Web page: PASC 307  

Short Notes  

We're delighted by the quality of these two excellent recordings of Dvořák's string concertos, newly transferred and XR remastered by Andrew Rose from near-mint source material.

Mainardi's 1955 recording of the Cello Concerto has long been a favourite of aficionados, and this transfer from an immaculate mid-60s pressing demonstrates just why. With top-notch support from Fritz Lehmann and the Berlin Philharmonic, it was one of DGG's 1950s jewels, and now sounds better than ever.

The Ida Haendel recording of the Violin Concerto dates from 1947, and comes from wonderfully-preserved Decca 78s which stand up remarkably well against the LP recording for sound quality. Haendel was aged just 19 when this recording was made but was already one of Britain's biggest musical stars. It's a real gem!

Review Haendel        

A sound recording, not marked by great subtlety of phrasing in the orchestra: our English players need to cultivate that, above all. It shows the soloist off nobly: a grand player.

Like the solitary violin concerto by Brahms, this one of Dvořák's was written for Joachim (1879). It's not as fine as the violoncello work, but is surely a beauty, although I think he missed coming to his best power in that first movement, where neither the old classics nor the newer (Brahms) is a safe enough model- for him. He was carried away a bit, I think, by the joy of making the fiddle perform. He is too long about that preliminary matter, having regard to the length of the first movement. He was probably bent on rhapsodizing. By the middle of side two he has reached a recognizably Brahmsian mood, but he doesn't know what to make of it, and goes skittishly off on his native-heath plays, which are rather thin value for a work of this size. He works very hard, for a result which doesn't come up to his symphonic writings of this period (e.g., the splendicl symphony in D, called "No. i ". The nineteenth-centusy show concerto is on his mind, and he doesn't quite give it enough intellectual stuffing. By the middle of side 3 he has dropped the first movement, and is moving to the slow one, in his own lovably persuasive way. This slow movement is pure delight. On side 4 he is more drai:iaic: perhaps in a rather conventional, melodranatic way. About an inch on side four brings one of the best ideas, where the soloist flowers out, decorating and enlarging a theme we had before the melodrama. The decoration here seems more in keeping, for it is engaged with more organic matter than in the first movement. Side 4 ends with a varied form of the first theme, and side 5 sees the end of the movement, with this repetition.

The finale is a furiant-and-dumka type, where Dvořák, as so often, gets away with whatever he likes to string together: all mighty jolly, if a bit too long; nobody will have the heart to complain. The soloist does wonders with nearly all this, in apt virility. Now and again a high note slips a trifle. I wish composers wouldn't ask octaves of fiddlers. For various reasons they scarcely ever sound in absolutely perfect tune, whatever the player does.

Gramophone magazine, September 1948
(Uncredited) 

Notes On this recording    

I had two LP copies of the Mainardi to work from - the original DGG issue and the mid-60s Heliodor fake-stereo reissue. In terms of surface quality and fidelity the later pressing was infinitely preferable to the original, in near mint condition and with superb sound quality. I was able to strip out the Heliodor stereo processing and remove any phasing artefacts prior to 32-bit XR remastering, which proved highly successful in bringing further treble clarity to the recording.

From the LP the recording was pitched at A=451Hz. However, analysis of mains electrical hum suggested a true tuning of A=450Hz and this has been used for the final remastered version. Likewise the Decca Haendel 78s transferred at around A=451Hz but electrical hum indicated a performance pitch of A=445Hz, which is what is heard here.

Decca's ffrr 78s date from the final months of direct-to-disc recording, prior to tape, and here indicate just how successful this method had become by 1947. The sound is clear, the frequency range well-extended, and with XR remastering little hint remains of the shellac origins of the concerto, which stands up very well in comparison to the cello recording.

Andrew Rose   

MP3 Sample  Cello Concerto, 1st movement              

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Web page: PAKM 045  

Short Notes  

"These Pristine releases ... embody what may well prove to be the sonically finest transfer that these recordings from the 1930s have received. Pristine offers transfers boasting many passages that feature greater presence and quieter background than what EMI and Naxos achieved. Side joins are seamless, presence often astonishing, and dynamic range surprisingly wide." - Fanfare

"I must say that Pristine has surpassed its predecessors. The sound quality made me think that the performances had been bundled into a time machine and sent into the mono Fifties -- no static, no hiss, no overbearing treble, and much truer to the live sound. Indeed, it made me rethink my conception of Schnabel. Without losing any of Schnabel's virtues I knew about, Pristine's incarnation showed me the subtlety of his line, the seamless naturalness of his crescendos and diminuendos, and his singing qualities. The last had totally escaped me." - Classical CD Review 

(Both reviews refer to Vols 1 & 2 of this series)

Review 1964 LP reissue        

After a concert in New York on January 20th, 1951, which was the last of his life Schnabel is reported to have said: "For the first time I succeeded today in playing that last line of Beethoven's Op. 90 so that I found it convincing". The story illustrates very well his constant search for perfection; in fact, he had a hearty distaste for recording because it fixed for ever something which he still wanted to improve and finished something which for him was unfinished. It's perhaps worth remembering this when we play his gramophone records. Though Karl Ulrich tells us his father was seldom satisfied with his own playing,

I would dare to assume that Schnabel was fairly well pleased with his performance of the E minor Sonata, Op. 90, as recorded on the first of these two discs-whatever reservations he might have had about the end of the second movement. Beethoven wrote the sonata as an engagement present for Count Lichnowsky and his unofficial titles for the two movements were "A contest between head and heart" and "Happy conversation with the beloved". There is no programme to the sonata implied here, but the titles do give a key to an interpretation and with Schnabel I get the impression that he uses exactly this key to unlock the full musical significance of the work. It's a marvellous performance.

Archduke Rudoff's sonata, the Sonata in E flat, Les Adieux, is arguably more extrovert. "A monument to the friendship of two men, deep as any friendship formed in schooldays or in the full stress of life, and manly as Beethoven's ripest art" Tovey called it; and Schnabel treats it so. In this performance the first movement is almost explosively passionate at times, but Schnabel never drives it too hard and the line of the music, shot through as this is with cunning references to the three-note Lebewohi figure which must always be allowed to tell, is admirably firm. The last movement, as one might have expected, is jubilant to a degree and tumbles over itself in its efforts to celebrate the Archduke's return; the speed and excitement are terrific.

The two-movement Sonata in F sharp and the little German Sonata in G, Op. 79, are on the other side of the first record. The F sharp major was one of Beethoven's own favourites; like the E minor Sonata, Op. 90, it is a work of great subtlety. Prolific in melodic detail, it shows in just over ten minutes proportions ranging from a single bar to whole pages. Schnabel observes both repeats in the first movement, an essential procedure if the work is to achieve its proper stature, and he strikes right to the heart of the music. Again, the finale is very fast and not always absolutely clear and steady; but since the marking is allegro vivace and Schnabel manages even at this speed to slur the semiquavers in pairs just as Beethoven indicated, criticism (if any) must be of the execution, not the approach..

From The Gramophone, April 1964, by S.P. 

Notes On this recording   

This volume manages to span almost the entire recording time of Schnabel's Beethoven cycle, with the 27th Sonata dating from his first sessions in January 1932 and the 25th from the final recordings of November 1935 (the Naxos reissues suggest a single later re-recording session in 1937, but this is contradicted by Gray's discography from which we've sourced our information). What is surprising is the relative consistency in sound quality - if the very earliest sessions are perhaps slightly rougher around the edges it's a close-run thing, and all four sonatas, each recorded about a year or so apart hold together very well indeed. Technical problems common to each are common to most 78rpm recordings - surface noise and swish and occasional peak distortions. In each case I've been able to fix or reduce these, as well as applying effective pitch stabilisation and finding excellent sound quality through 32-bit XR remastering - as if "the performances had been bundled into a time machine and sent into the mono Fifties - no static, no hiss, no overbearing treble, and much truer to the live sound" as one reviewer (of Volumes 1 & 2 of this series) put it.

MP3 Sample  Piano Sonata No 26, 3rd mvt                 

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Ambient Stereo MP3  

Mono 16-bit FLAC 

Ambient Stereo 16-bit FLAC   

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CD purchase links and all other information:

PAKM 045 - webpage at Pristine Classical