MOZART Piano Quartets Nos. 1 and 2 Clarinet Quintet
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111238 bk Szell-Goodman EU 11/10/06 1:50 PM Page 5 MOZART: Quartet No. 1 in G minor for Piano and Strings, K. 478 20:38 1 Allegro 7:27 2 Andante 6:37 MOZART 3 Rondo [Allegro] 6:34 Recorded 18th August, 1946 in Hollywood Matrix nos.: XCO 36780 through 36785. Piano Quartets Nos. 1 and 2 First issued on Columbia 72624-D through 72626-D in album M-773 MOZART: Quartet No. 2 in E flat major for Piano and Strings, K. 493 21:58 Clarinet Quintet 4 Allegro 7:17 AN • G 5 Larghetto 6:44 DM EO 6 O R Allegro 7:57 Also available O G Recorded 20th August, 1946 in Hollywood G E Matrix nos.: XCO 36786 through 36791. Y S Z First issued on Columbia 71930-D through 71932-D in album M-669 N E N L George Szell, Piano E L Members of the Budapest String Quartet B (Joseph Roisman, Violin; Boris Kroyt, Viola; Mischa Schneider, Cello) MOZART: Quintet in A major for Clarinet and Strings, K. 581 27:20 7 Allegro 6:09 8 Larghetto 5:42 9 Menuetto 6:29 0 Allegretto con variazioni 9:00 Recorded 25th April, 1938 in New York City Matrix nos.: BS 022904-2, 022905-2, 022902-2, 022903-1, 022906-1, 022907-1 1 93 gs and CS 022908-2 and 022909-1. 8-1 rdin First issued on Victor 1884 through 1886 and 14921 in album M-452 946 Reco 8.110306 8.110307 Benny Goodman, Clarinet Budapest String Quartet (Joseph Roisman, Violin I; Alexander Schneider, Violin II, Boris Kroyt, Viola; Mischa Schneider, Cello) Budapest String Quartet Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn Joseph Roisman • Alexander Schneider, Violins Boris Kroyt, Viola Mischa Schneider, Cello 8.111238 5 8.111238 6 111238 bk Szell-Goodman EU 11/10/06 1:50 PM Page 2 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): become more apparent than its failings. The English of Czech parents but brought up and schooled in Producer’s Note The Two Piano Quartets • Clarinet Quintet K. 581 clarinettist Reginald Kell, later to become Benny Vienna, was already a conductor of almost three Goodman’s mentor in classical music, certainly took a decades’ experience; but he had begun his career as a The two Piano Quartets were originally recorded by American Columbia on 33 1/3 rpm lacquer master discs, Recordings which go ‘against the grain’ of an artist’s their style mixed Austro-German style with Russian more relaxed approach in his recording with the prodigy in both composition – Adolf Busch was only from which 78 rpm matrices were dubbed. Because the lacquers featured a wider frequency range and (generally) usual repertoire or inclinations can be very interesting – string-playing flair. They played very little Russian Philharmonia Quartet. But Goodman’s more extrovert, one of the great musicians who performed his quieter surfaces than the 78 metal parts, they were used as the basis for Columbia’s LP transfers, which have in and so it proved when Benny Goodman, the King of music and if one had to pick one composer to represent striding, outdoor style has its own refreshing rewards; precocious Piano Quintet – and piano playing. He was turn been used as the source for this reissue. Some surface noise deriving from the original lacquers (not the commercial LP sources used) remains; however, on the whole, I found the results of using the LPs in this case Swing, was teamed with the Budapest Quartet. As with them at their best, it would be Mozart. They found the and the string playing is lovely. As the performance has a pupil of the Viennese piano pedagogue Richard preferable to the much noisier late-1940s shellac 78s as a source. These were, incidentally, the first recordings many of the most adventurous recording initiatives of normally confident Goodman very humble in his received only one LP transfer and two shortlived CD Robert, who also taught Rudolf Serkin, Hans Gál and Szell made in the United States, just before he assumed the directorship of the Cleveland Orchestra. the 1930s, the motivation for Goodman to tackle approach to playing the classics. He even offered to reissues (one of them compromised by using the Clara Haskil, and he never allowed his piano skills to The Clarinet Quintet was transferred from first-edition pre-war Victor “Gold” pressings. The original album Mozart came from John Hammond, the scion of a audition for them but no sooner had they held an dubbed British masters), its reappearance will be lapse even when he became a full-time conductor. contained three ten-inch discs for the first three movements followed by a twelve-inch disc for the last movement socially advantaged New York family who was brought impromptu rehearsal session in the Great Northern welcomed by both Goodman and Budapest fans. Szell’s aristocratic touch at the piano was first heard in (which accounts for the rarity of finding a copy today with an unbroken final disc). For its UK issue, HMV dubbed up to love the classics but became an avid jazz fan. Hotel, than they decided to go ahead with the recording. Goodman went on to perform the Mozart Quintet in conjunction with the Budapest at the Library of the six ten-inch sides down to four twelve-inch matrices (joining some sides in the process and causing other side Goodman first attempted the A major Quintet at a soirée Later Goodman was to regret that the five of them did public with the Budapest three times; and the idea of his Congress in April 1945, in Dvorˇák’s Piano Quintet; in breaks), and issued the set on three twelve-inch discs. When EMI reissued this set on a CD in their Références in the ballroom of the Hammond home on East 91st not perform the Quintet in public before setting it down recording the Brahms Quintet with them was mooted. October of that year he performed the Brahms Quintet series several years ago, they apparently used the sonically-compromised dubbed sides for transfer. Here, it has Street, in 1935. The string quartet comprised the on shellac. ‘I thought that chamber music could be But O’Connell showed so little interest in the Budapest with them; and in May 1946 he joined members of the been restored from original undubbed pressings. violinists John Dembeck and Ronald Murat, Hammond tossed off pretty nearly as easily as a good jam session,’ that they gladly accepted Hammond’s suggestion of group in Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet and Beethoven’s In light of the recent proliferation of “crossover” Classical releases, it is almost quaint to read the apologia on viola, and Artie Bernstein on cello, and the audience he recalled. He did not appreciate ‘that the Columbia as a more congenial record label. In ‘Kakadu’ Variations for trio (the Library holds in-house Victor offered in their original booklet for combining the celebrated quartet with “the King of Swing”: was an integrated one, Harlem jazzmen rubbing astonishingly high standards of the Budapest Quartet September 1940, now United States residents and recordings of all four interpretations). So when he met shoulders with New York socialites. ‘In 1936 Benny came from everlasting, painstaking attention to detail holding down the plum residency at the Library of with them in August 1946 to record the Mozart There may be some curiosity as to the musical association of Mr. Benny Goodman, clarinet, whose recorded [the Mozart Quintet] with the Pro Arte String through every rehearsal and performance of every work Congress, they made their first records for Columbia; Quartets, the partnership was already well worn in. fame in the minds of the general public rests definitely in fields far removed from chamber music, with so austere a group as the Budapest String Quartet; but there can not be, for anyone who listens Quartet for Victor, records which did not turn out well,’ in their repertoire’. RCA Victor’s eccentric classical and they remained with that company for the next Szell’s beautifully tooled playing offset the Budapest’s to a few bars of this recorded performance, the slightest question of Mr. Goodman’s eligibility … Hammond recalled. ‘The string players did not treat supremo Charles O’Connell, who considered chamber quarter of a century, until their disbandment. gorgeous string playing to perfection, with Boris This recording is not, in any sense, a “stunt,” and was not for a moment so considered by the artists Benny with the respect he deserved, and in the music aficionados ‘bloodless snobs’ – an attitude that By the time of the other two recordings on this disc, Kroyt’s lovely tone on Mozart’s favourite viola coming or anyone else connected with it … [I]t was recorded as an effort to add to the library of Victor uncomfortable atmosphere he froze.’ Two years later was soon to lose him not only the Budapest but the a great deal had happened to the Budapest, not all of it through the texture marvellously. There was only one records a valid masterpiece, done in the best possible way by the best obtainable artists. It Goodman tried again. Hammond had got to know Busch Quartet as well – made things particularly pleasant. On the one hand, they were established as the surprising thing about these performances, in fact – the represents, therefore, no deviation from Victor policy. Alexander ‘Sasha’ Schneider, second violinist of the difficult for Goodman by electing to record the first leading string quartet in America. On the debit side, in studio. The Budapest usually recorded at Liederkranz Budapest Quartet and, like him, very much a man about three movements of the Quintet on ten-inch discs.