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110957 bk Sammons2 US 29|04|2003 2:19 PM Page 5 Producer’s Note GREAT VIOLINISTS • Albert Sammons Matrix: CA 12845-2 ADD First issued on Columbia DB 1008 The present transfers came from a variety of different sources: the Mozart from a combination of American Historical Recordings 1926-1935 Great Violinists • Sammons 8.110957 Columbia “Royal Blue” shellacs and laminated Australian Columbias, the rare Nachez (in print for less than a 7 MASSENET: year), the Sammons piece and Londonderry Air from laminated English Columbias, the Massenet from a laminated MOZART: Sinfonia concertante in E flat Thaïs: Méditation 3:57 Australian Columbia; the Schubert and Dvor˘ák from post-EMI merger unlaminated English Columbias, and the for Violin and Viola, K. 364 29:57 Gerald Moore, piano Elgar from the best sides of four American Columbia mid-1930s pressings. The records from the 1926 and 1928 1 Allegro maestoso 15:17 Recorded 2nd March 1928 MOZART sessions have a significant amount of pitch fluctuation in the original recordings which I have tried to correct. 2 Andante 8:33 Columbia Studios, Petty France, London 3 Presto 5:58 Matrix: WAX 3336 Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola Mark Obert-Thorn Lionel Tertis, Viola First issued on Columbia 9415 London Philharmonic Orchestra, Hamilton Harty ELGAR Recorded 30th April 1933 8 SAMMONS: Violin Sonata in E minor EMI Abbey Road Studio No. 1, London Bourrée 3:38 Mark Obert-Thorn Matrices: CAX 6824-2, 6825-2, 6826-2, 6827-2, With an unidentified pianist 6828-2, 6829-2, 6830-1 and 6831-1 Recorded 9th September 1926 Albert Sammons, Violin • Lionel Tertis, Viola • William Murdoch, Piano Mark Obert-Thorn is one of the world’s most respected transfer artist/engineers. He has worked for a number of First issued on Columbia DX 478 through 481 Columbia Studios, Petty France, London London Philharmonic Orchestra • Hamilton Harty specialist labels, including Pearl, Biddulph, Romophone and Music & Arts. Three of his transfers have been Matrix: WAX 1889 Recorded 1926-1935 nominated for Gramophone Awards. A pianist by training, his passions are music, history and working on projects. 4 NACHEZ: First issued on Columbia 9484 He has found a way to combine all three in the transfer of historical recordings. Passacaglia on a Theme of Sammartini 7:37 Obert-Thorn describes himself as a ‘moderate interventionist’ rather than a ‘purist’ or ‘re-processor,’ unlike those With an unidentified pianist 9 TRADITIONAL (arr. Sammons): who apply significant additions and make major changes to the acoustical qualities of old recordings. His philosophy Recorded 9th September 1926 Londonderry Air 2:45 is that a good transfer should not call attention to itself, but rather allow the performances to be heard with the greatest Columbia Studios, Petty France, London With an unidentified pianist clarity. Matrices: WAX 1882 and 1883 Recorded 9th September 1926 There is no over-reverberant ‘cathedral sound’ in an Obert-Thorn restoration, nor is there the tinny bass and First issued on Columbia L 1834 Columbia Studios, Petty France, London piercing mid-range of many ‘authorised’ commercial issues. He works with the cleanest available 78s, and Matrix: WA 3886 consistently achieves better results than restoration engineers working with the metal parts from the archives of the 5 SCHUBERT (arr. Brunet): First issued on Columbia 4820 modern corporate owners of the original recordings. His transfers preserve the original tone of the old recordings, Rosamunde: Entr’acte 2:21 maximising the details in critical upper mid-range and lower frequencies to achieve a musical integrity that is absent Gerald Moore, piano ELGAR: from many other commercially released restorations. Recorded 28th June 1932 Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82 23:23 EMI Abbey Road Studio No. 3, London 0 Allegro 7:17 Matrix: CA 12848-2 ! Andante 7:33 First issued on Columbia DB 1008 @ Allegro non troppo 8:33 William Murdoch, piano 6 DVOR˘ÁK (arr. Rehfeld): Recorded 2nd February 1935 Humoresque, Op. 101, No. 7 3:05 EMI Abbey Road Studio No. 3, London The Naxos historical label aims to make available the greatest recordings in the history of recorded music, in the best Gerald Moore, piano Matrices: CAX 7421-2, 7422-1, 7423-1, 7424-1, and truest sound that contemporary technology can provide. To achieve this aim, Naxos has engaged a number of Recorded 28th June 1932 7425-1 and 7426-2 respected restorers who have the dedication, skill and experience to produce restorations that have set new standards EMI Abbey Road Studio No. 3, London First issued on Columbia LX 379 through 381 in the field of historical recordings. 8.110957 5 6 8.110957 110957 bk Sammons2 US 29|04|2003 2:19 PM Page 2 Great Violinists • Albert Sammons included a Phantasy Quartet (a Cobbett Prize-winner) the Royal Academy of Music were financed by he initially rejected but later championed). He himself Sammons leading and Billy Reed playing second fiddle The British Isles have not, as a rule, been noted for name as a soloist – in 1910 he had a success with the as well as solos and studies for the violin. His later years moonlighting in such places as Madame Tussaud’s and enriched the viola repertoire with miniatures and to him) Sammons and Murdoch took over the Sonata producing string players. In fact the genuinely great Bruch Concerto in G minor at Queen’s Hall under were made difficult by illness but from 1939 to 1954 he a lunatic asylum. He was nineteen when a student friend transcriptions. and they quickly became its best interpreters. Although twentieth-century exponents of string instruments from Stanford and then at the Royal Albert Hall under taught at the Royal College, his best-known pupils at the Royal Academy, Percy Hilder Miles, asked him to Tertis played Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante with his recording finds him just past his best years, we can Britain can be counted on the fingers of one hand. To Landon Ronald. In 1911 he was appointed to the King’s being Alan Loveday and Hugh Bean. He died on 24th play the viola in a quartet and he met his true destiny. Ysaÿe, Thibaud, Primrose (a performance in Paris still appreciate the big, sensuous tone, the very have two of them, therefore, featured on one compact Band and in 1912 he played Saint-Saëns’s Concerto in August, 1957. As a violist he was virtually self-taught. In 1902, by which stimulated that great player to take up the viola), pronounced but precise portamento and the fine sense of disc is a rare treat. Almost entirely self-taught, Albert B minor before King George V and the composer. Lionel Tertis is acknowledged the world over as the which time he was viola professor at the Academy, Goldberg, Busch and Kreisler, but his most frequent structure. The heart of the performance is the Romance, Sammons is regarded as the finest British violinist to Although he detested foreign travel, a quirk which father of modern viola playing. His virtuosity and his Tertis heard Kreisler and knew he had found his ideal. partner was Sammons. Their recording, the first to be in which Sammons conjures up the wistful Elgarian have made records, and his interpretation of Elgar’s prevented his having an international career, he worked personal vision of a warm, vibrant viola tone, derived He took the Kreisler vibrato and adapted it to the larger made of this beautiful work, featured Beecham’s new atmosphere with complete understanding and achieves Violin Concerto (Naxos 8.110951) is the benchmark by in both Germany (with the Russian Ballet) and France from his close study of his idol Kreisler’s playing, viola, keeping the fingers of his left hand continuously London Philharmonic with Sir Hamilton Harty a perfectly graded approach to the climax of the which all others are judged and found wanting. This under Monteux. The first of many joint performances of amazed his contemporaries and stimulated others to alive and virtually overlapping the vibrato from note to conducting. Although he was a devoted Mozartian, movement. The sympathetic partnership with Murdoch programme presents his other major Elgar recording, the Elgar Concerto with the composer came in 1914, carry on his work. Through his teaching and his note. Soon he was working at the highest level with Harty did not think to remonstrate with Tertis over the shows why they were the most highly regarded duo in the Violin Sonata, with his regular partner William and he played chamber music privately with Ysaÿe, collaboration with Sir Thomas Beecham, he raised the colleagues such as Rubinstein and Casals, and just changes that the violist made to the score. The most Britain at the time. Murdoch, and some of his recordings of encores, as well Thibaud and Rubinstein. Just before they both did war standard of orchestral viola playing – before his time, before World War I he toured America with a piano radical was to throw out Mozart’s cadenza for the first The short pieces call for little comment. It is good as Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante, the major fruit of his service in the Band of the Grenadier Guards (as the viola section was regarded as a refuge for failed quartet featuring Bauer, Huberman and Salmond. movement and replace it with Tertis’s own, based on to have one of Sammons’s own offerings, a Bourrée recorded collaboration with another of his closest clarinettists) Sammons linked up with the Australian violinists. Although his own experiences of professional During the war he often made music with Ysaÿe, and he one by the older Joseph Hellmesberger, who composed which was written in 1918 and dedicated to his future associates, the great violist Lionel Tertis.