R. Strauss Saint-Saëns Brahms
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Early stereo recordings • 1 R. STRAUss Till Eulenspiegel London Symphony Orchestra Norman Del Mar SAINT-SAËNS Cello Concerto No. 1 Paul Tortelier cello Philharmonia Orchestra Herbert Menges BRAHMS Violin Concerto Endre Wolf violin London Symphony Orchestra Walter Goehr First release of the 1954 & 1955 stereo recordings 1 Recording alert buzzer and orchestra tuning [0:33] Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897) Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 (1878) [40:35] Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949) 6 I. Allegro non troppo [22:01] 2 Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Op. 28, TrV 171 [14:30] 7 II. Adagio [10:24] (Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks) (1894-1895) 8 III. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace — [8:05] Poco più presto London Symphony Orchestra • Norman Del Mar Endre Wolf violin Recorded at No. 1 Studio, Abbey Road, 23 July 1954 London Symphony Orchestra • Walter Goehr First release in any format Producer: unknown Recorded at No. 1 Studio, Abbey Road, 25 and 28 August 1954 Stereo Balance Engineer: unknown First issued on Music-Appreciation Records MAR 15 * (mono LP) Remastered by David Murphy (FHR) Tracks 7-8 first release in stereo; track 6 mono transferred from * Producer: unknown Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921) Mono Engineer: Neville Boyling Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33 (1872) [18:33] Stereo Balance Engineer: unknown 3 I. Allegro non troppo — [5:19] Remastered by Jonathan Mayer and David Murphy (FHR) 4 II. Allegretto con moto — [5:53] 5 III. Allegro non troppo [7:20] Total Timing: [74:19] Paul Tortelier cello Transfers by Ted Kendall, apart from track 6 Philharmonia Orchestra • Herbert Menges All source materials used in this issue are from the Archive Recorded at No. 1 Studio, Abbey Road, 16 September 1955 of Recorded Sound (ARS). For more information, please First issued on HMV ALP 1336 (mono LP) visit: www.archiveofrecordedsound.com/ First release in stereo Producer: David Bicknell ℗ 1954, 2018 & © 2018 Recordings licensed from the Stereo Balance Engineer: Christopher Parker Archive of Recorded Sound (ARS). The copyright in the Remastered by Jonathan Mayer and David Murphy (FHR) remastering is owned by First Hand Records Ltd ̶ 2 ̶ R. STRAUSS • SAINT-SAËNS • BRAHMS Early stereo recordings • 1 Great musical and discographical interest attaches to this At the time of his M.A.R. sessions with the LSO, Del Mar was fascinating CD, which features a ‘first release’ by an eminent coming to the end of five years as conductor of Benjamin scholar-conductor and ‘first releases in stereo’ from two of Britten’s English Opera Group and was set fair for one of the the more interesting string players of the 1950s. The Brahms most distinguished careers in British music – which included Violin Concerto was recorded for Music-Appreciation Records, holding his teacher Lambert’s old position at the Royal College a fondly remembered American label which was marketed in of Music (1972-1990). It is particularly valuable to have this the United States by Book-of-the-Month Club and, to quote splendid performance of Till Eulenspiegel because Del Mar the LSO discographer Philip Stuart, ‘coupled performances wrote the definitive work on Strauss in English, a classic with illustrated musical analyses of the works’. achievement in three volumes. A big man whose affectionate nickname among orchestral players was ‘the Mass of Life’, Del Born in Hampstead, London, Norman René Del Mar (1919- Mar also wrote a number of books on conducting. For some 1994) studied horn with Frank Probyn, composition with Ralph reason this recording was never released on LP, although the Vaughan Williams and conducting with Constant Lambert at the Beethoven Fifth from the same No. 1 Studio, Abbey Road Royal College of Music and began his musical career as a horn sessions was issued with an analysis by Thomas Scherman and player: during the war he played alongside Dennis Brain in the ‘the M.A.R. Orchestra’. celebrated RAF Central Band and in 1944 founded the Chelsea Symphony Orchestra. When hostilities ended he continued EMI was a little slow to pick up on the stereophonic revolution conducting semi-professional orchestras and when Sir Thomas and Walter Legge of Columbia, in particular, continued to Beecham founded the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1946, Del balance all his recordings in mono while the stereo engineer Mar was again one of the players in Brain’s section. However he was left to his own devices in a separate booth. HMV took was almost immediately made Beecham’s conducting assistant the new technology a little more seriously and for their star and Beecham both arranged and attended his professional cellist Paul Tortelier’s first stereo concerto sessions with the conducting début in 1947. He took part in Beecham’s Strauss Philharmonia, in June 1955, David Bicknell had Lawrance Festival, conductingMacbeth and the Symphonic Fantasia from Collingwood to assist, while Neville Boyling looked after the Die Frau ohne Schatten, and the ageing Strauss attended both mono balance and Christopher Parker was in charge of the the rehearsals and the performances. stereo. The resulting Dvorák Concerto was released the same ̶ 3 ̶ year, spread across two HMV stereosonic tapes (SAT 1000-01), with a stereo version on LP (HMV Concert Classics SXLP 30018) not emerging until 1963. On 15-17 September Tortelier and the Philharmonia were back at Abbey Road and this time Bicknell had assistance from Alan Melville and Brian Culverhouse, while Douglas Larter did the mono engineering and Parker again presided over the stereo. Of the three works recorded, all were issued a year later on the same mono LP, but the Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations did not appear in stereo until 1993. Fauré’s Élégie was released only in mono and Saint-Saëns’s A minor Concerto is here receiving its first stereo outing. Tortelier (1914-1990) was the most charismatic of an exceptional generation of French cellists. Born in Montmartre, he was encouraged by his mother to take up the instrument and studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Louis Feuillard and Gérard Hekking, later returning to study harmony with Jean Gallon (he became an excellent composer). After spells in Monte Carlo and with Koussevitzky’s Boston Symphony, he returned to Paris and after the war began a meteoric career, founded on his peerless interpretations of the Elgar Concerto, Strauss’s Don Quixote and the French repertoire. His conductor Herbert Menges (1902-1972) was born in Hove into a musical family – elder sister Isolde was a noted violinist and quartet leader. Menges started on the violin but became a sterling pianist and composer, although his conducting took over his career, especially in the theatre and opera house. He founded the Richard Strauss, 1894 orchestra in Brighton and worked with many British ensembles, but EMI used him mainly as a concerto accompanist. Tortelier ̶ 4 ̶ gives an athletic account of the Saint-Saëns and Menges supports him admirably. What is extraordinary is the difference between the well-known mono recording, where the cello is quite spotlit and well to the front in the balance, and this stereo version, where the soloist is much more sympathetically placed within the orchestral texture. The Hungarian-born violinist and teacher Endre Wolf (1913- 2011) was trained at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Oszkar Studer, Jenő Hubay and Leó Weiner, but found the anti-Semitism prevalent under Admiral Horthy’s regime unbearable. In 1936 he beat a fellow Hungarian to the concertmaster’s job at the Gothenburg Symphony Orchesatra and from then on was based in Sweden, although he spent important periods teaching in Copenhagen and Manchester. Wolf’s discography is uneven: Atterberg’s Suite for violin, viola and orchestra and concertos by Bach, Mozart, Bruch, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Brahms (two versions) but no Beethoven – although a creditable Beethoven Concerto has been issued on CD from the Swedish Radio – as well as a few sonatas and other pieces with piano. This first recording of the Brahms is similar in outline to the one he made in 1958 for World Record Club with the Sinfonia of London under Anthony Collins. His conductor on 25 and 28 August 1954 in No. 1 Studio, Abbey Road, was Berlin- born Walter Goehr (1903-1960), who studied at the Stern Saint-Saëns, 1865 Conservatory and the Prussian Academy of Arts and was also a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg. He came to Britain in 1933 to ̶ 5 ̶ Endre Wolf, c.1940 ̶ 6 ̶ escape Hitler’s regime and became a pivotal participant in British music as recording conductor, composer, arranger, teacher and the first performer of important works by Britten and Tippett among others. He was the father of the composer Alexander Goehr. Goehr conducts a good solid tutti and Wolf displays fine style and lovely tone, free of the wide ‘Hubay vibrato’ affected by many of his compatriots. The Allegro non troppo comes across as quite leisurely, with tempo changes that seem organic, yet Wolf still manages to arrive at the start of the Kreisler cadenza in 17:14, not outrageously longer than those Brahmsian paragons Busch and Huberman. The many double-stops are effortlessly executed. TheAdagio begins with a beautiful oboe solo, presumably by Roger Lord, and when Wolf enters he uses more portamento than in the first movement – perfectly in style for Brahms and very beautifully done. He is not too slow in the Finale: because Joseph Joachim found this movement too difficult at Brahms’s original tempo, Brahms changed it to the more relaxed Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace, but violinists ‘in the know’ still aimed for the original speed. All in all, this performance is a fine example of the Hungarian Brahms tradition.