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Toscanini
Beethoven
Symphony No. 1
BBC Symphony Orchestra Arturo Toscanini conductor Rec. 1937 Toscanini's 1937 recording of Beethoven's First Symphony with the BBC Symphony Orchestra was one of the first successes for our "Natural Sound" process - which was further developed to become our acclaimed 32-bit XR remastering system.
Download it now - for one week only - it's only free from our Cover Page! "UPGRADE" to full quality lossless 16-bit or 24-bit FLAC downloads with notes here: PASC 066 |
LATEST REVIEW
| MusicWeb International
23 July 2012
Dvorak's Cello Concerto
by William Hedley
"A very fine and thoroughly recommendable modern Dvořák Cello Concerto, and an indispensable historic reading."
(Joint review)
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Nailing my colours firmly to the mast, and taking into account works by Elgar, Shostakovich and so many others, I believe that Dvořák's is the finest, and certainly the most beautiful, of all cello concertos. My favourite recorded performance is that by Mstislav Rostropovich and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Karajan, recorded in 1968, though I know that this is a reading that can polarise opinions. In any event, it is impossible to have too many versions of this glorious work in a record collection, and here are two more that I am delighted to add to mine.
The difference between the two Rostropovich performances is evident from the opening tutti. Where Karajan is expansive, generous and romantic, Talich is taut and dramatic, moving forward impulsively. He doesn't linger when the music rises and broadens shortly before the soloist's entry, but still moves the music on with a passion. Rostropovich matches his playing to the vision of the conductor, just as he did twenty-six years later, to a very different vision, in Berlin. His first, declamatory solo is marvellously dramatic and commanding, and these are adjectives that could apply to the movement as a whole. There are moments of repose of course, and when he arrives at the gorgeous second subject he slows down considerably, and rather more than Talich had done in the orchestral introduction. The notorious upward scale in octaves is sensational from Rostropovich; it could scarcely be otherwise from this astonishing virtuoso. He makes his cello sing as it were from the heart, and the tone is characteristically wiry and alive. As for the orchestra, don't expect the burnished browns of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra: the strings are as brilliant and piercing as trumpets. The minor key interludes in the slow movement come over as passionate statements of national pride, and Rostropovich's tone in those passages where Dvořák cannot bear to leave his themes behind - the close of the slow movement and the haunting coda of the finale - will pierce your heart. This is a full-on, highly involving, dramatic performance, and one that you will surely want to come back to regularly, even if you don't want to hear the work like this every time.
The performance from Raphael Wallfisch is just as satisfying in its own way. His playing is more civilised than that of Rostropovich, who often played like a man possessed, even demented. This, for many listeners, including myself much of the time, tips the scales significantly in Wallfisch's favour. His tone is richer, rounder than Rostropovich's, and his technical command is never in doubt. If this is a more thoughtful performance than Rostropovich's, it certainly isn't a restrained one. But there is the feeling that the emotional core of the music is kept under closer control than it is by the older cellist. The London Symphony Orchestra is superb, its sound perhaps closer the Prague than to Berlin, and with some splendidly brassy horn fanfares in the first movement. All this, no doubt, is partly thanks to the magisterial conducting of Charles Mackerras, one of the greatest of all exponents of Czech music.
The coupling on the Chandos disc is Dohnányi's Konzertstück, billed as a premiere recording when the disc was first issued in 1989. In three linked movements, it is a cello concerto in all but name, and a most attractive one at that, if not a particularly extended one. The first movement is passionate and impulsive and is linked to an equally passionate and searching slow movement. The cello sings throughout, as it also does in the equally ardent and often exciting finale. Among its many points of interest is the third movement cadenza that precedes the work's tranquil close. This cadenza is not at all the virtuoso showpiece we usually expect, but a pensive recapitulation of many themes, to the surprising accompaniment of the cello section of the orchestra. It is a thoroughly satisfying and worthwhile piece, and the performance is just as fine as that of the Dvořák coupling.
The Pristine coupling is a recording from 1956 of Nicolai Miaskovsky's Cello Concerto. I'm pretty sure I had this work in my collection as a teenager, on an EMI LP, with Oistrakh playing Prokofiev on the other side. It clearly didn't make much impression on me at that time, as when I listened to this disc I felt I was making the work's acquaintance. It is a very fine work indeed, late romantic in style and atmosphere, with a dark, brooding first movement in which the composer skilfully exploits the cello's singing quality. The second of the two movement is launched with huge energy, but this soon subsides into another lyrical passage. The two moods alternate until a cadenza appears, rather similar in function to that in Dohnányi's work, and this is followed by a noble passage that in turn gives way to a resigned closing passage in triple time, slowly winding down to end the work in melancholy mood, despite the major key. It is a very fine work, and receives here the passionate advocacy of Rostropovich, ably supported by that fine accompanist, Sir Malcolm Sargent.
The Chandos disc is a modern recording, the musicians caught in full, rich and detailed sound. There are good notes from Gerald Larner that you can also read in French or in German if the whim takes you. This is a superb disc that can be confidently recommended, even if - and this would be really perverse - you want only one version of the Dvořák in your collection. For those who like to duplicate, the Pristine disc is indispensable. I am an unconvinced collector of historical issues, usually disappointed by the sound, but here it is perfectly acceptable, if sometimes a little harsh and tiring in louder passages, especially in the Miaskovsky. The booklet is nothing more than a photocopied inlay card: notes are minimal, therefore, but more are available on the company's website.
(PASC 321, 67:38)
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LATEST REVIEW
| MusicWeb International
24 July 2012
Van Kempen
by Christopher Howell
"These are not exactly essential Beethoven performances but those with large collections may conclude that the slow movements are among the finest in their library." 
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The Dutch conductor Paul van Kempen (1893-1955) has been a name that crops up rather than a constant presence in the world of recorded music. There are those who prefer Wilhelm Kempff's first cycle of Beethoven concertos not least on account of Van Kempen's conducting. His easy cohabitation with the Nazi regime did not endear him to his own countrymen or help him to rebuild his career in Holland after the war. His recordings were not numerous and he did not make later LP versions of any of the works on this issue. As transferred by Mark Obert-Thorn these discs have good presence and body and a wider dynamic range than was common at the time. This raises the question whether Van Kempen himself did not insist on a wider dynamic range than many of his contemporaries on the podium. The gentle, unforced lyrical playing of the quieter passages combined with the often forceful approach to fortes suggest this may have been the case.
Van Kempen is said to have had an eruptive musical personality, particularly suited to Tchaikovsky. This is not notably born out in the Prometheus Overture, where a nicely shaped introduction is followed by a vigorous but unexceptionable allegro, nor in the Ballet Music, where a degree of un-balletic overemphasis seems to stem from Beethoven himself. It is noticeable at a few points in the outer movements of the Second Symphony, where the music is momentarily pushed ahead of the well-chosen tempi and a touch of hysteria enters the proceedings. On the other hand, the slow movement is beautifully shaped, at a fairly slow tempo but not so slow as to lose a very natural sense of flow. This movement can overstay its length; this is, for me, a rare case among slower versions where this did not happen.
The first movement of the Fifth also has a few odd moments of incipient hysteria, though they cannot conceal the fact that most of it is very effectively hammered out while the few lyrical moments are really beautiful. Van Kempen's shaping of the blunt chords shortly before the recapitulation points out - uniquely in my experience - which of the two chords is harmonically the more important. He is also very un-indulgent - especially by the standards of his time - over the famous four-note motive, for which he slows down hardly at all.
The scherzo is steady but well-sprung and very clear. The justification of a steady scherzo, though, is that the difficult trio doesn't become a scramble. Unfortunately the eruptive Van Kempen intervenes and things get a bit scrappy. The finale is launched in fine style, but shortly after the beginning of the development there is a loss of tension, the tempo slightly slackens and even the recording has less presence. I don't know where the side joins were - all power to Obert-Thorn for linking them up so seamlessly - but I'm wondering of the proceedings were interrupted at that point, maybe for some time, and did not immediately pick up with the same degree of tension.
Which leaves the slow movement. Taken on the slow side it has a heartfelt warmth, unhurried grandeur where required and some beautifully limpid wind playing. This brings back the old, never-answered question. should something recorded in wartime Nazi Germany express such timeless, benign humanity?
Readers will have decided long ere now whether this latter aspect worries them. In any case, I'd say that these are not exactly essential Beethoven performances. But those with large collections and a fascination for the interpretation of these inexhaustible works should find a place for them. They may well conclude that the slow movements are among the finest in their library.
(PASC 327, 79:16)
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CONTENTS
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Editorial Take all your music with you - everywhere
Toscanini BBC Beethoven recordings
Myra Hess Piano Trios from Schubert and Brahms
PADA Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
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Your entire music collection wherever you go
Plus this week's new releases We've two new releases this week - one from Mark Obert-Thorn and one from me...  | | Myra Hess |
This week's new releasesMark Obert-Thorn has been busy for Pristine this month - today we have a really lovely release featuring Myra Hess's two pre-war Piano Trio recordings. Both feature Jelly d'Aragni''s violin playing too - the earlier, 1927 recording (in remarkable sound quality, if a little more hissy than the later recording) of Schubert's First Trio features English cellist Felix Salmond, whilst the 1935 Brahms Second Trio recording has Spaniard Gaspar Cassadó taking the same seat. Both offer lovely performances I'd not heard before, and which I find delightful. As always, Mark's tracked down excellent copies from which to work - the Brahms is particularly quiet and full-toned. Meanwhile I've returned (if you like) to a project I began five and a half years ago with Toscanini's BBC Symphony Orchestra recordings. One of the first of a series of recordings remastered with an early incarnation of Pristine's XR process (known then as "Natural Sound") was Toscanini's 1937 recording of Beethoven's Symphony No. 1, made in London with the BBC orchestra he'd first conducted and fallen in love with (the feeling was apparently mutual) in 1935. When that recording was issued I'd already made a transfer of Toscanini's Beethoven 4th the previous month, but without any of the re-equalisation or other XR-style remastering that has come to define the "Pristine" sound. There's one symphony too many to put all of the maestro's BBC Beethoven onto a single CD - the Pastoral, also of 1937, and the overture Leonore No. 1, cut alongside the Fourth in June 1939 only allow for one further companion piece - and thus I decided to revisit the Fourth for this new release and give it the full XR treatment. It's a project I've had in the back of my mind - and which has been requested more than once - for quite some time. Sometimes you put something to one side and forget about it for a long while! In the meantime technology has moved on and it turns out it was a good thing to wait, as the chief problems here rest with the second movement of the 6th Symphony, copies of which I've only recently acquired. For reasons lost to history, the three sides which make up the second movement of the Pastoral Symphony were dubs rather than pressings of the original cut discs. This in itself drastically reduces the sound quality in comparison to the other sides. But to make things worse, the dubbing procedure introduced a major wow into the pitch (to add to generally increased pitch instability). Finally there is a gap at the second side change, with music literally missing for a few seconds. Other reissues of this recording have either fudged the issue, cross-fading one side into the next without regard for the missing notes, or, as in the case of Mark Obert-Thorn's Naxos transfer from a few years ago (recently reissued without credit in Sony's "Complete Toscanini RCA Recordings" box, something Mark has written about elsewhere recently), used other recordings to patch the gap (when I asked him what he'd used, Mark replied: "I used a couple bars from the 1947 de Sabata/Santa Cecilia Orchestra 78s on HMV, which I understand was also what Keith Hardwick used for his EMI LP transfer of the Toscanini") Bringing new technology to bear certainly helps in the restoration of this movement. Capstan makes short work of all that pitch instability that was previously one of those things you had to accept - the wowing up and down in pitch has been entirely cured. Next, XR re-equalisation and processing gives the whole movement far more of a chance to get closer to matching the sound quality heard in the other movements. And it does here now come very close to the rest - there's an occasional edge of distortion which I can only deduce came also from the 1930s dubbing procedure, but it's not offensive, and perhaps being a quieter movement overall it's less likely to be heard. Finally to the matter of the missing notes. It's the side change between the second and third sides of the second movement where the problem lies. My solution was to follow Mark's lead and fill the gap. But rather than seeking another 78rpm recording with similar characteristics, I opted to digitally "age" a more modern recording, using all the technology now at my disposal to produce a short section I can't detect as being any different, even when listening closely on headphones My reference recording for XR remastering's equalisation was a 1990 Solti Chicago Symphony Orchestra disc (I used the same cycle for the 4th Symphony as well), and it was to this that I turned for the missing bars. First of all I excised the bars in question (plus a little extra for cross-fading) from the full recording. The whole recording had already passed through Capstan's pitching to ensure an absolute A440 throughout so it could be used as a reference for the Toscanini. Now the reference itself needed to be tonally matched to the older Toscanini recording - in a kind of reverse-XR re-equalisation - mainly to make sure all the upper frequencies missing from a 1937 recording didn't suddenly appear in the brief 1990 section. At this point in the piece Solti is considerably slower in his delivery than Toscanini, so I had to digitally speed him up to match Toscanini's tempo in such a way as not to alter the pitch - using the same kind of software that kept Joyce Hatto in rave reviews for all those CDs she famously didn't play on! Next we needede to move Solti into the world of mono, followed by further processing to add an Ambient Stereo effect that matched what I'd already used with the Toscanini - without this there's the risk of a shift or change in the soundstage giving the game away. Next, I'd already noticed some slight peak distortion in the Toscanini dub - and of course Solti's digital Decca recording was lacking this too. Fortunately distortion is easy to come by, if tricky to control - and a very slightly distorted "edge" was added to the Solti to try and match that which was present in the Toscanini. Finally, to make the illusion work properly I needed to isolate some background disc noise from the Toscanini and overlay this onto the Solti. I could then drop it into Toscanini's gap and, cross-fading between the two, bring them together as one and replace the missing bars. The end result is a complete restoration of the missing notes, with transitions between the two recordings that are not just seamless, but nigh on impossible to detect. Had there been a much longer missing section then I'm sure the different conducting styles would soon make a drop-in concocted in this way quite a bit easier to detect, but in such a short section as this you really have to know exactly where to listen to have any chance of spotting the brief change of baton and orchestra! Elsewhere this release threw up the usual restoration issues for 1930s 78s - clicks and crackles which are generally pretty simple to eradicate largely automatically, and lengthy sections of swishes which require an individual touch to smooth each of them away. The end result is particularly fine - we gave away a free 128kbps MP3 download of the "Natural Sound" 1st Symphony as a bit of a teaser last week, and I've kept that offer open for a second week in order to complement this new release. I like to think that between January 2007 and July 2012 I've learned a few new tricks in the remastering of older recordings - take a listen to then and now and see for yourself how we continue to improve these transfers as every year new technology and new techniques become possible in the restoration of historic music recordings. Your entire music collection, wherever you areEvery so often I stumble across an idea so elegant, simple and obvious - like the invention of the wheel, for example - that I wonder why I didn't think of it first and use it to get ridiculously wealthy. This week I found one such thing lurking in a set of reviews of apps for mobile phones. Typically a modern smartphone or tablet computer, be it (usually) an iPhone, iPad, or an Android-based device, will have sufficient on-board memory to hold quite a sizeable choice of music files. It's usually more than enough for when you're out and about, but what if you could access your entire music collection whenever you wanted and wherever you were in the world (with a wi-fi or fast mobile connection)? That's what I came across today in a free download called Audiogalaxy. Now many years ago, in the dying years of the last century, Audiogalaxy was a name to rank alongside Napster in the roll-call of undesirables, at least as far as the record industry was concerned. Those were the days when the only way to download music from the Internet was through various illegal file-sharing sites, and Audiogalaxy was (according to my research - I can't say I remember it amongst the plethora of dodgy music sites back then) one of those systems which allowed you to get free music from other people's collections via your slow, dial-up modem connection. Several lawsuits later, Audiogalaxy ceased to exist in 2008, only to be reborn as something entirely new - and totally legal - a couple of years later. Audiogalaxy's software today comes in two halves: an app for your Android or iOS phone or tablet, and a small download to install on your Windows PC or Mac. Your main computer needs to be running - and connected to the Internet - in order for Audiogalaxy to work. If you're going to rely on it whilst spending four weeks on holiday in the Amazonian rainforest (not sure what your phone signal will be like there!) you'll need to leave your PC on and connected back home. If that connection's in place and Audiogalaxy is running then you simply start up the app on your phone, thousands of miles away perhaps - or maybe in a friend's house or apartment, hooked up to their wi-fi signal - and gain full listening access to your entire digital music collection. You can choose whether to have it in full quality or, if the connection's not too great, in a quality suitably adjusted to match the available bandwidth. What Audiogalaxy does on your PC is to scan and catalogue all the music saved there. This catalogue is transmitted over the Internet to, for example, your cell phone. You can browse and select tracks just as though you were directly connected to your computer back at base - the music is then streamed over the Internet, by Audiogalaxy, to your phone for listening. I've only had it for a very short time, and have had limited opportunity to use it so far - certainly I've yet to visit Brazil for extensive field tests! But at the bottom of the garden, with a good mobile data connection, I was able to listen to all of the tracks I selected from my music collection pretty well instantaneously. It's easy, it works, and in an increasingly connected world it's simple brilliance. I love it!
Digital Music Collection and Summer Vacation newsIncreasing hard drive prices coupled with ever-increasing content will see a price rise for our Digital Music Collection drives from the start of August. Precise details are still to be settled but I expect an increase of around 10% over current prices. And if you're in a non-Euro country now's a good time to invest - you'll get a much better rate of currency exchange than was the case until recently! Finally a reminder again that there will be a break here with no releases or newsletters on 24 and 31 August. Andrew Rose
27 July 2012
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Fabulous-sounding XR remasters of Toscanini's brilliant BBC Beethoven recordings
"The exhilaration never fails in this long-phrased performance..." - The Gramophone, 1937
 TOSCANINI
Beethoven at the BBC
Recorded 1937/1939
Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Andrew Rose
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 4 in B flat, Op. 60
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 6 "Pastoral" in F, Op. 68
BEETHOVEN Leonore Overture No. 1, Op. 138
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Conductor Arturo Toscanini
Web page: PASC 352
Short notes
"The exhilaration never fails in this long-phrased performance, in the recording of which I find a level of colour and sustainment, with a marking of each point of easy emphasis, that at once marks the production as one of my outstanding pleasures."
- The Gramophone, 1937
Toscanini visited London on a number of occasions between 1935 and 1939 to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which had come into being under Adrian Boult in 1930 and quickly became an ensemble to delight the Italian maestro.
These recordings of Beethoven's 4th and 6th symphonies, made in 1937 and 1939 (and joined by the Leonore 1 overture) show both conductor and orchestra in an excellent light - and these new XR-remastered transfers bring a new dimension of astonishing sound quality to these fabulous performances.
Notes on this recording
Although generally these transfers threatened no great difficulties, and have throughout produced excellent results, with XR remastering bringing out beautiful and clear orchestral tones and weight, the second movement of the Pastoral Symphony did produce a challenge. The original release was a dub copy of the masters, in inferior sound quality, with audible wow and a short section of the music missing. XR remastering has done a lot to improve the sound quality here, Capstan software has cured the pitch variations, and the careful "ageing" of a modern reference recording and its blending into Toscanini's recording has patched the gap.
Andrew Rose
REVIEW Symphony 6 (excerpt)
For me, how pleasant is the accident that brings to my door, for a brief hour, Beethoven's suite of pastoral romances, in these crispening winter days. This is the time to remember summer holidays, and feel the benefit of them ; the time-none better-to swing through the long, lazy day, from tramping exhilaration to the afternoon siesta and the evening sport. The exhilaration never fails in this long-phrased performance, in the recording of which I find a level of colour and sustainment, with a marking of each point of easy emphasis, that at once marks the production as one of my outstanding pleasures. We have been getting a rather wide range of reverberation-periods lately (too wide, I suggest: it is surely time for greater standardization, for records at least, to be attempted). Here I find an effect like the heightening of sensibility which many may feel when released from toil. The music seems to come with even more than its usual directness of speech; and I think I should feel that if I had no idea who were the players or the conductor. We have seen how well this band can rise to the demands of a rare spirit. Sometimes they have done so but partially. They ought to have a longer course of such refining and strengthening medicine. There is no magic in it, of course. "Integrity" is only a partial explanation-integrity of phrase. One gives most conductors credit for aiming at that; but so often other considerations are allowed to get in the way. "The single eye," again, is not enough; one may drive at some element of interpretation, and drive it out of proportion. It is the beautiful sense of proportion that always most strongly remains with you after hearing most of Toscanini's performances. There are times when some of his thought may seem less assuredly true, as in the great slowness of part of his Brahms Requiem. But never does a symphonic slow movement drag: and it is that dragging which spoils for me some parts of the work of other conductors, for much of whose thought and feeling I am grateful...
The Gramophone, December 1937
REVIEW Symphony 4 (excerpt)
This is a good motto-piece for those willing to believe that the world, like Beethoven, can learn to organise in the full sunshine of liberty. How excellent are the doings early on the last side, where the bustlings accompany a new idea! Those succeeding gusts of wind are given full power. The conductor shows fine style in reserving strength for the best places. It sounds almost as if the recorders had lent a hand too, on this side. The virility and flexibility of the strings is especially praiseworthy here. A grand recording.
The Gramophone, December 1939
MP3 Sample Symphony 6, 1st mvt Listen
Download purchase links:
Ambient Stereo MP3
Mono 16-bit FLAC
Ambient Stereo 16-bit FLACAmbient Stereo 24-bit FLAC CD purchase links and all other information: PASC352 - webpage at Pristine Classical
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Myra Hess's two excellent pre-war Piano Trio recordings
Schubert and Brahms trios brought together in new Obert-Thorn transfers
 MYRA HESS
The Pre-War Trio Recordings
Recorded 1927/1935
Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn
SCHUBERT Piano Trio No. 1 in B flat major, D.898
BRAHMS Piano Trio No. 2 in C major, Op. 87
Myra Hess piano Jelly d'Arányi violin Felix Salmond cello (Schubert) Gaspar Cassadó cello (Brahms)
Web page: PACM 083
Short notes
"The musicianship of these three artists is never in question, so that there are many lovely moments and a fine breadth in the interpretation .... The recording is admirable."
- The Gramophone, 1936
British pianist Myra Hess made two Piano Trio recordings in the pre-war era, both with violinist Jelly d'Arányi alongside, and Mark Obert-Thorn has done a fine pair of transfers here to bring the two together,
From 1927 we have a vibrant New York recording of the first Schubert trio, with Felix Salmond joining the ensemble on cello. His place was taken in a 1935 HMV recording of Brahms' Trio No. 2 by Gaspar Cassadó, the Spanish cellist and composer.
Delightful from start to finish, these are recordings to treasure!
Notes on this recording
The source for the transfer of the Schubert trio (Hess's recording debut) was a mid-1930s "large label" American Columbia set, while the Brahms came from later pre-war US "microphone label" pressings.
Mark Obert-Thorn
REVIEW Brahms Piano Trio
This Trio has been overshadowed by its greater neighbour in C minor, not yet, I think, recorded, but has many beauties to recommend it to those who may have passed it by. Tovey says that the " style of the first movement is grandly energetic with deep shadows of mystery, the mystery of nature rather than romance." There is plenty romance, however, in the lovely second subject, most characteristic in shape, which the piano first sings, and in the charming codetta for the strings added to it. In the development section which begins on Part 2 notice the Schumannesque augmentation of the opening tune on the 'cello.
The slow movement is scored with violin and 'cello two octaves apart, except for three bars at the end, an effect which adds to the " heroic pathos" of the music. The tune is the theme of a set of five variations of which the first is overcast with the deep shadows of mystery which Tovey speaks of above, while the fourth variation in the major key is of a rich texture, simultaneously combining two melodies, one for the piano, the other for the strings, but both growing from the same stem.
I cannot better Sir Donald Tovey's description of the next movement-" the dark pianissimo scherzo with its huge white cloud-bank trio." It is a grand storm piece of symphonic size, but never straining the limits of its medium.
I am not sure that the players realise the" humour and mystery" of the last movement, though they certainly do not take it too fast. It is the one movement in the work which smells somewhat of the lamp and deserves, in part, Tchaikovsky's criticism of all Brahms's music- " it is all very serious, very distinguished, apparently even original : but in spite of all this the chief thing is lacking-beauty.''
To the true Brahmsians, amongst whom I number myself, the verdict is incomprehensible except in regard to a few isolated movements or passages : and the same could be said of any great composer. The ensemble lacks many of those qualities which gave such lustre to the Schubert Trio in E flat reviewed in this number. Cassado's tone, always beautiful, is consistently too heavy arid overweighs the violinist, especially when they are playing an octave or two octaves apart, and Jelly d'Aranyi is curiously disappointing. Her tone is thin and sometimes shrill-whith is certainly not the case in the concert hall. Myra Hess, who plays splendidly all through, sounds too distant. The important question of balance is therefore not solved satisfactorily. The musicianship of these three artists is, of course, never in question, so that there are many lovely moments and a fine breadth in the interpretation which cannot be seriously damaged by the criticisms set out above. The recording is admirable.
A.R. - The Gramophone, June 1936
MP3 Sample Brahms Trio, 1st mvt Listen
Download purchase links:
Mono MP3
Mono 16-bit FLAC CD purchase links and all other information: PACM 083 - webpage at Pristine Classical
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Bartók Sonata
 | | William Masselos |
PADA Exclusives
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Bartók
Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
William Masselos piano
Maro Ajemian piano
Saul Goodman Tympani,1st percussion
Abraham Marcus Xylophone, 2nd percussion
Recorded c.1949
Issued January 1950 as
Dial LP Dial 1
Remastered by Dr. John Duffy
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