Grumpy’s Classics Cave

The Kindness of Strangers, Part 10

2011-10-11T12:05:00.001-07:00

Miriam Escofet, Olive Tree II, 2009
gouache on paper, 50 x 60 cm

Actually, not strangers but the parents of my dear friend, the artist Miriam Escofet. Kindness, though, definitely: recently Mr. and Mrs. Escofet gave me several old LPs they have no space for. The very first one I listened to when I got home pleased me so much, I’m sharing it here.

Johann Kuhnau Musical Representation
of some Biblical Stories (1700) –
I ‘The Combat Between David and Goliath’,
IV ‘Hezekiah Mortally Ill and Restored to Health’,
III ‘The Marriage of Jacob’

Fritz Neumeyer (harpsichord),
Fritz Uhlenbruch (narrator)
Archiv APM 14 026, rec. 15 & 16-Oct-53

The cover is printed in Spanish because Mr. Escofet bought the LP in his native Catalunya, before he and his family left for Britain in the late 1970s. I found his LP collection most interesting, ranging from medieval music (I took quite a bit) to jazz (sorry, not my thing). His daughter Miriam remembers the house always being filled with interesting and enchanting sounds – a bit like the Cave, perhaps, only less dark, tidier and sweeter-smelling, I’m sure.

José Escofet, Harvest [detail], 1997
oil on canvas on panel, 96 x 122 cm

One reason I decided to share this Kuhnau LP is that, even though I like his vocal concertos, I’ve never enjoyed the Biblical Sonatas until now – if you’ve had the same difficulty, I hope this helps! I dutifully listened again to the better-known versions by Gustav Leonhardt, which are about as much fun as Sunday with Edmund Gosse’s father. Leonhardt reads, as far as I can tell, all of Kuhnau’s interminable narration – whatever his other talents, this ain’t his Fach (or indeed his native language). Uhlenbruch seems to have been a musicologist rather than an actor but, wisely, he cuts to the chase; and I like his archaic German and odd phonology (didn’t they pronounce umlauts in 1700?). Leonhardt occasionally speaks over Kuhnau’s music: bad, bad idea. And his narration is recorded somewhat off-mic, in a slightly reverberant acoustic, which robs it of immediacy and involvement.

Leonhardt plays the Fourth Sonata, about Hezekiah’s illness, on an organ, which goes well with Kuhnau’s use of the ‘Passion’ chorale, here titled ‘Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder’. He also chooses the organ for the First Sonata, about David and Goliath; but it’s a rather polite one and Neumeyer’s beefy but colourful Neupert harpsichord blows it away, especially at the start, when Kuhnau depicts Goliath’s blustering challenges to the Israelites (‘pochen und trotzen’). A review of the Archiv disc in the November 1963 Gramophone is mostly and rightly favourable. It also states that it had been available for some time, on another label – that last bit seems unlikely, but maybe someone can confirm or scotch this?

The LP itself was in pretty good condition, despite some deposits of gunge from the cheapo polythene inner which seems to have been standard with Spanish LPs; I’ve only done the usual Brian Davies. I had to go easy on the narration – speech does not take aggressive de-clicking well – and what sounds like some groove-wear remains. There was no index card in the sleeve, so I can’t reproduce the texts, which would probably have been in Spanish anyway. I’m sure you can find them somewhere on the web? The stories are from I Samuel 17:1-58 & 18:1-8; II Kings 20:1-19 plus Isaiah 38:1-22; and Genesis 19. Apparently.

Three mono FLAC files, fully tagged, in a .rar file here.

José Escofet, Forbidden Fruit [detail], 2009
oil on canvas, 85 x 74 cm

José Escofet and his daughter Miriam are both artists and they have kindly allowed me to post some of their work here. There is more on their websites, which I urge you to visit (links above). They draw on the same kind of long, deep tradition, rich in memory and meaning, to which Kuhnau contributed. I am lucky to know them and Mrs. Escofet, too, who also trained as an artist and is no less remarkable and generous than the rest of her family.

Miriam Escofet, José Escofet, 2007
oil on canvas on board, 50 x 40 cm
Selected for the BP Portrait Award 2007 exhibition
at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Screwier than Archimedes

2011-09-10T13:57:00.001-07:00

Anon. and Sermisy arr. Attaingnant and Gervaise
Chambonnières, Daquin, Grigny,
Dandrieu, Rameau, Balbastre
Claude Jean Chiasson
(harpsichord by Chiasson, after classical models)
Lyrichord LL 19 (recorded 1951?, New York?)

‘Displacement!’ - just to remember the word, I had to get out of the Cave and go to the supermarket, that’s how addle-pated I am these days. I should have been working on the thesis – instead, I spent much of today cleaning up this beautifully preserved 1951 LP and trying to identify the contents.

I haven’t succeeded in all cases. Except for ‘Tant que vivray’, which any fule kno is by Sermisy, I didn’t try to pin down the pieces arranged by Attaingnant and Gervaise, as they published so many. Though I’m not sure which of Attaingnant’s three versions of Sermisy’s chanson this is. Nor could I place Daquin’s La Mélodieuse, as I didn’t find a listing of his many pièces de clavecin. If you can help, that would be grand. The first Gervaise piece should be easy, it’s so familiar. Everything else I managed to nail. Quite proud of finding the Dialogue by Grigny, one of two organ pieces here – the other is Balbastre’s noël ‘Joseph est bien marié’.

This is not the sort of harpsichord recital you could buy nowadays – far too eclectic and wide-ranging. Here’s what Chiasson himself wrote on the sleeve:

‘The reign of the harpsichord coincides with the period of France as a great nation, and of Paris as the artistic center of Europe [so it went south after 1791! Attaboy!]. With the advent of François I to the throne in 1515, the Renaissance of the arts in France was in full swing. Paris in the Sixteenth Century became the world center of music printing and publishing, ranking well above Lyons, Amsterdam and Nuremberg. The main publishers of music were Ballard, Le Roy and Atteignant, who between the years 1530 and 1549 produced many beautifully designed volumes of chansons, madrigals, instrumental pieces and keyboard works.

‘From the point of view of the performing artist, great research is necessary in the study of the old "Danseries" before determining the correct notes to be played, not to mention the problems of phrasing, tempo, and the general spirit of these little masterpieces. Sharps and flats are frequently missing, and enormous care must go into deciding where they should be added. The cold matter of the mere printed notes must be warmed, infused with breath, life and color, by the individual interpreter. It is precisely this open, free quality which makes this music such a joy to prepare.

‘It would be impossible in a single program to give a comprehensive idea of the rich mine of harpsichord music bequeathed to us by the great composers of three centuries. The program-builder is confronted with such a bewildering array of masterpieces, such a diversity of styles, that to select a general group to fit into the time limits of an LP recording is a difficult matter indeed. The present program was designed to cover the ground in as balanced a way as possible.’

Chiasson did a fine job, recording several pieces which are still not often heard today. One thing I specially like is that he segues many of the pieces, even those by different composers, as if playing this programme through in one sweep (maybe he did?), so that I had to start some tracks right up against the music and leave other items yoked together.

I also like his gutsy gusto in the Renaissance danseries, though maybe ‘Tant que vivray’ lacks a little lyricism. He’s pensive in the lovely Chaconne by Chambonnières, grand in Rameau’s unmeasured Prélude in a minor and tender in some of the more delicate, quintessentially French rondeaux (again, Chambonnières’ is a winner). Occasionally he’s a little rhythmically routine and four-square, a common trait in the age of the ‘sewing-machine’ style; and trills can be a tad shapeless. But there are breath, life and color here aplenty.

Here’s what the sleeve said about Chiasson: ‘Pianist, organist, harpsichordist and scholar, Claude Jean Chiasson has devoted many years to the interpretation of early keyboard music, especially of France. In addition to his multiple musical activities, which include extensive concert tours, Mr. Chiasson has for the past twenty years been active in the reconstruction of the harpsichord, refining and modifying his designs after the great school of the Ruckers, Couchet and Taskin. The instrument used for this recording represents the finest example to come from his workshop. At one time director of the Sunday Concerts for the Fine Arts Museum in Boston, Mr. Chiasson now makes his home in New York City and divides his time between concert tours and the building of harpsichords.’

Yes, the 1950s weren’t all Cage and Kerouac.

The recording is a little bright and brash. I’ve done nothing beyond the usual ClickRepair (nowadays, I also do basic low-frequency denoising) and some detailed retouching.

Thirteen mono, fully-tagged FLACs in a .rar file here.

It could have been worse – I could have spent the time moving LPs from one stalagmite to another. Or washing pants.

Uninspired?

2011-08-26T06:42:00.001-07:00

Mozart Piano Concerto in A K.414
Heinz Scholz (fortepiano by Anton Walter, c.1780,
from Mozart’s Birthplace, Salzburg)
Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Bernhard Paumgartner
Archiv 13 021 (rec. 1-2 September 1952,
Festspielhaus, Salzburg)

The reviewers were right, for once – this is a somewhat routine interpretation (see reviews in The Gramophone of this issue and reissue, recoupled with Sonata K.311, see earlier Grumpy-post). Though they preferred it to Neumeyer’s Sonata, which I don’t.

But most emphatically not a routine production! It’s surely the first recording of a Mozart concerto on a period instrument – and not just any period instrument but Mozart’s own Walter, from the Birthplace museum in Salzburg. You’ll find plenty about the instrument on the web. According to this 10-inch disc’s ‘archive card’, the poor old dear was hauled onto the stage of the Festspielhaus for this recording! The sound is better, I feel, than the second Gramophone review makes out; I wonder how much ‘help’ they gave the fortepiano, which is pretty quiet.

Note that the better-known (and, frankly, better) Haydn Society recording of K.453 in G by Ralph Kirkpatrick and the Dumbarton Oaks Chamber Orchestra under Alexander Schneider, though earlier (rec. March 1951, New York, I gather), was made on a modern instrument built by Challis. You can hear that recording by courtesy of fellow-blogger Lawrence Austin or via the British Library’s Archival Sound Recordings site.

The next recording of K.414 on a period instrument was only in 1969, by Jörg Demus and the Collegium Aureum (issued in the UK and reviewed in 1975), an LP that has not been reissued, I believe.

So who was Heinz Scholz? As far as I can ascertain this was his only recording. He did some fingering for Schott’s ‘Wiener Urtext’ edition of the Sonatas. It’s not an uncommon name but was/is he related to keyboard-builder and restorer Martin Scholz, who worked in Germany and Switzerland?

Anyway, it can’t have been easy to record on the Walter; as I remember, András Schiff’s recordings on it were a little dull. Like me, in fact, at the moment.

Three mono FLACs, fully tagged, in a .rar file, here.

Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien

2011-06-28T15:06:00.001-07:00

François Couperin Pièces de clavecin
Claude Jean Chiasson
(harpsichord by Robert Conant, 1950)
Lyrichord LL 12 (recorded c.1950-51)

Having been driven way beyond grumpiness by a recent tantrum of mean-minded musical myopia on RMCR, I’ve been wondering why it is that I enjoy this LP (which I found in a charity shop in Clapham recently) and want to wave it about outside the Cave, even though I know Chiasson is not the ‘best’ harpsichordist on record.

And then I remembered the dictum which is today’s title and realised that it crystallises my feelings in this post. (I didn’t know it was Voltaire’s.) I’m not a philosopher of ethics or aesthetics, though I care deeply about both and frequently ponder them in a half-arsed way. I’m not a historian – more an anorak – though how we got here has always fascinated me. But I’ll try to explain.

Voltaire’s words, as so often, have many meanings. Two seem relevant here. First, by setting our sights only on the best, we often miss the good. There are good moments on this LP, for me L’Arlequine and the Passacaille especially. Would my life be poorer if I had never heard this? Yes, dammit, a little bit. And we shouldn’t throw away little good bits unless we’re happy to be wasteful.

(I also preach a sort of converse of Voltaire’s far deeper idea: only by experiencing the good and even the not-so-good do we learn to appreciate the best. At school and university, they made us read only Homer and Virgil, a pointlessly narrow syllabus which left me preferring defixiones (Roman curses) and late, ‘decadent’ poets like Ausonius: ‘Amnis ibat inter arva valle fusus frigida…’ – grand! Anyway, of the ‘greats’, my favourite was Ovid, the Mozart of Classical verse.)

Second, I think there’s a more literal meaning to Voltaire’s mot: the best can hound the good out of existence. Adulation of Argerich and reverence for Rachmaninoff can turn into laziness or unwillingness to give an unknown artist a hearing. One unexpectedly lovely phrase on a record or in a broadcast – I’m happy to have listened. It doesn’t have to be a transcendent, red-label, monogrammed experience every time.

Right, that was the aesthetical and ethical bit; now for the historical bit. I believe the drive for perfection in recorded performances is a complicated phenomenon, with many causes and feedbacky loops. I’ve now heard enough old records and read enough about how they were made to know that only the biggest companies and the biggest artists bothered about perfection – or could afford to.

This remained true well into the period when this LP was made. Would a small independent label like Lyrichord spend days getting Chiasson to get this recital perfect? Probably not. Could Chiasson afford to take days off from his life as a musician? I don’t know how successful he was but I doubt it. Surely, like thousands of musicians on 78s and early LPs, he went into the studios and did what he could on the day. He’s a bit deliberate in places but he also shows deep absorption and love for the music. Is that reason to throw him away?

Another reason to want to hear Chiasson is that he recorded with Hugues Cuenod. There are interesting dribs and drabs about him on the net, such as this account of ‘The Harpsichord in America 1884–1946’. Has anyone written a decent history of the harpsichord revival?

Get the 5, fully tagged mono FLACs in a .rar file here.

And then head over to RMCR and and stick up for humane values and grown-up good manners.

This one’s a thank you to you, Benoît, for your exemplary uploads and kind support.

The Kindness of Strangers, part 9

2011-06-27T23:03:00.001-07:00

H.M.V. model 101 portable, Leffe brune

This was my paternal grandfather’s gramophone. Prompted by kind comments left at the Cave-mouth, I ventured out with my box brownie to snap it and one of my favourite drinks. Not my Grampy’s, though – I think he preferred India pale ale, after golf, down at The Cricketers, which is all a bit too English for me.

La Grumpy is the real beer drinker round these parts – preferably with pop-corn in front of Columbo (RIP). We love Leffe, both blonde and brune (hmm – there’s a motto in there somewhere). Unlike 2ndviolinist, we have never tried Radieuse (sorry to hear about the supply problems in Austin TX) or indeed any of the other brews. Thanks for the tip.

And we have never tried Westmalle, Corsendonck or Affligem – but with Satyr’s recommendation, we must! Perhaps with some Ockeghem or Ghizeghem. I have drunk Chimay but I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember much about it. It’s a bit pricey round here – at least three rabbit-skins a bottle. Another beer which I love and which we used to be able to buy, until the man with the clipboard faxed headquarters, is Jenlain, from brasserie Duyck. It’s also been a while since I’ve seen Fischer Tradition, from Alsace, a curiously nutty delight.

Dear Doug, since you’ve asked so kindly, I can’t refuse your request. I can’t actually play 78s myself, either, at the moment. I don’t have thorn needles for this thing, although I know a man who does; and it seizes up in colder temperatures.

The dubs from 78s on this blog are kindly made for me by collectors such as Paul Steinson, Raymond Glaspole and Jolyon. I have a modern variable-speed turntable with 78 rpm but not the right styli or pre-amp. I am lusting after the KAB EQS MK12 - should I get it (when I can afford it)? But I must finish this PhD first!

Dear Benoît, I hope to have another nice upload for you very soon. Thank you for your own contributions, which far surpass mine.

P.S.: Blogger still won’t let me leave comments on my own blog, so thank you for putting me right about the model.

Farmer Grumpy says, ‘Get orff moy paast!’

2011-06-19T04:08:00.001-07:00

Mozart Sonata in A K.311
Fritz Neumeyer
(fortepiano by Johann Gottlieb Fichtl, late 18th C)
Archiv AP 13013 (rec. 30 October 1952)

Apologies for my long, rude silence and a big thank you to everyone who has read this blog and left kind comments. Blogger has been broken for some time and I am tired of dealing with the pointless ‘improvements’ to technology which I had been happily using for months without problems. I hope to respond soon. The good news is, I have been writing my PhD! Slowly, but surely…

Still, I am known to slink naughtily off for some retail therapy. Yesterday, my bad friend Jolyon and I went to visit a kind man who sold us some interesting 78s and LPs from his gargantuan collection – like me, he can’t bear to see anything thrown away.

Among them were some LPs formerly in the library of a British university music department, which was notoriously closed down a few years ago. I was very glad to find this one, which I’m fairly sure is one of the earliest complete recordings of a Classical keyboard sonata on a fortepiano. Ralph Kirkpatrick was making records on one around this time, although I believe that was a modern instrument by John Challis. If you know of earlier or other contemporary recordings, I’d be very interested to learn of them.

I knew of this disc but had never seen nor heard it. Nor would you, if it was up to the record industry’s ‘To-infinity-and-beyond!’ copyright-extension lobby and its superannuated self-appointed terrors of the newsgroups, to the early music thought-police or to keyboard-lion worshippers and Martha Argerich scrapbook compilers. (NB I specifically exclude DG from this list of villains; I very much doubt they could sell this disc at a profit, precisely because of all the other people who would immediately tell us it’s worthless.)

Another reason is that this LP was apparently roundly condemned when first issued in Britain – unfortunately, the January 1955 issue of Gramophone is one of several missing entirely from the magazine’s archive, although the scathing review was cited (approvingly) when a 12-inch LP reissue was covered in November 1963.

No, it’s not the greatest performance ever recorded. But who is to tell us which is? Who is to dictate to us that we should never hear it again? That we should not try to appreciate the pioneering efforts of artists like Neumeyer? Are all today’s fortepianists really that much better? I think Neumeyer is rather sensitive and poetic in the first two movements. And good on him for going for broke in the finale – Turkish music was meant to be a bit kitsch, I suspect. Also, recordings of instruments by this Viennese maker are none too common.

Get the three fully tagged, mono FLAC files in a .rar file here.

Yes, like Farmer Palmer, when I see someone braying ‘deservedly forgotten’ and worriting moy sheep, I reach for my 12-bore…

The Kindness of Strangers, part 8

2011-05-25T05:41:00.001-07:00

Brilliant birthday cake by Jolyon!

This batch of recordings by the d’Arányi sisters was almost a chore, partly because of a couple of notably grungy discs in this batch (as ever, these considerable rarities were transferred and provided with great generosity by collector Raymond Glaspole; I have used ClickRepair and another gizmo)…

But then I listened to the Leclair and Tartini! Wonderful performances of these lovely pieces, such sweetness and commitment (you might wonder that they recorded such music but it was common in concert and on record in the 1920s). I even came to enjoy the catchy if frothy confection by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, which I guess is based on the novel Le Capitaine Fracasse by Théophile Gautier, and Godard’s Duettini (he of Jocelyne fame).

The other chore was identifying the pieces. I can’t find the original work from which Antonio de Pianelli’s Villanelle is supposedly taken. There seem to have been several sonatas by him (17447-1803) arranged for ’cello; but what were they originally scored for? Guilhermina Suggia also recorded a Villanella from a Sonata in G, which I’ve not heard, but I’ve plumped for that key anyway.

Despite what the admirable Creighton says, the Tartini Trio in F is not the work published in London in 1756 as Op.3 No.4; I went to the British Library to check the original print. That work has only two movements, with the same markings as these (so this too may be complete), but the music is not the same. Can anyone help?

Download the 10 fully tagged, mono FLAC files, in a .rar archive, here.

Debussy arr. Bachmann Rêverie
Castelnuovo-Tedesco Capitan Fracassa Op.16
Adila Fachiri (violin), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion K 05198
issued November 1925

Pianelli arr. Salmon Sonata in G? – (?) Villanella
Brahms arr. Joachim Hungarian Dance No.5 in g minor
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion K 05231
issued June 1926

Tartini Trio Sonata [unidentified] in F –
(i) Andante, (ii) Allegro
Jelly d’Arányi & Adila Fachiri (violins),
Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion X 9877
issued October 1926

Godard 6 Duettini Op.18 – (vi) Sérénade; (v) Minuit
Jelly d’Arányi & Adila Fachiri (violins),
Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion K 05260
issued November 1926

*Sinding Serenade in G Op.56 –
(iii) Allegretto; (iv) Andante
Leclair Sonata in A for 2 violins without bass Op.3 No.2 –
(ii) Sarabande: Largo; (i) Allegro
Jelly d’Arányi & Adila Fachiri (violins),
*Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion K 05270
issued December 1926

Only one more batch to go! I was considerably fortified by Jolyon’s wonderful birthday cake. Visit his blog!

The Kindness of Strangers, part 7

2011-04-22T06:30:00.001-07:00

I’ve no more nice pictures of the sisters or label scans – so I thought I’d pay homage to these fine Hungarian fiddlers with a different kind of label. I wonder if Jelly and Adila’s father Taksony von Arányi enjoyed a drop of Aszú? Or great-uncle Joseph?

La Grumpy just found this one in an old Sachertorte box at the back of the Cave (she’s been on a bit of a spring clean). The RTWC (with which I have no connection, sadly) has made some of the best Tokaji I’ve had the privilege of drinking. Their ‘ordinary’ 5 Puttonyos is pretty good but the single-vineyard Birsalmás is heavenly. I also have some of their first-growths, behind the dead mammoth. Maturing nicely.

Like the Baroque bonbons which these sisters played so well, sweet wines (except for the sole Sauternes oriental billionaires have heard of) have been out of fashion for a long time. Good! – all the more for us. I’ll drink them any time, with anything.

This first ten-inch disc includes an item by Martin Marsick, teacher of Enescu, Flesch, Thibaud and other famous violinists, as well as a snippet from a keyboard sonata by Mozart’s mentor Padre Martini. Took me ages to check the Galuppi. No idea where in Destouches’ ‘pastorale héroïque’ Issé this passepied comes from. Chrysander confusingly called the Handel No.7.

Once again, I raise a botrytis-beaded bumper to collector Raymond Glaspole, thanks to whose extraordinary assiduity and generosity we can enjoy these rare discs. I’ve left most of the noble mould on – just a light dusting with ClickRepair and some LF filtering. Download these ten mono, fully-tagged FLAC files in a .rar archive here.

Martini arr. Endicott Sonata in D Op.2 No.2 – (i) Allegro
Marsick 2 Morceaux Op.6 - No.2 Scherzando
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion X 9525, issued February 1925

Purcell arr. Lambert The Indian Queen Z.630 –
Act IV, Act Tune (‘Air’) [as ‘Andante maestoso’]
Leclair arr. Sarasate Sonata in D for violin & continuo Op.9 No.3 – (iii) Sarabande, (iv) Tambourin
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion K 05168, issued May 1925

Galuppi arr. Craxton Sonata in a minor
Op.1 No.3 – (i) Largo;
Sonata in C Op.1 No.1 – (ii) Presto [as ‘Allegro giocoso’]
Destouches arr. Dandelot Issé – Passepied
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion K 05203, issued December 1925

Handel Trio Sonata in g minor Op.2 No.6 HWV 391
Jelly d’Arányi & Adila Fachiri (violins),
Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion K 05222-23, issued April 1926

And I wonder if Leclair ever drank anything as good as this? It has kept me pretty happy over the last three evenings…

The Kindness of Strangers, Part 6

2011-04-07T08:28:00.001-07:00

Adila Fachiri, c.1908 (courtesy of Tully Potter Collection)

My survey of the recorded legacy of the d’Arányi sisters continues. It includes two discs by Adila Fachiri, who made far fewer solos than her sister Jelly. As before, we can only enjoy all these goodies thanks to the great generosity of collector Raymond Glaspole, who has kindly provided these transfers from originals in his collection. I have merely called on my trusty amanuensis ClickRepair.

We start with a fascinating rarity, a movement from a work originally for flute with harp, horn and strings by an Australian casualty of World War I. In 1934, Oxford University Press published a version for flute or violin with small orchestra or piano, ‘The Violin part ... arranged and edited by J. d’Aranyi’, so perhaps she had a hand in the version she plays here too.

Frederick Septimus Kelly arr. d’Arányi?
Serenade [as ‘Suite’] Op.7 – (v) Jig
Schumann arr. Anon. 12 Klavierstücke Op.85 –
(iii) Gartenmelodie
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion R 6141, issued April 1924

Brahms arr. Joachim Hungarian Dance No.2 in d minor
Weber arr. Kreisler Violin Sonata in F Op.10
[aka Op.17] No.1 – (ii) Romanze: Larghetto
Adila Fachiri (violin), Ivor Newton (piano)
Vocalion R 6138, issued March 1924

Couperin arr. Slatter 4ème Livre de pièces de clavecin,
20ème Ordre – (iii) Les Chérubins ou l’aimable Lazure
Kreisler 3 Variations on a Theme of Corelli,
in the style of Tartini
Adila Fachiri (violin), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion X 9494, issued December 1924

Gluck arr. Kreisler Orfeo ed Euridice –
Dance of the Blessed Spirits [‘Melodie’]
Kreisler Rondino on a Theme of Beethoven
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Coenraad Bos (piano)
Columbia 5427, issued August 1929

Download the above 8 mono, fully-tagged FLACs files here.

The Idiocy of Corporations, Part 1

I wouldn’t normally tread on the toes of the British Library’s magnificent online Archival Sound Recordings collection, which includes a transfer of the following recording. But some supplicants at the Cave-mouth live in jurisdictions in hock to behemegamoromediamoths^©®TMwhich suffer from chronic dog-in-the-manger complex, and so can’t stream the BL’s files. To you, I make this offering – but don’t say the ‘content owners’ didn’t warn you when they shut up shop and refuse to invest in the next ‘great’ ‘band’. One mono FLAC file (please note: sides have not been joined up).

Bach Violin Concerto in d minor BWV 1043
Jelly d’Arányi & Adila Fachiri (violins),
orchestra, Stanley Chapple
Vocalion A 0252-53, issued February 1926

The Idiocy of Corporations, Part 2

This simple post has cost me hours. About four days ago, without warning, Blogger stopped formatting text as it has done ever since I first yawned, scratched my breech clout and peeked out of my antre 18 months ago. Line-breaks were ignored, vast spaces yawned between paras. After wasting time trying to correct things by hand, I visited the Blogger ‘help’ forum, where I read that others have the same problem. But I couldn’t post there. Closed to non-members. I’m a Blogger blogger, dammit. I applied to join, three days ago. No response. Maybe they’re trying to amend their meddling.

Then I read that Windows Live Writer works well with Blogger. To install that, though, I needed to install Windows Vista Service Pack 2 and Platform Update. (No, if I’d known, I’d never have bought a laptop with Vista. Why do you think I’m Grumpy?) SP2 took 45 minutes to download, on a 1MB(ish) broadband connection, and something approaching 3 hours to install. Various ‘vital’ updates followed, more hours. Then: create a Windows Live account. Then, more time, choosing not to install various messengers, syncers and swymmers, not uploading all my and my friends’ personal details and mugshots, and ticking boxes so as not to receive e-mails, telephone calls and SMSs about Microsoft’s ‘products’ and ‘services’, thank you.

Live Writer does seem to work quite well, though. So far.

The Kindness of Strangers, Part 5

2011-03-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

(Scan: courtesy of Mr. Julian Futter)

The bonanza continues!

As before, originals and transfers are by the great courtesy of Mr. Raymond Glaspole, with further denoising in The Cave; and the label scan has kindly been made available by Mr. Julian Futter.

This first record includes the Paganini Caprice (with piano) mentioned by Tully in his article in The Strad but overlooked in my first post.

Mozart arr. anon. Divertimento in D K.334 – (iii) Menuetto
Paganini arr. anon. 24 Caprices Op.1 –
(xxiv) Tema con variazioni: Quasi presto
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion D 02103
issued September 1923

The next two records make up an almost complete recording of a lovely Trio Sonata by Pugnani (there was clearly no room for the third movement Minuet) - hardly common fare today, let alone in 1924! And I'm pleased to have identified the delicious Boccherini excerpt, with the aid of Yves Gérard’s invaluable thematic catalogue.

Bach arr. anon. Concerto in c minor BWV 1060 – (iii) Allegro
Pugnani arr. Moffat Trio Sonata in C Op.1 No.6 – (i) Andante
Jelly d’Arányi & Adila Fachiri (violins), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion K 05110
issued October 1924

Boccherini arr. Moffat Trio in c minor G.125 [Op.7 No.1] –
(ii) Andante [expressivo]
Pugnani arr. Moffat Trio Sonata in C Op.1 No.6 –
(ii) Allegro assai, (iv) Caccia: Allegro
Jelly d’Arányi & Adila Fachiri (violins), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion K 05142
issued January 1925

Vivaldi arr. Nachéz Concerto in a minor Op.3 No.6 RV.356 – (i) Allegro
Hubay Scènes de la csárda Op.33 – (v) Hullámzó Balaton
Adila Fachiri (violin), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion K 05226
issued May 1926

This record includes what seems to be only solo side by either of the sisters:

Mozart arr. anon. Divertimento in D K.131 – (ii) Adagio
Adila Fachiri (violin), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Bach Partita in E BWV 1006 – (iii) Gavotte en rondeau
Adila Fachiri (violin)
Vocalion K 05247
issued September 1926

Never heard of Norman Fraser? Nor had I. There’s a useful section on him in this article by Philip Scowcroft. The Cueca is a Latin American dance and the national dance of Chile, where Fraser was born. I believe he rewrote what had originally been a solo with piano as a duet, specially for the sisters. This is the sole electrical record in their Vocalion discography - see the label above, crediting the Marconi Company’s Process, which Vocalion started using in August 1926. The Fraser sounds rather plummy here, though, so below you'll find a link to a version re-EQd by a friend.

Fraser Cueca
Jelly d’Arányi & Adila Fachiri (violins), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Spohr Duet in d minor Op.39 No.1 – (ii) Adagio
Jelly d’Arányi & Adila Fachiri (violins)
Vocalion K 05292
issued April 1927

Download the above as 12 mono FLACs, fully tagged, in a .rar file, from here.

Download a re-EQd version of Vocalion K 05292 here. There’s more ‘roar’ from the surface but the sound is more plausible, I think. The Fraser was short on higher frequencies to start with, I fear.

Jelly d’Arányi plays for The Strad

2011-03-21T11:50:00.000-07:00

(Scan by kind courtesy of Mr. Julian Futter)

[NB This page is a streamlined version of the preceding post entitled ‘The Kindness of Strangers, Part 4’]

Below are links to two .rar files which contain items recorded by Jelly d’Arányi, singled out by Tully Potter in his article in The Strad.

Our deepest gratitude to renowned collector Raymond Glaspole for kindly providing excellent dubs of these rare original discs, as well as the accompanying discographical data. Mr. Glaspole’s transfers have been lightly denoised. Please note that sides have not been joined up in the Mozart Concerto or Vitali’s Chaconne.

The first .rar file, which can be downloaded here, contains the following records, as 7 FLAC format sound-files:

Vitali ed. Charlier Chaconne in g minor
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Arthur Bergh (piano)
Columbia 9875
recorded 20 March & 4 April* 1929, USA
[*or 6 & 20 March - there’s some disagreement]

Brahms arr. Joachim Hungarian Dance No.8 in a minor
de Falla arr. Kochanski 7 Canciones populares - (vi) [orig. No.4] Jota
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Coenraad Bos (piano)
Columbia 2061 M
recorded 6 & 7 February 1928, USA

Joachim Romance in C
Dienzl* Spinnlied Op.46
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion K 05118
[*NB Dienzl’s name is misspelled ‘Dienzi’ in the sound-file name and tag]
issued November 1924

Hubay Six Poèmes hongrois Op.27 - No.6 Allegro molto
Anon. arr. Craxton Fitzwilliam Virginal Book - Alman
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion X 9981
issued May 1927

The second .rar file, which can be downloaded here, contains the following set, as 2 FLAC format sound-files:

Mozart Violin Concerto in G K.216
Serenade in D K.250 ‘Haffner’ - (ii) Menuetto; Trio
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Aeolian Orchestra, Stanley Chapple
Vocalion A 0242-44
issued November 1925

In addition, public institutions have made freely available several recordings by Jelly and her sister Adila Fachiri.

On the British Library’s Archival Sound Recordings site, you can listen to a streamed .wma file (or download an .mp3, if you are registered at an academic institution) of the following set here:

Bach Violin Concerto in d minor BWV 1043
Jelly d’Arányi, Adila Fachiri (violins),
orchestra, Stanley Chapple
Vocalion A 0252-53
issued February 1926

CHARM has made available two more records of the sisters:

attrib. J.S. Bach [Goldberg?] Trio Sonata in C BWV 1037 - (iv) Gigue
Spohr Duet in D Op.67 No.2 - (iii) Larghetto
Jelly d’Arányi, Adila Fachiri (violins), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion D 02146
issued April 1924
Download each side as a FLAC file here and here

Purcell ed. Moffat Sonata in Four Parts No.9 in F Z.810
Jelly d’Arányi, Adila Fachiri (violins), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion K 05177
issued July 1925
Download each side as a FLAC file here and here

(Again, the Purcell Sonata has not been joined up.)

If you’ve enjoyed these recordings, please revisit Grumpy’s Classics Cave in the near future, when a great deal more will be made available!

The Kindness of Strangers, Part 4

2011-03-20T22:59:00.000-07:00

(scan: courtesy of CHARM)

I don't really know where to start. What have we done to deserve this bounty? Never mind, let's just sit back and enjoy it.

Tully Potter has written an article for The Strad about the d’Arányi sisters, Jelly and Adila (later Fachiri). He needed somewhere to park some audio examples for readers - but, obviously, he’s got better things to do than arse about on the web like your servant. I offered to post them for him. So he only just flipping goes and dumps 5 CDRs’ worth of inestimable treasures on the muddy sward outside the Cave...

They contain just about the complete commercially recorded legacy of these Hungarian-born siblings, grand nieces of Joachim and pupils of Hubay. (There's an interesting post about Jelly on Peter Sheppard Skaerved’s blog; otherwise, it's Wikipedia).

The true source of this cornucopia is renowned collector Raymond Glaspole - originals in fine condition, excellent dubs (lightly whipped by me through the default declick and decrackle settings for 78s on ClickRepair), discographical data and all. Amazing. Our deepest gratitude to him.

It’s going to take many posts, so I'm starting with single-disc items recorded by Jelly, which Tully Potter has mentioned in his article:

Vitali ed. Charlier Chaconne in g minor
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Arthur Bergh (piano)
Columbia 9875
recorded 20 March & 4 April* 1929, USA
[*or 6 & 20 March - there’s some disagreement]
(Review in the October 1929 issue of The Gramophone here)

Brahms arr. Joachim Hungarian Dance No.8 in a minor
de Falla arr. Kochanski 7 Canciones populares -
(vi) [orig. No.4] Jota
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Coenraad Bos (piano)
Columbia 2061 M
recorded 6 & 7 February 1928, USA
(Review of British issue of the Brahms side
in the February 1930 issue of The Gramophone here)

Joachim Romance in C
Dienzl* Spinnlied Op.46
[*Apologies, I have misspelled his name as Dienzi in the sound-file name and tags]
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion K 05118
issued November 1924
(Somewhat dismissive review
in the December 1924 issue of The Gramophone here)

Hubay Six Poèmes hongrois Op.27 - No.6 Allegro molto
Anon.* arr. Craxton Fitzwilliam Virginal Book - Alman
[‘played with mutes’; *anyone know the composer?]
Jelly d’Arányi (violin), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion X 9981
issued May 1927; despite the late date, an acoustical record
(Review - or mention, really - in the May 1927 issue of The Gramophone here)

Download the 7 fully tagged mono FLAC files, in a .rar file, here

Plus one set, which especially appeals to me:

Mozart Violin Concerto in G K.216
Serenade in D K.250 ‘Haffner’ - (ii) Menuetto; Trio

Jelly d’Arányi (violin),
Aeolian Orchestra, Stanley Chapple
Vocalion A 0242-44
issued November 1925
(Review in the November 1925 issue of The Gramophone here)

Download the 2 fully tagged mono FLAC files, in a .rar file, here

Please note that sides have not been joined up in the Mozart Concerto or the Vitali Chaconne.

In addition, public institutions have made freely available several recordings by Jelly and her sister Adila Fachiri.

On the British Library’s Archival Sound Recordings site you will find:

Bach Violin Concerto in d minor BWV 1043
Jelly d’Arányi, Adila Fachiri (violins),
orchestra, Stanley Chapple
Vocalion A 0252-53
issued February 1926
Listen to a streamed .wma (or download an .mp3
if you are registered at an academic institution) here
(Review in the February 1926 issue of The Gramophone here)

CHARM transferred two more lovely Vocalion records of the sisters:

attrib. J.S. Bach [Goldberg?]
Trio Sonata in C BWV 1037 - (iv) Gigue
Spohr Duet in D Op.67 No.2 - (iii) Larghetto
Jelly d’Arányi, Adila Fachiri (violins), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion D 02146
issued April 1924
(Review - of sorts - in the April 1924 issue of The Gramophone here)
Download each side as a FLAC file here and here

Purcell ed. Moffat Sonata in Four Parts No.9 in F Z.810 ‘Golden’
Jelly d’Arányi, Adila Fachiri (violins), Ethel Hobday (piano)
Vocalion K 05177
issued July 1925
(Review in the August 1925 issue of The Gramophone here)
Download each side as a FLAC file here and here

(Again, as with all CHARM transfers, the Purcell Sonata has not been joined up.)

(scan: courtesy of CHARM)

Please revisit the Cave for more over the next few days and weeks.

In der Höhle ward gut getrunken

2011-01-04T14:38:00.000-08:00

I’m sorry, it’s been more chaotic than usual in the Cave - which has resounded to the carousing of teutono-oenophiles:

And I’m afraid I’ve done no work and little else of any use... But my kind, industrious friend in the outside world, Jolyon, has lent me a lovely LP of 17th Century German consort music to share with you.

Hassler 4 Intradas (1601)
Demantius 4 Galliards (1601)
Franck 4 Dances (1604)
Rosenmüller Suite in d (1654)
Biber Serenata ‘Der Nachtwächter’*

Philomusica of London, leader Granville Jones
*plus some people shouting in the distance
directed by Thurston Dart (harpsichord)

L’Oiseau-Lyre OL 50175, rec. July 1957

I say lovely - the sounds are lovely but I do wonder why Dart recorded this and similar repertoire (such as Dowland’s complete Lachrimae) with many strings. From someone with his flair for the dramatic, these beautiful but plush sonorities seem a miscalculation, slightly disarming this wonderful music. Still, I can’t agree with The Gramophone’s reviewer who, in August 1960, found the dances a bit samey and was unimpressed by the Biber. 17th Century German consorts are some of my favourite fare, as are nobly rotten Rieslings, and the deeper recesses of the Cave are well stocked with both.

5 mono, fully-tagged FLAC files in a .rar archive can be downloaded here. Apologies, I guessed a recording date of 1959 and uploaded the files tagged thus, before checking CHARM and finding that Michael Gray gives July (possibly 1st July) 1957.

Dart’s characteristic sleeve-note says it all:

‘The spectacular development of violin music by Italian composers of the 17th and early 18th centuries has tended to overshadow in our eyes its growth in the other countries of Europe. Yet it was in France that the first professional string orchestra was established, as early as 1555, under the direction of the Frenchified Italian, Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx. Later this body became the famous Vingt-Quatre Violons, and it provided the French court with all its music for ballet and dancing during the next hundred years or so. Itinerant French dancing-masters taught all Europe the new French dance-steps, to the shrill sounds of their little violins (kits or pochettes); and similar string bands had been established in most of the princely courts of northern Europe by the third decade of the seventeenth century. Some extracts from the repertoire of the 24 Violons have been issued on OL 50174 (‘French String Music, Louis XIII to Louis XV’).

‘In Germany the development of dance music was enriched by elements persisting from the older, native style of the 16th century – the Allemande, after all, is only a Frenchified version of a native German dance – and by the English consort music circulated in Germany by such expatriates as Thomas Simpson and William Brade. Both Simpson and Brade held important posts in North Germany and Denmark during the first twenty years of the 17th century; some of their dances have been recorded on OL 50127 (‘Dances of Shakespeare’s Time’).

‘Side 1 of the present disc explores some of the string music composed by three leading composers of German-speaking Europe: Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612), born at Nuremberg and working in Augsburg, Ulm, Prague and Dresden; Melchior Franck (1573-1639), born at Zittau, and working in Augsburg, Nuremberg and Coburg; and Christoph Demantius (1567-1643), born at Reichenberg, and working in Leipzig, Zittau and Freiberg. The side begins with four Intradas from Hassler’s ‘Pleasure-Garden’ (1601: nos. I, II, V, IX), for six-part strings – effortlessly polyphonic and richly sonorous music. Next come four 5-part Galliards selected from the ten contained in Demantius’s collection of ‘77 ... dances in the Polish and German style’, published in 1601. The side ends with four 4-part dances by Melchior Franck, from his ‘German Secular Songs and Dances’ (1604: nos. 11, 3, 26, 21): an untitled dance, which any French dancing-master would have classed as an Allemande; an eloquent Pavana; a brisk Galliard; and another untitled Allemande.

‘Side 2 tries to illustrate how these seeds grew into the more elaborate and mature style of later 17th-century orchestral music from central Europe. The side begins with a Suite for 5-part strings and continue by Johann Rosenmüller (1619-1684), born in Saxony, assistant master of the Thomasschule, Leipzig, from 1642 to 1655, and later working in Hamburg, Venice and Wolfenbüttel. His collection of ‘Music for Students’ was published in Leipzig in 1654, and was intended for the predecessors of Bach’s club of young University musicians. From it we have chosen the second Suite in D minor: Paduan, Alemanda, Courant, Ballo, Sarabanda. Rosenmüller has contrived the last four of these so that, if need be, they can be played in only three parts, without violas. Since the Paduan cannot be so played, he has supplied an alternative 3-part Paduan – omitted from this disc, since we use a five-part orchestra.

‘The side ends with a Serenade for five-part strings and continue by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704), born in Bohemia, and working in Prague, Olmütz (Olomouc in Czecho-Slovakia) and Salzburg. Biber was one of the most gifted composers of his time, with a highly original style; many historians speak admiringly of his rather eccentric music for solo violin, but few have paused to examine his much finer music for various orchestral ensembles. His Serenade, written while he was at Olmütz, begins with an Intrada (called simply ‘Serenada’) in two contrasting sections, followed by an Allemanda and a triple-time Aria. A Ciacona comes next; in this the lower strings are silent, the violins and violas play pizzicato throughout, imitating the sound of lutes, and the night-watchmen are heard in the distance, singing their traditional curfew song. For the recording I have made an English adaptation of the original German words: ‘Praise the Lord, may he be praised; the bell has now struck nine (ten) o’clock; douse fire, and bolt the door; and praise the Lord our Saviour, and our sweet Lady’. This most original movement is followed by a Gavotte, and the Serenade ends with a Retirada (‘Retreat’), as the musicians move away into the darkness and the town falls asleep.’

Il pleuvait sur Peckham...

2010-11-17T02:43:00.000-08:00

Once again, thanks to the selflessness of British collector Paul Steinson, we are able to enjoy two acoustical rarities. The first was recorded on a very wet day in 1923 - in Peckham!

Liszt Piano Concerto No.1 in E flat
Anderson Tyrer (piano)
British Symphony Orchestra, Dr. Adrian Boult
Velvet Face 557-58

Joe Batten's Book, London: Rockliff, 1956, p.61: ‘Dr. Adrian Boult’s first recording for Velvet Face was Liszt’s E flat Piano Concerto, Anderson Tyrer being the soloist. Our well-concealed recording studio in Peckham was remote from the West End. The first session had been called for ten in the morning ; since dawn it had rained hard and incessantly. Through this downpour Boult pedalled across London on a bicycle; when he arrived at the studio his clothes were soaked. But he made nothing of it, mounting the rostrum and getting to work without any fuss. As he conducted, water dripped from coat and trousers and collected in puddles about his feet. Despite this physical discomfort, he made a musicianly job of the Liszt work.’

As the set was issued in July 1923, I guess these sessions took place in the first half of that year - does anyone have a more precise date? The recording was mentioned in The Gramophone in January 1924, in Compton Mackenzie’s quarterly retrospective, but, as far as I can make out (since The Gramophone’s online archive is so hard to search), it was never fully reviewed - I wonder why not?

This is often stated to be the Concerto's first recording; most of Arthur de Greef’s version with Ronald on HMV (D 890-92) was actually waxed earlier, in 1922, but not completed until September 1923. This Velvet Face version has a cut of a few bars marked Grandioso at the end of the first side, not a bad one; otherwise, it is complete. I have merely run Mr. Steinson’s dub through ClickRepair, with decrackling, and joined up the sides (as you will hear, since the surface noise changes quite abruptly).

Download the single, fully-tagged mono FLAC file from my midden.

Some time in the following year, the same team returned (I imagine) to Peckham:

Franck Variations symphoniques
Anderson Tyrer (piano)
British Symphony Orchestra, Dr. Adrian Boult
Velvet Face 599-600

This set, recorded complete, was issued in November 1924, when it was reviewed in The Gramophone. The reviewer, Peter Latham, preferred Arthur de Greef’s 1922 version with Ronald on HMV (D 697-98), transferred and recently uploaded by this enterprising fellow-blogger (doubt he's a fellow-troglodyte, though). I'm just glad to have both!

Technical bits as above. Download the single, fully-tagged mono FLAC file from here.

As ever, the Cave resounds with thanks to Mr. Paul Steinson. All such offerings are, of course, grumpily - I mean, gratefully - received...

It's not about fur coats, you know

2010-11-06T00:19:00.000-07:00

There's more rubbish talked about 'classical' music than almost anything else I know of - I hear and read it every day, which is why I'm in an almost perpetual grump. Then I get cheered up by people like my hero Damian, who told me recently that he has an old LP of Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli in the pipeline. Sent me shuffling off to dig out this one, which has been mouldering in the wine boxes (great for storing LPs, in the somewhat cluttered Grumpcave):

Palestrina Missa Papae Marcelli a 6 vv
rec. 3 July 1952
Missa brevis a 4 vv, Missa ad fugam a 4 vv (excerpts)
rec. 17 February 1955
Netherlands Chamber Choir, Felix de Nobel
Philips Réalités C.3

One of the things that people don't get about classical music is, precisely, that it's 'classical' - a long, continuous, self-referential tradition, typified by and crystallised around exemplary, 'classical' genres, styles, works, idioms and gestures, a tradition on which composers comment in the very act of adding to and extending it. So trying to find another name for it or pretending that crooning musicals is part of that tradition, is to misunderstand it (innocent) or traduce it (guilty). I'm also not in favour of encouraging people to talk while it's going on. You can do that at home.

Unfortunately, another misconception (apart from the fur coat one), which has been abetted by musicology's obsession with dots and dashes, politics and gender, is that performers play little or no part in this tradition or its development; thankfully, that's slowly changing - but it's not going to change any faster if dog-in-the-mangerish copyright laws and corporate ignorance mean we can't hear more than a handful of old performances.

If anyone's 'classical', of course, it has always been Palestrina. But I bet no choir or conductor today would think they have anything to learn from this lovely LP, which I am proud to own in a limited, numbered (oops - a fur-coat moment! Darn, rumbled) gatefold sleeve with lovely notes and illustrations, which my scanner can't cope with - clock the mess it made of the cover. I wish I had the Dutch Masters CD of the Netherlands Chamber Choir but, in their wisdom, Philips pre-decided I wouldn't want it - and who am I to argue? The gods of marketing, we are told, are always right.

This record was also issued in Britain on Philips NBL 5033, which was well received by Alec Robertson in the May 1956 issue of The Gramophone. Bits of it were also coupled with other things, which Grumpy would love to hear.

On side 1, the Missa Papae Marcelli sounded good on the turntable but, oddly, slightly worse after declicking and monoing - perhaps the clean-up made the rumble, traffic and air-con more audible. The 7 fully-tagged mono FLACS are in a .rar file here.

I was more worried about the quality of side 2, which is quite full (even though they've omitted the Credo and Benedictus of the Missa ad fugam, about which I can find nothing online). It sounded congested towards the end - and I slightly crashed the zero barrier at one peak - but I feel it's emerged from the wash smelling slightly sweeter. I decided not to chop these masses into movements, so 2 fully-tagged mono FLACS are in a .rar file here.

More goodies soon, if I can find them under the bat guano...

ADDENDUM
I just found the recording dates amongst Mike Gray's data on CHARM, which I couldn't access last weekend. Sorry, you'll have to correct the 'date' and 'comment' tags. Explains why the Missa Papae Marcelli sounds quite different from the others - it was recorded 2½ years earlier.

Hurrah for job lots!

2010-11-03T23:52:00.001-07:00

Recently, I took a punt on a job lot of 78s on eBay... result!

Busoni String Quartet in C Op.19 - (ii) Andante
Mozart String Quartet in G K.387 - (iv) Molto allegro
Odeon O-6273, rec. 10 November 1924
Roth Quartet
(Feri Roth, Mauritz Stromfeld, Herman Spitz, A. Franke)

The seller had been kind enough to list all 150+ discs (other sellers, please note, you lazy so-and-sos!) - but not always with enough detail to be quite sure exactly what they contained. I feared this might be from the Roth Quartet's incomplete recording of Schubert's 'Death and the Maiden' Quartet D.810, issued in Britain on Parlophone (E 10767-68) and transferred by CHARM (their only other British issue, not on CHARM, was E 10656, a snippet of Debussy's Quartet).

Yippee, it wasn't! Instead, I found this interesting acoustical rarity, in an original sleeve, as many in the job lot were: and it contains what must be one of the earliest recordings of a work of chamber music by Busoni - anyone know of an earlier one? What's more, this coupling is not listed in Hansfried Sieben's Odeon Matrizen-nummern der Serie xxB (30 cm) von 6815-9598, (1923-1953) (Düsseldorf, 1988). On the other hand, Sieben does list the players, by surnames only; I've been able to get first names for all but the ’cellist.

My fellow-collector Jolyon Hodson has kindly made this transfer (I haven't the right kit, at the mo) and the scans. By my reckoning, this is only the third ever recording of the Finale of Mozart's K.387 (the first was by the Flonzaley for Victor and the second by the Léner for Columbia) - and it goes at a heck of a lick!

Download the 2 mono FLAC files, fully tagged, in a .rar file from here.

Some ten months later, the Roth recorded the Menuetto of K.387 (xxB 7237, face no. unknown, issued on O-80283). If anyone has that, we'd love to hear it.

I must say I'm chuffed to bits with my job lot bonanza and I hope to be able to post more goodies from it soon. I have some German Parlophons and even rare Homochords (Robert Pollak, Fery Lorant - yes!).

I wish I had more Odeons like this, though. They recorded a lot of chamber music, including some twelve discs with the Roth Quartet. (By the way, why is seemingly no one in Germany posting stuff like this on the web? Is anyone collecting these discs?)

Odeon even recorded a disc of ‘Old English Dances from Shakespeare’s Time’, with the Munich Viol Quintet! That would make Grumpy exceedingly happy...

UPDATE

Jolyon has found a notice, in The Musical Times of November 1924, of a 'very animated performance' of Busoni's Op.19 by the Roth Quartet, 'very well received', at a Busoni commemoration organized by his pupil Edward Weiss - of course, silly me, I'd forgotten Busoni had just died (27 July 1924)!

Albert Sammons plays Fauré, 1937, HMV private issue

2010-10-26T07:02:00.000-07:00

Once again, I am deeply indebted to Mr. Paul Steinson for the following treasure!

Fauré Violin Sonata in A Op.13
Albert Sammons (violin), Edie Miller (piano)
recorded 10 & 12 November 1937
HMV private issue JG 60-62

I am very happy to be able to present this on Mr. Steinson's behalf. He kindly provided me with his dub of the original set, as well as the above label scan; I have only passed the dub through the marvellous ClickRepair (declick and decrackle), monoed it and joined up the sides where necessary - no more. Any definciencies are thus of course mine!

Download the 4 mono FLAC files, fully tagged, in a .rar file here.

My other favourite recording of this lovely Sonata is by Lola Bobesco and Jacques Genty, recorded in 1950 by Decca and reissued by Testament.

I see Sammons and Edie Miller made at least one other privately issued duo recording together, of Turina's Violin Sonata No.1 in D Op.51, on three 78 sides; on the odd side, Edie Miller played Poulenc's Mouvements perpetuels.

The Steinson cornucopia will continue shortly, with two rare acoustic concertante sets played by Anderson Tyrer with the British Symphony Orchestra under Adrian Boult!

Update, 31 October:

A friend suggested I try reequalizing this with the Blumlein curve (using brilliant Brian's wonderful Equalizer) and, I agree, the recorded image is now clearer and better balanced - but the surface noise obtrudes more!

Anyway, see what you think: as before, 4 mono FLAC files, fully tagged, in a renamed .rar file here.

Update, 10 December:

Pristine Classical has now redubbed and remastered this recording and made it available as a commercial download; better still, it is coupled with Sammons' 1926 Columbia set of Beethoven's Violin Sonata in A Op.47, the 'Kreutzer', never previously reissued on CD or as a download (the only reissue I know of was a 1982 Pearl LP). As I very much support Pristine's work and don't wish to take away its custom, my version may no longer be downloaded. Information about Pristine's reissue can be found here.

Buckets, spades - and 78s!

2010-09-08T01:22:00.000-07:00

The other half turfed me out of the cave last month, for a seaside holiday in Brittany. It was lovely, I must admit - especially as I was lucky enough to find this set in a pretty little town inland!

Aren't these labels great?

Pathé X.5459-60 Wagner Tannhäuser Overture
Large Symphony Orchestra, François Ruhlmann
recorded c. November 1928?

I was humming and hawing in the second-hand bookshop over whether to buy these - I'd already bought a few LPs and the cave's cache of cowrie shells is very low at the mo - when my French cousin casually opened a book... and found a 10-Euro note in it! Sold! So thanks to him for generously sponsoring my purchase and this post (and for having us to stay and for making that fantastic mayonnaise...).

And thanks too to Jolyon for transferring and editing together these four sides and scanning the labels. (I've bought him a pressie - he doesn't know yet.)

There's some interesting information on Wikipedia about François Ruhlmann (1868-1948), conductor of so many pioneering opera sets for Pathé, as well as quite a few purely orchestral records like these - Damian has already transferred and shared two: Chabrier's España and Rossini's Guillaume Tell Ouverture. Damian dated España, on X 5446, to 1931 - but I'm told that's too late; November 1928 is more like it, apparently. Sound-wise, that feels more likely to me, I must say.

Download the mono, fully-tagged FLAC file here.

By the way, I'm very interested in two mysterious chamber music sets that were issued by Pathé about this time, the great Classical quintets for piano and winds in E flat: Beethoven's Op.16 on X.9791-94 and Mozart's K.452 on X.9822-25. I missed a copy of the former on eBay a while ago - drat and blast! - and I omitted to save the label pic, though I do remember that it wasn't one of these 'Art' labels. Were they really 10-inch, as this listing says? Surely 29 cm, i.e. just under 12-inch. Frustratingly, both sets were issued without any artist credits. If you have any idea who played these, when they were recorded or - even better - you have copies you'd like to share, do get in touch - or post them outside your own cave?

The Kindness of Strangers

2010-08-26T00:23:00.000-07:00

Bach Brandenburg Concerto No.2 in F BWV 1047
Ernest Hall (trumpet), Frank Almgill (flute), Leon Goossens (oboe),
Samuel Kutcher (violin), Rudolph Dolmetsch (harpsichord),
London Chamber Orchestra, Anthony Bernard
Brunswick 30137-38 (rec. 1928-29?)
property of Mr. Paul Steinson

A great reason not to be grumpy!

Paul Steinson, a music-lover and record-collector in England, read the article about downloads of historical recordings in Classic Record Collector (No.61, Summer 2010, pp.46-49) and noticed that the British Library's Archival Sound Recordings website has some of Anthony Bernard's legendary 'lost' cycle of Bach's 'Brandenburg' Concertos - but not No.2. This recording has previously been reissued but only in a set of cassettes which accompanied Ewald Junge's biography of the conductor, Anthony Bernard - A Life in Music, published as a limited edition in 1992.

This first-ever complete cycle of the Brandenburgs, recorded I should think some time in late 1928 and early 1929 (does anyone have more precise dates and/or a location?)*, was slated for release on twelve records, 30135-46, in March 1929. That month The Gramophone published a fascinating article by Bernard himself, recounting the difficulties posed by the recordings and revealing that the sessions, which he called a 'costly enterprise', had been completed only days before the time of writing. As he admitted, 'The Second Brandenburg Concerto with the very high trumpet part could not be given exactly as written by Bach; both microphone and wax would have rebelled.' Perhaps the second side, which was published from take 11(!), was one of the last to be redone? For a while, I thought Bernard had deployed a harp on continuo in the slow movement; but it must be a harpsichord stop, chosen by Rudolph Dolmetsch on the instrument, presumably from the family workshops, which he played in this Concerto as well as in Nos.3, 4 & 6 (and a Pleyel in No.1).

But the same month, the entire cycle was suddenly cancelled and almost completely destroyed; some copies must have got out, as there are survivors, seriously rare (no full set is known, I gather). The sad story has been told in detail by David Patmore in Classic Record Collector's 'Rarissima' column (No.44, Spring 2006, p.9). Dr. Patmore countered Junge's suggestion that the cycle was withdrawn because 'Bach was too risky commercially' with the more plausible explanation that, in 1929, Decca, which had just taken over Brunswick, was in dire straits and had to retrench and regroup drastically.

With extraordinary generosity, Mr. Steinson has transferred his own complete set of No.2, scanned the label of the first side (above), and agreed to allow the transfer to be further processed, if need be, and shared here by Grumpy. The entrance to the cave has been duly spruced up and all coprolites and mouse skellingtons swept to the back. The indefatigable and highly knowledgeable Jolyon has tweaked the difficult side-join in the first movement and sprinkled his fairy-dust on Brunswick's sound, which he calls 'nasty' and 'harsh' and which made him wonder if this was one of the company's 'Light-Ray Process' efforts: 'The original recording has been made in a rather boxy room. The last movement is transposed a semitone up but the trumpet plays an octave down anyway so I left the pitch alone. I have pushed all the instruments back a bit so they are not so in your face. I can't get rid of all the edginess but I hope it is a bit clearer.' I think it is an improvement but mainly I'm thrilled to be able to hear this at all!

Download Jolyon's version of Mr. Steinson's transfer as one fully-tagged, mono FLAC file, from here.

Can anyone explain the matrix numbers starting BA? Bernard's Brandenburgs begin at BA71, yet Ross Laird's great Brunswick book shows no such matrices originating in London, only in Buenos Aires! Any matrix numbers for the rest of the cycle gratefully received. And scour your attics: the keyboard part in Concerto No.5 was played on the piano by Walter Gieseking, no less - wouldn't it be grand to hear a complete set of that!

My eternal thanks to both Mr. Steinson and Jolyon - exactly the kind of generous, altruistic collectors (like so many of the bloggers over on the right-hand side of this page) who will be the subject of the next article about downloads of historical recordings, in the forthcoming (Autumn) issue of CRC.

*Postscript: Jolyon, who has a usefully forensic approach to discography, reckons from the matrix numbers that this Concerto may have been recorded between the 10th & 18th of October 1928. Nothing to do with Buenos Aires, he assures me; these BA-prefixed numbers were a London series not recorded in the documents available to Laird (and indeed none of Bernard's sessions have numbers in Laird's book).

And it turns out the BL does in fact have a copy of this set. It should have been included in the Archival Sound Recordings Bach survey but for some reason was omitted; I understand this may be rectified! At the moment the BL is busy hoovering up some rare and interesting early Beethoven quartet recordings which were also overlooked and should be posted on ASR fairly soon.

What Lights Your Fire (I Use Dried Dung)

2010-08-21T03:39:00.001-07:00

Hello all,

It's almost restored my faith in human nature: we all like Bach and Monteverdi!

Sorry, it's not very clear - Blogger doesn't seem to like my big tiffs - so here are some stats, as of a few days ago:

Top of the list is Reine Gianoli's Bach on Westminster (recently transferred from LP and issued on CD by Green Door in Japan), at 218 takers;
next is Roger Wagner's Monteverdi Primo libro de' Madrigali, with 196 downloads!
Just behind, at 192, are the Fuchses doing Mozart's K.364;
at No.4, the Quartetto Italiano's 17th C Italians with 143;
followed by Jeanne Behrend's all-Gottschalk LP at 142 (Side 2) and 133 (Side 1);
and, suprisingly, by Mildred Clary's little lute 45 at 134.

Very encouraging!

Of course, I can't share all sort of stuff I'd like to - contemporary music, mainly.

Anyway, this got me thinking about my Desert Island Discs. A few years ago these'd have gone something like this:

Monteverdi Vespro della Beata Vergine, 1610 / Taverner Consort, Choir & Players, Andrew Parrott / EMI Reflexe
Bach Well-Tempered Clavier BWV 846-893 (can I have the lot?) / Glenn Gould / CBS
Beethoven String Quartet in a Op.132 / Busch Quartet / EMI Références
Beethoven 33 Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli Op.120 / Alfred Brendel / Philips
Schubert Die Winterreise D.911 / Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gerald Moore / EMI
Brahms Symphony No.2 in D Op.73 / erm... can't remember now - Chailly?
Bartók String Quartet No.4 Sz.91/ Hungarian String Quartet / DG
Stravinsky Agon / SWF Baden-Baden SO, Hans Rosbaud / Adès

Bum, that just squeezes out:
Tippett Symphony No.3 / LSO, Sir Colin Davis / Philips
[or, possibly, Elgar Symphony No.2 in Eb Op.63 / LPO, Sir Georg Solti / Decca]

Yes, it's always a tough one - but I gotta change some things:

Machaut The Mirror of Narcissus / Gothic Voices, Christopher Page / Hyperion (or maybe the Messe de Nostre Dame, if there was an outright winner in that complicated field?)
Monteverdi Vespro - stays in! (though Parrott's Orfeo has always run it close)
Purcell Dido and Aeneas / Taverner Consort, Choir & Players, Andrew Parrott / OU-Chandos
Bach Art of Fugue BWV 1080 / (probably) Musica Antiqua Köln, Reinhard Goebel / Archiv Produktion
[but possibly Berlin Bach Academy, Heribert Breuer / Arte Nova]
Beethoven... yeah, keep both, though I rarely pull those off the shelf these days
Brahms No.2 - likewise (and happy to take whichever one comes along...)
Birtwistle Earth Dances / Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi / Decca
(but there have been some stunning broadcasts, too - and if Yan Tan Tethera was commercially available I might have to go for that!)

Wot, no Schubert? Lord, this is hard.

No, feck it, I'm going to cheat:
Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending / Isolde Menges, orch., Malcolm Sargent / HMV (download from CHARM - side 1, side 2, side 3)

So - how about you?

Ffunky Ggibbons, Locke & Purcell

2010-08-13T11:35:00.001-07:00

Here's another one you won't want!

But I love these recordings of 17th C consort music by string quartet. They bring it out of the music chest and the library and into the concert hall - especially peformances as confident as these, by the New Music String Quartet: Broadus Earle, Matthew Raimondi (violins), Walter Trampler (viola), Claus Adam (cello). Recorded by Peter Bartók in about 1952, I reckon, for his own label, on which this was first released as LP number 913, some time in the first half of 1953. The Quartet made quite a few interesting LPs of early music for Bartók, from Alessandro Scarlatti to F.X. Richter; some have been reissued on CD - but not this one. This World Record Club Recorded Music Circle issue must date from the late 1950s, no? I wish I knew more about this fascinating label: all info grumpily received.

The two Gibbons 4-part Fantasias (his only two) have been transposed up a fourth; at this pitch and in the NMSQ's hands they zing with high tension and rhythmic drive. Perhaps the Quartet should have upped Locke's sixth Consort of Ffowre Parts too; it comes across least well of the 5 pieces here. This was not its first recording; amazingly, that was made in 1929 by the National Gramophonic Society, with André Mangeot and his International String Quartet playing Mangeot's edition of a transcription by Warlock (I dunno what edition was used here - quite possibly the same?). The movements are Fantazia, Courante, Ayre, Saraband.

The famous Purcell Chacony, on the other hand, has a reticent delicacy that I really like - no Nymanesque chugging or overblown climax. Not on the disc, anyway.

Download the 5 fully tagged mono FLAC files in a .rar archive from here.

'Dry' my a*se!

2010-07-17T02:21:00.000-07:00

I mentioned to a friend recently that I'd done a dub of this record and he called it, 'Dry'. It's a criticism I've often heard of Foldes and I don't quite understand it; I prefer to think of him as 'classical'. He's one of my favourite pianists - and sorely neglected in CD reissues. DG seems to think he's only fit for compilations of the 'Liebestraum', 'Für Elise', 'Passion for Piano', and 'Piano Weekend' variety. They can't be bothered to reissue his milestone solo Bartók cycle (just one Dokumente CD that's been around for years) and for some incomprehensible reason they never marketed the superb if unnecessarily selective Original Masters 'Wizard of the Keyboard' twofer in the UK - I had to buy mine from abroad (and three nanoseconds later it's been deleted, anyway, though you can buy it as a FLAC download, which is a small mercy - get it, the Stravinsky Sonata and Barber Excursions are my absolute tops for these works).

So, for grumpy fellow Foldes fans and sceptics, here is his fine 1958 'Emperor' with Ferdinand Leitner, from a stereo Heliodor LP published in 1959, which I picked up in a local charity shop recently. I haven't put up the filler, the little Sonata in G Op.79, because it's very short, not quite so interesting and the nitwit who last owned this disc managed to slather that bit in some annoying gunge which our little miracle helper ClickRepair can't deal with.

Otherwise, ClickRepair has done a great job and I find the 1958 sound remarkably good. Can't say the same for the grungy and depressing cover - how many copies did this sell? Also, I specially bought an A3 scanner so I could do LP covers: well, bravo the person at Mustek who put a raised, chamfered edge round the platen just high enough so that LPs, which don't fit by a couple of mm, sit half on and half off the platen: not only is one or the other side chopped off but the other is also out of focus. If you wanted to help users frame their paper originals, 1 mm, unchamfered, would have been fine. The software is also beyond dire.

Two stereo, fully tagged FLAC files (Adagio and attacca Rondo are one file) in a .rar file at:

http://www.mediafire.com/?jldzzctdymf

A rainy Saturday afternoon in Poitiers

2010-06-25T00:51:00.000-07:00

My idea of heaven, really: a handsome old European city in a beautiful landscape - and a charity shop with French LPs and 78s! Here's a little something from my all too meagre haul:

(I had to make the pic B&W after my scanner turned the faintly sepia-like original into a sickly pink)

This appears to be a French Club national du disque issue of a Musical Masterpiece Society recording, with the influential Czech-born Viennese conductor and teacher Henry Swoboda conducting the Netherlands Philharmonic (on the MMS, see David Patmore, 'Your room a Concert Hall', Classic Record Collector, Vo.6 No.23, Winter 2000, pp.38-42). According to the Bibliothèque nationale's catalogue, dépôt légal of the MMS issue was in 1955, so I've taken a punt on that as recording date.

Interestingly, after the amusing balls-up I related in my previous post, I found that this 10-inch LP has its labels reversed - or, rather, the labels themselves aren't (side and matrix numbers are consistent with the very extensive markings in the run-off area) but the title listings on them are, with Symphony No.94 billed as No.100 and vice versa.

Rather nice performances, too!

8 mono FLACs in a .rar file here. Yes, I know, there's hum and rumble - they don't bother me too much but if you want to take them out and repost the results, please feel free! Better still, teach me how to do it... Otherwise, I found the sound rather good and needing only declicking (apart from the very end of No.100, which gets a bit harsh and crackly).

Back to Poitiers: I recently spent a delightful if drizzly Saturday enjoying its commanding site on a limestone ridge, exploring the lovely streets, squares, old merchants' houses and modern shops. When I asked in a musical instrument shop if anyone sold classical LPs, they said no, Poitiers is more rock and country! But, hurrah, later, conveniently after the sight-seeing, I stumbled on a charity shop with a few crates of LPs and 78s.

If you've never seen the facade of Notre-Dame-la-Grande, go: it's stunning and has been rightly compared to a mediaeval ivory panel (the neighbouring food market is predictably mouth-watering). The inside is thoroughly Viollet-le-Duc-ized but none the less atmospheric (and damp) for that. But I preferred the more austere cathédrale de Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul, with its amazing 12th C stained-glass window, 13th C carved choir stalls and, best of all, barely altered 1790 organ, the last work of François-Henri Clicquot, who died during the construction, completed by his son Claude-François. I would love to hear this last flowering of 18th C French organ-building - and I would love to go back, with more transport, to the shop where I found this LP and a shedload of ancient vertical cut Pathé 78s! I could only carry a few so I took two, and I already regret leaving the 10-inch lateral cut Pathé (X9918) of cellist Marguerite Caponsacchi - but she was only playing arrangements of Schumann and Schubert.

A balls-up all round...

2010-06-23T03:24:00.000-07:00

I just bought this nice-looking LP (people go on about DG's design, which was indeed fab, but so was Telefunken's, antiquely austere and delightfully discreet) on eBay - and was immediately struck by a discrepancy on the front:

Er, since when has minor Mozart and Beethoven chamber music had anything to do with the North German organ!? This is the kind of mistake you can understand being made with computers but I'm surprised to find it from the days of cutting, pasting and typesetting by hand. Anyone else come across anything similar?

(Talking of the North German organ, I also just bought a 2-LP set of 'Buxtehude and His Contemporaries', superbly played by Lionel Rogg, HMV SLS 801/2 - odd number, don't you think? - not from eBay, from JustClassical, which I can highly recommend for excellent service. As EMI has just reissued another batch of Rogg's Buxtehude, I guess this outstanding set will never appear as digits...)

Anyway, that's not all.

Side 1 contains the first of those string trios based on fugues by Bach and attributed (less and less securely, it seems) to Mozart as K.404a, and the Flute Quartet in C K.285b, both played by members of the Alma Musica Sextet. I already knew of this side from its first issue on a nice 1955 LP entitled 'The Golden Line of Polyphony', London/Ducretet-Thomson DTL 93046, but that's a rarity and this Telefunken pressing (I don't have a date for it) seemed minty-mint, so I was looking forward to sharing it with you.

As I'm getting to be more and more of a Rampal fan (I've been buying the outstanding reissues of his early recordings on Premiers Horizons, the label of the Association Jean-Pierre Rampal - they're cheap, too, get them!), I was chuffed to see that Side 2 apparently contains Beethoven's Trio in G WoO 37 for flute, bassoon (Paul Hongne) and piano (Robert Veyron-Lacroix) and the Air russe, No.7 of the 10 National Airs with Variations Op.107 (also with Veyron-Lacroix). I think these must be the recordings listed by the Bibliothèque nationale as first issued on Ducretet Thomson LPG 8002 (dépôt légal 1952), not the mid-1960s ones made for the Club français du disque and now available as part of a complete set of Beethoven's chamber music on VoxBox CDX-5000.

But I was a smidge surprised to find that Side 2 is merely a repeat of Side 1, though for some reason the Bach/Mozart string trio was mastered at a slightly higher level! The two sides have different labels and matrix numbers, as expected. Anyone know how this might have happened?

Anyway, on Mediafire you will find a .rar file containing mono FLACs of the 'wrong' Side 2, which is decently played by:

- Everard van Royen (flute)
- Paul Godwin (violin - see his fascinating biography)
- Johan van Velden (viola) and
- Carel van Leeuwen Boomkamp (cello - Anner Bylsma's teacher; here's a biog in Dutch).

I won't pretend Alma Musica was the best ensemble ever, even of its day, but I admire its pioneering spirit and programming.

In the meantime, I'm sorry not to be able to offer you Rampal's early Beethoven. Maybe Premiers Horizons will reissue it; they seem to have gone back to tape masters wherever possible (e.g., for the Discophiles français LPs with Ristenpart) and the results are stunning. (Obviously, it's not in Accord's 8-CD box set 'Concertos et Récitals 1961-1965 Vol.1', 480 1324 - but forget about getting a track listing from Universal Music France, for that you'll have to go to Universal Music Italy.)

In fact, this makes me really grumpy: if a small label can put out these Ristenpart gems at such a reasonable price, why can't we have them all? A big Ristenpart box from EMI, which now owns the outstanding Discophiles français catalogue? Or, better still, a complete Discophiles français Edition!?

A Dilemma and a Freebie

2010-05-13T14:23:00.000-07:00

Deepest apologies for my long absence! I've been doing paid work, now that I'm in the 4th (and, let's hope, final) year of my PhD and no longer have a stipend...

First, the freebie: pursuing my grumpily unfashionable theme of unloved early music records, here is the Quartetto Italiano (Paolo Borciani and Elisa Pegreffi, violins; Piero Farulli, viola; Franco Rossi, cello) playing Italian mid-Baroque 4-part sonatas - or, as the lovely Columbia sleeve has it:

Class, eh?And yet - not one of the Quartetto's best albums, to be honest. Still, I think it's well worth hearing - this is a wonderful repertoire, which I've been collecting and enjoying on CD for years, and now I'm often finding that musicians of the 1950s and even earlier made some very honourable stabs at it.

Of special interest, as noted by J.N. (Jeremy Noble?) in The Gramophone (May 1957, pp.453-54), is the way 'the Quartetto Italiano have made a gesture towards authenticity by abjuring vibrato in the earliest pieces' - so, yar boo sucks to all those who imagine such devices were only thought of in the 1970s. The rest of this review strikes me as a tad churlish, which can't have helped this LP to sell; in his haste to point out that these are not really string quartets and mostly have a continuo part, the writer forgot that modern string quartets (notably André Mangeot's various formations) had been playing 16th, 17th and 18th C string consorts for more than half a century - and why the hell not!? No string quartet today will start a programme with Gabrieli, Marini or Vivaldi - and we're the poorer for it. Even the Pro Arte Quartet recorded a Vivaldi concerto (DB 2148, 1933 - never reissued - and, again, why the hell not!?) and if he was good enough for them...

So, 7 mono FLAC files at

http://www.mediafire.com/file/yymhwqwnyzy/Columbia_33CX_1430.rar

I've tried to identify all the pieces but I got lazy with Vitali's Capriccio - if anyone can pin-point that (or confirm that this is Neri's Sonata quinta from Op.2*) I'll be... less grumpy than usual. Michael Gray's data (http://www.charm.kcl.ac.uk/) gives a recording date only for the items on side 1 (and the Italian LP number); I've assumed side 2 was recorded the same day. Talking of the Italian issue, the Quartetto's own very useful website gives the date of April 1957, which must be the release date, as well as the entire original Italian sleeve note by Luigi Pestalozza. I hope you can make out Columbia's translation in my scan, and also the section titles: each piece is one file but three consist of more than one section. In fact two aren't quite right here: the Marini apparently goes (a) Entrata grave (b) Balletto allegro (c) Gagliarda (d) Corrente (e) Retirata (so my Manze CD says); and the Vivaldi should be (a) Largo molto (b) Allegro ma poco andante.

[*P.S. This has now been confirmed by the mighty Jolyon!]

The Dilemma

Should I give recordings away free? This one, yes: I've done nothing beyond the usual ClickRepair and the condition of side 2 was not quite what I was led to believe by the seller, so there's quite a bit of shushy noise in the Vitali and some clunks in the Vivaldi. (Also, are my dubs getting worse or what?) But I have a couple of other LPs of this type which are rarer and musically more rewarding. If academic work is not forthcoming after I finish my Phd (if I ever do...) and even if it is, I'd like to make a living in this reissues racket; if these guys can do it, why not me?

CHARM sound archive goes online

2010-03-18T23:47:00.000-07:00

Send the family on holiday, clear your diary, farm out the pets, buy in plenty of tins and put the phone on divert: you will spend the next two weeks on your own, in the dark, happily hunting and listening to a treasure trove of long-forgotten goodies from the wonderful to the weird.

More than 5,000 historical recordings (each one, a side of a 10- or 12-inch coarse-groove disc), dating from about 1915 to 1952, have just been made available online for anyone to stream or download, free, anywhere in the world.

The CHARM online sound archive combines transfers made under the auspices of two academic projects: CHARM itself, the AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, which ran from 2004 to 2009; and 'Musicians of Britain and Ireland, 1900-1950', brainchild of Professor Daniel Leech-Wilkinson of the Music Department, King's College, London, one of the Associate Directors of CHARM. Daniel brilliantly secured funding from the UK's JISC and so more than doubled the number of transfers funded under CHARM.

The transfer engineers were Andrew Hallifax, who has worked with many classical artists and companies as well as making recodings for his own record label, Big Ears; and Martin Haskell, who has worked for Decca, ASV and other companies and engineered many, many reissues of historical recordings.

The project would not have been possible without the amazing discographical research done over many decades by the likes of Frank Andrews, Michael Smith, Ernie & Ernest Bayly and Bill Dean-Myatt, all published by the CLPGS, and by Alan Kelly of Sheffield.

I must declare an interest: I ended up being the main selector of recordings to be transferred by the two projects, though others, inside CHARM and out, were also free to make suggestions; and our warmest thanks must go to the doyen of British critics of singing, John Steane, for kindly and freely giving of his fabled expertise in that domain.

You will find all the information you need about the two projects and the CHARM archive, about searching, file formats and players and so on, on the site. So:

Get searching and enjoy!

Roger Wagner directs Monteverdi Madrigals, 1951?

2010-01-22T00:30:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

For some years now I have admired the work of choral director Roger Wagner and everything of his I hear only increases my admiration. Some time ago I posted on various newsgroups my transfer of his lovely Capitol LP of Stephen Foster songs, which I continue to enjoy and delight my friends with (now, if only I could buy the Korean EMI CD reissue or, better still, EMI would reissue more of their Roger Wagner archive in the Western hemisphere!).

Next I would like to present his Lyrichord LP of Monteverdi's first Book of Madrigals; as far as I can tell, it is a 1953 reissue of a 1951 origination on Allegro (interestingly, only Side 2 has an Allegro matrix number and sounds distinctly worse than Side 1 - lower level, more noise; they can't have re-recorded Side 1, can they?). The Allegro issue was apparently listed and/or reviewed in two American publications, The Gramophone Shop Supplement in August 1951 and Consumers' Research Bulletin in October '51, neither of which I've seen. My estimate of the recording date is based on these but it could have been earlier. According to http://therogerwagnerchorale.com/history.html the Chorale was signed to Capitol in 1949, but perhaps that contract wasn't exclusive, as I see that in 1951 Allegro brought out an LP of Bach Cantatas with the Chorale.

This Monteverdi is a bit of a 'run-through', in places (as many such traversals are), and I'm not sure all stanzas of all the poems are sung (not that I've checked) but it's an amazingly stylish, confident and pretty enjoyable presentation, sung by a small ensemble rather than the large choir one might expect to hear at this time.

It was also a time when so much early music was still presented in rag-bag anthologies from widely disparate periods and styles, so this record strikes one as a very serious enterprise. In fact, I wonder if it wasn't the first recording of a complete book of madrigals - does anyone know?

The Singers are listed on the back and include one especially interesting name - I wonder what else of this nature she sang in?:

Marni Nixon and Ewan Harbrecht (sopranos)
Katherine Hilgenberg (contralto)
Richard Robinson (tenor)
Paul Salamunovich (baritone)
Paul Hinshaw (bass)

One of my usual pretty basic transfers, using ClickRepair: 21 tagged mono FLACs, with a so-so scan of the texts on the back of the sleeve, in one .rar file which can be downloaded from Mediafire here.

Still some sonic problems, such as slight blasting on peaks towards the ends of sides and quite a bit of surface swish and swoosh. A friend told me about Waves' Z-noise gizmo and demonstrated it very convincingly on a track from my Mildred Clary lute disc. >Sigh<, another piece of software to buy! Enjoy!

Vinyl fest on Classical Collection, BBC Radio Three

2010-01-20T09:08:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

One of the things I do to earn a crust (and keep the grumpy hormones flowing) is produce music programmes for BBC Radio Three. I work as a freelancer, employed by British independent production company Classic Arts - to whom many thanks!

The main programme I make is Classical Collection, presented alternately by pianist and teacher Sarah Walker and Gramophone Editor-in-Chief James Jolly. They're both thoroughly good eggs and I love working with them - no grounds for grumpiness there!

Each week's programmes are more or less loosely built around a theme - very far from loosely, when I choose them, as when we did 'Music Restored - Reconstructions and Completions' a couple of weeks ago and (slightly to my editor's dismay) every single piece fitted the theme. Yes, I never do things by halves.

But next week, starting at 10:00 am on Monday 25th January, is really special and unusual: all the music, with very few exceptions, comes from LPs and has never been issued on CD.

Given the rapid adoption of CD in the mid-1980s, this is surely the first time in a good two and a half decades - a generation, in fact - that this has been done for a 'routine' music sequence on Radio Three.

The few exceptions are three recordings which have been issued on CD only in Japan (in two of those cases, nearly twenty years ago); and two more which have been issued on both LP and CD, by one of my very favourite record labels, Testament (these LPs are still available).

In addition, all the recordings bar one were transferred by me, here behind the second stalagmite on the left, on my bank of grubby second-hand equipment, and all bat guano cleaned off using the wonderful ClickRepair.

The exception to that is Paul Paray's 1953 Detroit recording of Beethoven's Symphony No.7, which has recently been remastered from an original Mercury LP by Pristine Classical, to whom many thanks for providing us with FLACs!

Many of the LPs came from the BBC's large library of commercial recordings but some are my own copies, some were kindly supplied by record companies and one was lent by one of the artists, from his own collection.

Full playlists for Monday to Wednesday have been posted on Radio Three's website; Thursday and Friday should follow soon (slightly less user-friendly listings can also be found at the Radio Times website).

Of course, Classical Collection allows me to 'share' with fellow music-lovers many recordings and compositions which I could never post here, as they are still in copyright.

Among these are the Suite from Stravinsky's Pulcinella, conducted with great verve and charm by Heinrich Hollreiser on mid-'50s Vox; the Schubert Quintet in C D.956, recorded at the 1982 Lockenhaus Festival by a group including Kaja Danczowska, a Philips digital LP which I believe was never issued in the UK; and Danczowska again, playing Mozart with Krystian Zimerman, no less, on a Polish Wifon LP.

Another highlight is the estampie Chominciamento di gioia, in a fantastic early 1970s arrangement and performance by Thomas Binkley and the Studio der frühen Musik. In the mid-80s, half of the parent Telefunken LP, Musik der Spielleute, was cack-handedly and quite irrelevantly tacked onto the end of a CD of Minnesänger music, which, to judge from the current policy of the bigger 'media companies', means that, even though much (not all, note) of Binkley's superb Telefunken legacy has been reissued, Chominciamento and the other overlooked pieces will now never see the light of day.

Now that is grounds for grumpiness!

The lute - what's to be grumpy?

2009-12-30T01:35:00.000-08:00

Quite a lot, actually!

First, obviously... him. Grubby the entry to my lair may be, but I can't bring myself to besmirch it further - suffice to say that the lute (and Dowland) have mingled freely with the discarded bones and guano for some time, thank you; the last thing I allow in the cave is littering by the international entertainment industrial complex.

But wait: is it just my smell - or do surprisingly few music-lovers seem impelled to join me in foraging outside the central repertoire? Isn't that a bit like eating only meat and two veg? In the 1960s, it was perhaps not too much to hope that this wonderful instrument and music might join the mainstream. Today, the lute's perhaps lost its taint of homespun bohemianism but it seems as marginal as ever.

Enough, already!? Lute-lovers have been superbly served on disc over the last three decades (Naxos, signing Christopher Wilson and Nigel North - inspired!). Sure, but the lute's pioneers on record have been almost completely silenced, thanks to a combination of that same lack of curiosity allied to the myopic meliorism which ensures that almost no pre-'HIP' recordings of early music are reissued or broadcast, except those by performers famous in other repertoire.

That's a red rag to Grumpy! I've already passed several old lute recordings all over various newsgroups; now here's a fresh do-do, in the shapely and fragrant form of a groovy little Véga 45 issued in 1959 and entitled, simply, 'Luth', which I just bought from a great eBay LP seller whom I can highly recommend as a nice guy and honest dealer, Gerard of Eagle4Records.

It's played by Mildred Clary, the French music journalist, biographer and broadcaster who seems to have started her career as a guitarist (her Homenaje for Debussy was reissued in EMI France's box of Falla 'Introuvables') and lutenist. I'm not a lutenist meself, so I can't comment on her technique, but I find her manner poetic and well attuned to this music, which she rightly describes as 'd'une très grande beauté'.

Not sure exactly what all the pieces are - early music nomenclature was often pretty vague at the time - so I'd welcome more precise identification! In the meantime, I've labelled the tracks in the FLAC tags pretty much as they are on the sleeve (which conflates the last two bands of Side 2 into one). Here's Clary's original sleeve note:

GREENSLEEVES. — Air célèbre qui date du regne d'Henri VIII, et auquel Shakespeare fait allusion, à deux reprises, dans Les Joyeuses Commères de Windsor.
KEMPS JIG. — Kemp était un comédien célèbre du XVIIe siècle. Certaines pièces de luth lui ont été attribuées.
OPHELIA. — Vieille ballade datant du début du XVIe siècle et que Shakespeare fait chanter par Ophélie, dans Hamlet, lorsqu'elle devient folle.
ALMEN (Allemande). — Cette pièce est de Robert Johnson, luthiste à la Cour d'Angleterre au XVIIe siecle, et renommé autant par son jeu que par ses compositions.
THE SICK TUNE (L'air malade). — D'un auteur anonyme du début du XVIIe siècle.
PIVA (danse d'origine paysanne) et PAVANA ALLA VENETIANA de Joanambrosio Dalza figurent dans un recueil de tablature de luth publié en 1508, et qui est l'un des plus anciens que l'on connaisse.
GAILLARDE. — Pierre Attaignant auquel on doit cette gaillarde, ainsi qu'un grand nombre de danses et autres pièces pour luth, fut l'éditeur de musique de Francois Ier.
FABORDON (Faux-bourdon). — Le faux-bourdon est une sorte d'improvisation sur un plain-chant liturgique. Le premier manuscrit connu où l'on voit ce style d'écriture date du XIIIe siecle.
PAVANE. — Illustre luthiste espagnol, Luis Milan, l'auteur de cette pavane, vécut à la Cour du vice-roi de Valence: Don Fernando d'Aragon. Il compose de nombreuses pièces pour la vihuela (luth espagnol), d'une très grande beauté.

No denoising apart from ClickRepair; 9 mono FLACs, with a sleeve scan, in a .rar file at:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/zhdjjrjjrmo/Vega_CS_45_279_Mildred_Clary.rar

Harrumph!

UPDATE
Mildred Clary died, aged 80, last Thursday, 18th November 2010. Some notices.

Hot Bach de France: Reine Gianoli, 1951

2009-12-17T02:14:00.000-08:00

Incomprehensible, really, to me, that such different, personal, committed, superb playing can be left out in the eternal cold by the 'rights' holders. The first, I believe, of many Bach LPs recorded by Gianoli for Westminster, not one of which has been reissued on CD (nor has Petri's Westminster legacy, which is even more incomprehensible). Yes, grumpiness is the only possible response...

I could not find a recording date anywhere; the Westminster LP seems to have come out in 1952 and this British Nixa issue in 1955; the label states it was recorded in Vienna. As so often with piano recordings from this period, the instrument itself is rather out of tune but somehow that hardly seems to matter!

3 fully tagged mono FLACs, declicked only, with a sleeve scan, in a .rar file at:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/3lymtzhyy2g/Nixa_WLP_5101_Bach_Gianoli.rar

Yours ever,

Grumpy

Jeanne Behrend plays Louis Moreau Gottschalk, 1956

2009-12-10T14:02:00.000-08:00

For my second dropping, a 12" MGM LP which I bought sealed some years ago on eBay but only opened the other day, as it's just the sort of thing to fling out of my cave-mouth.

I can't now remember when I was first turned on to Gottschalk - perhaps it was by Georges Rabol's Opus 111 CD back in the early 1990s. Then I read S. Frederick Starr's fine biography Bamboula! and later bought Jeanne Behrend's edition of Gottschalk's Notes of a Pianist - one of the funniest and most endearing memoirs that I have ever read, the kind (like Samuel Pepys's diary) that makes the difference in centuries seem irrelevant.

Starr highly recommends Behrend's pioneering 1956 MGM disc, surely the first all-Gottschalk LP, as one of the best. Well, I just had to have it! Having now listened to it, I can't say Behrend's playing is the subtlest I've heard but it has spirit, conviction, authority, drama and a great sense of the pieces' shape. Behrend had previously recorded a recital of early American piano solos, including one by Gottschalk, for Allegro; these remained her only LPs, though she also made 78s, including a set of Saint-Saëns' Carnaval des animaux with Stokowski.

Of course, one important purpose of this uploading exercise is to let you decide - do you agree with Starr? Does this LP and thousands like it deserve its present oblivion?

10 mono FLAC files in two .rar archives:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/etynm2c01tj/MGM_E3370_Gottschalk_Behrend_S1.rar
http://www.mediafire.com/file/ammjingimnm/MGM_E3370_Gottschalk_Behrend_S2.rar

As before, no processing other than ClickRepair and monoing. Track titles and other info in FLAC tags. The order of the pieces as listed on the back cover is not the order in which they're presented on the disc and in my dub!

Grumpy

For my first upload: early 1950s Mozart from US Decca

2009-11-30T02:51:00.000-08:00

Hello all!

On my first foray out of my smelly little cave, I'm offering a 10" DG LP which I found yesterday in the collection of my late father. I used to play his discs a lot as a teenager - in fact, that's how I started listening to classical music - but I don't remember this one, which I've recently become curious to hear, so I was very happy to come across it!

An American Decca origination which Michael Gray dates to 1951; this German issue is apparently quite late, to judge from the printing date of December 1958 on the back of the sleeve! I think this was also the recording which had come out in the UK on Brunswick AXTL 1018 (issued c. October 1953).

I feel it's come up quite well in my straight transfer - no processing other than the miraculous ClickRepair and monoing.

3 mono FLACs in a .rar file at:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ldy2z513nmm/DG_LPE_17124_Mozart_K364_Fuchs_Zimbler_Sinfonietta.rar

Matrix info etc. is in the tags.

Please let me know of any problems! Apart from the poor quality jpegs, for which I apologise - they looked great when I did the scans and reduced them and now they look a bit rough!

Grumpy