A FREE 128k MP3!

ALBERT COATES

BEETHOVEN & BACH   

BACH (arr Elgar) - Fantasia and Fugue in C minor

BEETHOVEN - Gratulations-Menuett

BEETHOVEN The Creatures of Prometheus - Overture

BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 "CHORAL"     

Transfers by Ward Marston

Download it now - for one week only - it's only free from our Cover Page!

OR PURCHASE "UPGRADE" to full quality 320k MP3, lossless 16-bit or 24-bit FLAC downloads (where available), download free covers and cue sheets, scores and notes here:

PASC 296 - Coates  

Recording for this cycle began during the Depression of the 1930s.  HMV initiated "Beethoven Society Recordings" on a subscription basis in advance of recording, and, at a time when Beethoven's sonatas for piano were not as popular as a cycle as nowadays, the marketing was quite a success.  Indeed, the records in one form or another have remained in the catalogue for nearly 80 years.  In addition to the sonatas, a number of shorter and longer pieces were also recorded, including the Diabelli Variations, and by the time the project was completed in 1935, it amounted to fifteen volumes and a total of more than 200 sides of shellac.  The total cost of a hundred 78s was beyond most people's pockets in those days; whichever transfers are chosen by today's collectors are a real bargain in comparison to what one's parents or grandparents had to pay.

Artur Schnabel (1882-1951) was fifty years old by the time he came to setting down these recordings.  At nine years old he became a pupil of Theodor Leschetizky; he knew Brahms and heard him play.  In addition to performing a wide repertoire of music for piano, he involved himself in a great deal of chamber music, joining celebrated musicians like Huberman, Piatigorsky, Szigeti and Fournier, fortunately for us setting down on disc performances which, as with the sonatas, have  remained available for many years.

What impresses so much about Schnabel's Beethoven is the intellect and architecture behind each performance.  Schnabel's vision also combines spontaneity with his years of experience, and perhaps the middle-aged pianist was not quite as able as his younger self to cope technically with some of his ideas about how the music should be played.  Carping about some of the playing will include some movements performed simply unlike most would do them today - the shock of the old may well make some listeners rethink about Beethoven.  In addition, Schnabel's playing in fast movements is, by today's standards with digital editing easier than making a cup of tea, affected by extra notes.  For some listeners this is all too much, and the Hammerklavier Sonatas, for example, will be ruled out of court.  For others, the intellect behind the reading will counterbalance the inaccuracies and is easily forgiven.  On the other hand, few pianists have brought out the music of the slow movements with such uncommonly fine touch, speaking clearly through those elderly recordings.  Before the War, Schnabel's instrument of choice for the sonatas was by Bechstein, a disappointment for fans of Steinway, and listeners must expect to acclimatise to the colour of that instrument.

Work on the first LP releases was done by RCA in the 1950s, polished up by EMI in the 1970s, and finally scrubbed up for CD release twenty years ago.  Not including the notorious clipped note in the CD release, the EMI CD release is regarded by some as too filtered with noise reduction involving deterioration in piano tone.  Despite this, Schnabel's artistry is undiminished, but the quest for ever superior transfers has resulted in a wide choice for potential buyers.  Two CDs' worth were remastered for EMI's GROC series - I thought these gave more body to the instrument than the somewhat etiolated earlier EMI release did.  Seth Winner's transfers for Pearl still sound very fine; there is more shellac noise, but there is also more body to the piano sound and a far clearer and focused room ambience.  Dante's Schnabel edition was also well-transferred, possibly from EMI LPs, but it lacks the immediacy of the Pearl.  A reasonable and cheap edition by Membran has a similar quality.  More recent transfers include Mark Obert-Thorn's fine edition for Naxos Historical, which achieves a fine balance between piano tone and surface noise, and faithful to the original releases.  I have not been able to audition a few other transfers,  an extremely cheap download option from Amazon, a CD set from Musical Concepts, and sets no longer available, apart from Nuova Era (which is heavily filtered), and a Japanese release from EMI/Shinseido which from listening to a few tracks seems to me to be comparable to Seth Winner's Pearl set.  Until now, these alone have been enough to provoke hot-tempered discourse on the more toxic internet forum, with strong views about the various transfer engineers' ethos behind the mastering.

Pristine Classical's Schnabel cycle is now complete, and what is particularly interesting about this release is the use of computer software to minimise the wow and flutter inherent in these old recordings.  Interventionist remastering will be anathema to some, but Andrew Rose's careful use of new German software from Celemony called Capstan can have astonishing results.  Slow movements with sustained notes in particular benefit enormously from this use.  Coupled with equalisation to produce results as could be imagined were intended in the studio, the end product in general could be mistaken easily for recordings made many years later.  Over the whole cycle there is, as one might expect, some variation in reducing the effects shellac noise, and in coping with and minimising other deficiencies in source material such as blasting.  In addition, various techniques in noise reduction have left Schnabel's Bechstein with as wide a tonal spectrum as could be hoped for.  I did audition some volumes via the 24 bit FLAC files through a Musical Fidelity CliC but found in this case the 16 bit very satisfactory..     

PAKM 037 - Schnabel

A remarkable 1950s mono reading of Sibelius's four tone poems. Do not neglect the other two Pristine Ormandy Sibelius CDs. You think Ormandy's 1979 Philadelphia digital recording was good? Try this! You'll lament that CBS did not record more while the flame burned this fiercely. The Grieg suite is no less passionate - I cannot recall Morning having been played with such full-on drive and emotional engagement. Very special music-making. 

PASC299 - Ormandy

Michael Cookson 

Furtwängler's 1942 Berlin performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor 'Choral', has gained legendary status. It is said to be an example of Furtwängler's rebellious response to the stresses of working with the Berlin Philharmonic as cultural propagandists for Hitler's Third Reich. Whether this is a true reflection of the situation or not this is certainly a heartfelt account of astonishing tension from Furtwängler's tortured soul. Recorded in the Alte Philharmonie in Berlin just under two years later the concert hall was raised to the ground by allied bombing. Restoration engineer Andrew Rose has done wonders with the sound quality which is much improved. A truly great performance of real historical significance. 

Michael Greenhalgh

Here's proof that recordings nearly 60 years old can still perform the vital interpretive function of bringing the works to us fresh. Scherchen's performances have the transparency of texture and rhythmic force we nowadays associate with period instruments. They also have an inspiring sense of focus and conviction.  

Jonathan Woolf

This December 1926 recording of the Kreutzer Sonata by Albert Sammons and William Murdoch has been released before, on LP, but this excellent transfer is worthy of one of the great performances of the work on disc. It's coupled with a remarkable rarity, a 1937 private, and yellow labelled HMV of Faure's Op.13 Sonata played by Sammons with the little known Edie Miller. Its commercial release is a remarkable coup and reinforces Sammons's affinities with French music via his breathtaking but unsentimental lyricism.