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LOEFFLER
Music for Four Stringed Instruments (1917)
The Coolidge Quartet
William Kroll
Nicolai Berezowsky
Nicolas Moldavan
Victor Gottlieb
Recorded in 1938
Download it now - only from our Cover Page OR UPGRADE to full quality 320k MP3, lossless 16-bit or 24-bit FLAC downloads, download free covers and cue sheets, scores and notes here: PACM 018 |
LATEST REVIEWS
| MusicWeb International
June 11th, 2011
STOKOWSKI CHICAGO DEBUT CONCERTS
By Jonathan Woolf
"A little slice of Stokowskian debut history in these two discs" 
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Stokowski's debut with the Chicago Symphony came surprisingly late - January 1958, a source of not-so-wry amusement to the conductor, no doubt. The performances were taped by a New York-based company and subsequently rebroadcast with studio voice-overs added to try to add verisimilitude to the proceedings.
We have most of the fruits of two concerts in these two discs - we are missing some Wagner items, and it's been necessary to mix them up to fit everything onto the discs. For the record, the concert on 2 January contained Bach, Brahms and Szabelski, while that on 9 January had a running order of Shostakovich, Glière, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky.
The Bach chorales were Stokowski staples. The quartet opens with a memorial-like Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland before embracing the deep-throbbing bass and pellucid harp textures evoked in Komm, susser Tod. A powerfully sustained legato runs through Komm, susser Tod whilst Wir glauben all'en einen Gott opens with crisp wind statements before reaching an almost overwhelming peroration. The audience is unsettled throughout and coughs often. Szabelski's Toccata is a brisk, occasionally brusque orchestral showpiece, trumpet-punctuated and sporting powerful percussion. Following it immediately with the gloomy Shostakovich Prelude orchestration - one made by Stokowski himself - makes for a piece of quixotic programming, though as we know it wasn't like this at the concert itself.
Stokowski mixes three pieces from the two Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet suites to form a compact triptych. The rich cantilena to be heard in the panel devoted to Juliet's grave is augmented by intense string tone and luscious portamenti. Equally ripely characterised, though also a construction all of his making, is the eight movement suite he assembled from Swan Lake.
The second disc houses the two symphonies. Stokowski famously recorded the first Brahms symphonic cycle in America, in Philadelphia in the 1920s. His 1929 Phily account of the Second Symphony was augmented over the years by various studio and live performances. The 1977 National Philharmonic studio performance, for instance, can be found on Cala CACD0531. There were other live affairs in cities as far flung as Amsterdam, Munich, San Francisco, Bergen, and Houston. He was a fine Brahms conductor and a conspicuously good one of this symphony in particular.
There is also a longish list of performances of Glière's Third Symphony. There was the 1940 Philadelphia studio recording, which you can find on Biddulph WHL005 and Andante 4978. The Hollywood Bowl, from 1946, has appeared on Theo van der Burg's eponymous label, whilst we're all still waiting for the 1949 New York Philharmonic-Symphony account to appear (or have I missed it?). The 1957 Houston is on EMI CDM 565 0742, but the later American Symphony and Cleveland live performances are dormant. Stokowski constantly tinkered with his extensive cuts in this work, which here lasts 40 minutes - other fuller versions last about 75. I'm not aware that he reached a stable set of cuts, and rather think that they varied from performance to performance. Still, whilst this may be something of a torso, it's a plausible one, intense, deliciously textured in the Solovey the Brigand second movement which is replete with high calorific Tristanesque evocations. The third movement positively blazes, whilst the finale is also searingly intense. If you can face a 40 minute Il'ya Muromets, this is how to do so.
There's a little slice of Stokowskian debut history in these two discs. Release reviewed:
PASC 242 - Stokowski |
LATEST REVIEWS
| Fanfare
July/August, 2011
BEETHOVEN
SYMPHONY NO 9
By James A. Altena
"an indispensable release for anyone who loves this work" 
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Once again, Pristine Audio turns its digital wizardry to the superb refurbishing of another deserving historical performance-in this case, one of the truly great performances of the Beethoven Ninth of all time. Compared to the original Philips issue the sound quality has been opened up and expanded, with richer highs and lows, less ambient noise of various sorts, and much greater clarity of instrumental detail, though until the opening of the finale the bass frequencies still remain a touch dry and less robust than would be ideal. Particularly arresting is the extraordinary instrumental color of the woodwinds and brass; while much of that is owed both to Mengelberg's expert ear and the uniformity of the orchestral equipment (at the time, all members of the orchestra were required to obtain their instruments from a single famous Dutch maker), I also wonder if Mengelberg used any of Mahler's retouchings of the orchestration or did some of his own. Hopefully some knowledgeable Fanfare reader or fellow critic will kindly enlighten us here.
My intense enthusiasm for this performance is all the more remarkable because Mengelberg is a conductor for whose work I generally have respect rather than empathy. Here, however, we have one of those imperishable readings of a monumental score with innumerable fine touches, both great and small, that repeatedly shatter complacently held conceptions and cause one to re-hear the work in a new and refreshing light. There is an incredible febrile energy to the first movement, powerful but not frantic as in some performances by Toscanini. The second movement is more measured (with exposition repeats taken) but not slow, and characterized by extraordinary rhythmic precision in all the instrumental parts; even the timpani does not turn blurry in the repeated dotted eighth-note rhythms. In the third movement the opening Adagio is expansive, whereas the succeeding Andante is rather brisk-much more so than is my usual preference, which is for Furtwängler-and yet absolutely convincing, with a fine buildup to the climactic trumpet fanfare; a few portamento slides appear in the strings toward the end. Only regarding the finale do I have minor reservations, as a few distracting idiosyncrasies appear. The rhythm becomes eccentrically stilted at the entrance of the vocal quartet; "Seid umschlungen, Millionen" is delivered with oddly clipped and over-emphatic phrasing, and then there is the notorious bizarre drop of the tempo to half speed for the last two bars of the movement. The chorus and soloists are sound if not stellar. To van der Sluys and Suze Luger are both competent; bass Willem Ravelli does well by his opening peroration; tenor Louis van Tulder does not possess the most ingratiating voice in timbre and lumbers a bit in the florid passagework at the end of his solo, but nonetheless acquits himself respectably. Still, the faults are but small and momentary blemishes in a broadly paced rendition that successfully weds monumentality to ecstatic fervor. One would never guess from this triumphant and joyful performance that only eight days later Nazi Germany would unleash its Blitzkrieg against hapless Holland and usher its nightmarish occupation for four and a half years, with one of the musical casualties ultimately being a politically compromised Mengelberg.
No text for the choral finale is provided; program notes for the album are, per Pristine's usual practice, posted on its website. While my register of potential candidates for the 2011 Want List is already overflowing with worthy entries, this is surely a leading contender-an indispensable release for anyone who loves this work and values immortal historic interpretations despite their sonic limitations.
Release reviewed:
PASC 258 Mengelberg |
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CONTENTS
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Editorial How much music slips through our fingers?
Keilberth His stunning 1955 Flying Dutchman in stereo
Reiner A second volume of rare recordings
PADA Serly conducts Bartók's Mikrokosmos Suite
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Editorial - A few general notes
Check out the forthcoming Schnabel; musings on music forgotten I wrote last week about the amazing new software developments coming out of German company Celemony with their forthcoming Capstan release, which promises for the first time a cure to wow and flutter. I've been working on files processed for me by their Capstan technical guru, Mathis Nitschke and very good they are too. I've prepared a sample of the first movement from the CD - Sonata No.7 in D, Op. 10, No. 3, which is, subject to possible last minute minor adjustments, how it will appear on the finished release. You can download this now and see what you think: Sonata No. 7 - 1st movement: PrestoThe recording was made at Abbey Road Studio 3 on 12th November, 1935. My own take on this is that the piano simply sounds more solid than it has done on previous issues. Even where the original transfer is very good and apparently untroubled by pitch instability it still seems somehow firmer and more convincing an instrument. I could have put the third volume out this week, but you'll notice that I've chosen not to do so. I'd like to complete the restoration by running it myself through Capstan, which isn't going to be possible for another week or two, just in case there are any further minor gains which might be achievable. For those who've already purchased Volumes 1 and 2 of the series, I'll be going back to the final masters of these and checking them out too using Capstan, with the expectation of minor adjustments being made, and we'll send out replacement discs and downloads for these once this is done. It's a shame I didn't know about this before starting on the Schnabel project, but better late than never. This will be the world commercial debut of this revolutionary new system and I want to get it absolutely right! In the meantime I've spent some time this week working on an unusual collection of 1930s recordings for a private client, trying to bring out some of the detail and missing frequencies of a series of very rare recordings à la XR. In this case it was the recordings made by one Frank Newman, a British cinema organist whose heyday was in the 'golden age' of this forgotten art, between the 1920s and the 1940s. It's good practise for me. The recordings arrived already transferred onto CD, giving me little room for manoeuvre work-wise. According to the sleevenotes the original records sold only in small numbers - in one case there was a music shop next door to the cinema where the organist's records could be bought, for example, and the transfers came from test pressings held by the organist's family. Newman was a classically trained organist, and had held prestigious positions as church organist - but times were hard and whilst his church work might have brought him esteem, it brought little money, and he soon found himself drawn into the world of the London (and later Birmingham, Rugby and elsewhere) cinema organ in the mid 1920s. By the time his Second World War service was over, the days of the cinema organ were already numbered, and much of his regular playing work started to dry up, though recitals were given, he did a summer end-of-the-pier season in Bognor Regis on the English south coast in 1948, and carried on with BBC broadcasts, eventually teaching music at a boys' school in Rugby. These days most of the old cinema organs have gone for ever, though a handful survive in the loving hands of enthusiasts and preservationists. In their day they were truly mechanical marvels, with no end of extras on top of the regular pipes one might expect on a more traditional church organ - literally they came with bells and whistles. It struck me that these rare recordings are probably just a couple of CD's-worth of a vast swathe of forgotten music, long out of fashion, often of specialist interest only even in its day, and all but abandoned today unless kept alive by musical societies and collectors' networks. Will anyone ever have the time and resources needed to preserve all of this - indeed should we even be attempting to do so? And if we have to be selective in our attempt to archive as much of our human artistic output as possible, who is to decide what deserves our attention, and what is to be discarded - and what if future generations believe them to be wrong? Andrew Rose, June 17, 2011
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Keilberth's magnificent stereo Flying Dutchman
Brilliant, dramatic new stereo remastering of this 1955 Bayreuth classic
"Keilberth seemed on high in 1955 ... his reading moves with electrifying concentration from scene to scene. Keilberth achieves a greater unanimity of approach from his players and absolutely superb singing from the chorus"
(The Gramophone, 2006)
 WAGNER
Der Fliegende Holländer Recorded 1955 Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Andrew Rose
Astrid Varnay Senta
Hermann Uhde The Dutchman
Rudolf Lustig Erik
Ludwig Weber Daland
Elisabeth Schärtel Mary
Josef Traxel The Steersman
Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra
Wilhelm Pitz chorus master Joseph Keilberth conductor Score and libretto included in all downloads Web page: PACO 062 Short Notes "Keilberth seemed on high in 1955 ... his reading moves with electrifying concentration from scene to scene. Keilberth achieves a greater unanimity of approach from his players and absolutely superb singing from the chorus" - Gramophone review, 2006 Surely it was Keilberth's year at Bayreuth in 1955. Not only did he produce one of the great Ring Cycles of all time, but also this classic stereo recording of The Flying Dutchman. We preferred the relatively rare 1970s stereo Decca LPs to the more recent stereo CD issue, so took them as the starting point for this dramatic and thrilling 32-bit XR remastering of Keilberth's live triumph. The result is essential for any Wagner fan!
Notes on the transfers: I came to transfer this recording almost by accident - I had taken delivery of a new stereo LP replay cartridge and, having fitted it to my tonearm, picked up the nearest stereo record to hand, which happened to be the first disc of the three issued by Decca in the mid-1970s which make up this recording. Having been duly astonished by the sound quality I was hearing from the LP, I decided to record a short section for comparison to the existing CD issue of the same recording, and found the Decca LPs to be far more to my liking, with much more life to them than the rather dead and flat (by comparison) 2006 CD transfer.
As a result I ended up transferring the entire opera from my near-mint pressings and set about the minimal work required to remove occasional clicks, before applying 32-bit XR remastering technology to the transfer. This served to further enhance the already fabulous sound of the LPs. Meanwhile a US correspondent and Wagner aficionado contacted me to point out that the original mono LP issue of the recording had included fanfares and theatre bells which were omitted from later releases but added wonderfully to the atmosphere of a Bayreuth Festival production. As a result these were provided by him, and have now been added to the recording as it was originally released (this first track now presented in Ambient Stereo), prior to the start of the full stereo recording.
Andrew Rose Review from 2006 CD reissue review "Keilberth's 1955 Ring has received rave reviews - can his Dutchman be as good? This enthralling performance has always been a highly recommended version. Its stereo incarnation was available only briefly on LP: when it was issued on CD by Teldec it appeared only in mono...
As with the Ring, Keilberth seemed on high in 1955; once again his reading moves with electrifying concentration from scene to scene. Keilberth had rehearsed Wolfgang Wagner's new production but Knappertsbuch conducted the first three performances (you can hear how different, more pawky his approach is from Keilberth's in various reissues, none in stereo, taken from a Bavarian Radio broadcast). Keilberth achieves a greater unanimity of approach from his players and absolutely superb singing from the chorus (trained by the remarkable Wilhelm Pitz). The orchestra, perhaps because they knew they were being recorded, play their hearts out to create a fusion of notes and rhythm that is really thrilling from start to finish.
The singers are no less inspired. Uhde gives a supreme interpretation of the tortured, yearning Dutchman, on a par with that of Hans Hotter and more evenly sung. His firm, compact, grainy tone is used with his customary artistry to convey the character's longing for salvation, total elation in the love duet, and desperation when he thinks Senta has betrayed him. Phrase after phrase etches itself in the mind in this unmissable portrayal. Incredibly Vamay, who was also Brünnhilde in 1955, brings to Senta a tireless dedication and vision to match Uhde's hero. She fines her large voice down to the more intimate needs of Senta, and only once or twice do the most taxing passages, as her final outburst, slightly strain her resources.
Ludwig Weber's earthy, experienced Daland is another rewarding interpretation. Lustig, who took over Erik from Wmdgassen, makes rather a throaty sound in the manner of earlier German Reldentenors, but he has all the notes and conveys the character's understandable frustrations. The Mary is admirable. All seem under the spell of the work and the conductor in a reading that now has the stereo sound it so richly deserves." Printed in Gramophone, October 2006 (slightly cut - read full review here) MP3 Sample Act 3 - Opening section ListenDownload purchase links: Stereo MP3 Stereo 16-bit FLAC Stereo 24-bit FLAC in preparation - order onlineCD purchase links and all other information: PACO 062 - webpage at Pristine Classical
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More excellent 1950s recordings from Fritz Reiner
Second set of rarities in new Obert-Thorn transfers
REINER
Rarities Volume 2
Recorded 1950-1954
Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn
MOZART A Musical Joke K522
BRAHMS Alto Rhapsody Op. 53
DEBUSSY (orch. Henri Busser) Petite Suite
ROLF LIEBERMANN Concerto for Jazz Band and Symphony Orchestra - presented in STEREO
Marian Anderson Contralto
Robert Shaw Chorale of Men's Voices Robert Shaw
RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra
Sauter-Finegan Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
NBC Symphony Orchestra
conductor Fritz Reiner
FLAC downloads include scores for the first three pieces
Web page: PASC 294 Short Notes Of the many superb recordings Mark Obert-Thorn has transferred for Pristine Classical over recent years, his volume of rare recordings conducted by Fritz Reiner has to have been one of the most well-received and popular.
Mark had always had in mind a second volume, and here it is, presented in order of composition, from Mozart's delightfully witty Musical Joke, through sensuous Brahms and seductive Debussy, through to the vibrant jazz of Rolf Liebermann, presented here in full stereo.
In each case these are the only Reiner recordings of these works, and in each case, none has ever seen a CD reissue from Reiner's record company, RCA.
Recording Notes
Like the earlier release in this series (PASC 235), this volume of Reiner Rarities features works which are rare in more than one sense. First, these are Fritz Reiner's only commercial recordings of the works presented. In addition, none of them have ever received an "official" commercial CD reissue from RCA. The Mozart was originally coupled with his Divertimento No. 11, K.251. While the latter has been reissued on CD by Testament, filling out a Reiner/Chicago Mozart program, the Musical Joke has remained "orphaned" until now. Of Marian Anderson's three recordings of the Alto Rhapsody, RCA only released the second (1945) recording with Pierre Monteux on CD, rather than this sonically superior final version from five years later. The Debussy originally shared an LP side with Reiner's NBC studio recording of Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin. While this was reissued in the Reiner volume of the IMG Artists/EMI series "Great Conductors of the 20th Century", its discmate has remained unavailable for over half a century (although the broadcast performances of both works which preceded the recording session have appeared on CD several times). Finally, the Liebermann work, though originally recorded in stereo, was not issued in that form on LP until 1981. However, it had previously been released as a two-track open reel tape in 1955, and it was from this that the present transfer was made. Oddly, this recording has never been commercially reissued on CD by RCA or its successor, Sony. It is easy to imagine Leonard Bernstein, a former Reiner conducting pupil at the Curtis Institute, being inspired by Liebermann's score (a set of dance variations on a twelve-note row) when he sat down to compose West Side Story shortly after this recording first appeared. Mark Obert-Thorn MP3 Sample Liebermann Jazz Concerto (end section) ListenDownload purchase links: Ambient Stereo & stereo MP3 Mono & stereo 16-bit FLACAmbient Stereo & stereo 16-bit FLACNB. The Liebermann tracks are presented in true stereo in all CD and download versions. Other tracks are available in original mono or Pristine Audio Ambient Stereo as per your purchase selection. CD purchase links and all other information: PASC 294 - webpage at Pristine Classical
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PADA Exclusives
Streamed MP3s you can also download
Bartók
Mikrokosmos Suite (arr. Serly)
New Symphony Orchestra of London
Tibor Serly conductor
Recorded 1950
Issued as Bartok Records BRS-303
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 to 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.
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