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HAMILTON HARTY 

SCHUBERT   

"Cello Concerto"
Symphony No. 9 "Great"

Transfers by Mark Obert-Thorn 

REVIEW
"From Arturo to the "Irish Toscanini," Pristine Classical's new transfer of Hamilton Harty's "Great C Major" restores to circulation one of the earliest, and most original, performances in this work's discography. Harty's nickname was not unwarranted: His conducting certainly shares with the Italian maestro qualities of rhythmic brio and singing intensity, along with his own brand of re-creative volatility unlike any other conductor. "
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PASC 282 - Harty  

This is truly cause for rejoicing: a major symphonic recording by "the Irish Toscanini" Harty, hitherto one of the most gaping holes in the historic catalog, at long last available on CD, and in a transfer by Mark Obert-Thorn that does it full justice (a dry acoustic, but great presence and immediacy).

Harty's "Great C Major" (Columbia, 1928) is a highly original conception (and along with a closely contemporaneous version from Leo Blech and the Berlin Philharmonic, one of the work's earliest complete recordings). Typical of the Northern Irish maestro is its blend of freedom and discipline, rhythmic drive and Celtic rhapsody. His phrasing in the slow introduction is set in high relief, with tactile vividness. The Hallé Orchestra's playing has incredible individuality: strings have a songful immediacy; winds an unblended "organ stop" reediness and pungency, with little use of vibrato. The tempo is very flexible, though Harty unusually does not aid the transition to the Allegro through an accelerando or any proportional relationship between the two tempos, instead abruptly changing to a completely different pulse, like a cinematic cut. The Allegro itself has tremendous brio, fire, and cut and thrust; no relaxation into the second theme, but a hugely flexible ebb and flow within it. The exposition's climax (rehearsal G) really roars! At the end of the development, Harty's handling of the twilit retransition to the recapitulation is wonderfully poetic, and in the coda, he subjects the return of the theme from the introduction to massive rhetorical elongation. His view of the Andante is dark and somber, moving at a measured pace that becomes a remorseless juggernaut. The lyrical second theme is shaped very vocally, with extraordinarily vivid dynamic molding. There is one cut (in the recapitulation, 6 before F to 9 after G), presumably in the interest of saving an extra side, at Harty's expansive tempo. The Scherzo is taken very fast with a larger-than-life Schwung. Harty had an amazing ability to shape the melodic line of an entire string section with soloistic individuality-listen to the almost operatic treatment of the violins' tune at rehearsal A + 2. The Trio has a full-throated intensity, and Harty's volatile accelerando in the second half will certainly raise eyebrows-no danger here of Schubert's "heavenly lengths" outstaying their welcome! The finale has both sharp rhythmic point and great flexibility of pacing, with compellingly plastic phrase-shaping through the long spans of the second theme (Harty started his musical career as an accompanist, and as a conductor possessed an exceptional ear for animating an accompanimental texture-listen to the dramatic crescendos with which he enlivens the "walking" cello/bass quarter-notes, rehearsal C + 7 ff.). He begins the development molto meno mosso, gradually regaining the main tempo during its course. The coda is likewise played with an improvisatory-sounding freedom of tempo-indeed, more than you would imagine anyone could possibly bring off, but in Harty's hands the whole thing grips like a vise. Altogether this is like no other performance in the work's recorded history. Comparisons would be pointless; it bears little resemblance to other 78-era recordings with British orchestras-neither the classical rigor of Boult/BBC SO (1934, HMV/Beulah) nor the romantic sensibility of Walter/London SO (1938, HMV/ASV Living Era).

The filler (1929) is inconsequential. Gaspar Cassadó didn't stop at orchestrating Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata; it's a radical recomposition, with virtuoso cadenza-interpolations and the replacement of much of Schubert's original by passages of Cassadó's own devising-conventional hackwork filler marking time between the big tunes. On its original release this preposterous kitsch was billed as "Schubert's Cello Concerto"! For what it's worth, Cassadó's playing is technically more secure here than in his 1950s remake for Vox, and Obert-Thorn's transfer infinitely superior to the ridiculously over-filtered, dead-on-arrival travesty that appeared on Hallé's own label some years ago. For the main work, though, this is one of the most important historical releases for a long time. Now, Pristine, how about Harty's Beethoven Fourth?   

PASC 282 - Harty

The 30-31 July 1947 performance of the Dvorak Violin Concerto by Polish virtuoso Ida Haendel (b. 1928?) has had prior incarnation through the Dutton label in 1999 as CDK 1204, where it appeared in concert with the Tchaikovsky Concerto from 1946 and the Saint-Saens' Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso from 1945, each of those latter collaborations with Basil Cameron. The Pristine restoration by Andrew Rose carries a pungent immediacy; and thus Haendel's strong suit, her blazing attacks, gain in their feral approach to a combination of gypsy and Slavic impulses in the music itself. Conductor Karl Rankl (1898-1968), an Austrian musician who like Haendel embraced British citizenship, generates a natural sympathy in the course of A Minor Concerto, although sonically we could wish the National Symphony woodwinds had more color presence. Haendel's work with the flute solo and French horns in the Adagio of the Concerto proves exemplary in its taste and vocal phraseology. The outer movements with their respective drive and rasping intensity will remind auditors in several aspects of the Milstein approach: virile, robust, grandly scaled.

The Finale perhaps of all three movements reveals the "feminine" character in Haendel's playing, although Rankl's orchestral part continues to vibrate with the rustic energies we know from Dvorak's Slavonic Dance forms. Again, better miking of the National Symphony tympani would have added a distinct power to already colorful approach. The middle section, rife with double notes and high voltage changes in bowing and registration, showcase Haendel's studied approach, which would gain even more vertical acuity after her fateful encounter in the 1950s with Sergiu Celibidache. The lithe athleticism of Haendel's upper register and flute tone, however, quite dazzle even here in 1947, and music lovers can only marvel at her combination of fluid technical virtuosity and absolute comfort in the emotional authority of her conception.

The recordings of Milanese cello virtuoso Enrico Mainardi (1897-1976) have been grudgingly slow to re-enter the main stream; and while this affecting effort in the Cello Concerto from 24 January 1955 with Fritz Lehmann (1904-1956) gives us hopes of further issues, many collectors envision that Mainardi's work with Paul van Kempen will no less warrant restoration. Restoration engineer Andrew Rose has resuscitated a German Heliodor LP with pseudo-stereo effects and done away with all phony sources of separation. Mainardi then reveals himself as a cellist whose style lies somewhere between the older romantic tradition of Casals and the relatively "clean," almost Spartan linear drive of Emanuel Feuermann. Lehmann, working with the Berlin Philharmonic, performed at the height of his powers, although he would die prematurely only a year later. In 1955, the Berlin Philharmonic still reeled emotionally from the loss of their major conductor Wilhelm Furtwaengler, but the discipline remained honed under Karajan, Fricsay, Jochum, Lehmann, and Knappertsbusch.

The scale of Lehmann's orchestral part does not strive for the metaphysical objectivity of Karajan nor the "patient" indulgence of Fricsay, but rather proceeds in a literalist fashion that might remind some auditors of the classic contribution George Szell provided for soloist Casals. The warm sound of the BPO provides a pampered tissue for the long-lined, impassioned declarations and runs from Mainardi. In their intimate moments together, Mainardi and Lehmann manage a chamber-music effect, quite arresting, that segues easily into the martial and more heroic gestures the first movement proffers, especially in its extended coda.  For those who complain of Mainardi's predilection for slow tempos, a potent tonic reveals itself in these pages. On the other hand, Mainardi's old school sensibility in the Adagio yields up thoughtful, exalted moments of meditative beauty bathed in the woodwind miracles of Dvorak's seamless writing. A self-effacing, meticulous approach may not achieve the epic proportions some of our modern virtuosi effect, but Mainardi delivers a Dvorak Concerto intelligent as it is ardent, and the last movement dances and sings with that especial nostalgia the composer imparts when his fairy-tale ethos meets musical ideas that celebrate both his national style and his universality.   

PASC 308 - Beecham

Staying in America, Leopold Stokowski's "Debut Concerts" with the Chicago Symphony (January 1958) appear on Pristine Classical in acceptable if occasionally explosive sound, Brahms's Second Symphony melding the kind of textural refinement that you would expect from Fritz Reiner's orchestra with a tonal bloom that's very typical of Stokowski himself.

The major 20th-century item is Glière's Il'ya Muromets Symphony which, as with Stoky's two commercial recordings of the work, is cut, but the performance itself still packs a fair wallop, especially the finale, "The Prowess and Petrifaction of Il'ya Muromets", which as heard in Chicago has the dramatic impact of a prime-period Toscanini NBC broadcast.

The remainder of the set includes some luscious Bach transcriptions, suites from Swan Lake and Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet and pieces by Shostakovich (Prelude in E flat minor) and Szabelski (Toccata). The two symphonies sound rather better than the rest of the programme. 

PASC 242 - Stokowski