of-
identity of the truly inhabitants of the role.
It is an even greater joy to re-encounter Caballé
and Carreras at the peak of their form and ability:
to anyone who only heard either in later, vocally
less luxuriant years, the sheer abundance and
Rolls-Royce security of their singing will come
as a revelation. Carreras, no actor, and physically
an unlikely war hero triumphantly returned from
battle, wins one over through sincerity, ardour,
lyrical grace and a beauty of timbre deeply moving
on its own account. Caballé’s art, not exactly that
of the “great actress of the Comédie-Française”, is
nevertheless astonishingly potent. She may require
her arias – above all “Io son l’umile ancella” – to go

DVDs
at snail’s pace (overall the conductor, Gianfranco
Masini, shows himself singer-friendly to the point
of slackness), but her spinning-out of line, tone
and phrase achieves majestic, at times hypnotic
command over the role and the spectator. Cossotto’s
jealous princess is far more her natural line of
business; Michonnet, a delicately crafted gift of a
role, suits D’Orazi better than Mascagni’s Alfio.
Cilèa’s shameless borrowing from the two Manons,
Massenet’s and Puccini’s, and endless refraining of
a handful of big tunes notwithstanding, the whole
work builds up a momentum, a “go” that for me it
entirely lacks in the rival Adriana DVD (Euroarts),
a 1999 relay from La Scala with Daniela Dessì and
Olga Borodina.
Max Loppert
Shostakovich 24 Preludes & Fugues, Op. 87.
Tatiana Nikolayeva (pf ).
Medici Arts F l 3085248 (164mins; NTSC;
Colour); rec. BBC Studios, 12/92.
Nikolayeva was intimately connected with the
creation of this music. Shostakovich was a member
of the jury which awarded her first prize at the
1950 Leipzig Bach Festival competition, and
they played together, with Pavel Serebriakov, in a
performance of one of Bach’s concertos for three
keyboards. Later that year, as Shostakovich wrote
his Preludes & Fugues over a period of four months,
he played the pieces for Nikolayeva. She gave
the world premiere performance of the complete
series in 1952 and continued to play them for the
remaining four decades of her life. She made three
audio recordings of the complete set: Melodiya
L S02377/84 (under the composer’ s direct
supervision, never on CD); Melodiya C 74321
19849-2, and almost simultaneously, Hyperion
C CDA66441/3. These video performances were
recorded in a studio (BBC Scotland if I caught a
hint correctly), without an audience. The camera
work, sound quality, and picture quality are all
first-rate. While some of Nikolayeva’s late CDs
were disappointing, she is in wonderful form here,
playing with all the colour, power, and subtlety
which characterise her best work. Other pianists
may have provoked more drama in this music, but
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Nikolayeva’s musical directness combined with
her very wide range of resources make this disc a
mesmerising experience, one to which I am sure I
will often return often.
A brief bonus documentary, using the same
performances, shows some tantalising glimpses of
Shostakovich himself at the piano. If the clip of the
Piano Quintet comes from a film of the complete
performance, that urgently needs to be published.
Medici Arts’s video and audio processing are
admirable, but the formatting makes it impossible
to play more than one chapter at a time unless one
starts from the beginning with “Play All”.
Leslie Gerber
Vladimir Ashkenazy – Master Musician
Documentary: The Vital Juices are Russiana; The
Conductorb; Rachmaninov Corelli Variations,
Op. 42 – discussion and performance.
Vladimir Ashkenazy (pf )c.
Allegro Films/The Christopher Nupen Films
F l A09CND (160mins; NTSC; B/W & Colour);
afilmed 1968; bfilmed various dates; cfilmed
1985.
The British director Christopher Nupen is
rightly esteemed for his friendly, affectionate and
charming film portraits of star musicians like
Jacqueline du Pré, Nathan Milstein, and Andrés
Segovia. So lively and disarming are Nupen’s films
that they convey the illusion that the musicians
being profiled are our intimate friends. The Nupen
approach clearly would not have worked with
performers legendary for their icy demeanour, like
Jascha Heifetz or Emanuel Feuermann, but the
present DVD has an ideal subject in the amiable,
much-recorded pianist and conductor Vladimir
Ashkenazy. It contains a 1968 film about the then
31-year-old Ashkenazy, in which his domestic life
is revealed in tight close-up, with subjects ranging
from a move to his Icelandic wife’s homeland with
his small children to his tense relationship with
the USSR. Shown wandering around London in a
1960s suit like a spy from The Quiller Memorandum
or some other period espionage film, Ashkenazy is
at his best when left alone with his artistry, playing
Beethoven’s Bagatelle, Op. 126, or a snippet
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of the Appassionata Sonata’s finale. Yielding to
the over-aggressive Daniel Barenboim (who
exclaims “Hard!” at one point) in the four-hand
arrangement of Stravinsky’s Sacre du printemps, or
an over-loud Itzhak Perlman in the Franck Sonata,
Ashkenazy makes his finest music here alone or as
a conductor. In excerpts from Nupen’s other films
about composers, Ashkenazy, who announced
his retirement from live piano recitals in 2007
due to arthritic problems, shows his command
leading the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
in Sibelius’s First Symphony and Tchaikovsky’s
Romeo and Juliet (mis-labelled in the otherwise
helpful DVD booklet as Swan Lake.) By contrast,
he assumes a schmaltzy Leonard Bernstein-esque
approach to Respighi’s Pines of Rome and his
beat seems to fall behind the orchestra during
a portion of the Mussorgsky/Ravel Pictures at
an Exhibition. A previously unpublished 1985
recital film from Lugano of Rachmaninov’s Corelli
Variations in dim available lighting lacks the crisply
detailed cinematography of the rest of the DVD,
yet the performance is compellingly haunted and
poignant, and as everywhere, sound quality is
admirably rich. Snippets of other Nupen films fill
out the DVD, but the refined, dignified rendition
of the Corelli Variations remains in the memory,
revealing the best of the work’s composer and of its
interpreter (who describes the work as containing
“everything from hopelessness to gloom”). The
overall impression is patiently positive, so that the
viewer can almost overlook Ashkenazy’s fleeting
moments of Russian despair and paradoxical
exaggeration, such as when he claims that Russia
has “no tradition” of performing Western, i.e. non-
Russian, music. A bravura DVD, all told, of high
interest to any collector who cares for keyboard
music.
Benjamin Ivry
Van Cliburn Rachmaninov. Piano Concerto
No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18a. Piano Concerto No. 3
in D minor, Op. 30b. Prelude in E flat, Op. 23 No.
6c. Schumann-Liszt. Widmungc. Solovyov-
Sedoy (arr. Cliburn). Moscow Nightsc.
Van Cliburn (pf ); abMoscow Philharmonic
Orchestra / Kirill Kondrashin.
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DVDs
VAI F l 4454 (95mins; NTSC; B/W); filmed
Great Hall, Moscow Conservatory, a1972,
bc1958.
Here is musical history: the Rachmaninov Third
Concerto here, plus encores, are taken from
Russian television footage of a winners’ concert
in 1958, Cliburn’s triumphant year in which he
was propelled to the status of US national hero.
It is worth persevering with the archive quality
of the film. The picture is rather distant and
flickers. It is also rather blurry (the amount of blur
varies disconcertingly), but the sound faithfully
reproduces Cliburn’s soft, caressing way with the
Third Concerto’s famous open octave theme,
just as it does his pearly touch. Also, orchestral
detailing is remarkably well caught, with fleeting
woodwind contributions that get lost in many a
modern version coming through here.
Kondrashin shapes the orchestral opening of
the Intermezzo lovingly; Cliburn’s later stormy
outburst serves as balance. There are some drop-
outs and congestion later on which make for
uncomfortable listening. Some of the camera
work is bizarre – at one point we can see only a
bassoon and Kondrashin’s left hand during a tutti.
The finale sparkles, though, with Cliburn’s touch
indicating fingers of steel. For better sound, one
should of course turn to Cliburn’s live New York
1953 account, again with Kondrashin and on
that occasion the Symphony of the Air. There are
three encores: a tasteful Rachmaninov prelude, a
gorgeous Widmung (with lots of audience shots)
and a syrupy Moscow Nights that elicits applause
from the audience when they recognise it.
The picture is pretty sharp for the Second
Concerto, and the sound of the piano well caught.
Mild distortion occurs occasionally. Kondrashin
shapes the big melodies with plenty of emotion but
without melodrama, outstripping the Chicagoans
under Reiner in Cliburn’s RCA recording. The
pianist’s keyboard command is nothing short of
patrician, his fluidity remarkable. The melodies
of the second movement are caught on the wing,
flowing and swelling gently, while the finale
marries outgoing virtuosity with a pearly tone and
overarching lyricism. Limited camera angles mean
we watch Cliburn for long periods, even when he

DVDs / CDs - orchestral
accompanies and the main interest lies elsewhere.
There are miscalculations, too – at the point of
the pianist’s final flourish, the camera lingers just
too long on the percussion section, leaving us to
hear the piano without seeing it. Nevertheless, an
important release. safely grazec. Anon (arr. Britten) God Save
Colin Clarke
Gundula Janowitz in concert – arias by
Handel, Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, Wagner and
Weber.
Gundula Janowitz (sop); Graz Philharmonic
Orchestra / Berislav Klobukar.
VAI F l 4458 (54mins; B & W; NTSC); filmed
Stefaniensaal, Graz, Austria, 1970.
Although Gundula Janowitz was born in Berlin,
she spent most of her childhood and early
adulthood in Graz. In her early thirties, she was
by 1970 already well launched into a successful
international career: this concert must have been
somewhat of a triumphal home-coming. Presented
on DVD it may seem rather short value – just
54 minutes. As might be expected, the singing is
beautiful, if somewhat lacking in characterisation.
Janowitz is mostly associated with the German
repertoire. Alternative and even earlier versions of
“Wie nahte mir der Schlummer” (Der Freischütz)
and “Dich teure Halle” (Tannhaüser) are available
on EMI/BBC Classic Archive (l DVB5996879).
She seems happier as a spinto than as a dramatic
soprano: the heart-warming version of “Crudele?...
Non mi dir” (Don Giovanni) contains the finest
singing on this DVD. Having said this, I will
enjoy returning to Janowitz’s version of Odabella’s
fearsome aria from Verdi’s Attila. I find it almost
impossible to imagine her in this role on stage,
but the aria has been very rarely recorded. Perhaps
inevitably for a concert recording, the whole
production seems somewhat static, especially in
black and white. There is certainly no sense of
there being staged versions of the operatic arias.
Rather it is a very sedate and traditional concert.
Janowitz herself – in an evening dress characteristic
of concerts at the time – contrasts with the male
dominated orchestra.
Stanley Henig
CRC Winter 2008
reviews
CDs ORCHESTRAL
J. S. Bach. Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 1-6,
BWV1046/51a. Suite No. 3, BWV1068 – Airb.
(arr. Bantock). Cantata, BWV208 – Sheep may
the Queend. Arne. Alfred – Rule Britanniae.
The Fairy Prince – Now the air shall ringf.
Clarke. Trumpet Voluntaryg. Byrd / Oldham
/ Tippett / Berkeley / Britten / Searle /
Walton. Sellinger’s Round – Variations on an
Elizabethan Themeh. Purcell. O Lord, Grant
the Queen a Long Lifei.
efiAldeburgh Festival Chorus /
efhiAldeburgh Festival Orchestra / aEnglish
Chamber Orchestra / dLondon Symphony
Chorus / dgLondon Symphony Orchestra
/ bcRoyal Opera House Orchestra, Covent
Garden / adghBenjamin Britten / efiImogen
Holst / bcSir Adrian Boult. efiVocal soloists.
Decca Eloquence mono/stereo B C 442
9521 (two discs; 151mins; ADD); rec. hefiParish
Church, Aldeburgh, 1953; bcKingsway Hall,
London, 1959; dgKingsway Hall, London, 1961;
aThe Maltings, Snape, 1968.
The main part of this interesting but eccentric
programme starts with Bach from the
acoustically presentable Maltings, followed
by several excerpts from the Coronation Year
Aldeburgh Festival of a decade and a half earlier
in the local Parish Church. The recordings and
performances vary between quite good and
merely well intentioned. Bach is performed in
the standard mid-twentieth-century manner
but with no great concessions to period style.
In the Concerto No. 2, as so often, solo trumpet
tends to overpower, but David Mason plays so
brilliantly that I remained full of admiration.
Emanuel Hurwitz, Richard Adeney and Peter
Graeme are the other soloists and this work is
probably the high point of the set. Overall,
the performances are not particularly gripping.
Concerto No. 1 tends to plod until the strong
final minuet where Ifor James and Anthony
Randall distinguish themselves in the florid
horn parts. No. 3 employs multiple strings
rather than the one instrument to a part that
73
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Bach would have expected. It is balanced well
except that the harpsichord is very remote. In
No. 4 Richard Adeney and Norman Knight
are the superb flautists, joining leader Emanuel
Hurwitz in stylish solo playing; but in No. 5,
although Adeney and Hurwitz are no less skilful,
harpsichordist Philip Ledger is balanced with
reticence even in the demanding first movement
solo, played with aplomb but heard from a
distance. No. 6 is far more successful. Britten’s
star players here included Cecil Aronowitz and
Emanuel Hurwitz on violas and the reading has
both clarity and firmness,
It must have been fun at the Aldeburgh Festival
in Coronation Year to have witnessed the premiere
of Variations on an Elizabethan Theme, where five
composers had been invited by Benjamin Britten
to join him in writing one variation each for this
occasion. The resulting work brings to mind the
phrase, “a good idea at the time”. The personality
of each composer does not really come through
except possibly for Tippett; the strings of the
Festival Orchestra seem to struggle. The remaining
Aldeburgh works are presented plainly in the same
dead acoustic – there is no comparison between
this and the excellent natural resonance of the later
Maltings building. Arne’s Rule Britannia was set
for tenor and soprano but Peter Pears takes all the
solo lines. This music is understated by everyone:
chorus, orchestra – even recording engineers.
The remaining Arne and Purcell pieces are given
with more enthusiasm but one is reminded of a
local concert at a village hall and despite some
excellent singing, the performances do not rise
much above that level, After the two romantic
Bach arrangements, lovingly conducted by Sir
Adrian Boult, Britten’s highly individual setting
of the National Anthem is played rousingly, but
unfortunately the most exciting of the verses is
omitted – a shame because I have always liked the
idea of the Queen’s enemies having their knavish
tricks frustrated. As for the Trumpet Voluntary,
this is a very suitable showpiece to conclude a
particularly English pair of CDs. My reaction to
the whole programme is English too – not a great
success but then we English always admire a good
try.
Antony Hodgson
74
CDs - orchestral
Beethoven Symphony No. 3 in E flat, Op.
55 Eroicaa. Wagner Götterdämmerung –
Siegfried’s Rhine Journeyb; Tristan und Isolde
– Prelude & Liebestodc.
cBirgit Nilsson (sop); aLondon Symphony
Orchestra; bcCovent Garden Orchestra / Sir
Georg Solti.
BBC Music Legends mono M C BBCL4239-3
(79mins; ADD); rec. aRoyal Festival Hall, London,
30/1/68; bcRoyal Albert Hall, London, 6/9/63.
A concern of Solti’s that the Beethoven Funeral
March should not “drag” is reported in the
booklet. In this performance it runs for 17’16”, but
his widely divergent 1972 and 1989 commercial
recordings for Decca, both with the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra, have timings of 18’ 05” and
15’16” respectively, and suggest a comparatively
late shift between the conductor’s two declared
polar influences, Furtwängler and Toscanini. Solti
brings depth and dignity to the movement here. In
general this is a very musical, well-played account –
I have enjoyed listening to it several times, although
I am left feeling that Solti brings more efficiency
than revelations to the performance.
He is more in his element stylistically in the
Wagner (and with his own orchestra). He cuts
abruptly into the Götterdämmerung music 1’48”
before the orchestral interlude proper (at the
offstage horn calls) and this is an engaging account,
if without the magnificence of the same excerpt
played by the Vienna Philharmonic in Decca’s
complete recording of the opera which took place
the following year. The BBC tapes remastered
by Paul Baily compare well with those produced
by John Culshaw for Decca. The Tristan Prelude
loses some momentum shortly before the climax,
but picks up. Several hall noises intrude before we
hear Birgit Nilsson, and the vociferous applause
comes in far too precipitately, if unsurprisingly,
at the end. Both technically and artistically her
“Liebestod” surpasses the 1959 studio recording
with Knappertsbusch (Decca L SXL2184);
that was distantly balanced, while here the BBC
engineers did not flinch from the volume of sound
Nilsson produced – some slight vagaries suggest
movement to and from the microphone stand.
Christopher Breunig

CDs - orchestral
Bruckner Symphony No. 7 in E. Gluck
Iphigénie en Aulide – Overture.
New York Philharmonic Orchestra / Bruno
Walter.
Testament mono M C SBT1424 (67mins; ADD);
rec. Carnegie Hall, New York, 23/12/54.
Remastering producer Jon L. Samuels writes in
fascinating detail – if you can cope with Testament’s
minuscule type-face – about Bruno Walter’s various
Bruckner performances and “Indian Summer”
Columbia SO recordings. He came late to the
composer’s music and no-one who has the CBS
Mahler Symphony No. 9 set (L SBRG72068-
9) is likely to forget, from the included eightieth
birthday interview, Walter’s observation that “it’s
what the birds sing every morning!”.
Lost for many years were tapes intended, but
not used, for broadcasts of two consecutive 1954
programmes which also included the violinist Josef
Szigeti in the Andante from Bartók’s Two Portraits
and Bach’s (transcribed) Concerto, BWV1056.
Samuels notes that flaws forbade their inclusion
here. Walter habitually conducted the Gluck in
Wagner’s arrangement – I find this performance
somewhat heavy and without the conviction
evident in Furtwängler’s old VPO version (EMI C
5 66770-2).
The Bruckner is 8’38” shorter than in 1961 but
has the same proportional timings. Walter doesn’t
quite differentiate with the subtlety of Jochum or
Karajan between Allegro and Adagio: he presses
forward in the second movement (where he
eschews the cymbal clash). The Scherzo is very fast,
somewhat blurred by the reverberant acoustic and
also because the execution is untidy. There’s some
tape congestion – the end of the first movement
is messy – and maybe the New York brass were
less baleful in tone/tuning than they appear.
Walter’s impetuous flexibility will require some
mental adjustment for listeners attuned to his later
recordings.
Christopher Breunig
Bruckner Symphony No. 9 in D minor.
Wagner Siegfried Idyll.
New York Philharmonic-Symphony
CRC Winter 2008
reviews
Orchestra / Bruno Walter.
Music & Arts mono M C CD1212 (67mins;
ADD); rec. Carnegie Hall, New York, 10/2/57.
Collectors will be most familiar with the two 1959
CBS recordings of these works (L SBRG72057 and
SBRG72143, respectively). Subsequently reissued
with painstaking rehearsal excerpts (L 61772/3),
the Siegfried Idyll was Walter’s sixth studio version.
Intimate in scale and with some lovely playing it
preserves the sense of a serenade. And that’s the
problem with this live performance, where Walter’s
speed changes sound fussy and counter-productive.
That said, the coda is beautifully serene.
I remember buying his Bruckner Ninth as
a palliative to the grim-sounding Horenstein
recording on Vox. According to the lengthy
analytical note by Mark Kluge (which has no fewer
than 21 footnote references – even one to CRC),
Bruno Walter had performed the Ninth with
every major American orchestra between 1946-
55, making subtle scoring changes, enumerated
here, although stating allegiance to Orel’s original
edition. Those characteristic changes of pace work
well in this powerful, focused account. Perhaps
most surprising are the playfulness the conductor
finds in the trio of the Scherzo and the tremendous
acceleration he makes at the ends of the outer
Scherzo sections. These are considerably toned
down in the CBS version, which again has some
lovely playing but now sounds relatively bland.
The reproduction is adequately clean; lightly
scored sections have plenty of presence but
dynamics have obviously been levelled and so
orchestral fortes don’t sound louder.
Christopher Breunig
Egk Joan von Zarissa – excerptsa. Künneke
Tänzerische Suiteb. Schillings Mona Lisa
– Prelude & Serenadec. Schreker Kleine
Suited. Wagner Tristan und Isolde – Prelude &
Liebestod – excerptse.
aParis Opéra Orchestra / Werner Egk. Berlin
Philharmonic Orchestra / bEduard Künneke;
dFranz Schreker. Berlin State Opera
Orchestra / cMax von Schillings; eSiegfried
Wagner.
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Dutton mono B C CDBP9787 (75mins; ADD);
rec. aParis, 21/7/42; Berlin b14/2/38; c26/4/29;
d1931; e11/10/26.
At bargain price this disc, entitled “German
composers conduct”, is well worth investigating
for those with an interest in unusual composer
recordings of the 78rpm era. The odd man out
is Siegfried Wagner, who conducts his father’s
music. Siegfried did in fact record the overture
to his own opera Die Bärenhäuter, which is quite
a jolly, lively piece, but it is a rare late Parlophon
acoustic and presumably no copy was available.
The Tristan excerpt is a poor substitute, since
although billed as the “Vorspiel und Liebestod”
we only get the last third of the Prelude plus the
“Liebestod”, in somewhat meagre sound.
Künneke’s Tänzerische Suite is an oddity,
a concerto in five movements for jazz band
and orchestra, and a strange departure for this
minor composer of operettas and film music.
After its composition the Suite enjoyed a certain
reputation, sufficient that the BPO should record
it in a then state of the art Telefunken recording
(the jazz band, if it was a separate body, is not
named). At a superficial level it is quite a fun
piece, but at half an hour in length some listeners
may find that it outstays its welcome.
Max von Schillings was a fine conductor who
recorded a fair amount of German Romantic
repertoire. He also recorded his own, rather
strange work called Das Hexenlied, for speaker
and orchestra. The excerpts from Mona Lisa
are in fairly conventional neo-Romantic style.
The production of Werner Egk’s ballet Joan von
Zahissa in occupied Paris earned the composer
some notoriety, but the music itself is pleasant
and unremarkable. If they were unwilling
collaborators the players of the Paris Opéra
Orchestra perform remarkably well for the
composer.
Musically head and shoulders above anything
else on the disc – apart from the truncated Wagner
– is Franz Schreker’s “Little Suite” for chamber
orchestra, a most imaginative and individual
work, with a particularly haunting Canon.
Transfers are generally of good quality.
Alan Sanders
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CDs - orchestral
Haydn Symphony No. 88 in G, HobI:88a.
Sinfonia concertante in B flat, HobI:105b.
Mozart Symphony No. 36 in C, K425, Linzc.
Serenade No. 13 in G, K525, Eine kleine
Nachtmusikd.
bLeo Hansen (vn); bWaldemar Wolsing
(ob); bCarl Bloch (bn); bAlberto Medici (vc);
Danish State Radio Symphony Orchestra /
Fritz Busch.
Guild Historical mono M C GHCD2339
(77mins; ADD); from HMV and Telefunken
originals; rec. a4 & 7/11/49; b26-27/1/51;
c7/11/49; d25/2/37.
The Danish State Radio Symphony Orchestra was
trained by superb conductors: Launy Grøndahl
was the principal and in the 1930s the Ukrainian
Nicolai Malko (1883-1961) was brought in to
acquaint the players with the Slavonic repertoire,
while the German Fritz Busch (1890-1951)
fulfilled a similar function for the classics. Busch’s
witty, crisp, rhythmically vivid Mozart recordings
from Glyndebourne Festival Opera, of which he
was principal conductor from 1934 to 1951, are
rightly treasured by collectors (and recently issued
on Naxos). Although Busch made his mark as a
conductor of opera, his work in the Haydn-Mozart
repertory is particularly valuable, because he was one
of the rare conductors able to grasp the full cultural
and emotional impact of these Enlightenment
composers. Guild’s idea to reissue these studio
performances was excellent, although mention of
the soloists in Haydn’s Sinfonia concertante would
have been welcome. Eine kleine Nachtmusik and the
Haydn performances are Busch’s only recordings of
these works – and that of Symphony No. 88 has
had very little exposure on CD – but he did record
a somewhat more supple Linz Symphony with
the BBC SO in 1934 (transferred on Biddulph C
83066-2). Despite this duplication, no collector
with a taste for Haydn and Mozart will want to be
without this precious new release. Busch’s Haydn
is wise and witty without ever being smart-alecky,
while his Mozart is ardently emotional without
ever being meltingly sentimental, as were some
acclaimed Mozartians of his generation. Unlike
allied arts like poetry, prose, and painting, music
can communicate ineffable human qualities of

CDs - orchestral
its interpreters, and Busch’s status as a righteous
man is not merely coincidental with his status as
a mighty musician. The HMV and Telefunken
sources have provided clear sound, and insofar as
Busch’s artistry was constantly elevated throughout
his career, these performances are notably more
listenable than some reissues of his performances.
Benjamin Ivry
Shostakovich Symphony No. 6a; Symphony
No. 12b. J Strauss II Nichevo Polkac;
(arr. Shostakovich) Excursion Train Polkad.
Youmans (arr. Shostakovich) Tahiti Trote.
aBBC Symphony Orchestra;
bcdePhilharmonia Orchestra / Gennadi
Rozhdestvensky.
BBC Legends mono/ astereo M C BBCL4242-
2 (73mins; ADD); rec. bUsher Hall, Edinburgh,
4/9/62; aRoyal Festival Hall, London 10/12/80;
cdeRoyal Albert Hall, London, 14/8/61.
Eighteen years separates the performances of the
two Shostakovich symphonies on this new issue,
and the difference in approach between the two
performances is noticeable. The Twelfth Symphony
was receiving its performance at a time when the
Cold War was only just beginning to thaw. In his
insert note, Mike Ashman includes comments
from one of the Philharmonia Orchestra’s
violinists, Gillian Eastwood, who recalled that
Rozhdestvensky rehearsed the orchestra without
any spoken comments in English, relying totally
upon gesture and the use of rehearsal numbers,
with occasional reference to the composer who was
present. The result is a highly ‘Soviet’ performance:
very direct and extremely muscular. The music is of a
similar style and so composition and interpretation
are in fact well-matched.
By 1980 Rozhdestvensky was ensconced in the
United Kingdom as chief conductor of the BBC
Symphony Orchestra. The performance of the
Sixth Symphony which they gave at the Proms
that year is very good indeed. The long opening
slow movement is vividly characterised, as are
the symphony’s two concluding fast movements,
if in a totally different manner. The reading has
considerably greater subtlety than that of the
CRC Winter 2008
reviews
Twelfth, and probes deeply under the surface of
the music. And the later recorded sound is, not
surprisingly, noticeably fuller. The three “lollipops”
make for a humorous ending to an emotionally
demanding programme, even if there is a hint of
perhaps unintended irony.
David Patmore
Strauss Eine Alpensinfonie, Op. 64a; Horn
Concerto No 1 in E flat, Op. 11b.
bAlan Civil (hn); Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra / Rudolf Kempe.
Testament M C SBT1428 (66mins; ADD); rec.
Kingsway Hall, London, a27/4/66; b13/4/67.
The Royal Philharmonic was playing superbly
during the time of Kempe’s directorship (1963-75)
and in his excellent notes Mike Ashman portrays
the period clearly with particular reference to
the events surrounding this recording. He relates
RCA’s boasting (but accurate) publicity at that
time which declared that the orchestra numbered
130 and included 20 horns, six trumpets, six
trombones, organ, wind machine, thunder machine
and heckelphone. The Kingsway Hall acoustic was
ideal for Strauss. The sound differs considerably
from that of EMI’s weighty (and admirable)
1971 Dresden version of the Alpine Symphony
but Kenneth Wilkinson’s skilful combination of
clear detail within a spacious acoustic makes this
reissue an ear-catching experience and a tribute to
engineering techniques of 40 years ago.
Kempe was a consummate Straussian and
Richard Strauss was an amazing orchestrator.
Colleagues have told me of Kempe’s
professionalism in the studio and I feel sure that
his extraordinary ear for detail would have been
of great assistance to the engineering team. The
work is more a gigantic symphonic poem than a
symphony but the booklet’s detailed annotations
of the scenes are very helpful, with descriptions
and timings given for the performance’s 22
tracks.
A particular feature is the remarkable inner
detail among the woodwind and even when there
are complex patterns also being played by the many
other instruments it is a tribute to the engineering
77
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team that delicate high percussion is able to sparkle
its way through, even when being struck gently.
Not surprisingly the Storm (and Kempe’s thrilling
account of the calm before it) is the sonic highlight
of the disc. It may seem an old-fashioned comment,
but the wide stereo spread enhances everything.
The Horn Concerto (a very modern-sounding
work composed a century and a quarter ago), is
played with immaculate precision and great depth
of feeling by Alan Civil. Mike Ashman’s written
sketch of this artist is very revealing and entirely
relevant. The concerto is placed first on the disc
and represents an ideal prelude to the symphony.
These are top-drawer analogue recordings
that stand comparison with many modern digital
issues.
Antony Hodgson
Wagner Lohengrin – Act I Prelude;
Götterdämmerung – Siegfried’s Funeral March;
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg – Act I Prelude;
Parsifal – Act I Prelude & Good Friday Music.
Suisse Romande Orchestra / Ernest
Ansermet.
Decca Eloquence B C 480 0567 (51mins;
ADD); rec. Victoria Hall, Geneva, 11/63.
A few years ago a comprehensive Ansermet
Edition was released in Japan, but it was not
distributed worldwide. Earlier this year, Decca
Eloquence announced a similar Ansermet
edition. They have started to release discs in their
series, including this item, whose content is issued
internationally on CD for the first time. Unlike
the Japanese edition this disc has notes in English,
and is made available at super budget price.
Many commentators have described Ansermet
as a French music expert, but I tend to remember
him not as a specialist but as a good all-round
conductor. This disc proves the point. The Suisse
Romande is often described as a second-rate
orchestra that recorded repertoire for Decca
where inaccuracies were not too critical. This
is a completely misguided viewpoint, since
performances of Debussy and Ravel, for example,
need total accuracy in the playing to be successful,
a quality which many of Ansermet’s discs possess.
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CDs - orchestral
The tonal splendour of the orchestra is not
like that of the Berlin Philharmonic or Vienna
Philharmonic, but as long as our expectations are
toned down a bit there is absolutely no problem
with the Swiss band in this repertoire. What we get
is accuracy of playing, with very little Romantic
emphasis, a little dryer than we might expect, but
which nevertheless presents the music precisely
and without the mannerisms that can and often
do conflict in other conductors’ performances.
Very refreshing.
If you want to hear orchestral excerpts of
Wagner played as written then this disc is well
worth hearing. There are more lush recordings
available, but this one is both very interesting
and in no way deficient in excitement. I am
looking forward to further issues in the series
and can recommend this disc with confidence.
My recommendation is made without taking into
account the very low asking price.
John Phillips
Enrique Fernández Arbós. Albéniz (arr.
Arbós) Iberia – excerpts. Navarra. Arbós Noche
de Arabia. Bretón Polo gitana. En la Alhambra.
Falla El sombrero de tres picos – Three dances.
Granados Danza española No. 6. Goyescas –
Intermezzo. Turina Danzas fantásticas, Op. 22
– excerpts. La procesión del Rocio, Op. 9.
Madrid Symphony Orchestra / Enrique
Fernández Arbós.
Dutton mono B C CDBP9782 (75mins; ADD);
rec. Madrid, 4/28.
Enrique Fernández Arbos (1863-1939) was an
important Spanish musician of his time. As a violinist
he played Bach’s Double Concerto with Joachim in
London and led the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
during the 1890s. For 20 years he was professor of
violin at the Royal College of Music in London.
His compositions, mostly light in character, were
played in Spain, and he gained a high reputation as a
conductor of Spanish music in Europe and America.
He was appointed conductor of the Madrid
Symphony Orchestra in 1904 and worked with this
body until his retirement in 1936.
Nowadays Arbós is best remembered for his

CDs - orchestral
brilliant orchestration of five movements from
Albéniz’s piano suite Iberia. He recorded all
five for Spanish Columbia, but only three are
reproduced on the new CD, from the abridged
set issued in the UK, where Granados’s Danza
española acted as fill-up. Here and in the Falla
dances the playing is particularly spirited, and has
a peculiarly and quite attractive raw quality which
could well reflect the local orchestral sound of the
time heard creatively in their minds by Falla and
his fellow Spanish composers. Arbós did only
record two of the three Turina Danzas fantasticas,
and he brings plenty of colour to these and the
Procesion del Rocio. His own Noche de Arabia is
an unpretentious but pleasant picture-postcard
piece. Inevitably there is a certain sameness
in the programme, but at bargain price it is a
valuable souvenir of a significant musician. The
original recordings, clear but slightly shrill, have
been faithfully transferred, though I would have
preferred there to be no stereo reverberation.
Alan Sanders
Alexander Gibson. Arnold Overture, Tam
O’Shanter. Gounod Faust – Ballet Musica;
Funeral March of a Marionetteb. Humperdinck
Hänsel und Gretel – Witch’s Ride. Liszt
Mephisto Waltz No. 1. Mussorgsky (orch.
Ravel) Pictures at an Exhibition – Gnomus.
(arr. Rimsky-Korsakov) A Night on the Bare
Mountain. Saint-Saëns Danse macabre, Op. 40.
New Symphony Orchestra; abRoyal
Opera House Orchestra, Covent Garden /
Alexander Gibson.
Decca Eloquence B C 442 9985 (65mins;
ADD); rec. Kingsway Hall, London, 12/57;
ab2/59.
All except the Gounod items originally appeared
as a 1959 LP entitled “Witches’ Brew”, recorded
and produced by Decca but issued on RCA.
Since the content was diverse and played by a
lesser-known ensemble under a young British
conductor, it was a doubtful commercial
prospect whose fortunes were further damaged
by a poor review in The Gramophone. In later
years the original LP gained a high reputation
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as an “audiophile” recording and its rarity has
ensured that used copies have changed hands at
extremely high prices.
I don’t possess the original edition, and a
Decca LP reissue (L SPA175) may not possess
the same qualities, but its very good sound is
similar to that on the new CD. Gibson was a
highly talented conductor: he obtains particularly
brilliant playing in the Arnold overture and the
other performances are pretty lively. The Gounod
pieces come from a slightly later LP: the Funeral
March is played in a delightfully tongue-in-cheek
fashion, and Gibson brings plenty of charm to
the Faust ballet music.
Alan Sanders
Serge Koussevitzky. Mussorgsky. A Night
on the Bare Mountaina; Khovanshchina –
Prelude; Tchaikovsky. Francesca da Rimini,
Op. 32; Vaughan Williams. Symphony No. 5
in Db. Boston Symphony Orchestra / Serge
Koussevitzky.
Guild mono M C GHCD2324 (78mins;
ADD); rec. a30/12/44; b4/3/47; remainder
unspecified, 1943-48.
Here different aspects of Koussevitzky’s greatness
are revealed in a series of live recordings.
Mussorgsky’s Night evokes a truly terrifying
experience in a performance of extraordinary
weight and vividness: the 1944 recording is
good, as it is in a touchingly tender account of
the same composer’s evocation of dawn breaking
over the Moscow River. Tchaikovsky’s epic
Symphonic Fantasy doesn’t quite have the white
heat in performance possessed by Night on a
Bare Mountain, and the sound is not so well-
defined, but it still has sufficient passion and
excitement to rival nearly all other performances
one has heard. Koussevitzky was most at home in
Russian and French music, maybe, but he was a
dedicated champion of contemporary scores and
he conducted a good deal of British music. His
account of the Vaughan Williams has superficial
similarities with the composer’s own realisation of
the score (Somm C SOMMCD071 – reviewed
in the Spring issue, page 76), particularly in its
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strong, alert rhythmic quality and in the way
that emotional expression is conveyed vividly
but quietly and naturally, without being pointed.
The Bostoners seem to be perfectly inside the
music, as if it was second nature. Unfortunately
the recording here is not brilliant for 1947,
rather edgy and with a lot of background noise.
If you are not familiar with Koussevitzky’s art
this disc as a whole gives a good impression of
his qualities.
Alan Sanders
Constant Lambert. Boyce (arr. Lambert)
The Prospect before usa. Meyerbeer (arr.
Lambert) Les patineurs (abridged)b. cRossini
Guillaume Tell – Ballet musicc. Tchaikovsky
The Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66 – Suited.
Sadler’s Wells Orchestra / Constant
Lambert.
Somm Céleste mono M C SOMMCD080
(71mins; ADD); rec. Kingsway Hall, London,
bc8/5/39; d10/2/39; aEMI Studio No. 1,
London, 1/8/40.
Lambert’s reputation as a supreme ballet conductor
is borne out by these recordings. He was music
director of the ballet company whose orchestra
this was, and must have conducted all this disc’s
music on very many occasions (except the Rossini,
which was specially prepared for the recording).
The playing of the smallish ensemble is superlative:
could it be that the personnel were stiffened by
extras for the sessions? Somehow I doubt it, since
the musicians clearly have (nearly all) the music
in their blood. But there is nothing routine about
the performances. Lambert inspires rhythmically
alert, affectionate and stylish playing throughout,
and a highlight of the Sleeping Beauty suite is a
deliciously exaggerated cats’ duet. The high quality
of the original Rossini and Tchaikovsky scores is
not quite matched elsewhere, for though Lambert’s
effective arrangements from two Meyerbeer
operas have stood the test of time, his collection
of transcriptions of movements from Boyce’s
symphonies and trio sonatas now sound dated. The
recordings sound very good for their time.
Alan Sanders
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CDs - orchestral
Pierre Monteux. Borodin Prince Igor –
Polovtsian Dancesa. Rimsky-Korsakov
Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34b; Russian Easter
Festival Overture, Op. 36c. Christmas Eve –
Christmas Nightd. Stravinsky Le sacre du
printempse.
abcdSan Francisco Symphony Orchestra;
eBoston Symphony Orchestra / Pierre
Monteux.
Guild Historical mono M C GHCD 2342
(77mins; ADD) rec. a23/12/51; b2/3/52;
c13/4/52; 19/12/43; e14/4/57.
Pierre Monteux (1875-1964) made no studio
recordings of the Rimsky-Korsakov works on
this Russian repertoire disc. His excellence in
Russian music is no surprise, given his splendid
track record in all kinds of music. The vivid
orchestral colour and dancing dynamism
which he drew from the less-than-top-level San
Francisco orchestra is noteworthy: a legacy of
his Paris days, when as chief conductor of the
Ballets Russes from 1911 to 1914, he apparently
imbued the music of Rimsky and Borodin with a
terpsichorean sensuousness. As conductor of the
premiere of Stravinsky’s Sacre du printemps (1913)
– as well as his Petrushka (1911) and Le rossignol
(1914) – Monteux was historically linked to
a composer with whom he never felt extreme
sympathy; sometimes he even claimed to “hate”
the Sacre. Collectors will be familiar with his
1929 Paris recording with the “Grand Orchestre
Symphonique” (Pearl C GEMM 9329). His
stellar 1945 San Francisco recording (RCA C
GD86529) and 1951 Boston Symphony reading
(RCA C 09026 61898-2) were followed by more
1950s recordings, of which a definite highlight is
this 1957 live account with the Boston Symphony
Orchestra. The performance of a work for which
Monteux felt mixed emotions is imbued with
the Indian summer warmth characteristic of
his later BSO performances. It is a sympathetic
and likeable rendition of a work all too often
led with excessive mechanical percussiveness
by today’s maestros. All of the works on this
welcome CD are evidence of Monteux’s lyric
gift, which is an essential part of the magic of
his conducting. His interpretations, whether in

CDs - orchestral / chamber & instrumental
the noble dignity of the Russian Easter Festival
Overture and “Christmas Night” or the lush
sensuousness of the Capriccio espagnol, underline
his status as a vastly accomplished musician of
wide-ranging appetite. As collectors know, few
if any great conductors have a higher percentage
of successful performances per recordings made
than Monteux, and this radiant new CD is no
exception. Although some of Guild’s otherwise
excellent historical issues have been in indifferent
sound, this is not the case of the present release,
which provides undiluted enjoyment.
Benjamin Ivry
Leopold Stokowski. Debussy Nocturnesa.
Enescu Rumanian Rhapsodies Nos. 1b & 2c.
Stravinsky L’Oiseau de feu – Suite (1919)d.
Wagner Die Walküre – Ride of the Valkyriese.
aRobert Shaw Chorale of Women’s
Voices; abcdHis Symphony Orchestra;
eAll-American Youth Orchestra / Leopold
Stokowski.
Cala mono/dbinaural M C CACD0549
(75mins; ADD); rec. Manhattan Center, New
York, a11/10 & 10/11/50; b17/4/53; c1/10/53;
d24/5 & 7/6/50; eHollywood, USA, 3/7/41.
The indefatigable work of the Leopold Stokowski
Society in conjunction with Cala continues with
another winning release. With the professed aim
of showing Stokowski as “The Eternal Magician”,
this new issue brings together performances of
four magnificent orchestral showpieces which
show the conductor’s qualities to great effect.
Three of the recordings are taken from LPs made
by the master for RCA during the early 1950s
with “His Symphony Orchestra”, an ensemble
made up of the best instrumentalists playing in
New York at that time.
All these RCA performances share the
hallmarks of Stokowski at his best: a powerful sense
of atmosphere, great orchestral virtuosity, and
excellent recorded sound. As Edward Johnson’s
very useful accompanying notes point out,
Stokowski recorded Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite an
incredible eight times. “I love to conduct Russian
music”, was his explanation. Even if collectors
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already possess one of the other versions, this
1950 recording is definitely not to be overlooked.
The same may be said of his equally compelling
accounts of the works by Debussy and Enescu.
This disc concludes with a rarity – a 1941
“The Ride of The Valkyries”, recently recognised
as being an early binaural recording. The playing
of the All-American Youth Orchestra is first-
rate and the sound is clear, but it does at times
move around in a slightly disconcerting manner.
Nonetheless, no Stokowski devotee will wish to
be without this curiosity, to place alongside his
earlier Bell Laboratories stereo experiments and
the later Decca Phase Four recordings.
David Patmore
CHAMBER & INSTRUMENTAL
J. S. Bach Solo Violin Partita No. 2, BWV1004 –
Chaconne. Prelude in C minor, BWV999; Suite
in E minor, BWV996 – Sarabande; Bourrée.
Partita in C minor – Prelude & Fugue; Prelude,
Fugue & Allegro in E flat, BWV998a. Dowland
14 Pieces for luteb. 20 Ayres for four voicesc.
Julian Bream (aguitar & blute); cThe Golden
Age Singers (Margaret Field-Hyde, sop/
dir; Elizabeth Osborn, sop; John Whitworth,
counter ten, René Soames, ten; Gordon
Clinton, bar); cQuartet of viols.
DG mono M C 477 7550 (two discs; 131mins;
ADD); rec. Konzerthaus, Vienna, 4 & 5/56.
Deutsche Grammophon’s claim that all of
the material in this set is here gaining its first
CD release is only partially accurate, the 1956
recordings of the solo lute pieces by Dowland
having been issued in 1990 by MCA, a disc
that is now deleted. More importantly, their
resurrection here is of great significance. Younger
collectors may not be aware of the extraordinary
impact Bream’s first two recordings had,
particularly these 14 solos of Dowland gems. At
the time of their initial Westminster release, lute
virtuosos did not exist, and the few performers
who were recording on the instrument usually
sounded as if they were struggling to get through
a piece. Guitarist Karl Scheit, who published
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transcriptions for guitar of Dowland’s tablatures
and recorded them on that instrument for
Vanguard, did not begin to match the 23-year-
old Bream in his achievement here. Purely in
terms of virtuosity, it set standards that have
never been surpassed. Moreover, it is a virtuosity
that is inseparable from astonishing musicality
and taste. Each strand of the most intricately
polyphonic pieces is clarified, all of the tonal
possibilities of the lute are exploited, and tempi
are always superbly judged. As result, what once
sounded like exhumed museum music emerges
as living works of wit, graceful buoyancy, or
– typical of Dowland – haunting grimness.
Indeed, there are some chromatic passages here
that sometimes seem to anticipate Bach and even
Chopin. From the stately charm of the Galliards
for Queen Elizabeth and the King of Denmark
and the buoyant sauciness of Lady Hunsdon’s
Puffe, to the morose ethos of the Lachrimae
Antiquae Pavan (based on Dowland’s gorgeous
song, Flow My Teares) the emotional range of
these miniatures amazes. For such gems alone,
this set is worth having.
Bream’s Bach is also commanding in that it
marked a departure from the kind of Bach that
Segovia offered. Undeniably, Segovia, more than
any other performer, helped to gain respect for
the classical guitar. His virtuosity, his command
of tonal shading, and his overall flair made
him to his instrument what Horowitz was to
the piano. Both, however, occasionally drifted
into the tasteless. With Segovia this involved
rhythmic ruptures, unnecessary exaggerations,
and a seemingly greater concern for the effect
of the moment than for structural coherence. I
mention this because Bream’s approach to Bach
in 1956 remains refreshing in its avoidance of
such shortcomings. His greater concern for
continuity and structural integrity is typified
in this account of the Chaconne, which, if less
outwardly dramatic than Segovia’s best-selling
version for American Decca, is much more of a
unified whole.
The 21 Dowland Ayres are drawn from LPs
also recorded for Westminster in 1956. These
works are most welcome, complementing as
they do the wide emotional range shown in the
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CDs - chamber & instrumental
lute solos. Exemplary transfers and Tully Potter’s
informative notes are added virtues.
Mortimer H. Frank
Bartók Piano Concerto No. 2, Sz95a. Mozart
Piano Concertos – No. 16 in D, K451b; No.17 in
G, K453c.
Géza Anda (pf/bcdir); bcEnglish Chamber
Orchestra; aBBC Symphony Orchestra /
Pierre Boulez.
BBC Legends M C BBCL4247-2 (81 mins; ADD);
rec. bBBC Studios, London, 27/11/68; Royal
Festival Hall, London, a5/12/73; c9/4/75.
Géza Anda’s 1959-60 DG versions of the three
Bartók concertos, conducted by Ferenc Fricsay
(C 447 399-2) were thought to be spectacular,
and a decade and a half later Anda remained
firmly in control of this demanding music,
conquering all pianistic difficulties with ease.
This means that he was able to refine and point
Bartók’s amazing contrasts of colour and mood,
a feature strikingly evident in the extraordinarily
frenzied episode around six minutes into the
central movement, where the composer shatters
the relative calm by bringing in an untamed theme
reminiscent of the crazily insistent passage in his
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. Boulez
accompanies with precision and the BBC SO
responds with the polished accuracy of which
it was so capable in the 1970s. The recording is
well-detailed, and captures Bartók’s important
drum parts effectively.
Forty or so years ago, Anda’s DG recordings
of the Mozart piano concertos were the
criterion against which others were judged. His
interpretations were admirably consistent and
above all unfussy. Typical of this is his approach
to the simple and innocent Andante of K451,
which he takes swiftly and straightforwardly,
and where his refusal to over-decorate the
uncomplicated melodies is very appealing. This
version is successful not least because of the
excellent balance of soloist against orchestra:
a shining example of pianist/conductor being
able to combine all instrumental elements into
an admirably coherent whole. The finale flows

CDs - chamber & instrumental
rapidly with admirable cheerfulness – splendid
woodwind playing here, with notable ECO flute
solos.
K453 was recorded five years later in the
Royal Festival Hall, but is not given such a clear
recording as that of K451. Anda is no less fluent
however, and the qualities of his confident
exposition of the music might be described as
“sensitive professionalism”. In particular his
approach to the lengthy middle movement
avoids the sense of languor that it can sometimes
invoke. This is a fine reading with an elegant
finale, but the superior sound of K451 ensures
that it is the more memorable presentation.
I see no reason why applause should have
been left in at the close of K453, since there is
none after the studio-recorded K451.
Antony Hodgson
Bax Complete piano music.
Iris Loveridge (pf ).
Lyrita mono M C REAM3113 (three discs;
225mins; ADD); rec. 1959-63.
Bowen 24 Preludes, Op. 102, Nos. 1, 2, 7, 8, 10,
15, 16, 19, 20 & 24; Partita, Op. 156; Berceuse,
Op. 83; Suite mignonne, Op. 39 – Moto
perpetuo; Toccata in A minor, Op. 155a.
York Bowen (pf ).
Reizenstein Piano Sonata in B, Op. 19;
Legend, Op. 24; Scherzo fantastique, Op. 26;
Impromptu, Op. 14; Scherzo in A, Op. 21b.
Franz Reizenstein (pf ).
Lyrita mono M C REAM2105 (two discs;
94mins; ADD); rec. a5/60; b10/58.
L Berkeley Piano Sonata in A, Op. 20; 6
Preludes, Op. 23; Scherzo in D, Op. 32 No. 2;
Impromptu in G minor, Op. 7 No. 1; Concert
Study in E flat, Op. 4 No. 2; 4 Concert Studies,
Op. 14 Nos, 2, 3 & 4a.
Colin Horsley (pf )
Benjamin Pastorale, Arioso and Finale;
Scherzino; Etudes improviséesb.
Lamar Crowson (pf )
Lyrita mono M C REAM2109 (two discs;
85mins; ADD); rec. a12/58; b2/60.
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Tippett Piano Sonata No. 1. Hamilton Piano
Sonata, Op. 13. Wordsworth Piano Sonata in
D minor, Op. 13; Cheesecombe Suite, Op. 27;
Ballade, Op. 41.
Margaret Kitchin (pf )
Lyrita mono M C REAM2106 (two discs;
93mins; ADD); rec. 7/58-7/60.
J White Piano Sonatas Nos. 1, 4, 5 & 9a.
Colin Kingsley (pf )
Hoddinott Piano Sonatas – No. 1, Op. 17; No.
2, Op. 27 Nocturnes – No. 1, Op. 9; No. 2, Op.
16 No. 1; Elegy, Op. 18 No. 3b.
Valerie Tryon (pf )
Lyrita mono M C REAM2108 (two discs;
85mins; ADD); rec. 5/60a; 11/62b.
Rawsthorne Bagatelles; Sonatina; 4
Romantic Pieces.
B Stevens 5 Inventions, Op. 14; Ballad, Op. 17;
Fantasia on “Giles Farnaby’s Dreame”, Op. 22;
Sonata in One Movement, Op. 25
James Gibb (pf )
Lyrita mono M C REAM1107 (75mins; ADD);
rec. 8/58 & 12/59.
All these recordings were made in Burnham,
Buckinghamshire, England.
These six releases bring much to relish – a souvenir of
pianists from yesteryear playing music that remains
somewhat specialised in its appeal. Although there
are more recent versions of many of these pieces,
if one is coming fresh to these Lyrita recordings or
returning to them with fond memories, one can
sense a pioneering spirit enshrined as well as much
fine musicianship. Thus the sharing of neglected
music is preserved.
Each of these issues is in rather dry mono sound;
but the intimacy of the recordings – made in Richard
Itter’s Music Room – adds to the sense of occasion,
of something worthwhile being undertaken. Most
of these recordings are now celebrating 50 years
of existence; and each has a strong claim on the
collector, whether interested in the performing
artists, the music or, most likely, both.
Iris Loveridge’s three-disc collection of Arnold
Bax’s piano music must be claimed as a labour of
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love on her part – the four substantial sonatas
and numerous short pieces play for not far
short of four hours. The opening bars of Sonata
No. 1 suggest Rachmaninov (and I believe that
Rachmaninov himself played the work, so I recall
reading). Contrast that with the grace of the
Concert Waltz in E flat and the sultry atmosphere
of Nocturne; or “May Night in the Ukraine” (the
first of 2 Russian Tone-Pictures) for an idea of Bax’s
range. There are 25 miniatures, no two the same,
all engaging and offering a fascinating picture
of Bax’s individuality. Loveridge has an instinct
for Bax’s music, a devotion, which the recording
captures faithfully. Simon Gibson’s expert re-
mastering only enhances the pleasure to be had
by anyone attracted by the music and for staying
in touch with such a fine artist as Loveridge.
Such sentiments inform all these releases. Yet it’s
difficult not to become hooked by Bax’s Winter
Waters (impressionistic and experimental at one
and the same time) or take delight in Whirligig
(the title says it all!), or become engrossed in the
journey that is the one-movement, 24-minute
Sonata No. 2.
If there has long been a vigil to keep Bax’s music
in view, some of the other composers represented
in this Lyrita survey have not been so fortunate.
Take for example the Nuremberg-born Franz
Reizenstein (1911-68). A pupil of Hindemith,
after the second world war Reizenstein held
posts at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal
Manchester College of Music in addition to his
career as a concert pianist. As played here by the
composer, his 1944 Sonata in B (dedicated to
William Walton) is a mightily impressive piece,
rigour and emotion finely balanced across three
substantial movements. Hindemith is certainly an
influence, but Reizenstein develops (and jazzes)
his ideas with personal fluency. There follow four
shorter pieces, of which Legend could perhaps pass
for late Fauré. Sharing the 2-disc format is York
Bowen playing a selection of 10 preludes from his
Op. 102 collection as well as the Partita and other
pieces. Charming, capricious and articulate music
played by the composer with unassuming care and
attention.
Margaret Kitchin (1914-2008) explores the
lyricism and fantasy of Tippett’s Sonata No. 1
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and brings out the sly, sometimes overt, references
to popular music. It’s a brilliant piece, so rich in
ideas, and Kitchin’s flamboyance and affection
make much of it. Iain Hamilton’s Piano Sonata
(1951) is a tougher nut – maybe – but exudes
its own logic and power and certainly enjoys
Kitchin’s sterling advocacy (she gave the first
performance). The second disc includes three
pieces by William Wordsworth (1908-88).
The D minor Piano Sonata (1939), somewhat
epic in feel, begins in exploratory fashion and
arrives affirmatively half an hour later. The four
movements of the Cheesecombe Suite include a
very private Nocturne; its quality of sparseness
also informs Ballade (1949, written for Clifford
Curzon) before a quickening of pulse brings more
intensity and harmonic intrigue.
It’s always a pleasure to encounter Lennox
Berkeley’s fastidious craftsmanship. Colin Horsley
plays a selection of his piano music including the
1945 Sonata (also composed for Curzon) – in
which every note has its place – and the gems
that are the Six Preludes. Other insouciant pieces
– some of them revealing Berkeley’s French side –
prove irresistible. On the companion disc, Lamar
Crowson plays a selection from Arthur Benjamin’s
piano music; like Bowen’s there is an attractive,
diverting quality and an open invitation to enjoy.
The Etudes improvisées are particularly enticing.
That John White (born 1936 in Berlin) took
Lyrita’s attention as early as 1960 is interesting.
One warms to White’s irregularity and wit (he
wrote a four-hour piece for cello and tuba, a piano
sonatina lasting 90 minutes, and a tuba sonata
entitled Basingstoke) and diversity (composer,
performer, teacher and ensemble-founder).
Yet, for all the acknowledged eclecticism of his
music – or probably because of it – it is difficult
to pin down just what is at the heart of White’s
output. Of these particular piano sonatas (there
were 166 when the booklet was printed), there
are some touching ideas (and nothing to scare
the horses!) but little that grabs the ears with
concentrated personality. No doubt Colin
Kingsley’s performances had the imprimatur of
the composer, but these particular examples of
White’s extensive catalogue (there are also 26
symphonies) passed me by. Altogether more

CDs - chamber & instrumental
arresting is the music of the late Alun Hoddinott
– inward, explosive, tightly organised and played
with conviction by Valerie Tryon.
The one single CD here features James Gibb in
music by Alan Rawsthorne and Bernard Stevens.
The former’s Bagatelles light up the sky, all his
music here having incision and a high emotional
quotient. Gibb plays with appreciation and an
appropriate edge, as he does the scores by Bernard
Stevens, his 5 Inventions getting off to a busy start
before ushering in a remote but touching Adagio.
Both the Ballade and Sonata in One Movement
are highpoints, and Gibb is a vibrant interpreter.
Colin Anderson
Beethoven Piano Trios – No. 3 in C minor, Op.
1 No. 3a; No. 5 in D, Op. 70 No. 1 Ghostb; No.
7 in B flat, Op. 97 Archdukec. Schubert Piano
Trio No. 1 in B flat, D898d.
Suk Trio (Jan Panenka, pf; Josef Suk, vn; Josef
Chuchro, vlc).
Supraphon M C SU3959-2 (two discs; 131
mins; ADD); rec. abDomovina Studio, Prague,
8–12/4/63; Rudolfinum, Prague, c29/8–1/9/61,
d7–9/9/64.
The Suk Trio, which lasted from 1951 to the early
1990s, was named after the composer Josef Suk I.
His grandson Josef Suk III was its only constant
member. The line-up featured on these recordings
was the best known, although in the late 1950s,
while Josef Chuchro was studying in Moscow,
the great Miloš Sádlo stood in for him and a
superb Dvořák Dumky was recorded for DG
– by coincidence, it has just been reissued (DG
Eloquence C 480 0489). The trio recorded all of
these works twice, the 1975 Schubert also being
with Jan Panenka and the 1983 Beethovens with
Josef Hála, who returned to the ensemble when
Panenka developed a virus which temporarily
affected his hands.
The keynote of the approach in all four
performances is simplicity, as in the statement of
the theme in the variations of Op. 1 No. 3. The
Trio of the Scherzo is delightful and the players
almost, but not quite, fall over themselves in
the Prestissimo finale. The 1983 remake from
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the Rudolfinum is similar but has more repeats.
I emphatically prefer this first recording of the
Ghost – in 1983 the players cut the timing of
the famous Largo from 12’14” to 8’37”. When
I taxed Suk with this inexplicable decision, he
said something like: “You do change your mind
sometimes”. The 1963 performance is winningly
direct in the outer movements and sensitively
phrased in the Largo.
For the first and third movements of the
Archduke, I like the broader tempi employed in
1983. In the 1961 performance (i) is quite brisk
and a little of the humour of (iii) is sacrificed at
this skittish pace. The close recording slightly
undermines softer dynamics and there is more
distortion than in the 1963 Beethovens. On the
other hand, Panenka shows at every turn that he
is a Beethoven soloist of stature and the work is
beautifully played, with tension well maintained
in the variations, leading to a delectable finale.
The Schubert has already had one CD transfer,
on an all-Schubert disc (Boston Skyline C
BSD146). There would have been room here on
Disc 1 for the Notturno from the LP – perhaps
it is being saved as a filler for the group’s first
Tchaikovsky recording. I have a soft spot for the
1975 remake of the Schubert, made at the lovely
church in Lučany. This 1964 reading is simpler:
the difference is exemplified in Chuchro’s cello
solo at the start of (ii), without a care in the world
in 1964, more probing in 1975. This recording
still sounds very good and in either 1964 or 1975
guise, the Suk Trio’s interpretation is about the
only one to match the immortal Cortot, Thibaud
and Casals reading.
Tully Potter
Beethoven 12 Variations on Ein Mädchen oder
Weibchen, Op. 66a. Dvořák Cello Concerto
in B minor, B108b. Elgar Cello Concerto in E
minor, Op. 85c.
Pierre Fournier (vlc); aFranz Holetschek (pf );
bcCologne Radio Symphony Orchestra /
bGeorge Szell; cHans Rosbaud.
Medici Masters mono M C MM028-2 (73mins;
ADD); rec. WDR, Cologne, c7/3/55; a6/4/57;
b16/11/62.
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Many of us were brought up on Fournier
recordings of Dvořák’s Concerto, either his 1948
HMV 78s with the Philharmonia (m DB6887/91;
C Testament SBT1016) or a later Decca LP
with the Vienna Philharmonic (L LXT2999),
both conducted by Rafael Kubelík. In this 1962
broadcast from Cologne Radio there is again
that calm nobility and needle-sharp playing that
one remembers, but now with the added frisson
of Szell pushing a hardly first-rate orchestra to its
limit. That said, the tautness of their collaboration
provides plenty of excitement, besides holding the
Concerto together well.
The balance and sound is good, warm and
ambient, and it is quite difficult to believe that the
same studio was used for the Elgar broadcast seven
years earlier. Here the acoustic is bone-dry and it
does the music no favours, robbing Elgar’s score of
much of its warmth and accentuating Fournier’s
rather restrained and unemotional approach to the
music. For all the firm control and steadily flowing
tempi, however, his commitment is never in doubt
and his playing (apart from a smudge in the finale)
is technically admirable; nor does it lack eloquence.
The orchestral part under that admired conductor
Hans Rosbaud sounds tentative and under-
nourished, though it is the dryness that mainly
contributes to a fairly nondescript impression.
The performance of the Beethoven variations,
with an admirable pianist, is thoroughly good;
although the sound is again dry, here it is not such
a disadvantage.
Lyndon Jenkins
Pierre Fournier attacks the opening of the Elgar
with unexpected vehemence and intensity before
sinking into nostalgic reverie. The diminuendo also
relates, by a smidgen, that the digital re-mastering
is a little too severe – quieter passages discolour
slightly as a consequence, but all else is fine, the
sound quite clear, the cello to the fore if sometimes
to the detriment of the orchestra. It’s a heartfelt
performance, directly eloquent, with no false
rhetoric, Hans Rosbaud proving a very sympathetic
Elgarian as well as a faithful partner to Fournier.
If there are some rough passages from the soloist,
these can be overlooked due to the unaffected and
expressive nature of the performance.
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The Dvořák features George Szell’s tight grip
on the playing (the orchestra now given more
ambience albeit still in mono), the principal horn
quite poetic in the lengthy introduction. Fournier
is gutsy in his first appearance and, as recorded,
integrated into the orchestra; indeed the balance
gives an excellent idea of Dvořák’s intentions
regarding the relationship between soloist and
orchestra. With Rosbaud conducting, Fournier
seemed quite impromptu in his approach;
with Szell, the cellist plays as if gridlocked into
Szell’s wishes, which should not be taken as the
soloist being either slavish or unimaginative. The
performance itself – always expressive of sentiment
if having no truck with sentimentality – may be
business-like but is also considered.
Beethoven’s variations find Fournier in
forthright and elegant form, Franz Holetschek a
sparkling and cordial pianist (a shame that he is
slightly relegated in the balance), and round off
this well-compiled release in agreeable fashion.
Colin Anderson
Elgar Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85a.
Rainier Cello Concertob. Rubbra Cello
Sonata, Op. 60c.
Jacqueline du Pré (vlc); cIris du Pré (pf`);
abBBC Symphony Orchestra / aSir Malcolm
Sargent; bNorman Del Mar.
BBC Legends cmono/abstereo M C BBCL4244-
2 (74mins; ADD); rec. cCheltenham, England,
6/7/62; abRoyal Albert Hall, London, 3/9/64.
Jacqueline du Pré’s association with Elgar’s Cello
Concerto has been documented on several CDs
and DVDs besides her renowned commercial
disc for EMI with Barbirolli. This latest CD
reproduces one of a run of Proms performances
with Sargent. Their 1963 performance (once
available on Intaglio C INCD7351) can now be
seen as the most conductor-influenced, since the
tempi throughout are more moderate than was Du
Pré’s inclination, and the concerto’s outlines are
clearer. The conductor apparently expressed his
approval on that occasion: what he thought about
this 1964 collaboration, which is clearly soloist-led
and a good three minutes shorter, is unrecorded.

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In 1965 she found her ideal Elgar partner
in Barbirolli and a famous disc was the result. A
live recording of them from 1967 (Testament C
SBT1388) underlines the depth and warmth of
their understanding, though I would hesitate to
say that that it is superior to this new issue which
is not only comprehensively executed but, within
the framework Sargent provides reveals a more
considered, less overtly emotional, view of the
concerto that displays its many sides in a near-ideal
way. The sound quickly recovers from a slightly
murky start and then is remarkably good; and the
orchestral playing is very fine.
Unusually for the time, that night’s Prom
audience had the luxury of another complete cello
concerto, a 20-minute one-movement novelty by
the South African Priaulx Rainier. It was judged
austere at the time, though today, besides being
a valuable souvenir of Du Pré’s playing, it might
have more listener appeal. It can certainly be
said that once the cello emerges from a thicket
of discordant orchestral sound there is much to
admire in her and Del Mar’s presentation of it.
Du Pré prepared it with the composer, but never
played it afterwards.
Of more immediate musical appeal, perhaps,
the Rubbra Sonata sounds much more to the taste
of the brilliant young 17-year-old. This is a fine
performance – her mother was still her regular
accompanist. Even at that early stage anyone
hearing such playing would surely have known
instantly what all the fuss was about.
Lyndon Jenkins
Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 in G, Op.
44a; Concert Fantasy in G, Op. 56b.
Tatiana Nikolayeva (pf ); USSR State
Symphony Orchestra /aNikolai Anosov,
bKirill Kondrashin.
Appian mono M C APR5666 (76 minutes); rec.
Moscow, c1950-51.
This is part of a new set of issues from APR
that celebrates the Goldenweiser school. We are
promised Samuil Feinberg and Rosa Tamarkina as
future featured pianists. Possibly best known to the
general public for her performances of Bach and
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Shostakovich (she was the driving force behind the
latter’s 24 Preludes and Fugues), Nikolayeva was
also a prolific composer. Her Trio for flute, viola and
piano can be found on C BISCD1439.
This was the first recording of the original
version of the Tchaikovsky Second Concerto. For
all her reputation as a keyboard hammerer, there are
moments of delicate touch (around the 8’00” mark).
The huge first movement cadenza is delivered with
a good degree of fantasy. Nikolai Anosov (father of
Gennadi Rozhdestvensky) conducts serviceably.
What a pity the string soloists in the Andante
non troppo are uncredited. The cellist, in particular,
sings with an authentically Russian plangency; the
violinist, closely-miked, can tend towards sharpness
of tone. The finale could legitimately be accused of
being on the severe side. Staccato is accurate, full-
toned yet refuses to sparkle, a pity in a movement
whose principal subject requires just that trait.
This is the premiere recording of the Concert
Fantasy and it was initially issued on 78s. This
piece, as the composer himself pointed out, is a
work of much padding. Nikolayeva does her utmost
to elevate its status, and Kondrashin, ever the
staunch accompanist, helps as best he can. At half
and hour’s total duration, it could be argued that
Tchaikovsky makes much of little. Around 14’08”
in the first movement there is an acoustic shift. It’s
back to solo strings at the opening of the Fantasy’s
second movement – again, with lines passionately
rendered. Nikolayeva revels in the pianistic filigree
that surrounds ensuing orchestral melodies. The
strength of her louder passages brings to mind her
latter-day compatriot Viktoria Postnikova, but even
Nikolayeva cannot persuade me, at the end, that this
work is not too long for its own good.
Colin Clarke
York Bowen – the complete 78rpm
recordings. Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4
in G, Op. 58a. Solo piano works by Bach,
Beethoven, Bowen, Brahms, Chopin, Cochrane,
Debussy, Gardiner, Liszt, Mendelssohn,
Moscheles, Rachmaninov, Schumann and
Schütt.
York Bowen (pf ); aAeolian Orchestra /
Stanley Chapple.
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Appian mono F C APR6007 (two discs,
121mins; ADD); rec. London, 1915-27.
The list of recorded compositions by York Bowen
(1884-1961) has been growing steadily in recent
years, but his distinction as a pianist has remained
the subject of brief references in CD insert notes
and reference books – until recently, that is, for
within months we have had the reissue of the single
LP of his own works that he made for Lyrita a
year or before he died (see page 83), and now all
his other recordings, mostly made for Vocalion
between 1925 and 1927, have been reissued by
APR.
All of Bowen’s 78s are hard to find, and to have
them together in one collection is an astonishing
achievement. I hope that this brave initiative will
be reflected in adequate sales figures. As Jonathan
Summers’s informative notes remind us, Bowen
was a highly regarded performer as a young man,
but rather faded from public view into teaching
as his own music became unfashionable. He made
the first ever recording of Beethoven’s Fourth
Piano Concerto in 1925, and in this work his
crisp, alert and expressive playing makes a fine
impression. His style is quite forward-looking and
his technique is excellent, but the performance as
a whole is marred by his own hilariously out of
style English-pastoral cadenzas, which have to be
heard to be believed. Stanley Chapple provides a
routine accompaniment, but the balance between
soloist and orchestra in the acoustic recording is
remarkably good.
Bowen was unlucky that his one concerto
recording immediately preceded the advent of
electric recording, and his solo 78s straddle the end
of the acoustic era and the introduction of the new
technique. Normally it would be very noticeable to
have electrics and acoustics juxtaposed, but in this
case Vocalion’s acoustics were as good as could be,
and their early electrics dull and woolly.
In six pieces by Chopin Bowen plays with
fine spirit and elegance of expression, and these
qualities are to the fore throughout almost all the
performances, only the excerpted Allegro from
Schumann’s Faschingsschwank aus Wien being
banged out rather impatiently. Some unusual
repertoire is featured, including two trifles by
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Balfour Gardiner and five of Bowen’s own pieces.
In two extracts from his Fragments from Hans
Andersen the playing is preceded by spoken
introductions intoned in a dated upper-class
accent which presumably belongs to the composer
himself.
The general impression provided by the
collection is that of an imaginative, cultured and
communicative artist in possession of a crystal-clear,
immaculate technique, who gives considerable
pleasure to the listener through the personality of
his playing.
Alan Sanders
Josef Hoffman – acoustic recordings,
1916-23 Works by Chopin, Chopin/Liszt,
Liszt, Mendelssohn, Moszkowski, Paderewski,
Rachmaninov and Schubert/Liszt.
Josef Hoffman (pf ).
Naxos mono B C 8.111326 (75mins; ADD);
from Columbia and Brunswick originals, rec.
New York City, 1916-23.
The recordings of Josef Hofmann (1876-1957)
reflect the playing of another era. Hofmann made
his adult debut playing Rubinstein’s Fourth Piano
Concerto with the composer on the rostrum in
1894. His first commercial discs date from 1903
(Berlin G&Ts); from 1913 to 1918 he recorded
for Columbia, then moved to Brunswick, and it is
from this period that the present recordings come.
The playing order is determined by composer, so
there is ample opportunity to compare the work
of both companies.
The disc opens with a set of pieces by Chopin.
The A flat Waltz, Op. 34 No. 1 is capricious and
delicious. Background noise is quiet, steady and
unobtrusive – it increases a little for the intensely
fluid Fantaisie-Impromptu, but nevertheless
every rapidly, finely-articulated note is both
audible and cherishable, and even Hofmann’s
burnished left-hand legato survives. The sound
for the exquisitely-voiced Berceuse (Columbia,
1918) is much improved, even outshining that
of the Brunswick 1923 Military Polonaise which
follows. Hofmann signed for Brunswick after his
contract with Columbia expired (Brunswicks only

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started appearing in the USA in 1920 – previously
they had only been available in Canada). There
is a slight background swish to the melancholic
Chopin Waltz, Op. 64 No. 2, something not
readily evident in the magnificently sculpted
F sharp Nocturne (recorded on the next day,
19/4/23).
The two Chopin/Liszt Chants polonaises link
nicely to the pure Liszt set. Waldesrauschen offers
a fair amount of hiss but is perhaps Hofmann’s
most fluid performance. The Columbia
Tarantella contains remarkable pianism, as does
the Brunswick second Hungarian Rhapsody. Such
a volcanic, elemental pianistic force is eminently
suitable to the storm-drenched narrative of
Erlkönig, and so it proves – and yet how Hofmann
reins this force in for the Mendelssohn Columbia
group. The caprice of this extends into the two
carefree Moszkowski pieces, wherein Hofmann
out-Horowitzes Horowitz (the Caprice espagnole
is pure fluff ). The final two pieces, Rachmaninov’s
Preludes, Op. 23 No. 5 and Op. 3 No. 2, are both
Brunswicks of 1923, and each intensely heroic.
Colin Clarke
VOCAL AND CHORAL
Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45.
Ileana Cotrubas (sop); Dietrich Fischer-
Dieskau (bar); Edinburgh International
Festival Chorus; London Philharmonic
Orchestra / Carlo Maria Giulini
BBC Legends M C BBCL4246-2 (74mins;
ADD); rec. Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 26/8/78.
Giulini’s performances were often nobly
marked by a rich interior life, but he was
sometimes criticised for his relatively restricted
repertory, which nevertheless did include the
major orchestral works by Brahms. A sense
of the tragic, combined with soft-grained
Italianate lyricism, made his Brahms satisfying,
if estranged from hard-edged, more incisive
Teutonic interpretations. Giulini long avoided
the German Requiem, as Mike Ashman’s insert
notes reveal, never recording it in the studio,
reportedly due to long-term uncertainties about
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the work’s structure and sequence. DG released
a 1987 live recording with the refined and
idiomatic Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and
State Opera Chorus, but with only middlingly
expressive vocal soloists (C 445 546-2). BBC
Legends redresses the balance with this 1978
live performance in admirable sound quality.
Fischer-Dieskau’s exalted Old Testament
authority is situated on such an eminence that he
convincingly carries out a dialogue with the Lord,
as per Brahms’s text (which rather stingily is not
included in the CD booklet here; purchasers are
referred to an online source for sung texts and
translations). Cotrubas’s chaste solo “Ihr habt
nun Traurigkeit” benefits from her voice’s innate
nostalgic longing, what Romanians call dor, an
equivalent of the Spanish term duende. The only
weakness, albeit a major one, is the Edinburgh
International Festival Chorus, which in 1978 was
not as precise or well-honed as it later became.
The uncertain “Anglo” pronunciation of German
and less-than-crisp enunciation is ultimately
wearing, and the EIF singers are also sometimes
guilty of unrestrained bawling. Giulini’s overall
tender conception allows for plenty of dramatic
“oomph” in “Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras”,
pounded out operatically like the Anvil Chorus.
Perhaps what really troubled Giulini about the
German Requiem was not so much its structure
but its content, consisting of resigned, hard-
bitten acceptance of death in a stoic Lutheran
Weltanschauung. No such belief system is
required to conduct Verdi’s Requiem brilliantly,
as the comparatively tender-hearted Giulini did
so memorably. Despite my gratitude to BBC
Legends for making this formidable performance
available, I am left wondering if Giulini really
adhered to its implacable belief system.
Benjamin Ivry
Mahler Das Lied von der Erdea. Brahms
Alto Rhapsody, Op. 53b.
abJanet Baker (mez); aJohn Mitchinson
(ten); aBBC Northern Symphony Orchestra
/ Raymond Leppard; bBBC Men’s Chorus;
bBBC Symphony Orchestra / Sir Adrian
Boult.
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BBC Legends astereo/bmono M C
BBCL4243-2 (79mins; ADD); rec. bRoyal
Festival Hall, London, 6/11/68; aFree Trade
Hall, Manchester, 23/2/77.
When this disc arrived, Adrian Boult’s name
stood out. Without any disrespect to Raymond
Leppard, another fine English conductor, I
wondered if somebody had discovered a long
lost recording by the great early Mahlerian
conducting Das Lied von der Erde. Boult
actually conducts Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody, with
a glorious performance by Janet Baker not long
after the beginning of her international career.
Her vocal palette is stunning, the singing and
interpretation delightfully uninhibited.
There have now been more than 100
recordings of Das Lied. The one under review
could be considered an all-English version of a
work which, unlike in Boult’s day, is now very
much part of the standard repertoire. Leppard
adopts slowish tempi, although not quite
as slow as those of Jascha Horenstein, who
conducted the piece with the same orchestra
and the same tenor five years previously. John
Mitchinson has enjoyed international success,
but his great contribution to our musical life
has been performance throughout Britain. He
participates in three recordings of Das Lied: his
understanding and musicianship shine through.
Janet Baker, a true successor to Kathleen Ferrier,
goes two better with five recordings. This version
was made a decade after the Alto Rhapsody and at
the very height of her career – rapturous singing
but just that little bit more carefully considered.
BBC Legends have issued three different
performances in this modestly priced series
– two with Baker and two with Mitchinson.
Which to choose if you only want or can afford
one? On emotional grounds it is hard to resist
Mitchinson and the late lamented Alfreda
Hodgson, conducted by Jascha Horenstein,
not long before his death (C BBCL4042-2): a
short interview with the conductor is the fill-
up. The version under current review is equally
irresistible and it offers a wonderful coupling.
You choose!
Stanley Henig
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Conchita Supervia – Vol. 3, Odeon &
Parlophone Recordings, 1930-32. Arias and
ensembles from La bohème, Carmen, La
damnation de Faust, Faust, El Huésped del
Sevillano, Mignon, Samson et Dalila, Werther.
Songs by Bishop, Manén, Mompou, Nin,
Rodrigo, etc. Conchita Supervia (mez) with
various artists.
Marston mono M C 52062-2 (two discs;
153mins; ADD); rec. Paris, London & Barcelona,
1930-32.
Ward Marston’s collection of Conchita Supervia
recordings promises to be the most comprehensive
yet attempted, although this splendid volume
has a most regrettable gap. In February 1931
Supervia made six sides with the great Catalan
pianist Alexandre Vilalta (here given his Castilian
first name Alejandro) and, of all things, Marston
and his network have been unable to track down
the Granados song they recorded, Boires baixes
(Matrix SO6942). Vilalta, a protégé of Frank
Marshall, was a central figure in Barcelona music
and I venture to pronounce that Supervia was
never better accompanied, even by Marshall
himself in Falla’s Seven Popular Spanish Songs (in
Vol. 2, C 52050-2). Of the five sides here, four
are among the finest Supervia left us. Rodrigo’s
Serranilla is absolutely lovely; Lamotte de
Grignon’s Cançó de Maria finds the partnership at
its best, the intervals pitched precisely despite the
well-known Supervia tremolo; Mompou’s L’Hora
grisa is mesmerising; and after some terrific singing
and playing in Nin’s El paño murciano, the two
wonderful artists go straight into a tremendously
exciting El vito. The only partial failure is the
best-known track, Nin’s arrangement of Els cants
dels ocells, made famous by Pablo Casals. Here
Supervia’s stuttering production really does get in
the way – what is needed is clear, steady tone. I do
hope the Granados can be found for Vol. 4: I have
never heard it.
Four songs, including a fine account of Flecha
by the legendary Catalan violinist and composer
Joan Manén, are sympathetically supported by
Pedro Vallribera, although he is not as charismatic
as Vilalta. Longás’s La noia bonica is very nice;
Pomero’s Soleá is truly authentic, sung with great

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style and ending magically; and Fusté’s Háblame
de amores displays infectious rhythm from both
artists. The March 1932 London session with
Ivor Newton at the piano tends to split opinion,
some finding Supervia’s English charming,
others recoiling. Having listened again carefully,
not having heard the six sides for a while, I am
a yea-sayer. Bishop’s Should he upbraid features
fine divisions, Ferrabosco’s So sweet is she is very
agreeable and Alden Carpenter’s Tagore setting
When I bring to you color’d toys shows Supervia’s
sensitivity to internal rhythm and phrasing. Cyril
Scott’s Lullaby again displays her surprising
feeling for English prosody and D’Hardelot’s A
lesson with the fan is delightful. The more popular
songs with orchestra tend to bring Supervia up
against Schipa or De Gogorza and in each case
she has to bow to her male colleague, although
completists will want her versions.
The Carmen excerpts are so well known
that I shall simply note the superiority of these
transfers, placing Supervia’s unusually likeable
protagonist vividly before us. Notable among the
other operatic items are those from Werther and
Mignon. The usual attractive packaging includes
essays by Desmond Shawe-Taylor and Michael
Aspinall.
Tully Potter
OPERA
Gounod Faust [sung in Italian]. Giuliano
Romagnoli (ten) Faust; Gemma Bosini
(sop) Marguerite; Fernando Autori (bs)
Méphistophélès; Gilda Timitz (mez) Siebel;
Napoleone Limonta (bar) Wagner; Adolfo
Pacini (bar) Valentin; Nelda Garrone (con)
Martha; La Scala Chorus & Orchestra, Milan /
Carlo Sabajno.
Divine Art mono M C DDH27810 (two discs;
142mins; ADD); rec. Milan, 1920.
This was possibly one of the most frequently
performed operas in the repertoire and the staple
fare of many International opera houses. Indeed
in the late nineteenth century it was so often
mounted at the New York Metropolitan that one
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critic suggested the building should be renamed
the Faustspielhaus.
The sophisticated critics who sneer at it today
are unlikely ever to have experienced the wholly
idiomatic performance essential for Gounod’s
masterly work to make its full impact. Of
paramount importance are native French singers
with a training and style derived from the once
mighty French school of singing. Alas, the last
exponents of this school began to disappear prior
to the first world war but a few lingered on until
the second war removed even these.
Amazingly the extensive discography of
this opera offers barely two versions to suggest
even the aroma of what a wholly idiomatic
performance must once have provided. These
are a 1931 electrical recording featuring Cesar
Vezzani, Yvonne Brothier and the veteran Marcel
Journet where, if neither tenor nor soprano are at
their best and the great bass’s voice has begun to
show traces of age, the whole performance sounds
totally authentic under the excellent conductor
Henri Büsser. The other, also from around
this period, is a harsh but astute abridgement
conducted by Albert Wolff, which is quite
magical – especially for its Marguerite and Faust
(Germaine Martinelli and René Lapelletrie)
and for Wolff ’s superb conducting. This 1920
acoustically recorded version, now under review,
immediately preceded these and followed a 1908
version in German boasting the great Emmy
Destinn as well as one in French from 1912 with
second-rank singers of the period. Thus it may be
considered to have some slight historical interest
as the first “complete” version in Italian.
Having suggested this single virtue, it is almost
impossible to find other features to recommend it
to collectors. Neither the soprano nor the tenor
offer attractive vocal sound and both suggest
they would be happier singing Mascagni. Autori
possesses an excellent, voluminous, bass voice
but presents a somewhat hammy devil rather
lacking in nuance or subtlety. A shrill Siebel and
undistinguished Valentin do nothing to improve
the enjoyment quota, whilst Sabajno lethargically
conducts what sounds like an odd array of
instrumentalists even by acoustically recorded,
orchestral standards.
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Historic sound this most certainly is but
whether it offers anything more than mere
curiosity value is an arguable point.
Vivian Liff
Mozart Don Giovanni. Cesare Siepi (bs) Don
Giovanni; Fernando Corena (bs) Leporello;
Lisa della Casa (sop) Donna Elvira; Eleanor
Steber (sop) Donna Anna; Jan Peerce (ten)
Don Ottavio; Roberta Peters (sop) Zerlina;
Theodor Uppman (bar) Masetto; Giorgio
Tozzi (bs) Il commendatore; Chorus and
Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, New
York / Karl Böhma.
Mozart Don Giovanni –excerpts. Ezio
Pinza (bs) Don Giovanni; Virgilio Lazzari
(bs) Leporello; Maria Muller (sop) Donna
Elvira; Rosa Ponselle (sop) Donna Anna; Tito
Schipa (ten) Don Ottavio; Editha Fleischer
(sop) Zerlina; Louis d’Angelo (bar) Masetto;
Emanuel List (bs) Il commendatore; Chorus
and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera,
New York / Tullio Serafinb.
Andromeda mono M C ANDRCD9026 (three
discs; 223mins; ADD); rec. New York a14/12/57;
b20/1/34.
The 1950s were a golden era for Mozart
singing and there are many fine recordings of
Don Giovanni from that time, most of them
from Europe. The present recording, which
Andromeda claim is being issued for the first
time, emanates from New York and is an excellent
example of the Mozart singing that both Europe
and America then produced. Böhm conducts less
messily than he often did and gives particular
attention, as was noticed at the time, to balancing
the woodwinds with the rest of the orchestra and
the singers. The singers leave little to be desired.
Steber is an imperious and accurate Donna Anna
with the technique needed in “Non mi dir”
and fully confirms her status as one of the great
Mozart singers of the time. Lisa della Casa’s Elvira
is familiar from other recordings and she is well
up to her usual standard here, although she often
sounds somewhat far from the microphone.
Peters is an excellent Zerlina and well partnered
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by Theodor Uppman as Masetto. The surprise of
the performance is Jan Peerce as Don Ottavio,
singing with good vocal quality and the technique
required by the runs in “Il mio tesoro”. Corena’s
Leporello is vastly entertaining without being
exaggerated. Giorgio Tozzi’s Commendatore is
an unexpected piece of star casting. Probably the
least satisfactory is Siepi, who sounds somewhat
woolly and often uncomfortable in the title role;
but since Don Giovanni has only perhaps two
short arias to sing bel canto, this is no great loss.
The recording is as good as can be expected from
an off-the-air source and is quite satisfactory. The
only thing missing is the production by Eugene
Berman, which was said to be superb.
The bonus tracks are well worth hearing. Even
through the poor recording, Pinza is far superior
in vocal magnificence and ease to Siepi and it is
illuminating to hear Muller as Elvira and Schipa
as Ottavio. But what makes this issue essential is
the Donna Anna of Ponselle. An American critic
wrote many years ago that the Victor company had
been almost criminally negligent in not recording
her in Donna Anna’s arias, and this performance
proves his point. She is heard in “Or sai chi
l’onore”, “Fuggi crudele” and the trio just as the
masked conspirators enter Don Giovanni’s palace.
Serafin’s conducting is freer, less disciplined and
more exciting than that of Böhm.
Richard Gate
Mozart Le nozze di Figaroa. Sena Jurinac
(sop) Countess Almaviva; Graziella Sciutti
(sop) Susanna; Jeannette Sinclair (sop)
Barbarina; Risë Stevens (mez) Cherubino;
Monica Sinclair (con) Marcellina; Hugues
Cuénod (ten) Basilio; Daniel McCoshan (ten)
Don Curzio; Sesto Bruscantini (bar) Figaro;
Franco Calabrese (bs-bar) Count Almaviva;
Ian Wallace (bs-bar) Dr Bartolo; Gwyn
Griffiths (bs) Antonio; Glyndebourne
Festival Chorus.
Mozart Symphonies – No. 38 in D,
K504, Pragueb; No. 39 in E flat, K543c.
Glyndebourne Festival Orchestra / Vittorio
Gui.
EMI Great Recordings of the Century stereo/

CDs - opera
bcmono M C 2 12681-2 (three discs; 220mins;
ADD); rec. London, abEMI Studio No. 1;
cKingsway Hall; c16/3/53, b21-22/9/53, a4-9,
11-12/7/55.
Mozart Le nozze di Figaro. Marcella Pobbe
(sop) Countess Almaviva; Rosanna Carteri
(sop) Susanna; Rena Gary Falachi (sop)
Barbarina); Dora Gatta (sop) Cherubino;
Luisa Villa (con) Marcellina; Luigi Alva (ten)
Basilio; Renato Ercolani (ten) Don Curzio;
Nicola Rossi-Lemeni (bs) Figaro); Heinz
Rehfuss (bar) Count Almaviva; Enrico Campi
(bs-bar) Dr Bartolo; Cristiano Dalamangas
(bs) Antonio; Chorus & Orchestra of
Radiotelevisione Italiana / Nino Sanzogno.
Hardy Classic Video F l HCD4028 (156mins;
NTSC; B/W); filmed Milan, 1956.
It has been enormously enjoyable to hear and (in
the case of the DVD) see two Italianate, virtually
contemporary productions of Figaro. In each case
the only cut of any substance is Marcellina’s Act
4 aria. Amazingly, this is the first time the stereo
version of the Gui set has been given a major
release in its complete form: the original stereo
LPs were only briefly available, as were subsequent
Japanese and British releases. In its previous CD
incarnation, Basilio’s Act 4 aria was cut so to
squeeze the performance on to two discs. The
solution this time is to fill Disc 1 with Act 1 and
the Prague Symphony, and Disc 2 with Act 2 and
the E flat Symphony, while Disc 3 holds Acts 3
and 4.
The performance is strongly cast but its main
strengths are its palpable sense of teamwork –
everyone except Sciutti had sung the opera at
Glyndebourne earlier in the summer – and the
conducting of Gui, who manages to sound relaxed
while keeping a good grip on the action. The
orchestral playing by the disguised RPO, while
not quite in the class of Erich Kleiber’s VPO on
Decca, is superb, as we notice straight away in the
Overture, full of delightful little details. Sesto
Bruscantini is marvellously droll in the opening
duet and is a model Figaro, making every word tell
and characterising each of his arias to perfection.
His rhythmic precision is, as always, a great
CRC Winter 2008
reviews
asset; and as a former bass he has the low notes
for the part without needing to emphasise them.
Sciutti, brought in because the Glyndebourne
Susanna, Elena Rizzieri, was under contract to
Cetra, fits in as if she has been singing with this
cast all her life – she knew several of them well.
Verbally, tonally and character-wise she is ideal.
Risë Stevens is a mature sounding Cherubino but
has a lovely voice and plays her part in the various
schemes with enthusiasm. Sena Jurinac, once an
ideal Cherubino, had just been promoted to the
Countess. She sings with the poise that came
naturally to her in the 1950s. Franco Calabrese’s
fine, dark voice and practised comedian’s timing
make him an excellent Count, always distinctive
in the ensembles. Ian Wallace and Monica Sinclair
give sterling portrayals of Bartolo and Marcellina;
Hugues Cuénod is a mischievous Basilio; and
smaller roles are well taken.
The new remastering has kept the warmth
of the performance without losing the slight
dryness of Studio No. 1 that for me is one of the
recording’s strengths – others prefer the roomier
Kingsway sound. You can compare between these
venues in the two symphonies, given humane
readings by Gui. He was a great classical conductor
who established the permanent orchestra in
Florence and had many distinguished evenings
in the concert hall. You may feel that he relaxes
a mite too much at one or two points, but better
that than the sort of Mozart Toscanini gave us. I
find the Prague recording from Studio 1 superb,
the more recessed Kingsway E flat not quite so
immediate. Richard Osborne’s note is a little
disappointing and Jani Strasser, head of music at
Glyndebourne, is called “Jan” in the booklet. No
libretto is provided.
The Italian Television production is pre-
recorded but the singers mime with dexterity. Few
synchronisation problems show. At the beginning
we see an audience arrive and Sanzogno come
on as if for a performance. The secco recitatives
sound as if they are in a slightly different acoustic
– they are done separately on EMI too but are
better integrated. After a sprightly Overture we
embark on a splendid traditional production by
Herbert Graf. Nicola Rossi-Lemeni seems not to
have read the critics who told him he was going
93
CRC Winter 2008
reviews
through a vocal crisis. I first heard him just after
this September 1956 telecast and he was superb
then, too. He is firm, never plummy of tone
except, perhaps, in the lowest register. He acts
excellently and in Rosanna Carteri has a dream of
a Susanna, vocally and physically. Was she really
only 25? She looks more like 30. Dora Gatta is
a convincing Cherubino. Marcella Pobbe looks
good, sings well in the recitatives and ensembles
but falls short of memorability in her arias. The
tall, thin Enrico Campi is Bartolo to the life and
Luisa Villa is a fine foil as Marcellina. The Swiss
baritone Heinz Rehfuss has a terrific voice, as we
know from many records, and makes a menacing
Count. Luigi Alva in a false nose is wrong for
Basilio – he sings well, especially in his aria, but
is obviously too nice. Renato Ercolani as Don
Curzio immediately shows what a real character
tenor is. Cristiano Dalamangas is an Antonio who
almost smells of the garden. The vision is quite
good throughout, as is the sound – Hardy have
licensed the tape officially. Not a truly historic
version like the Gui but worth your attention, as
the conducting and orchestral playing are first-
rate and Roberto Benaglio’s chorus is as good as
usual.
Tully Potter
Verdi Il trovatore. Peter Glossop (bar) Il
Conte di Luna; Gwyneth Jones (sop) Leonora;
Giulietta Simoniato (mez) Azucena; Bruno
Prevedi (ten) Manrico; Joseph Rouleau (bs)
Ferrando; Covent Garden Opera Chorus &
Orchestra / Carlo Maria Giulini.
Royal Opera House Heritage mono M C
ROH5011 (two discs; 127mins; ADD); rec. Royal
Opera House, London, 26/11/64.
If at first … well, wait till the end. It is only natural
– for, after all, you’ve looked at the cast list and
you have your own preconceptions – that some
persuasion may be necessary. Then again, you’ve
looked ahead into the booklet and taken note of
the headlines, the “great performance” and “one
of the greatest” ballyhoo – or at least that is what
you may well be inclined to think it. But at the
end it may be just as likely that you’re applauding
94
CDs - opera
from the depths of the armchair with as heartfelt
a sense of recognition and gratitude as those who
were present on the night of the recording.
That, of course, is partly Verdi’s work. He
put an amazing concentration of creative feeling
into his last act, and (perhaps still more to our
surprise), into the last portion of it, the scene in
the prison cell from the point of Leonora’s arrival
to the moment of her death. The fierce inspiration
of Manrico’s “Ha quest’ infame l’amor venduto”,
the sublime distraction of Azucena’s other-worldly
“Ai nostri monti”, and then Leonora’s “Prima che
d’altri vivere” rising with deathly pallor to the
heights of human truthfulness and devotion: all
of this comes when the last of the big tunes is
over and only the rituals of operatic catastrophe
appear to lie ahead. Yet it is here that the fate of
all four principals join in a moment of contrived
tragedy which achieves artistic validity through
the music.
The singers rise to it in response. The
evening’s Leonora and Manrico have sung well
(and sometimes better than that), but it is here
in these last pages of the score that they seem to
sing as from within their characters. Doubtless
the presence of so distinguished a conductor
as Giulini has its effect, but whatever the
combination of causes, certainly we are prepared
to believe at the conclusion that, whether this has
been a great performance or not, it has led us to
appreciate the greatness of the opera.
Perhaps because the death of Peter Glossop is
still so recent an event, I found a special centrality
here in the role of the Count. There are times
when Glossop’s voice is not caught well (in the
first verse of his cabaletta, “Per me ora fatale”,
for instance), but when it is, as in his arrival
on stage in Act 1, then how the memories are
stirred! In its prime, his voice had an exceptional
generosity of warmth and power. The tessitura of
“Il balen” seems to have suited him perfectly and
he deals ably, if not imaginatively, with its stylistic
challenge. He needed a little more bite for the
duet with Leonora, but then his Di Luna is an
honest, frustrated man, not the villain of operatic
melodrama.
The recording is also an important document
in any revaluation of the work of Gwyneth Jones.

CDs - opera
Bruno Prevedi too is a singer, under-represented
on record and (it may be) undervalued, who will
exist more vividly for this. Of the great Simionato
one can only say that this is not representative:
her voice, if not exactly a ruin, is at any rate a
house divided against itself. She was then aged
54 and had been before the public since 1928. Of
Giulini’s direction plenty has been written. Not
so, I think, of the Covent Garden chorus who
make such an excellent contribution: particularly
(if one dare say so), the men.
John Steane
Wagner Parsifal. Jon Vickers (ten) Parsifal;
Amy Shuard (sop) Kundry; Norman Bailey
(bs-bar) Amfortas; Michael Langdon (bs)
Titurel; Louis Hendrikx (bs) Gurnemanz;
Donald McIntyre (bs-bar) Klingsor; Royal
Opera Chorus & Orchestra / Reginald
Goodall.
Royal Opera House Heritage M C ROH5012
(four discs; 4hrs 43mins; ADD); rec. Royal
Opera House, London, 8/5/71.
Reginald Goodall’s performances of Parsifal
at Covent Garden followed three years after
his Indian summer performances of The
Mastersingers at Sadler’s Wells and then the
Coliseum in 1968. But the circumstances
behind the two productions were very different.
Whereas at Sadler’s Wells he had received all the
rehearsal time necessary for a new production, at
the Royal Opera House, as the conductor of one
revival amongst several, he was allowed only a
limited number of sessions with the orchestra. He
had last conducted at Covent Garden in 1964,
when he assisted Solti in Das Rheingold. For many
members of the orchestra he was an unknown
quantity in 1971 (apart from a single brief
recording session for the company’s twenty-first
anniversary album made by Decca in 1968), and
Parsifal came between two of the new productions
that season, Eugene Onegin and Tristan und Isolde,
both led by the ultra-dynamic Solti. To make
matters even worse, the scheduled Gurnemanz for
this revival, Franz Crass, failed to appear at all. The
week of stage rehearsals was taken up with finding
CRC Winter 2008
reviews
substitutes, and without a Gurnemanz on stage.
Eventually a whole roster was recruited: Gottlob
Frick sang in the dress rehearsal and first night,
followed by Ernst Wiemann, Peter Meven, and
for this single night, the fifth performance of six,
the Belgian bass Louis Hendrikx, affectionately re-
christened Jimmie by the stage crew. So all things
considered it is a tribute to Goodall’s skills as a
conductor that this broadcast performance is as
convincing as it is.
Throughout his tempi tend towards the
magisterial: at best they create an intense
atmosphere ideally suited to the unique
psychology of Wagner’s masterpiece; at worst
the drama drags, with members of this orchestra
at times struggling. But fortunately the extremely
fine cast of singers is inspired by Goodall to give of
their very best throughout. Not the least among
them is Hendrikx (Fafner to Karl Ridderbusch’s
Fasolt in Karajan’s DG Rheingold) who gives
a very fine performance indeed. He does not
sound at all troubled by Goodall’s tempi, nor
by the presumed absence of any rehearsal, and
sings throughout with fine tone and considerable
dramatic involvement. But the twin centrepiece
of the performance is definitely Jon Vickers as
Parsifal and Amy Shuard as Kundry. The extended
second act duet between the two receives a searing
account, with neither giving any quarter at all.
This is the core of the performance. Vickers is very
good, if a little stolid, in the two outer acts, where
he is extremely well matched by Norman Bailey
as a highly affecting Amfortas – another excellent
performance amongst many. Donald McIntyre
was super-luxury casting as Klingsor, as was
Michael Langdon as Titurel. The flower maidens,
led by Kiri Te Kanawa, are more than serviceable,
as are the various knights and squires.
The BBC’s recorded sound is good, with
a surprising sense of spaciousness, admirably
caught in Paul Baily’s fine re-mastering. Goodall’s
recorded performances at the Royal Opera House
are so few that this release stands as an important
monument to his work there, even if under
different circumstances the results might have
been even better than they actually were in the
spring of 1971.
David Patmore
95
CRC Winter 2008
voice box
John T. Hughes
P revious presentations of
Gertrude Grob-Prandl’s
Isolde have been in poor sound. Now, from Vienna
in 1956, comes a Tristan und Isolde that is clear,
enabling one to hear her in excellent voice,
whether imperious before imbibing the love-
potion in Act 1 or passionate in the Act 2 duet,
which suffers a cut in the “Isolde! Tristan!” section.
Opposite her, Rudolf Lustig is dark in timbre,
the voice burly and strong. In Tristan’s delirium
in Act 3 he introduces Sprechgesang as his way
of heightening the drama. It is powerful but is it
musical enough? A positive Brangäne is delivered
in the warm, high-mezzo tones of Georgine von
Milinkovič. Toni Blankenheim sings Kurwenal
with firmness, whilst Kurt Boehme registers
anger in Marke’s monologue, untouched by
sadness at Tristan’s perceived betrayal. André
Cluytens seems to revel in the more extroverted
passages (Walhall C WLCD0235).
Bayreuth has ‘disowned’ Rienzi, and a
broadcast from Vienna in 1953 is reduced to
110 minutes, 12 of which are consumed by
the overture (Walhall C WLCD0221). The
rest is not so much cut as butchered under/by
Robert Heger. Acts 3 to 5 pass in 41 minutes.
Günther Treptow tackles Rienzi with tightish
and steely tone. He is allowed “Allmächt’ger
Vater” complete. From the bleeding cadaver,
even “Gerechter Gott” does not emerge intact,
and that is not because Hilde Rössl-Majdan is
overstretched. She sings it quite excitingly in her
focused tone. Irene, as whom Gerda Scheyrer
seems sometimes thin-voiced, loses most of her
role. There are some good singers in other parts,
like Waldemar Kmentt, Walter Berry and Adolf
Vogel. (The messenger is sung by Friedl Riegler,
not Rieger.)
From Wagner in Vienna I move to Strauss on
Italian Radio, which broadcast Der Rosenkavalier
in 1957 with the female trio of Sena Jurinac, Teresa
Stich-Randall and Hilde Zadek, their voices
well differentiated (Myto C 00176, 3 discs).
I know of no other recording with Jurinac and
Stich-Randall appearing together. Here they are
splendid. Take the Presentation Scene, in which
Stich-Randall places poised upper notes above
her colleague’s darker, golden tones; and how well
96
Selected vocal reissues of the past quarter
they complement each other in the final duet.
Zadek, lighter-timbred than Jurinac, is a warm-
hearted Marschallin, with knowing inflections.
On the ‘hissable’ side is the admirable Ludwig
Weber, bringing out all Ochs’s boorishness,
especially in his meeting with Sophie. These four
singers give pleasure at every appearance. With
supporting artists like Ljuba Welitsch, Hilde
Rössl-Majdan and Alfred Poell to hand and the
work lovingly conducted by Artur Rodzinski,
this well-recorded performance is recommended
despite the few cuts, none grievous.
Why has Gala issued the 1954 Met Manon with
De los Angeles and Valletti when it is available
on Walhall (C WLCD0094) and Bongiovanni
(C HOC 013/4)? The sound is generally clear
on all, and the performance is worth acquiring.
Gala’s presentation occupies two CDs, whilst on
a third is Falla’s La vida breve from Edinburgh in
1958, with De los Angeles and Bernabé Mart’nez
(Mart’). This CD is denoted a bonus, which
should mean that it is free, but to obtain it one
has to buy the whole set, risking duplication. The
transfer is sometimes a bit fierce. De los Angeles
is as winning as expected; others have little
to sing. The tenor has a shortish duet in Act 1
then almost nothing. Extra tracks carry pieces
listed as from Lisbon in 1944 with Raimundo
Torres and occasional skipping grooves (Gala C
GL100.638).
Adelaide Saraceni is usually berated for
shrillness of tone. In “Quel guardo” from HMV’s
complete Don Pasquale that shrillness is well in
evidence. One might well call it needle-sharp
or acidulous. The duet “Pronto io son” (L’elisir
d’amore) is salved by Afro Poli’s use of varied
shades and weightings. Is Saraceni sweeter as
Gilda? No, but Apollo Granforte’s Rigoletto
represents a higher league. It is not that Saraceni
sings badly, for she nimbly flits through Oscar’s
“Saper vorreste” and produces a nice fil di voce in
places in Manon’s “N’est-ce plus ma main”. She
is sensitive in “Son pocchi fiori” (L’amico Fritz)
and phrases effectively in Adriana Lecouvreur’s
two arias (from a worn 78), though she becomes
rather squally in the second half of “Poveri fiori”.
Difficult though it may be, perhaps we should
listen beyond the shrillness (Preiser C 89712).

One reads that Giuseppina Zinetti sang in
such transient operas as Selvaggi’s Maggiolata
Veneziana and Mulé’s Liolà, but her recordings
on Preiser C 89715 are predominantly from
the expected short list. If you have a penchant
for strong chest voices, perhaps Zinetti should
be sampled, be it in Carmen’s arias (one would
argue with her at one’s peril) or as Azucena. Her
approach is more suited to Verdi’s character than
to Bizet’s, toning down her excesses for a nicely
turned “Ai nostri monti” with Francesco Merli.
In Mignon’s “Connais-tu le pays?” she sings a
good line for some of the time but lets herself and
the music down with gulps, plus an awful, crude
sob before the final word. “Voce di donna” (La
gioconda) is shapely. Zinetti’s is a voice worth
hearing, if sometimes emphatic. Very good
transfers.
Should not someone who sang 29 important
roles at the Vienna State Opera have made more
recordings than Rose Pauly did? Perhaps more 78s
exist than the three on Preiser C 89714. Most of
the CD contains material from American concerts,
among which are three extracts from Elektra in
New York in 1937. (Nine of the 12 selections are
of Strauss.) Her Elektra shows the voice unsteady
in low-lying passages but with more power higher
up. “Zweite Brautnacht” (Die aegyptische Helena),
a 1928 Odeon, captures a fresher tone, but even
Fidelio’s “Abscheulicher”, a 1927 Parlophon, shows
weakish bottom notes. (She was 33 but sounds
older.) She phrases neatly as Tosca and Santuzza on
a 1927 Vox but with her strong vibrato not always
equalised and with a couple of bobbles in “Vissi
d’arte”. Maybe the record companies were right,
but why then the career?
A more recent singer is Slovenian mezzo
Marjana Lipovšek, whose 1987 Salzburg recital
with pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja is long at 98
minutes (Orfeo C C776 082B). The first disc
offers Schubert and Brahms, with Mussorgsky
and Tchaikovsky on the second, plus four
encores. Lipovšek’s tones have a warmth
and a plushness, but to them she can bring
brighter, harder sound, shown in a comparison
of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade and, say, “In the
corner” from Mussorgsky’s The Nursery, whose
opening lines are a realistically strident display
CRC Winter 2008
voice box
of childish petulance. (As in Wigmore Hall in
1990, she omits “The Cat Sailor”.) In Brahms’s
Gypsy Songs, Op. 103, vivaciously delivered in
varying colours, her versatility is evident. The
recording, stereo but ADD, is a shade hollow
and favours the bass. The balance sometimes
brings the piano so far forward that Leonskaja
seems to be pounding the keys.
Which two singers have divided collectors most
often? Callas and Fischer-Dieskau, do you think?
The accusation that has frequently been directed
at Fischer-Dieskau is that of over-interpreting.
Perhaps there is more scope for that in piano-
accompanied performances than in those with
orchestra, for in Kindertotenlieder, with Rudolf
Kempe conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, the
intensity of sadness is palpable, with the whole
range of hues that the baritone could summon
heightening the sense of loss. Three years earlier,
he joined the Philharmonia under Furtwängler
to record another Mahler cycle: Lieder aus
dem fahrenden Gesellen. Singer, conductor and
orchestra paint in a kaleidoscope of colours to
suit each song. I find Fischer-Dieskau’s singing in
mezza voce generally more beautiful than in full
voice, but his interpretation is as intelligent and
rewarding as one remembers. Add his Schumann
Liederkreis, Op. 39, with Gerald Moore for a
worthwhile bargain (Naxos C 8.111300).
Three of the above compilations concentrate
on opera, so to balance them is a third containing
songs. Their composer, Ned Rorem, accompanies
five singers in 32 songs recorded in 1962/3 for
an American Columbia LP. Only three songs
extend beyond three minutes. My favourite, Early
in the Morning, is probably the most popular.
Composed in 1954, it is beautifully sung in
enfolding tones by Donald Gramm, each of
whose nine contributions benefits from his ample
bass. The tenor Charles Bressler, light of voice
and touch, is well heard in See how they love me.
Regina Sarfaty, the mezzo, is more ear-pleasing in
middle notes than upper ones, which are a shade
harsh. The remaining two singers are sopranos:
the lyric Phyllis Curtin and the vocally higher
Gianna d’Angelo. This is a contrasting selection
of Rorem’s songs (Other Minds Records C OM
1009-2CD). CRC
97
 JustClassical is a brand new website
dedicated to Classical Music on LP and CD.
The founders of JustClassical worked
for many years in a Classical Music shop in
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would wander in, look vaguely at the row
upon row of recordings on display and then come to the counter and ask, “Is it Just Classical in here?”
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extraordinary legacy of material available to those of us prepared to hear; because recordings are amazing. Recordings allow us to bring great
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Unfortunately it is that very availability that makes it so easy to take recorded music for granted. In an age when CDs are given away free on
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98
 HISTORIC MASTERS LTD
(President Lord Harewood)
HISTORIC MASTERS IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT ITS NEW BOXED SET

MELBA: HER FIRST RECORDINGS

IS NOW AVAILABLE
De-Luxe Boxed Set, sponsored by The Melgaard Foundation
It comprises eight double-sided
recordings made by Melba in Melba: Her first recordings
1904 at her home in London.
These are pressed on quality
Dame Nellie Melba

Melba
vinyl from original masters
made available by archives
of Deutsche Grammophon
and EMI. Three of these were
never published in original
Dame Nellie Melba
form. The box also includes a
Recorded in 1904
lavishly illustrated booklet and a at Great Cumberland Place, London
companion CD. This is a strictly 78 rpm recordings made from re-discovered,

limited edition. original metal masters

Box includes CD and fully illustrated booklet

Prices have been adjusted to

take account of changes in

Her first recordings

exchange rate and increases in
postal charges.
Prices including postage:
United Kingdom £95
Europe £105
masters

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Melba: Her first recordings

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DN36 5RT, England 10, Yealand Drive
Lancaster LA1 4EW, UK
Tel – 01472 840236
Email:- roger@beardsley.freeserve.co.uk Tel – 01524 69624
Email – SHenig@78rpm.fsnet.co.uk 99
 ENJOY HISTORIC SINGERS?
You’ll enjoy The Record Collector
A Quarterly Journal of Vocal Art
 Published over 62 years  CDs produced
 Full biographies and complete specially for our
discographies in every issue readers
 Articles for the record collector  Unique in its field

For bonus offers for new subscribers go to:

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phone: 01245 441661
111, Longshots Close, Chelmsford, CM1 7DU, U.K.

Federation of Recorded Music Societies

Over 200 societies in England, Wales and Scotland

are affiliated to the Federation of Recorded Music
Societies (FRMS). Recorded music societies offer
appreciation and understanding of music (mainly
classical) in convivial company.
There may be one near you
To find out more visit our website
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or
E-mail: secretary@thefrms.co.uk
for further details.

labels :: covers :: booklets :: logos

leaflets :: photos and illustrations
image editing and manipulation
e: s2dio@me.com :: t: +44 (0)7846 407464 real good value graphic design
100
 CRC Winter 2008

classified
The POLYPHONY
Tully Potter Collection Celebrates 30 years of fine classical recordings with
a remarkable series of auction catalogs during 2008/09.
Nearly complete listings of US RCA mono LP catalog
(LM, LVT, LCT, LRM, LBC, CAL); many LSC & LDS;
Soria-era British-pressing Angels; Lexington and other
Specialises rare violin LP’s; scarce US issues in all artist categories.
in rare Unusual vocal, instrumental, orchestral 78’s; open reels.

photographs of Website: www.lucidum.com/polyphony

historical musicians POB #515 / Highland Park / IL / 60035 / USA
Polyphony2@aol.com
and singers
We have more than
10,000 high-resolution classicvinylcollector.com
images instantly available Fine Classical LP Records
Our prices are • 5000 SXL, ASD, SAX, 33CX, ALP,
very reasonable DG, Philips etc at all price ranges
Contacts: £5–£500+
richard.burch@btclick.com • New Rarities every month
Tel. 01277-626225 • Searchable Database
or tully.potter@btinternet.com
• Online shopping cart
Tel. 01277-654672
• Established & experienced dealer
sends records worldwide
www.tullypottercollection.co.uk
• Fast & efficient service
HUGE ANNUAL AUCTION LIST • VISA, Mastercard & AMEX accepted
Classical vocal, Instrumental, some Personality and Speech.
Mainly 78s, but cylinders, Pathé and Edison disc, LPs, and Andrew Coombs Records Ltd.
printed matter as well. Rare illustrations of many of the 36 The Lynch, Winscombe,
artists and biographical material. Lists issued mid-November Somerset, BS25 1AR, UK
annually. Either paper (about 200 pages) or on the Internet. Tel/Fax +44 (0)1934 844867
For an idea as to past offerings and format, last year’s list will Generous Quantity Discounts
remain posted on the Internet until the new one is issued:
holdridgerecords.com.
Lawrence F. Holdridge, 54 East Lake Drive,
Amityville, NY, 11701, USA.
E-mail: larhold@bway.net;
Fax: 631-691-5207; Phone: 631-598-2409. 1st floor, 67 Victoria Road, Worthing,
West Sussex BN11 1UN
Tel: +44 (0)1903 209553
Fax: +44 (0)1903 203855 Classical
email: info@revolutions-33.fsnet.co.uk LPs & CDs
www.revolutions33.co.uk bought & sold

101
CRC Winter 2008

classified : : subscriptions
CLASSICS in the CITY ARCANA COLLECTOR - BERLIN
rare & collectible classical LPs
Glasgow’s premier classical record shop DGG, ELECTROLA, ETERNA, TELEFUNKEN,
is close to The Royal Concert Hall EURODISC, DUCRETET-THOMSON, DISCOPHILES
FRANCAIS, VEGA, BAM, ERATO, LUMEN, ODEON, FALP
& ASDF, FCX & SAXF, PATHÉ, SXL, ASD. SAX, ALP, CX,
54 Dundas Street, Glasgow G1 2AQ MELODYA, MERCURY, TEST-PRESSING...

Tel: 0141 353 6915 Phone: +49 (0)172 3844603

Email: arcanacollector@hotmail.de
classicsincity@btconnect.com Website: www.arcana-collector.com

LIVE CONCERTS ON CUSTOM CDS Classic

50 yrs of Boston Symphony, 1930–1980, all conductors
Largest selections of Pierre Monteux, Guido Cantelli Paray Record
Videos of famous artists, all worldwide systems Collector Classic Record Collector
Specify lists desired to:
N. Brown, PO Box 94673, Albuquerque, NM 87199, USA.
Email: nateincottonwood2@webtv.net will be offering
Wanted LP and CD collections, hi-fi turntables back copies of the magazine
etc. Phone Geoff 01525 237693 Bedfordshire. for sale again soon
Email classical_records@hotmail.com

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102
 CRC Winter 2008

advertise in CRC
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Email: editor@classicrecordcollector.com
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103
The other side of the
counter – a retail
manager’s viewpoint
The state of the record business as it stands now
is the basis for much discussion. The present
crisis in financial markets is seen by many as only
another nail in the coffin of an industry already
threatened by digital web-based dissemination
and ongoing internationalisation. This is seen
everywhere: the internal licensing of Universal’s
recorded product is now handled by the Belgian
collection society SABAM, as opposed to our
own MCPS/PRS Alliance, for example.
So what does all this mean for the record
buying consumer? If discs are cheaper when
ordered via the web and then shipped here
from abroad (I know someone who regularly
prefers Japanese websites to shopping here in
his native London), what is the point of record
shops? In fact, what is the point of new CDs
as solid product at all? The old chestnut of “I
want to hold something solid in my hands”, a
concept most readily applicable to the LP era
and something to which I confess I do relate,
was loosened from its tree by the advent of the
CD. Now, of course, one can store and play
sound files on ever more sonically compliant
computers, or simply shunt them over to one’s
iPod via a USB cable, or from iTunes to a handy
(and cheap) CD-R or CD-RW. The flexibility
is there, to be sure, but there is something so
very impermanent about it all.
Some rare shops continue to offer a
delicious window to the past, for instance
Harold Moores in London; some offer oodles
of character and a real sense of rediscovery, as at
Gramex, also in London. But the stock of such
outlets is substantially or wholly second-hand.
So what of the consumer of “new releases”? I
speak as someone who, as manager of a classical
department in a well-known chain, sees the
regular influx of crossover artists and over-
media-hyped young wannabes. The rise of TV
“talent shows” has a huge amount to answer
for – the collective cultural damage of these
programmes is immense and, just as in the case
of an ultra-destructive radioactive blast, there is
104
little doubt that their fall-out will be measured
for years, and probably decades, to come. The
continued existence of these execrable but
curiously addictive shows relies on the huge
viewing figures they create. The bands, groups,
or whatever they are called, rely on the say-so of
some fairly randomly-picked judges, and before
we know it the middle-of-the-road, devoid of
individuality sounds they exude permeate the
marketplace and airways. Jonathan Ansell, of
the “pop opera” group G4 (I borrow the term
“pop opera” from Ansell’s own website, www.
jonathanansell.com), made the headlines via
the show The X Factor. He is only one of many
would-be opera singers who just don’t cut it
when compared with the greatest – or even
the least – of their historical counterparts.
(Alfie Boe, who is at least Royal College of
Music-trained, seems remarkably weak of
voice when one experiences him live, as I did
recently during the filming of the TV series,
Maestro.) The group Blake and the singer Will
Martin (whose disc Brave New World, issued on
Universal, is described as “classical cross-over”
on his own website), are two more examples of
these musical miscreants. But there are many
others. Too many by far.
The glut of reissues of valuable material
from the past, both on labels such as APR,
Naxos Historical and Marston and on the web
(www.pristineclassical.com for example), might
on the surface seem to go some way to balance
this trend, as does the emergence of archive
film footage contained in the DVDs reviewed
by CRC – the EMI Classic Archive series is a
particular favourite of mine. But the market
for these treasures seems remarkably low, since
increasing numbers of the population will not
accept anything from the pre-digital era (that’s
the so-called “golden era” to you and me).
Solutions? Well, first the problem. The
hectic pace of modern life has led us all into the
trap that more and sooner is better, and better
still if the music is easy on the ear and requires
no effort; and so it is that the highly-sugared
arrangements of the X Factor tie-ins, et al, gain
favour. The solution? Perhaps the world just
needs to learn to listen again. And I mean really
listen.
Colin Clarke
 With apologies to Boz

HAROLD MOORES RECORDS

HAROLD HAROLD
MOORES MOORES
RECORDS RECORDS

Shop opening hours: Mail orders by phone, fax or via our T 020 7437 1576 F 020 7287 0377 Harold Moores Records Limited
Monday to Saturday 10am to 6.30pm website. Worldwide post-free delivery E sales@hmrecords.demon.co.uk 2 Great Marlborough Street
Sunday - CLOSED for all CD orders W www.hmrecords.co.uk London W1F 7HQ
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Decca 480 0027 (2CD)

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Shéhérazade · Mallarmé poems ERNEST ANSERMET Cantatas BWV 45, 67, 101, 105, 130
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