Andrew Ross [sic], who remastered Albert Sammons's recordings of sonatas by Beethoven and Fauré from 78s (U.K. Columbia L1884-5 and 9354-6, recorded on December 15, 1926, and private HMV yellow-label pressings, Ref. JG 60-62, made on November 10 and 12, 1937-of which Ross believes the discs he used, from the collection of Paul Steinson, to be the only surviving ones), details in his notes the troubles he experienced with the first side of the "Kreutzer" disc, and how he finally succeeded in rescuing the sound from that side with a diamond needle ground 20 percent narrower. Any recording by Albert Sammons, the nearly self-taught British genius of the violin (violinists who know it revere his early recording of Elgar's Concerto with Henry Wood as nearly definitive), should easily be worth such trouble.

Sammons's driving reading of the first movement of Beethoven's "Kreutzer" Sonata provides the same crackling virtuosic excitement as that in Jascha Heifetz's version with Brooks Smith. After a few minutes, the recorded sound should recede into the background of consciousness, so communicative appears Sammons's musical rhetoric and so supreme his technical command. Here and there, in relaxation, he employs portamento, but always a chaste one giving little hint of the recording's date. He takes some of the passagework on alternate strings staccato, and at his tempo this choice makes them sound extraordinarily dashing. William Murdoch matches Sammons in both energy and sensitivity. Whatever the defects of the recorded sound, it captures the duo's subtle dynamic nuances. Finding this CD for review in the mail, I could hardly wait to get it into a disc player, and the playing in this movement alone justified that eagerness.

Although Sammons and Murdoch begin the second movement at a brisk tempo, Sammons's sensibility never gets left behind in the forward motion. The tempo also allows Murdoch to percolate in the first variation in triplets and Sammons to sparkle in his ensuing one (in which he employs a variety of bowings to preserve the perpetual motion from sounding machine-like). (They omit the second repeat in the first and third variations.) Only the final measures might suggest that Sammons didn't share the performance ethos that's now dominant. In the finale (without the repeat), he and Murdoch return to the heady vitality of the opening movement. Heifetz, Zino Francescatti, and Nathan Milstein have staked their claims to this work, but nobody made a stronger statement in it than Sammons. I've heard, as we all have, Beethoven slowed down to a virtual standstill to mine his profundity, punched and kicked for extreme dramatic effect, and screwed up to almost unimaginable tempos to turn up the wattage. But Sammons's approach reveals all these as artificial ploys.

The nearly decade-later recording of Fauré's First Sonata has been transmitted, Ross explains in his notes, through first takes, which perhaps makes clear the reason for some of Edie Miller's technical insecurity in the first movement. Still, Miller engages in intelligent dialogue with her ecstatically soaring partner. If this performance lacks the electricity of Heifetz's later one with Brooks Smith (from 1955), it equals that of his earlier one with Emanuel Bay (from 1936). The succeeding Andante unfolds so slowly that it may seem to some to lose focus, though Sammons's tonal opulence should still rivet most listeners' attention, and Miller and Sammons's touching dialogue (rising to high-flown romantic statement) in the middle of the movement would be effective even at a slower tempo than the one they take. The outer sections of the Allegro vivo sound skittish enough, but the middle one might not make its point so convincingly if Sammons's opulence didn't again rescue it (nevertheless, he concedes equal partnership to Miller, who, however ill-prepared, still demonstrates an idiomatic understanding of the work and makes, as in the last movement as well, the most of the concession Sammons has so graciously bestowed). For better or worse, it's a true chamber-like performance rather than a solo with an understated though complex accompaniment. The recorded sound accordingly balances both partners in the duo.

Yes, swooping portamentos abound, but they're all calibrated for effect, and they always hit their mark. If all sonata programs probed their subjects so genially as this one does, nobody would find them so ... well, whatever listeners find them that makes them not want to attend. Perhaps more important, at least for me, looms the question of where this revelatory recording has been all my life. I regret that I have left only a handful of handfuls of years to enjoy it. Nobody's growing younger, so don't wait for the final punctuation of this sentence to acquire it-go to pristineclassical.com now.

PACM 072 Sammons   

The bulk of the selections from this third installment of Sir Thomas Beecham's appearances with the Seattle Symphony derive from the concert of 10 October 1943 from Moore Hall. The Saint-Saens and Bizet items come from 18 October 1943, the concert at Music Hall Theater. The quality of sound ranges from stunning (the Karelia March) to distantly passable; but we are lucky to enjoy these documents at all, courtesy of a collector's cassette tape. The Valse triste basks in Beecham's nurturing pace, a passionate serenade that rivals my favorite inscription by Rosbaud. Except for the opening of the Beethoven third movement, all the remaining items are musically intact.

After a rousing Karelia March, the Beethoven suffers some sonic loss of dimension but not of innate energy. The visceral first movement brings some affectionate applause. The ironic Allegretto scherzando's metronomic motions flow lightly and suavely, the orchestra in fine tune. Even with several measures lost, the Tempo di Menuetto ebbs and mounts with plastic motion, but the orchestral definition remains distant in the bassoon and surrounding woodwinds. The trio occasionally mocks the conventions of the period, like Mozart's Musical Joke. Rollicking energy characterizes the last movement, aerial and lovingly phrased, the string section of the Seattle particularly alert. The powerhouse finale, its aggregate of momentum, quite captures Beethoven's iconoclastic spirit in spite of the aural limitations of the preservation.

The "lollipops" on this album begin with the 1880 Last Sleep of the Virgin from La Vierge by Massenet, a Beecham signature encore, solid component of my old CBS LP ML 5321. The sound improves considerably over the Beethoven, the Seattle strings eminently responsive. The 1872 Omphale's Spinning Wheel by Saint-Saens again displays the shimmering sonority of the Seattle strings, here juxtaposed against the woodwinds in staggered duple meter. The A Major tonality becomes darker as Hercules begins to languish at the loom, a dupe to beauty which has conquered apparent brute strength. Beecham luxuriates in each of the three main episodes, exploiting deftly the piece's demands for crescendo and decrescendo dynamics. Harp and oboe add to the sarcasm of the context, and the music spins diaphanous threads in the inimitable Beecham style.  

Beecham favored Bizet in his programs and recordings; and even the dubious quality of the 1873 Patrie Overture--written for the Franco-Prussian campaign and dedicated to the then unknown Jules Massenet--receives a most sympathetic treatment. The bombastically inflated opening section soon gives way to a thoughtful ¾ Andantino in C Minor that moves once again to a more Mediterranean A Major. The truncated C Major restatement of the martial opening rounds off an integrated performance of a minor but entertaining orchestral work. Beecham always liked to outdo Toscanini at his own game, specifically in Italian repertory. Collectors will recall Beecham's powerful sway with Semiramide from Philadelphia. Here, Beecham delivers a tempered then sensational account of the William Tell Overture, from the opening five celli with double basses, to the convulsive storm, to the daybreak episode, and finally to the cavalry galop for trumpets and tympani that sent Clayton Moore to deeds of derring-do. Despite  a more distant sound, the piece manages to have our feet tapping and our jaws agape at the spectacular articulation at blazing speed. Brings down the house.  

PASC 277 Beecham in Seattle Vol. 3   

Although there are later Furtwängler-led versions of the Eighth, and superb Furtwangler recordings of other Bruckner symphonies, if I had to live with only a single example of this conductor's way with Bruckner it would be this one. This performance combines moment-to-moment intensity with an overall sense of architecture and inevitability that carries you through the almost 80 minutes, never really letting the dramatic tension to fall flat even for a moment. Furtwängler's unique ability to see the interconnections between tempo relationships, dynamic shading and scaling, phrase lengths and shapes, harmonic motion, and orchestral balance and color-to relate each of those elements to each other and to the whole-works to unify Bruckner's sprawling structure. He also inspires the Vienna Philharmonic to a stunning level of intensity of playing throughout-so that the result is gripping from beginning to end. Furtwängler uses the Haas Edition, of which he conducted the first performance, though he makes a few modifications.

This performance is a classic but many prior transfers have been inadequate, and none as good as this one. The closest to the mark has been, unfortunately, both the hardest to find and the most expensive-a two-disc Japanese EMI set (CD28-5757/58). Most others have been pitched sharp or afflicted by serious flutter, or both. Music & Arts had a very good one (CD-1209) that sounds as if it might have derived from the Japanese EMI. A different Japanese EMI (TOCE 3786) was at the right pitch and with minimal flutter, but somewhat congested and marred by dropouts. All DG and Japanese DG editions of this are sharp and have the flutter problem more seriously present.

Pristine has worked its magic and given us what is probably the best transfer we will get for quite some time, unless someone finds a better original. Some of the flutter that is on the original is still present on long sustained wind notes and chords, but the degree of the problem is minimal and the result will be tolerable for most listeners. More importantly, Andrew Rose has managed a fuller, richer orchestral sonority, one where the bass is firm and strong, as opposed to the bright, hard-edged sound of even the best prior efforts. The result is immediately evident in moment-to-moment A-B comparisons, and is even more compelling over the length of the symphony. Finally one can hear this without the listener fatigue that comes with the excessive harshness of the earlier versions.

The first movement is fierce and rugged throughout. The Scherzo manages to be both massive and light-footed at the same time-a seeming paradox achieved through rich orchestral textures combined with sharply sprung rhythms. The Adagio is the centerpiece that it should be: a longing, yearning performance of which I have never heard the equal. There are slight touches of portamento in the strings that add wondrously to the effect. Bruckner's finales are generally his most difficult movements for conductors, and this one is no exception. The shape is not clearly constructed, there are many tempo adjustments, and the coda is somewhat brief and lightweight for all that has come before (although it suffers less from this problem than do the Fourth and Seventh symphonies). Here in particular the music gains from the conductor's ability to see the big picture, to create the necessary tension and release through both tempo and textural adjustments, and to instill conviction in the playing. Furtwängler manages better than most others to hold enough in reserve so as to give a real weight of finality to those last three chords, chords often taken either too quickly or too slowly. The music must move into and through those three chords with logic, and they must produce a sense of climactic ending. Here they do just that.

It is important to note that the sound still does not represent the state of the art even for 1944 broadcasts-but anyone with a tolerance for historic recordings is likely to find it acceptable now, and the performance is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. This is one of the great Bruckner recordings of all time.  

PASC 260 Bruckner 8