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Schubert    

Trout Quintet     

 Artur Schnabel, piano
Alphonse Onnou, violin
Germaine Prévost, viola
Robert Maas, cello
Claude Hobday, double bass

Rec. 1935

  "The performance, by some of the finest musicians of the period which spanned the First World War and the two decades after it, communicates not so much rigour of utterance as sublime joyfulness..."

Gramophone, 1983 

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PACM 034    

The art of Kirsten Flagstad (1895-1962) receives excellent service by way of Pristine and master restoration engineer Mark Obert-Thorn, who revive inscriptions the great Norwegian soprano made for RCA, 1950-1952. The original vinyl LPs from which many of the songs derive (LM 1094, LM 1870, LM 1738) have passed into obscurity, since RCA seems to have lost interest in Flagstad's post-war efforts. Of particular note, the Grieg cycle Haugtussa (26 April 1950), which Flagstad taped in Hollywood, stands between her other readings from 1940 and 1957, the latter having been issued by Decca.  The extended cycle by Schumann (17 March 1952), after poems by Chamisso, rivals in Flagstad's performance the equally heralded version by Kathleen Ferrier.

The 1840 cycle by Schumann traces, from the feminine point of view, her encounter with her beloved whom she will marry and accompany through various stages of life, until his death. Schumann omits the ninth song from the cycle, a consolation of sorts, and so ends with bereavement and a sense of the eternal return. The opening keyboard motif, with its falling figure, sets the tone of natural destiny. Flagstad excels in "Ich kann's nicht fassen, nicht glauber," capturing the awe and disbelief that her dreams of love move to fruition. Despite what may be construed as "stereotypical" feminine sentiments, the narrative infuses her inner life with pure poetic sensibility. Even the pregnancy blatantly stated by Chamisso has been excised to by Schumann to concentrate on the intensely personal connubial bliss of the couple. While the Kathleen Ferrier/Bruno Walter collaboration testifies to an almost extra-musical valediction, this performance retains an authenticity of style and clarity of delivery that warrants every consideration.

Grieg's song-cycle (1898) Haugtussa takes its inspiration from the 1895 circle of poems, written by Norwegian author Arne Garborg, a neo-Romantic and Symbolist poet. The themes of the poems are closely related to Garborg's rural background, and a number of supernatural beings, like the draug, the hulderpeople and other creatures, make an appearance. A Haugtusse is originally a female subterrestrial (a Hulder), but in this story it is an eponym of the main character, a psychic  young girl, usually called Veslemøy (the "Little Maiden" of Song No. 2). Grieg set eight of the twenty poems he had worked upon, and they loosely describe events that concern the visions and somewhat thwarted love-life of the protagonist. Often, the piano part imitates at once a watery kingdom and the sense of fate. Flagstad's head-tone still resonates, and her smoky bottom voice reaches into the mezzo range without strain. Much of the vocal style utilizes a ballad or parlando style in the manner of direct story-telling, with Flagstad's occasionally taking a high or long-held note (as in the silvery "Bilberry Slopes") to add pathos to the narrative. Her rendition of Elsk ("Love") captures the mercurial, frisky, and bittersweet anticipation of the tryst. The "Kidlings' Dance" with its yips might remind a few of her Wagnerian moments as Brunnhilde.

The Schubert (17 March 1952) and Brahms (10 April 1952) provide just the kinds of vocal elegance and virtuosity in which Flagstad exhibits as much restraint as she does vocal prowess. Schubert's "Die junge Nonne" offers another of his 'dark and stormy nights' narratives that could bathe in 'religious' treacle, if permitted. Of the Brahms group, "Meine liebe ist gruen," Op. 63, No. 5 bursts forth with a vehemence not easily matched, either by the composer or fellow vocalists. The "Sind es Schmerzen, sind des Freudes," Op. 33, No. 3 offers wonderful accompaniment from McArthur, the song taken from the Tieck cycle of courtly love and loss, Die Schoene Magelone. The tissue of medieval ardor that Flagstad and McArthur weave suggest that this opus stood as his personal version of Tristan.

The sentimental aria by Ernest Charles, in English, proves that a torch song from Flagstad has the same power we might have expected from Helen Traubel or Dorothy Kirsten.

(PACO 079,  76:59)

The centrepiece of this disc is Hamilton Harty's 1927 recording of Dvořák's New World Symphony. It has been issued before, on Symposium 1169 and on Hallé Tradition CD HLT8000, but this Pristine Audio comfortably surpasses them both. The lifelike but noisy Symposium had a number of annoying ticks, and the Hallé Tradition was a dead duck, being badly over-processed. Pitching has also been corrected in this latest transfer.
 
Though repeats were light on the ground in this Columbia recording, the basic elements of Harty's performance are intact. Its linearity is coupled with intensity to produce a performance of volatile drive. There are even times when one thinks of Harty's English contemporary Albert Coates. Harty certainly drives to the crest of the climax in the first movement with powerful zest. One appreciates too the Mancunian winds, as individualistic as ever, and the famed, taut brass. The strings play with considerable dash led, I think, by Alfred Barker - this recording was made just after Harty and his leader Arthur Catterall fell out with spectacular results. It's a recording in which Allegro molto means just that and in which con fuoco means con fuoco. Idiosyncrasies noted, there is a huge amount to admire, not least in the poetic sensibility brought to bear on the music which, combined with its masculine fervour, alerts one to the all round stature of the direction and music making. Harty made very few bad records.
 
Harty, at the turn of the twentieth century, one of London's most admired piano accompanists, was joined by Myra Hess for a clubbable and ebullient Slavonic Dance in C major, the first of the Op.46 set. At a time when most of Harty's acoustic piano recordings lie languishing in limbo, it's good to find this 1933 electric restored to the marketplace. I remember it fondly from a Pearl LP transfer. The Carnival Overture (with the London Philharmonic this time) was recorded a few days before the Symphony in a mini Dvořák­fest. This makes it the earliest of the pieces in this disc. Once more we feel Harty's liking for lithe and directional intensity - purposeful, dynamic, and alive with kinetic energy. His accelerandi are truly inspiring. To complete the Czech theme we have the overture to The Bartered Bride from 1933, another brisk, zesty traversal.
 
Don't overlook the famous Doppler arrangement of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No.12 in which the Halle principals can be heard in their vivid splendour, as can some truly luscious portamenti from the Hallé strings. Nor the two Brahms arrangements where the sound in the Free Trade Hall is more recessive than Central Hall, Westminster two years later. The boxier sound for the Brahms duo is not fatal.
 
This well selected programme with its Czech and Hungarian theme has been finely transferred.

(PASC 331,   65:36)