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Newsletter - 3 August 2012
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  PACM 052

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Bartók

String Quartet No. 5

 

Hungarian Quartet  

 Zoltán Székely, violin
Alexandre Moskowsky, violin
Dénes Koromzay, viola
Vilmos Palotai, cello    

 

Rec. 1946     

 

   "We enter a world here which challenges at every step any easy conception of beauty in music and gives point to a young man's remark that "Bartók cuts through the complacent, sentimental facade of so much music to the harsh, vigorous primitive." I should qualify that remark by adding that it is the demand of a certain type of listener, who looks only for sensuous beauty in music (an attitude which implies a considerable degree of self-gratification) rather than music of marked sensuous appeal itself that is disagreeably complacent and sentimental. Bartók's quartets, whether one likes them or not, are for mature musical minds and as it is generally recognised that "he has put into them the very best of himself," to greet them with vulgar abuse is to condemn oneself, not a great composer. 

  

 I hope seriously-minded music lovers will respond to the gesture H.M.V. have made in recording this fine work on plum-label and thus bringing it into reach of students not too liberally endowed with the goods of this world.

Of the playing and interpretation of the quartet by the Hungarian quartet, I can only say that it is masterly and, I imagine, fully realises the composer's intentions at all points. The recording, also, is extremely good." 

 

Gramophone, 1946    

 

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
Classical CD Review

July 2012

Mengelberg, Toscanini, Paray  

by R.E.B.

  

  

"Even if you own other previous issues of these dynamic performances, you should investigate this superb new issue"

  PASC 349

 

Music of Tchaikovsky figured prominently in Willem Mengelberg's discography. He recorded the Pathétique twice for Telefunken, in 1937 and 1951, Serenade for Strings in 1938, 1812 Overture in 1940, and for Columbia, in 1930, Romeo and Juliet and in 1928, Symphony No. 5 and the Waltz from the Serenade for Strings. In 1927 he recorded for Columbia the second and third movements of Symphony No. 5, and the following year recorded the entire work. The Dutch conductor's only recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic can be heard on Pristine's new issue, Symphony No. 5 and Piano Concerto No. 1 with Conrad Hansen as soloist. In July 1940 two concerts were given in Berlin to celebrate the centenary of Tchaikovsky's birth, both consisting of Romeo and Juliet, ConcertoNo. 1 and Symphony No. 5. The symphony was recorded July 8, 1940, the concerto the following day. The concerto is disappointing primarily because of Conrad Hansen, a pupil of Edwin Fischer, who gives a stolid reading very dull indeed when compared with electrifying performances by Horowitz and countless virtuosos of today. And it does seem odd that the important first movement cadenza is severely truncated-perhaps this was to eliminate the need for an extra 78 rpm disk? At any rate, it does not do justice to Tchaikovsky's score. The BPO Tchaikovsky Symphony 5 is the same as the 1928 recording regarding cuts, which are considerable, and I like the added cymbal in the last movement climax (Paul Van Kempen inserted two cymbal crashes in his 1951 Philips Concertgebouw recording-and they are highly effective!). Let us hope Pristine will issue all of Kempen's ACO Tchaikovsky recordings-Symphonies 5 and 6, Romeo and Juliet , Capriccio Italien and Marche slave). Mengelberg claimed Modest, Tchaikovsky's brother, told him the composer wanted these cuts "to tighten up the structure of the movement." Believe it or not, the cuts are there, a wilful interpretation indeed showing the Dutch conductor at his most idiosyncratic. However, this is a fascinating document, and Mark Obert-Thorn's transfers work wonders with the original 78s. These recordings sound much better than on previous releases.

 

(PASC 348,  74:29)



More classic performances can now be experienced in new expert remasterings - the symphonies of Johannes Brahms in the exciting RCA recordings with Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra originally made in 1951 (Nos. 1 and 4) and 1952 (2 and 3), all four fitting onto two well-filled disks. These recordings have never left the catalog, and it is a gift for collectors to now hear them in Andrew Rose's remastered sound which transforms RCA's original audio to very respectable standards, correcting pitch and pitch problems. Even if you own other previous issues of these dynamic performances, you should investigate this superb new issue.

 

(PASC 349,  2 hr 36:17)

During his career, Paul Paray (1886-1979) was respected as a composer, organist and conductor. After conducting several French orchestras, he made his American debut in 1939 with the New York Philharmonic, and in 1952 was made conductor of the Detroit Symphony, which he led for eleven years during which period he made many highly-praised recordings. Although Paray composed profusely, few of his works have been recorded although in Detroit he recorded one of his major works, Mass for the 500th Anniversary of the Death of Joan of Arc. I remember many, many years ago hearing a concert by the Detroit Symphony conducted by Paray presented in a local Chicago high school as a Community Concerts event. Although very young at the time, I recall the vivid impression Paray made and the terrific performance of the major work on the program, the Franck D minor symphony, which is heard on Pristine's new disk in a recording made in 1953, several years after the concert I attended. Keep in mind that Paray knew many leading composers of his era including Ravel, Ibert, Debussy, Roussel, and many others. This lends authority to his performances of their music. The Franck was recorded in February 1953, the first Mercury recording; other works were made March 28, 1956. These are dynamic, virtuoso performances with the DSO in top form and Mercury's typical rather tight, well-balanced sound, lacking only a warmer acoustic for string textures. All of these recordings were hi-fi audiophile showpieces for their era, and sound better than ever now that Edward Johnson and Andrew Rose have worked their magic.   

 

(PASC 346,   71:02)

 

 

LATEST REVIEW
Fanfare

July 2012

Furtwängler's Brahms   

by R.E.B.

  

  

"Don't miss these performances, now to be heard in the highest quality restoration"

  PASC 340

 

What can one say about these magnificent reissues? These combine live performances (Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 2, Symphony No. 3,Double Concerto, Haydn Variations, ) with studio recordings.  

 

The interpretations are legendary and have appeared often on CD, but now we hear them in Andrew Rose's meticulous remastering which has corrected numerous problems of the originals including flutter, pitch correction, and adjusting balances to provide a remarkably clear, vivid aural experience. The disks of concerted works are particularly memorable, collaborations between musical giants-music making of the highest order.  

 

Don't miss these performances, now to be heard in the highest quality restoration.

 

 

(PASC 340, 75:06)

(PASC 341, 75:57)

(PASC 342, 76:24)

(PASC 344, 60:30)

(PASC 347, 77:26)

 

 

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CONTENTS
Editorial         On Bartók, Digital Music Collections and Apples
Bartók            The legendary 1940 concert with Szigeti
PADA              Yves Nat plays the Beethoven Sonatas - Part 1

New Digital Audio Collection Drives and Options

Plus we finally get an Apple Mac here at Pristine...       



Once again a single release week. This is likely to become more common now for a number of reasons - not least because producing excellence can be a very time-consuming business and I don't wish to let you down in this respect!

But I'm also aware that a life spent entirely at a desk isn't the best for one's health - and regular exercise to counter this quickly eats into the working day. It also gives me breathing space and time to think and reflect upon about how we can do things better - I hope our new offerings on the hard drive Digital Music Collection front will prove to be just one example of this.


Bartók
Bartók


This week's new release

Oh to have been at this particular concert - Béla Bartók at the piano, his long-time friend and compatriot Joseph Szigeti holding his violin, as war raged in Europe and with Bartók only two days off the boat in the United States.

As Peter Gutmann wrote on his website some years ago:

Most of us tend to think of chamber music as a sterile affairtreble clef graphic in which refined musicians gently amuse a staid group of corseted ladies and starched gentlemen amid lavish splendor. Pretty dull stuff. A few minutes of this disc should forever demolish such an absurd myth.


This is, quite simply, one of the greatest concerts ever recorded. Blazing with passion, it ranks right up there with Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall, James Brown at the Apollo, the Allman Brothers at the Fillmore, or your own sweat-drenched favorite. As with most such events, its supreme quality arose from a unique confluence of forces, a single moment in time that would never recur.

Joseph Szigeti, one of the most acclaimed violinists of the century, was a fervent advocate of modern music. Bela Bartok was not only an accomplished pianist but one of the most influential composers of his era.Bartok and Szigeti Both were life-long friends, allied by their ardent nationalism and anti-fascism, who emigrated to America. Szigeti came first. Bartok arrived on April 11, 1940. This recital two days later was their first in the New World...

 

Szigeti
Szigeti
It's worth reading the rest of Peter's article, and I'll resist the temptation to carry on quoting in and suggest you visit his excellent site instead.

I'll simply add here a few notes on the technical side. The concert recording was something of a last minute decision by the head of the Music Division at the Library of Congress where the concert took place, one Harold Spivacke. As was normal in those pre-tape days, it was preserved on acetate discs.

If you've never held an acetate disc and examined it, let me explain. To all intents and purposes it looks like a regular record, most usually with a black shiny surface. But underneath that surface is a metal base (normally aluminium) onto which a black lacquer coating has been applied.

This coating (originally made of acetate, hence the name) is soft enough for grooves to be cut directly into it, yet resilient enough to be capable of replay a reasonable number of times after recording. However the need for recordability means it's far less robust than a vinyl or shellac discs, especially in the days when stylus tracking weights were far heavier (and therefore more destructive) than today, and they certainly deteriorate quickly with continued playing.

Still, if you're going to produce and preserve a recording in the best possible conditions for posterity I suppose a major national library has to be one of the optimum venues, and so it appears here. When transfers were made in the mid-1960s for vinyl release on the Vanguard label, to my ears it sounds like the original discs were in pretty good shape - I've heard far worse from acetates!

In fact there's a very wide frequency response - approximately double that you'd expect from a regular commercial 78rpm disc of the era, and because of the constitution of the lacquer layer, some relatively quiet sides.

The vinyl transfers did sound somewhat dim. Whether this was simply to counteract surface noise when the transfers were released or a true reflection of the sound of the acetates I really can't tell. What I can say is that, put through our XR remastering process, they still hold remarkable levels of details and clarity, and a really amazing transformation was possible.

The different works seemed to have been preserved to slightly different degrees of clarity, with the Debussy being perhaps the cleanest and clearest of the four. Generally speaking the recording quality seems to improve slightly as the concert progresses - though of course it's impossible to say whether this is due to adjustments made on the day or to greater wear on the acetates which hold the Beethoven, played first, prior to transfer, by comparison to the Debussy, third in the programme.

Either way, the sound quality is astonishing - I struggle to recall anything quite like it from this era, and given that it documents what was already a somewhat idiosyncratic performance style, it really is a very important historic artefact indeed, regardless of the astonishing credentials of the two iconic performers.

Vanguard did their homework well too - I got in touch with the Library of Congress this week to double-check on the running order, and it was as released on LP, and not as re-ordered by Hungaroton for their CD issue. I've preserved that original order so we can get as close as possible to that amazing live experience from April 13, 1940. The sample linked to here (see below) is the first movement of the Debussy - it's well worth a listen even if this isn't normally your cup of tea!




Digital Music Collection

As trailed here for the last few weeks - and hinted at above - we've not only adjusted our prices for our Digital Music Collection offerings, but entirely revamped the range on offer.

The most popular drive has been the pocket-sized portable USB-powered drive. Since we introduced this as a 500GB drive it's proved a hit, but as our collection continues to increase in size I've opted for a new drive and a new size. I've been impressed with an Intenso 1TB drive - the same size and shape as the old one but with plenty of room to spare. It's USB 3, which means it's capable of much faster file transfers than an older, USB 2 drive as long as you have USB 3 on board. If you don't it'll happily operate at the older, slower rates too. This becomes the new PADMC01 priced at €1300.

As a result of this increased capacity in our portable drive, we've withdrawn the 1TB desktop model. And in order to hopefully make this going digital more affordable, we're also offering four lower-priced "Options" - you get the same 1TB drive but with a section of our collection rather than the whole lot. Thus if you're an opera fan first and foremost, you can purchase the Vocal Options drive for just €500, complete with all our vocal, choral and operatic recordings on board in all our FLAC formats.

And if you've chosen an Options drive you can also add an extra music Module (at the time of purchase only for now) for a very attractive rate - should you also love chamber music as well as opera, the Chamber Module can be added to your Vocal Options drive for just €250 extra - superb value for money.

I hope that the website explains this all clearly enough, and I'm happy to listen to feedback on any further suggestions you may have.

Our other new offering is a RAID server version of the Collection, the new PADMC02, priced at €1650. I've long advocated two mirrored drives as being safer than one - you know you always have a back-up of your collection and don't have to think too hard about maintaining it. I've been using a number of "NAS" servers over the last year or two and the NetGear ReadyNAS Ultra 2 model we're offering has impressed me hugely since I installed one here.

Think about it as being almost like a standalone mini-PC - but one that's dedicated entirely to storage and distribution (inside it probably runs Linux, and the specs read like a regular PC, but you don't really need to know about that to use it). It'll connect to your home network, your PC or your wireless router using a standard network cable (supplied) and enables direct access to your music collection (and whatever else is on there) from any machine on your system wherever you are connected to your network.

It has two whopping 2TB hard drives inside, so there's oodles of space for music and video files from day one, and it comes set up so that each is a mirror of the other - all monitored and controlled independently by the NAS. Unlike a standard external hard drive you don't need to have it connected permanently to another PC at access its contents, and with wi-fi increasingly being used to deliver content, it's the ideal solution for a domestic audio-video distribution system. You may even find that your TV can talk to it directly - ours can, thanks to wi-fi on the TV and standard DNLA compliance.

Furthermore, if you already have an external disc drive full of music, photos, videos and other files that you'd like to access around the house, you can plug it into the NetGear NAS and use it straight away - it has 3 USB ports on board waiting to accept further connections.

Because it's a network server it can be as easily accessed by a Mac as by a PC, and there's a control panel which loads up on your Internet browser to set up and administer the device. There's a load of technical information about it here - I'd recommend one of these, or something very much like it, even if you've no intention of buying a complete Digital Music Collection! It's the ideal basis for storing, maintaining and distributing your digital media, easily expandable, and can be kept well away from curious fingers and quiet replay rooms.



At last, we have a Mac

For many years it's been a slight technical weakness here - we get perhaps one e-mail every 4-6 weeks from someone struggling with their Apple Mac and some aspect of our website or downloads, and I've no experience of Apples beyond my iPad. As much as I've wanted to help, the cost of buying a new Mac for one support e-mail a month has long deterred me.

So when a friend's niece put up a newish MacBook for sale at a very favourable price I snapped it up. It arrived on Tuesday, and in between Bartók remastering sessions I managed to get it up and running, and started to get my head around what was my very first Mac experience.

I'm pleased to say that within 24 hours I'd managed to achieve a number of commonly-demanded feats - the replay of FLAC files, both 16-bit and 24-bit (using Songbird) and the splitting of an MP3 using a cue sheet downloaded from our website (using the Cue-Splitter software recommended on our website, albeit downloaded from a new location) being top of the list.

I also managed without difficulty to access FLACs on our NetGear ReadyNAS Ultra server across both wired and wireless network, and quickly had XBMC set up to watch high definition movies on its 13-inch screen.

I do need more practise - there are still a load of things which seem entirely counter-intuitive to someone who's spent the last 20 years or so using Windows - but I hope to be (a) more helpful to Mac users, and (b) in a position to update our online help files from a position of real experience, very soon.


Summer Vacation news

Finally a reminder again that there will be a break here after 18 August, with no releases or newsletters on 24 and 31 August.

 

Andrew Rose
3 August 2012     

 

Bartók and Szigeti's Library of Congress concert in jaw-dropping live sound    

 

"This is, quite simply, one of the greatest concerts ever recorded" - ClassicalNotes.com

  

  

PACM 084 BARTOK & SZIGETI 

Beethoven, Bartók, Debussy         

  

Recorded 1940

 

Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer:  Andrew Rose    

  

  

BEETHOVEN  Violin Sonata No. 9 in A, Op. 47, "Kreutzer" 
BARTOK  Rhapsody No. 1 for Violin & Piano 
DEBUSSY  Sonata for Violin and Piano 
BARTOK  Second Sonata for Violin and Piano 

Joseph Szigeti  violin 
Béla Bartók  piano 
  

Web page: PACM 084   

  

   

  

Short notes      

"This is, quite simply, one of the greatest concerts ever recorded. Blazing with passion, it ranks right up there with Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall, James Brown at the Apollo, the Allman Brothers at the Fillmore, or your own sweat-drenched favorite. As with most such events, its supreme quality arose from a unique confluence of forces, a single moment in time that would never recur..."

- Peter Gutmann, ClassicalNotes.com, 1995


Demonstrating a brilliance and a style of playing that comes literally from another time and place, this first concert of Bartók's in the New World, with his old friend and frequent musical partner Szigeti, is indeed up there with the greatest ever.

And this new XR remastering shows the concert in an entirely new light, with jaw-droppingly direct and clear sound quality that's almost unprecendented for a recording of this vintage. 

   

  

  

Notes  on this recording  

Working from near-mint LP pressings from two different sources, my aim here was to highlight what one reviewer referred to as Szigeti's tone "in all its steely glory", whilst dealing with myriad issues: "electrical turntable rumble, occasional swish and pops and crackles and the other by-products of such a recording". I was also able to cure a number of issues relating to wow, and reveal from the rather dim-sounding records that actually a huge amount of detail had been captured and preserved on the original acetates by the impromptu actions of Harold Spivacke, Director of the Music Division of the Library of Congress at the time, who had the foresight to preserve this remarkable concert.

The effect upon the recording of XR remastering, particularly when heard in the Ambient Stereo version, is quite stunning. Despite the occasional reminder of its age, the performance is now more vivid, vicseral and alive, with a fabulously extended frequency range that conveys brilliantly the tone and performence of both musicians.     

Andrew Rose          

    

  

 

REVIEW  Vanguard Classics CD release, 1995 (excerpt)

Most of us tend to think of chamber music as a sterile affair in which refined musicians gently amuse a staid group of corseted ladies and starched gentlemen amid lavish splendor. Pretty dull stuff. A few minutes of this disc should forever demolish such an absurd myth. 


This is, quite simply, one of the greatest concerts ever recorded. Blazing with passion, it ranks right up there with Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall, James Brown at the Apollo, the Allman Brothers at the Fillmore, or your own sweat-drenched favorite. As with most such events, its supreme quality arose from a unique confluence of forces, a single moment in time that would never recur. 
Joseph Szigeti, one of the most acclaimed violinists of the century, was a fervent advocate of modern music. Bela Bartok was not only an accomplished pianist but one of the most influential composers of his era. Both were life-long friends, allied by their ardent nationalism and anti-fascism, who emigrated to America. Szigeti came first. Bartok arrived on April 11, 1940. This recital two days later was their first in the New World. 


Both deeply loved their native land. Each had devoted decades to collecting and perpetuating its musical traditions and had become Hungary's greatest musicians. Although now physically safe in America, they were keenly aware that the world they had left behind was on the brink of extinction. It was with that crushing burden that they transplanted their culture to a new, hopefully temporary home, in the symbolic form of a recital at the Library of Congress, the shrine of intellectual freedom. (Although Szigeti lived until 1973, Bartok would die in exile in New York in 1945, never again seeing his country.) Both the style and the content of the recital seethed with emotional significance. This concert was nothing less than a deeply personal plea for an entire culture that was about to evaporate. 
Both musicians were not only ideal spokesmen and advocates for their national music but exemplified the entire Eastern European approach to interpretation, perhaps the most viscerally exciting of all classical performing traditions. Intonation, rhythm, dynamics and texture all become wildly distorted to produce an uninhibited gypsyish emotional effect. While such stylistic matters are hard to describe, the first minute of the Bartok Rhapsody will explain this unbuttoned approach better than a thousand books. 


The style is no longer familiar and takes considerable adjustment for modern ears. At first, it sounds sour. Fingers and toes can be exhausted in a matter of seconds keeping count of all the "wrong" notes. But are they really wrong? Not at all. As with blue notes in jazz or microtones in blues, this music yields to emotion. The bent notes are not mistakes, but rather the expressive means by which the artists convey their unbounded feelings. 
Admittedly, this is not the accepted way to perform classical music. By what right do these performers so arrogantly distort the published score? For two of the works performed here, the answer is obvious: Bartok wrote them and considered Szigeti to be their foremost exponent. This disc documents nothing less than the creator's legacy. Any differences between the score and these unbridled preformances clearly yields to the latter as a living, breathing record of the composer's intention...  

  

Peter Gutmann, ClassicalNotes.com, 1995   

  

    

MP3 Sample  Debussy Sonata, 1st mvt.    Listen

   

 

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Ambient Stereo MP3

Mono 16-bit FLAC   
Ambient Stereo 16-bit FLAC
Ambient Stereo 24-bit FLAC

  

  

CD purchase links and all other information:

PACM 084 - webpage at Pristine Classical   

  

 
 
Yves Nat plays Beethoven Sonatas
Yves Nat
Yves Nat
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Beethoven
Piano Sonatas 1-3   


Yves Nat piano

Sonatas Recorded 1953-55


  

Remastered by Dr. John Duffy

  

 

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