The firsts shall last

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Eine kleine Nachtmusik in G K.525
I. Allegro; II. Romance. Andante
Nicolas Lambinon String Quartet
matrices: XXBo 8016-2 / XXBo 8017-2
recorded: c. November 1923, Berlin
Odeon O-6068 = AA 79467

Just flagging a few ‘firsts’ recently added to the ‘collection’ at the Internet Archive. Above is a label from the first record of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik – strangely, only the first two movements were recorded. Wos zum Deifel!? In truth, that is of a piece with Lambinon’s other discs, which were all of ‘snippets’ from popular chamber works by Beethoven, Brahms, Gade, Haydn, Mozart (just this), Schubert and Schumann. Lambinon (1880-1958), born in Liège and a pupil of Joseph Joachim, was a sometime concert-master of the Blüthner Orchestra and, from 1930, a member of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. I have one other record of him, playing in a piano trio – must get that up, too.

This label seems to show Odeon transitioning from ‘face numbers’ to one catalogue number per disc, by then rapidly becoming the standard. The shy little Bestell-Nummer (‘order number’) is on this label only, up in the left-hand corner of the cartouche, whereas the face number (Platten-Nummer, ‘record number’) is prominently printed in the lower centre. That’s where Odeon would soon put the O-prefixed Bestell-Nummer, which we tend to call the catalogue number. But in the first catalogue in which this disc was listed, the Odeon Musikplatten Deutsches Haupt-Verzeichnis 1924/25 (p.192), the Bestell-Nummer is given the old way, as AA 79 467. Another oddity is that ‘1925’ in the top right-hand corner of the cartouche, again only on this side; yet the catalogue clearly states it lists discs issued up to and including July 1924. Whatever.

One of my favourite organ works by J.S. Bach has long been the Fantasia (or, as in early MSS, Pièce d’orgue) in G BWV 572. So I’m happy to report we’ve just put up the first recording, by the French organist Noëlie Pierront (1899-1988). In October 1936 she made three discs of Bach and one of Buxtehude for the Bedford schoolmaster and organ enthusiast Aubrey C. Delacour de Brisay (1896-1989), who devised, sponsored and marketed a series of 12-inch records of this music played by Pierront, Ralph Downes and, he hoped, George Thalben-Ball. Frank Andrews’ characteristically thorough account of the venture in the CLPGS’s Hillandale News is here (if you have access to the Gramophone archive, you can also read de Brisay’s own article about it and Alec Robertson’s reviews).

I’m rather proud that we have now rescued from oblivion all but two of the seven issued Private Organ Recordings, three played by Pierront and two by Downes. The fifth in the series had to be withdrawn for copyright reasons – I’ve never found out what was on it, so bravo to the unnamed publisher for erasing it more completely from the face of the earth than time or neglect could ever do. Trottel. Poor de Brisay’s series didn’t make it past eight; he hoped to have more Buxtehude recorded by Thalben-Ball, but failed to muster enough subscriptions. Now I just need to find the first and last.

A couple of other firsts and lasts: the first (and, for a long time, only) recording of the fine String Quartet by John Alden Carpenter, by the Gordon String Quartet for Schirmer; and the last recording of the wonderful and pioneering ensemble Ars Rediviva and its founder, the harpsichordist and musicologist Claude Crussard (1893-1947), a 1946 Swiss radio broadcast issued by La Boîte à Musique as a posthumous tribute after the whole group died in an air crash while touring Portugal in February 1947. It’s also a first: the debut on disc of François Couperin’s superb early trio sonata of 1692 ‘L’Astrée’ (so named after a romance, apparently), itself not that often recorded – usually, people have gone for the revised version incorporated into Les nations as the opening Sonade of La piémontoise. I’m especially proud to have tracked down a copy of this uncommon set, which took a long time; the sound of the Radio Lausanne lacquer, transcribed to shellac, is not great, but Andrew Hallifax has restored it so that we only hear what is a deeply intense performance and a fitting and moving memorial to an immortal band of women. (Do hear their unusual Bach passion aria too.)

 

François Couperin
Sonata for two violins & continuo in g ‘L’Astrée’
Ars Rediviva, Claude Crussard (harpsichord / director)
matrices: PARTX 6090-1/6091-1, 6092-1/6093-1
recorded: 7 April 1946, Lausanne
Boîte à Musique 58-59

Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien

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.