Pini Aroma

Mozart Divertimento in E flat K.563
Jean Pougnet (violin)
Frederick Riddle (viola)
Anthony Pini (cello)
rec. 12 to 18 September 1952, Konzerthaus(?), Vienna
by Westminster (USA)
transfer from 1965 UK issue on HMV CLP 1861   

Sorry about the dreadful pun – but LPs, and old electronics, do give off distinctive whiffs. Whenever I open the turntable on which I transferred this LP, I get a pleasing rubbery smell, which I think comes from the thick platter mat, trapped under the lid. It does a Proust, taking me back to my late father’s hi-fi and record cabinets (not to mention long, boring childhood journeys in hot cars with plastic upholstery), though I can’t honestly claim to remember the exact aroma of his various setups. Nor does this LP, from his shelves, smell of much: for one thing, HMV used translucent paper to line the inner sleeve, not the later polythene which has all too often degraded and left gunk on precious grooves.

No, this disc was and is in excellent condition, and hardly needed cleaning up. I imagine few surviving copies of the original Westminster issues (on WL 5191 and XWN 18551), not to mention the first UK issue of late 1954 (on Nixa WLP 5191), would sound better – those pressings were never too good. Maybe the French Véga issue was better (sample a commercial transfer here, or even buy it here). The recording is close (which I like) and vivid, and I just love this performance. Love the work, too, which always seems to bring out the best in players, and I never tire of hearing new versions, but I’m esepecially fond of this one. I hope you enjoy it too!

I haven’t got the time and energy to do a full bio-/discographical job on the musicians – and I don’t need to, as all three are well known. What may not be so well known is that Jean Pougnet (1907-68) made his first documented recordings in early 1926 for the National Gramophonic Society – playing second viola alongside André Mangeot’s Music Society String Quartet in Purcell’s Fantasia ‘upon one note’ and Vaughan Williams’ Phantasy String Quintet. Transfers of both may be downloaded from the CHARM website: the Purcell consists of just one sound file, plus label, while the Vaughan Williams is on four sides – 1, 2, 3, 4 – plus label 1, etc. (The Vaughan Williams is also the worst-sounding recording issued by the N.G.S.)

Frederick Riddle (1912-95) was the only one of these three musicians born in England: Pougnet was born in Mauritius, and Anthony Pini (1902-89) in Argentina, as Carlos Antonio. All became stalwarts of Britain’s orchestral, chamber music and teaching worlds. I’m indebted to Tully Potter, the leading historian of string players and chamber music, whose obituary of Riddle (The Strad, May 1995) relates that, before the war, Pougnet and Pini played and broadcast together with William Primrose as the London String Trio. After the war, Riddle replaced Primrose, although the name was taken up by a different trio of players. Our three had also played together in the Philharmonia String Quartet, which Walter Legge formed from his Philharmonia Orchestra, and, before that, in the BBC Salon Orchestra.

Tully also told me that the ad hoc trio made its first batch of recordings for Westminster in Vienna, in one week – this Mozart, and string trios by Beethoven, Lennox Berkeley, Haydn, and Charles Henry Wilton. This explains why Michael Gray’s discography site gives a range of dates – it also names the Konzerthaus as venue for some of the week’s work (I’m guessing it was used for all). The second batch, recorded in autumn 1954, consisted of trios by Dohnányi, Françaix and Hindemith. I believe none of this legacy has been reissued on CD (from tape – the Beethoven, Dohnányi & Françaix and Wilton trios have been transferred from discs by Forgotten Records), a grievous omission, though not surprising. I do have more dubs, which I may share if they’re good enough, and if I have time…

Meanwhile, you can download this transfer of K.563, as six fully-tagged mono FLACs plus sleeve scans, in a Zip file, from here.

As for the work, I reckon this was its fifth complete recording. The Pasquier Trio of France made the first, in June 1935, for Pathé (transferred to CD by Green Door of Japan); also issued in Britain and the USA on Columbia (transferred by The Shellackophile). They re-recorded it after the war for Les Discophiles Français (again transferred from disc by Green Door); issued in the US initially on Vox, and then by the Haydn Society (the latter remastered from tape by Music and Arts). Meanwhile, Heifetz, Primrose and Feuermann had recorded it for Victor in September 1941; a well-known set, transferred by Biddulph, Opus Kura and probably others.

Less well known are one of the Menuetti (but which?), recorded by members of the Budapest Quartet for American Columbia in February 1945, but not issued until 1950 as a filler for the (obsolescent) 78 rpm set of Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet with Mieczysław Horszowski and Georges Moleux; and a complete recording, made in April and May 1951 by the Bel Arte Trio (Ruth Posselt, Joseph dePasquale and Samuel Mayes) for US Decca, issued in the UK on Brunswick, and never, to my knowledge, reissued (as if…) or transferred.

The biggest rarity and oddity, though, must be a Tilophan ‘Spiel mit’ set of extracts, seemingly one or both Menuetti, with the violin, viola and cello parts not played (by unnamed players) on successive sides. This was available by January 1938, when it was listed in a French magazine. If anyone owns or has ever seen any of these, do let me know!

Uninspired?

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.

Farmer Grumpy says, ‘Get orff moy paast!’

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 5

(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.

The Kindness of Strangers, Part 4

(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.

Hurrah for job lots!

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)!

A balls-up all round...

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!?

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

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