LATEST REVIEWS
| MusicWeb International
January 2011
By Brian Reinhart
|
The first thing that impresses about this release is the sound quality: the mid-1950s mono has been restored by Pristine Audio so well that it does not feel like mono at all. The woodwinds are vividly colored, the orchestra has a full sound, and the listener has a reasonable concert-hall perspective. The only real qualm here is the lack of presence of the percussion, probably down to inadequate equipment at the original sessions. Pristine, and its engineers Edward Johnson and Andrew Rose, have done such a fine job by this restoration that I really need not pull out any of the usual reviewer clichés about "recommending this disc if you are interested in historical recordings" or "complementing alternatives in digital sound".
No, I can recommend this Scheherazade to anybody. William Steinberg was the chronically underrated conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 1952 to 1976, and here leads it in the earliest years of his tenure with enthusiasm. This is a straightforward account of the fantasy which attacks all the most exciting episodes with thrilling directness and lingers only over the most indulgent moments. The brass is veiled behind the Pittsburgh strings in the first few bars, but Samuel Thaviu's rhapsodic violin work wins our attention right back. Throughout he plays as if he is the centerpiece of a great concerto, an approach which works very well in Rimsky-Korsakov's colorful, romantic sound-world.
The classic account this one most resembles is Ernest Ansermet's with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Indeed, Ansermet takes 43:39 to Steinberg's 43:36, and the only truly major difference is that Steinberg does not slow down much for the violinist's "epilogue", which gets indulged as a sort of final slow movement in some interpretations. My favorite Scheherazade does happen to be the slowest in my collection, but the Steinberg/Thaviu approach really surprised me by how well it works.
It seems to be very easy to do a pleasing performance of Scheherazade, but very hard to do a great performance. Many competitors (Haitink, Bátiz, Ormandy, and even in its way the idiosyncratic EMI Celibidache) seem to settle for merely pretty good. This Steinberg recording belongs, like Ansermet, a little higher up the scale: there really is a lot to like, and no idiosyncrasies to regret. But my favorite Scheherazade, a live recording of Evgeny Svetlanov and the LSO on the BBC Legends label, still stands head and shoulders and indeed torso and waist above the rest. Svetlanov's live take in London - very different from his Soviet recordings elsewhere - feels huge: at a full 50 minutes, it begins with a humongous roar from the evil sultan and proceeds with a momentous sense of occasion and gloriously over-the-top romantic excess. The Young Prince and Princess have never been more madly (and erotically) in love than in that recording (for 11:54!). Still, such a performance is a rare thing indeed, and comparing Svetlanov to anybody else is quite possibly unfair.
The coupling on this CD poses a bit of a challenge. Why is the exotic, voluptuously romantic fairy tale Scheherazade followed up by the shimmering, feather-light sounds of Johann Strauss? This is especially odd because almost all of the Strauss selections are polkas: Pizzicato, Tritsch-Tratsch, Annen, Champagne, and Unter Donner und Blitz (Thunder and Lightning). This album feels slightly top-heavy.
The selection itself is actually quite appealing. The Pizzicato Polka is meant for, as one would expect, pizzicato string orchestra, but Steinberg and the Pittsburgh players have apparently thrown the score out the window and replaced it with one that includes the entire orchestra! Thus we get piccolo doubling the violins, and even some brass interjections. A thoroughly enjoyable curiosity, then, as is the Perpetuum Mobile, which flows without pause into the Tritsch-Tratsch Polka in another bit of creative rearrangement. The Annen Polka is a deliciously sweet little thing, and Thunder and Lightning makes an emphatic conclusion.
The two waltzes - Acceleration and Emperor - are marked by faster-than-normal tempi, which works to some degree in the Emperor - although I find that with a slower interpretation it is possible to detect in this waltz that least Straussian of traits, pathos - but causes a bit of trouble in Acceleration. When you start off at a rapid clip, it's not easy to accelerate further! Nevertheless, for the bubbly energy of the polkas, I will most certainly be returning to these Strauss selections many a time.
Again I will praise the transfers by Edward Johnson and re-mastering by Andrew Rose; these performances sound in glorious mono. The Strauss selections are performed with wit, good cheer, and, in the re-scored works, interest for the collector. The Rimsky-Korsakov is exciting and does the score justice, and Thaviu's violin solos are a real treat. Liner notes are available online to complement the conductor biography provided with the CD, which is simply Steinberg's Wikipedia page. Most consumers will be purchasing the recordings via digital download, anyway. If the coupling suits you, invest with confidence.
( PASC248,75:39).
|
| LATEST REVIEWS | Audiophile Audition
January 2011
by Gary Lemco
|
An eminently sunny Brahms Symphony No. 2 (rec. 1 December 1958) receives a sonically sumptuous incarnation from Pristine, featuring the "inimitable" Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961) leading his Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Taken from stereo recordings issued through EMI, the original disc has benefited immeasurably from the ministrations of Andrew Rose and his XR process. Never an "intellectual" performer, Beecham searches out the linear, propulsive, elastic beauties of the D Major Symphony, its warm body of cellos and the resonant statements of the French horn, the latter most likely Alan Civil. While the first movement luxuriates in expansive colors, the last movement does not dawdle, Beecham opting for long lines and nice adjustments in the antiphons that mark woodwinds and high strings. Since the Sir Thomas Beecham Society issued a Brahms F Major Symphony some years ago--it seems there are no surviving documents of the outer Brahms symphonies with Beecham--might we hope that the Third will find its way--along with a spirited Haydn Variations (and Sir Thomas' commentary)--to the Pristine annals?
The spirited Academic Festival Overture (rec. 29 November 1956) had its original incarnation on Columbia Records and made an appearance with a Beecham reading of both the Brahms Schicksalslied and Liszt's Psalm XIII, if I recall properly. Jubilant, a mite mischievous, the Beecham frolics in the various college airs that sport their way through the Brahms counterpoint. That Beecham recorded the companion piece, the Tragic Overture in D Minor for CBS (ML 5081), we likewise recall fondly, and that ought to make a CD appearance as well, dear Andrew Rose.
Beecham himself gave the premier of the 1914 Delius North Country Sketches in May 1915. Despite the WW I political environment, the music bears little angst and accomplishes what Delius does best, melodious (Yorkshire) landscape invocations. Not until the "Dance" movement did my own ears perk up to a delightful sense of melody beyond pleasant harmonies and gauzy tissue. "The March of Spring" offers a bit of pepper to complement the soft sauce, the whole a pleasant gambol in the manner of a British Respighi. A touch of Debussy here and there, a moment from Richard Strauss, all very comfortable and civilized, distinctly Victorian in dignified power. This performance from 14 February 1949 sounds not at all dated, and it sparkles with the wit and pert charm that Beecham could educe when in his cosmopolitan idiom.
( PASC263,73:00).
|
|
|
CONTENTS
| |
Editorial On the road in the digital age
Cantelli Conducts Tchaikovsky, Ravel and Rossini
Beecham Delius - A Mass of Life & Hassan
PADA Henry Barraud's Sonatine - from limited LP issue
|
|
Editorial - On the road in the digital age
At around this time last week I was sitting in a coach, probably going through the small French town of Condom, en route for the Pyrenees, the mountain range which defines the border between France and Spain, and a weekend of skiing. It was actually the first time I'd been on a coach for over a decade, and it provided me with a few hours to reflect on how things had changed over recent years for the light traveller.
Naturally I was reading a good book - I brought along quite a selection to tell the truth, courtesy of Amazon and its Kindle store. Now I don't actually own a Kindle, though I understand they've become the biggest selling single item ever on Amazon.com, but I do have a compact netbook PC on which I've installed Amazon's Kindle reader software.
As such I was able, during the course of a 5 hour journey, to switch between several of the books I currently have on the go. The main read for this journey was a book I found online a few minutes before we were due to leave - "The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824" by Harvey Sachs is proving to be a fascinating read, examining all aspects of political, social and artistic life centred around and leading up to the first performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Having read almost half of it so far, I'd certainly recommend it.
Amazon tells me it's a 240 page hardback, an audio book or an e-book - and I'm guessing that in its book form it takes up about the same amount of space as my little PC. So add to it the copy of the complete Sherlock Holmes that I'm re-reading (good for dipping in and out of) and I'm already saving space - not to mention the several dozen other books also in my PC's virtual bookshelf (should I decide to teach myself the mandolin, for example, the chords are at my fingertips - though the instrument itself was traded in a couple of months ago...).
Amazon.com stated this week that digital "e-book" sales have for the first time overtaken their paperback sales in the US, despite overall sales being up in for both traditional paperback and hardback books. It's no great surprise - my portable library could easily have fitted on the tiniest of memory sticks and run to many more volumes, as no doubt it will in the near future. When you live hundreds of miles from a good English-language bookshop it's a great alternative to mail order.
The same mini PC doubled as my audio and video library too - I copied a few choice selections from my home server via wi-fi before we left so I'd have further entertainment available during my trip, though I ended up listening to Karajan's Beethoven symphonies on my iPod Nano instead on the journey down, just using the PC as an electronic book.
A couple of weeks before we left for this trip I'd popped into a local sports shop to buy some ski gear, and discovered for the first time sports clothing designed to be integrated with music playback. To be honest it's all a little gimmicky - there's a small battery-powered box that sits in an inside pocket of a ski jacket and which plugs into your iPod's headphone socket. You plug your own headphones into this box and run them up the inside of the jacket, where a series of clips hold the wire safe and secure. The purpose of the box is to add a remote volume control, which manifests itself as a little nobbly button on your left sleeve - you push it one way to increase the volume, the other to decrease it. Not exactly rocket science, but easy enough to manipulate whilst wearing thick gloves and holding a pair of ski poles, I guess.
I suppose for the confident, advanced skier, or perhaps snowboarder, this sort of thing is de rigeur these days, and I must admit I did harbour ideas of swishing coolly down the pistes whilst listening to some of my favourite tunes. Alas, in the event I didn't have the courage to cut myself off from the real world whilst careering in an only semi-controlled manner down a steep mountain side with a pair of skis bolted to my feet - sheer terror kept all my senses fully attuned to the task in hand (getting to the bottom without breaking any limbs), so I saved my Fauré to accompany a warm sandwich and cold drink, whilst sitting at the top of the mountain watching an afternoon mist creeping slowly up the valley.
Of course none of this is particularly revolutionary today, though it feels it if your journeys usually take place sitting behind the wheel of a car - where reading, watching videos and listening to iPods aren't really a very good idea! And given the plethora of portable audio and video devices being carried by others in our party my experience is fairly common.
But I also sense it was still all a little turn of the century, and that there's a way still to go - musically they're mainly just smaller, digital versions of Ye Olde Sony Walkman, some with pictures and some without. And on the literary front, Amazon has a vast selection of books I'd like to read but which are currently only available in paper form. Now that's just fine - I love a real book - but they're not getting bought by me when I can find instant gratification in another title. The company hopes to have "everything" available digitally at some unspecified point in the future, but for now you're never quite sure whether the book you're after will be sold in electronic form or not. But looking to the future, I don't think it's impossible to believe that very soon I will be able to sit on a coach, passing through Condom, selecting a book from a vast digital library containing the entire written works of mankind, and starting to read it there and then. "A Short History of Prophylactics", perhaps.
I would guess that, should I desire musical accompaniment for my read, the same will also be true. I'll admit I've never tried logging into our own streamed audio service whilst on the move (I'm not sure I have the technology to permit the necessary connections), but as mobile communication shows no sign of slowing down or going away, a digital music or video stream from an online library or store is probably already an option for many right now. I therefore look forward to taking in one of 2015's or 2020's Oscar-nominated movies, maybe a couple of weeks before the award ceremony, in the comfort of my coach seat, train seat, or ski-lift, in the not-too-distant future.
But there's a part of me which might, by then, decide I'd rather unplug from all this relentless entertainment and spend a couple of quiet hours looking out of the window, watching the world go by. There are some great views out there...
Andrew Rose, January 28th, 2011
|
CANTELLI The 1952 Philharmonia Recordings
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6 in B minor, 'Pathétique', Op. 74 [notes / score]Recorded 24, 28 & 30 October, 1952, Royal Festival Hall, London
Transfer from HMV open reel tape HTA 3
RAVEL
Pavane pour une Infante Défunte [notes / score]Recorded 24 & 25 October, 1952, Royal Festival Hall, London
Transfer from HMV open reel tape HTA 23 ROSSINI
La Gazza Ladra - Overture [notes / score]Recorded 22 October, 1952, Royal Festival Hall, London
Recording from the Keith Bennett collection Philharmonia Orchestra
conductor Guido Cantelli Web page: PASC 269 Short Notes
In 1952 the Philharmonia was arguably Britain's finest orchestra, and following a successful series of concerts became the fourth orchestra Cantelli recorded with, using the newly-built Royal Festival Hall as a venue for these superb EMI recordings.
The highlight here is undoubtedly the Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6, which won glowing praise as the finest on disc at the time from the Gramophone critic: "Cantelli strikes an admirable balance between the conflicting demands of expressiveness and taste. This is a more exciting, more moving performance than that which he gave in the Festival Hall six months ago"
Coupled with works by Ravel and Rossini, this release brings together all of Cantelli's 1952 recordings with the Philharmonia.
REVIEW - The Gramophone, June 1953: This is the recommended LP of the Pathetique. Karajan's (33CX1026) has been described, not without reason, as "vulgar and pretentious." Münch (on LXT2544) underplayed the emotional work. Cantelli strikes an admirable balance between the conflicting demands of expressiveness and taste. This is a more exciting, more moving performance than that which he gave in the Festival Hall six months ago. The composer's directions (incalzando, animanclo, ppppp, etc.) are more passionately observed. But hysteria is avoided, and in the finale the depths of misery are laid bare. In addition there is the same miraculous care for the orchestral playing which marks all that Cantelli does. Phrases are shaped and moulded with loving care. The only faults are trivial ones : for instance, the flutes, in the two bars before the trio in II (page 95, Boosey & Hawkes pocket score) do not observe Tchaikovsky's slur marks. The recording, on the whole, is splendid. The Philharmonia's fine wood-wind is vividly reproduced (notice how it sings out in the second limb of the second subject). Sometimes the string detail is not quite clear, and there are patches of gramophoney tone in the finale. But in warmth, brilliance and depth there is little to be desired
MP3 Sample - Tchaikovsky - Second movement ListenDownload purchase links: mono MP3mono 16-bit FLACAmbient Stereo 16-bit FLAC Ambient Stereo 24-bit FLACCD purchase links and all other information: PASC 269 - webpage at Pristine Classical
|
SIR THOMAS BEECHAM conducts Delius
DELIUS A Mass of Life (Eine Messe des Lebens) [notes / score]Recorded at Abbey Road Studio 1, London, 8 & 11 November, 8, 10, 12 & 13 December 1952, 1 & 20 January, 10 April, 14 May 1953
Rosina Raisbeck, soprano
Monica Sinclair, alto
Charles Craig, tenor
Bruce Boyce, bass
London Philharmonic Choir
(chorus-master: Frederick Jackson)
DELIUS Hassan Suite [notes]Recorded at Walthamstow Assembly Halls, London, 29 May 1956
Leslie Fry, baritone
Arthur Leavins, violin
Frederick Riddle, viola
BBC Chorus
(chorus-master: Leslie Woodgate) Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
conductor Sir Thomas Beecham
All transfers from Philips and Fontana white label LP test pressings Web page: PASC 270 Short Notes
The symbiosis between the composer Frederick Delius and the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham has often been commented upon, and it has been suggested that neither might have been quite as successful if they hadn't had support from the other.
Whether or not you subscribe to this view, it's hard to deny that some of the very finest recordings of Delius are still those made by Beecham, and here we present, in superb XR remastered sound from near-mint test pressings, two of the very best.
The 1952/3 recording of A Mass of Life is still regarded by many as the very best ever set down, and here it sounds as fresh as the day it was recorded. Coupled with the exotic Hassan in another excellent recording, this is a must for all Beecham and Delius fans.
REVIEW: The Gramophone, November 1953 Whether Nietzsche's poetry has any value or not I neither know nor care (the English translation in the vocal score makes no sense at all) but I am only grateful that it provided Delius with the images of the will of man and eternity, night and day, dance and song, and so forth, that caused him to compose this great and glorious work, which is all that matters.
The Mass of Life has always been dear to Sir Thomas Beecham and I remember well the first time I heard him conduct it, at the close of the Delius Festival in 1929, and the tremendous impression it at once made on me. Now he gives a truly inspired performance which probably surpasses that one, and will, I am certain, remain one of the finest things in the repertoire of the gramophone record. The hazards are as great in this work (perhaps even greater) as in the choral finale of the Ninth Symphony, and even under Sir Thomas a choir unable to meet all the demands, or an unintelligent baritone soloist, could wreck it. I hope Bruce Boyce will not misunderstand me if I say that, fine artist though I knew him to be, I did not know he could rise to the heights he does in this performance. It is not only that he sings the difficult and trying part with complete ease and any lack of strain, but that he sings it with such a depth of conviction and intensity of emotion. As for the London Philharmonic Choir, I feel that if Delius were alive he would write a letter to them and to Frederick Jackson similar to the ones he wrote to the Philharmonic Choir in 1929 and to its trainer, Kennedy Scott, in which he praised Kennedy Scott's great achievement" and their " really magnificent singing." " I have never heard my works sung so subtly and with such fine nuance." These tributes from one slow to praise are also deserved, it seems to me, by Mr. Jackson and his choir.
What little the other soloists have to do is well done, though the contralto's lovely address to Zarathustra needs richer tone than Monica Sinclair provides. Charles Craig has a small voice of lyrical sweetness and Rosina Raisbeck sings the exquisite end of the third part, "they sighed and wept together" with lovely quiet tone. All the soloists are used in the last great chorus, "O man, mark well what tolls the solemn midnight bell," and here the soprano's voice tells well above the chorus sopranos.
The orchestral playing, needless to say, is of the finest quality throughout and the engineers are to be warmly congratulated on the superb recording of it they have achieved. It can have been no easy task to secure so good a balance and to contain the huge climaxes of vocal and orchestral tone in the magnificent opening hymn to the will of man and in the Finale. Most splendid of all is the section called "On the Mountains" (Side 2), in which the recording catches so much of the thrilling and exhilarating spirit of the music and also of the poetical picture painted by the orchestra (with the horns prominent) before the great cry with which the chorus enter. Another grand hit of recording comes after the second dance song (Side 3) (the one part of the work I do not like, for the same reason that I do not care for the Flower Maidens' chorus in Parsifal) where Zarathustra grows sad as evening falls. The penetrating sadness of the orchestral postlude, perhaps the loveliest page in the work, comes out with perfect fidelity. Very fine, too, is the orchestral prelude to the chorus following in which the oboe solo is beautifully played and recorded.
No doubt the sleeves will give all the information required about the text and divisions of the work, and there is also a helpful analysis in Warlock's biography of Delius. The huge debt that music-lovers of my generation owe to Sir Thomas Beecham is increased by this truly magnificent issue, one I shall, I know, play over again and again. Delius was wont to say, as he listened to broadcasts of his music from London, "Perfect, Thomas, perfect," and, with all due respect, that is just what I want to say at the end of this review. MP3 Sample - A Mass of Life, Pt. 2 - 3. The Dance-Song ListenDownload purchase links: mono MP3mono 16-bit FLACAmbient Stereo 16-bit FLAC Ambient Stereo 24-bit FLACCD purchase links and all other information: PASC 270 - webpage at Pristine Classical
|
 | | Angel Reyes |
PADA Exclusives
Streamed MP3s you can also download
HENRY BARRAUD
Sonatine for violin & piano
Angel Reyes, violin
Jacques de Menasce, piano
Recorded c. 1950
Transfer from Concert Hall Society E-17, limited edition LP #2629 of 3000
This transfer is presented with Ambient Stereo remastering by Dr. John Duffy. Over 400 PADA Exclusives recordings are available for high-quality streamed listening and free 224kbps MP3 download to all subscribers. PADA Exclusives are not available on CD and are additional our main catalogue.
 Subscriptions start from €1 per week for PADA Exclusives only listening and download access. A full subscription to PADA Premium gets you all this plus unlimited streamed listening access to all Pristine Classical recordings for just €10 per month, with a free 1 week introductory trial.
|
|
