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Solti Centenary     

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London Philharmonic
Georg Solti

Solti's centenary will be marked on 21 October. Here are two early Decca recordings, made for LP release in 1954, and revived in December 2005 by Pristine in new transfers by Peter Harrison.

 

 

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LATEST REVIEW
MusicWeb International

18 October 2012


French Violin Sonatas: Cortot & Thibaud  

by Rob Barnett

  

  

"A cornerstone historic violin sonata disc - a first port of call for those who want to know what the French violin school was all about. "

 
PACM 080

 

We are fortunate that Thibaud and Cortot recorded these three great French, or more accurately Franco-Belgian sonatas. In fact they recorded the Franck twice, and this is the second, electric recording. Fortunate because they set something of a benchmark for stylistic acumen which was very influential, although not necessarily replicated by other duos, and nor should it have been. Thibaud and Cortot brought a wealth of experience, refined musicianship and, yes, a degree of fallibility too.
 
At their best there are few to match them for badinage, charm, and personalised engagement. Few, too (if any) have matched Thibaud's sensuous violin playing. Later generations of French duos, most prominently Francescatti and Casadesus, may have ploughed their own rather more streamlined furrow, but Thibaud and Cortot remain amongst the discographic pioneers and stylistic arbiters of the repertoire.
 
I do, that said, marginally prefer their 1923 acoustic recording of the Franck, but that's hard to get hold of and this 1929 re-recording makes a far better aural impression. Mark Obert-Thorn has retained a good ratio of surface noise, and has not lost much in the way of room ambience (Salle Chopin in Paris). The performance is volatile, and full of expressive gestures, such as Thibaud's pervasive and luscious portamenti. Cortot occasionally struggles with the merciless piano writing and both musicians certainly aren't wholly polished, but then absolute precision was neither man's birthright. Both rehearsed and practised too little.
 
Faur�'s A minor Sonata was recorded in London in 1927. It's the work's first recording and set a Gallic standard that placed it apart from more high octane performances from such as Heifetz, whose coruscating 78 set sometimes missed the point. Again, the refulgent slides are in evidence and so too some fallible intonation and a few Cortot slips. But the ethos is wholly identifiable, and inimitable.
 
Almost all French/Belgian duos of the pre-war and indeed immediate post-war days took the Debussy sonata in a characteristic way. Like Francescatti and Casadesus, like Dubois and Maas, the music moves directionally, and tempi - whilst not harried - are decisive. The music travels with velocity but breadth, not a contradiction when it's phrased as these three duos phrase it. Its quicksilver, uneasy quotient is rendered the more unstable and convulsive via fast tempi but these days, as so often, tempi have slackened and with the slackening the vertiginous contrasts between paragraphs within a movement. This 1929 recording exemplifies just how alive and unsettling a work this can be. It's beautifully interpreted and paced, and Thibaud's inflexions, colours, pizzicati and attacks are matched by Cortot's pianistic wit - not a quality one necessarily always finds in him. It's the locus classicus of French style.

The Berceuse gets a lovely performance, and Minstrels, in the Arthur Hartmann arrangement, equally so.
 
This is a cornerstone historic violin sonata disc, a first port of call for those who want to know what the French violin school was all about.  

 

(PACM 080, 65:54)  

LATEST REVIEW
Audiophile Audition

13 October 2012


Ormandy's American Light Music  

by Gary Lemco

  

  

"Eminent good nature sets this energetic orchestral restoration apart, the 1952 inscriptions from Eugene Ormandy and The Fabulous Philadelphians in full regalia"

 
PASC 356

 

Record producer and restoration engineer Mark Obert-Thorn fulfills one of my dream-list Eugene Ormandy reissues with this suave splicing of two significant 1952 CBS LPs, the Victor Herbert collection (ML 5376) and the Hershey Kay Cakewalk Ballet, arranged from the music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk (ML 4616). Eugene Ormandy (1899-1985) pursued his interest in musical Americana throughout his recording history, perhaps advocating a kind of jingoistic celebration of his adopted country. (Another Hungarian �migr�, actor Bela Lugosi, expressed the same popular patriotism, cherishing Rhapsody in Blue and the Grand Canyon Suite as his preferred music.)

Victor Herbert (1859-1924), himself an Irish patriot, cellist, and composer, combined several careers that embraced his own cello virtuosity, conducting, and operetta compositions. Arranger Otto Langey set both Pan American and The Fortune Teller for orchestral dissemination, and Ormandy sets forth into the former with a distinct Hungarian panache, the Philadelphia Sound ablaze. The eclectic orchestration combines horn riffs with winds and castanets while the strings evoke a samba rhythm. The American Rhapsody tries to embrace our several regions, including Stephen Foster's Old Folks at Home in sentimental dress to rival Dvorak's "Goin' Home," various military tattoos, and a solid rendition of Dixie. With Columbia, Gem of the Ocean and The Star-Spangled Banner we reach a pinnacle for Old Glory and the far reaches of your audio equipment.

If Leroy Anderson's Irish Suite remains my first choice for Saint Patrick's Day music, then Herbert's Irish Rhapsody comes in second.  What make the Ormandy version delicious are the Philadelphia strings, harp, cymbals, tympani, and the phrasing of the sentiments. Hornpipes, reels, and gigs abound, and a good jug might suit this portion of the CD.  I can't play these suites without thinking of one of my favorite John Ford films, The Quiet Man. The rousing ending might inspire you to revisit Raoul Walsh's They Died with Their Boots On. Harold Sanford arranged extracts from Naughty Marietta, with its superstar song, "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life." The Fortune Teller (arr. Langey), I think, offers a better and lusher score, given its Viennese and Magyar colors and hints of Johann Strauss waltz virtuosity.

The 1951 ballet Cakewalk, composed for the New York City Ballet by Hershey Kay, takes twelve of Gottschalk piano pieces like Bamboula, Pasquinade, and The Banjo (aka "Frisbee*" in the ballet) to create a lively and colorful divertissement and minstrel show in three sections. Some may recall that Hershey Kay took some of the same composition lessons in classes with Leonard Bernstein. That Kay's score also parodies aspects of German military music and Stravinsky's Petrushka only cause us to admire more his cosmopolitan style. But the real hero remains Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869), that Creole piano sensation whose gift for rhythm and Louisiana harmony who might well qualify as America's first full-fledged musical genius. First-rate irresistible fun, this disc. 

 

(PASC 356, 69:10)

 

 

*"Frisbee" is apparently a mis-print and should read "Freebee". I blame Mark Obert-Thorn's computer spell-checker myself... 

 

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CONTENTS
Editorial          Reviving Callas; Pristine Catalogue update
Callas              Lucia di Lammermoor, First sessions
PADA               David and Igor Oistrakh play Trio Sonatas

Pristine Audio: Maria Callas's early recordings

A bizarre pitch anomaly found in her first studio sessions   



As promised I'm continuing to include extra reviews from Fanfare here in the editorial section simply so we can cram as many of them in as possible! This one I like as it includes some nice background to the story of how the recording came about which was new to me, and may also be new to you.


This week's new release

We return this week to Maria Callas, and to two of her earliest and, in both cases, groundbreaking recordings. The main body of the recording is Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, which was Callas's second full opera recording, but also her first for EMI. Unlike the bulk of her later recordings in the 1950s, this was made not in Milan with the musicians of La Scala, but in Florence, with the orchestra and chorus of "Maggio Musicale".

One senses that the recordings were made with earlier replay and reproduction hardware in mind. Very occasionally there's a suggestion of the theatre's reverberant acoustic to be heard, but much of the vocal content is very up-front and exceptionally dry. I cannot imagine any modern singer permitting themselves to be recorded in this manner, any more than I'd expect them to appear naked on stage! The voices almost sound disembodied at times, reminding me a little of the early days of acoustic horn recording in this respect, simply because there's no air at all around them.

I played around with a number of real acoustic spaces to see how the recording would respond to them, generally looking to the great opera houses of the world. These tend to have a shorter reverberation time than symphony halls, and an acoustic which is very much devoted to the clear conveyance of the human voice from stage to audience. In the end it was the Sydney Opera House in which Callas et al seemed most at home in this instance; dialling in a small amount of the Opera House's acoustics, as heard from one of the best seats in the theatre, seemed to "clothe" the singers once more, without losing clarity or directness.

It must be admitted that this was not the only glaring problem with this early recording. A lot of bass and lower mid-range seemed almost to be missing, even in EMI's most recent transfers; again, although the voices sound clear, they were less rounded and somewhat lacking. Re-establishing this part of the audio spectrum also brought up a huge amount of rumble noise, perhaps the reason it was curtailed before, and a lot of work was then required to eliminate or tame this. Happily it was all worthwhile. Often one expects improvements only from voices in the lower registers with this kind of adjustment - i.e. the basses and baritones - but here everyone benefited, included Callas.

I do hope you'll like the end result. Switching between the "before" and "after" here in the studio makes the original release sound very dated indeed - the XR treatment really has worked wonders with it. It's a marvellous performance, and one of the recordings which first helped make the name of Maria Callas a household one.


Donizetti obviously didn't write Lucia di Lammermoor with CD durations in mind! Any two of the three acts can be combined to make a full-ish CD, with the leftover act only half-filling its pair. So I chose to wind the clock back a little further and take a look at the very first official studio recordings Maria Callas made for Cetra in Italy in 1949, when she recorded six 78rpm sides for the company, featuring music by Wagner and Bellini.

After all the usual declicking and so forth I pitched the recordings to concert pitch (A4=440Hz) ready for XR remastering. Thus far I'd been continually aware that something sounded slightly odd about her voice - a little slowed down, I thought. Then I brought the audio files into my restoration suite and prepared to look for and eradicate any residual electrical mains hum which, in Turin in 1949, would run at 50Hz.

Well I found that hum, but not at 50Hz. It was lower to a degree I'd not expected. A quick bit of maths indicated that restoring the speed of the recording to a point where these embedded tones were accurately reproduced would indicate a recording pitch of A4=460Hz - almost a semitone sharp. This seemed so unlikely as to be surely an error - yet the 78rpm cutting lathes would have taken their timing from the AC current, surely?

It's the kind of thing which can send you round and round in circles trying to figure out, and still not reach a definitive answer. In the end I simply listened to the result of this increase in speed, and I found it not just believable but convincing. The tone of the voice seemed closer to that heard 4 years later in Lucia; it lost a tired heaviness; the vibrato sounded right whereas it had sounded laboured.

I went back to the original discs. They were recorded across three days, yet there was no aberration on one day caused by some kind of electrical discrepancy. All three had the 50Hz hum rumbling along somewhere around 47.5Hz.

I had to decide. Play it safe, put it out at 440Hz, and forever question going against the evidence of my ears and that unusually low-pitched hum? Or stick my neck out, go against the normal expectations of musical pitch (which might see recordings stretching into the low 450's but almost never any higher than that), and put it out at 460Hz? Either way I can't explain it, and perhaps the answer lies somewhere between the two, but at some point you have to make a decision and stick with it.

I went for the latter, higher option. If you already have a copy of the recording, chances are you'll have the lower version, so dig it out and have a listen. Contrast and compare. See what you think. Nobody can give a definitive answer, so nobody can be proved right or wrong. I'm just happy that this isn't something I have to worry about very often - I spoke to my piano tuner this morning on the subject and he couldn't explain it either!



Pristine Catalogue updated

I really should do this more often: our catalogue has been brought up to date (it was last updated in March). I've also added the option to allow those of you who prefer to e-mail or post your orders (rather than use PayPal online) to fill out the order form in the catalogue on your PC and send this to us, rather than writing in the details by hand. (This is now also possible on our general order forms for CDs, Digital Music Collections and downloads - click on "Ordering Offline" in our Help & FAQ menu for these updated forms.)

The full catalogue is available as an Adobe PDF file from here. It has an index at the end which lists all the performers; the catalogue is currently ordered by catalogue number, and runs to 160 pages.





Rostropovich
Rostropovich
Fanfare Review
by Jonathan Woolf 


DVO�K Cello Concerto MIASKOVSKY Cello Concerto
Mstislav Rostropovich (vc); 1V�clav Talich, cond; Czech PO; 2Malcolm Sargent, cond; Philharmonia O * PRISTINE  PASC 321 (67:38)

Given the large number of reissues of these two concerto performances, it seems superfluous to talk up their musical virtues. Rostropovich left behind many studio recordings of the Dvoř�k and listeners will doubtless have their favorites. Mine happen to be this 1952 V�clav Talich and the later Adrian Boult (reviewed in Fanfare 20:6). Others laud the Karajan, still others the Giulini (reviewed in 25:4 and 26:2). Live survivors include the Evgeny Svetlanov (BBC, reviewed in 26:6) and Boris Khaikin on Revelation (reviewed in 22:2).

I'm not sure how well known is the story of the genesis of this Talich recording but it's worth the retelling. In the wake of the cellist's prize-winning performance at the International Cello Competition in Prague, Supraphon saw an opportunity to record Rostropovich in the concerto to anticipate, and then celebrate, the half-centenary of Dvoř�k's death. The cellist was aware of Talich's reputation: Mravinsky had told him that the Czech conductor was the "best in the world." He was also aware of Talich's political situation, and the fact that the authorities would allow a recording but not a concert.

The cellist spoke often of Talich's influence and help in this work. One thing is especially notable, and that is the nature of the rubati that we can be fairly sure - because Rostropovich mentioned this element - Talich passed on to the cellist. Note, in this respect, phrasally the slow return to the original tempo; how Talich encouraged Rostropovich to pay back time with beautifully calibrated control throughout. The lyrical and rich expression that are displayed owe as much to the lead of the conductor as to the instincts of the soloist. It's when he became, in later years, too lateral that Rostropovich failed to do full measure to the score.

The Miaskovsky concerto was recorded in March 1956 for HMV. It's been included in various incarnations, not least "Great Recordings of the Century" (80012), the Rostropovich Edition (65701), and the Complete EMI Recordings edition (17597). Don't overlook his later recording with Svetlanov on EMI CZS5 72016-2, and there is a further 1959 live broadcast in Moscow with Faktorovich. There have been in many ways estimable recordings of this work from Julian Lloyd Webber, Marina Tarasova, Kirill Rodin, Truls M�rk, and Mischa Maisky. None has approached Rostropovich for the depth and range of his expressive gestures. These two transfers rank with the best.

[This review appears in Issue 36:2 (Nov/Dec 2012) of Fanfare Magazine.]

 

Andrew Rose
19 October 2012
    

 

   Callas: The early recordings - her first EMI opera, her first studio sessions 


Massive sonic overhauls from the vocal gems that launched a legend

  

  

PACO 084 MARIA CALLAS      

Lucia di Lammermoor

First Studio Sessions            

  

Recorded 1953/1949

 

Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer:  Andrew Rose    

  

  

DONIZETTI  Lucia di Lammermoor

Lucia - Maria Callas 
Edgardo -Giuseppe Di Stefano 
Enrico -Tito Gobbi 
Raimondo -Raffaele Ari� 
Arturo -Valiano Natali 
Alisa -Anna Maria Canali 
Normanna -Gino Sarri 

  

Orchestra and Chorus of the Florence 'Maggio Musicale' 
Chorus Master  Andrea Morosini 
Conductor  Tullio Serafin 



WAGNER  Tristan und Isolde - Liebestod - Dolce e calmo
BELLINI Norma - excerpts
BELLINI I Puritani - excerpts 

  

Maria Callas  soprano 
Orchestra Sinfonica di Torino della RAI 
Conductor Arturo Basile
   
 

Web page: PACO 084   

  

   

  

Short notes      

"And now comes the great moment, the Mad Scene... Callas's impersonation ... is filled with the deepest pathos (as in her singing of "Alfin son tua", in the section beginning "Ardon gli incensi", which is quite unforgetable) and it has an impulsive, excitable note in it that conveys the derangement of the poor girl's mind. With all this goes the most superb vocalisation. In the cadenza before Spargi d'amaro, Callas knocks the flute out and we hear him only as a little timid tootle in the background. Here is certainly some of the finest singing of our time..."

- The Gramophone, 1954

It was the dawning of a superstar career: Maria Callas in Lucia di Lammermoor, her first opera for EMI (and only her second ever full opera recording). Here it's coupled with her first ever recording sessions, made in Turin in 1949.

Both have been transformed in sound quality by Pristine's 32-bit XR remastering process - with astounding results.

   

  

  

Notes  on this recording  

This recording of Lucia di Lammermoor was Maria Callas's first opera for EMI, and one of very few of her classic 1950s EMI opera recordings not made in Milan with the orchestra and chorus of La Scala. It was her second full opera recording, and only her third official studio recording session. Despite some major cuts in the score, it was hailed on its release, with A.R. writing not only praise for Callas in his review in The Gramophone: "Much credit is due to Tullio Serafin for his admirable direction of the opera and to the engineers for a most excellent recording". 


From a technical perspective the original recording is interesting. Despite at times being apparently unremittingly dry, occasionally we do get a sense of space and acoustic. Equalisation favours clarity of voice above all, and there is a real lack of depth in the sound (and, it turns out, a lot of murk and muck in the lower registers). Working on these two areas in particular rounds out the sound of the male voices in particular, making their previous incarnations sound somewhat impotent, as well as giving the orchestra a far more convincing presence. But of course it is Callas who shines here, and with the slightest cushioning of real opera house acoutics (in this case I found the Sydney Opera House to offer the most accommodating sound without sacrificing the clarity of the original recording) she sounds more ravishing than ever. 
A quick note about the early Callas recordings: in cleaning these up I discovered low-pitched 50Hz mains hum which suggested an unusually high orchestral pitch (A4=-~460Hz) running throughout the three direct-to-disc 78rpm sessions. Repitching the recordings from standard 440Hz by using this reference immediately relieved them of an unusual heaviness of voice and sounded very convincing. Despite this reamrkable degree of sharpness I elected to believe that what my measurements and ears were telling me was indeed correct. 
 

Andrew Rose            

  

  

  

 

Review Lucia di Lammermoor       

A lot of hard things have been said about Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, some of them justly; but, given a performance of the quality we have here, there is plenty of life in the old opera and, once Lucia herself comes on the scene, it is often very moving and always enjoyable, in spite of the librettist's hash up of Walter Scott's novel.

The weakest part of the opera is, fortunately, the first scene of all. The orchestral IntroductIon, impressive enough, is followed by a conventional chorus, ending with the stage direction "exeunt rapidly" : but not a moment too soon! Tito Gobbi does his best to make a living person of Sir Henry Ashton, and throws in a top G for good measure, but nothing can really animate this lay figure. The conversational exchanges and Gobbi's Cavatina are rather too loudly recorded and a much better balance is attained in the next scene, by the fountain, in which Lucia makes her first appearance. There is that rather naive business with the harp, by way of establishing "atmosphere", and then comes Lucia's solo Regnava nel silenzio, sung with a lovely legato by Maria Callas, who has already, one need hardly say, established Lucia, in the recitative, as a person of character. She ends the aria with a beautifully executed cadenza, displaying those wonderful rich high notes of hers, but preceded by some rather bumpily recorded trills-the only place one can say this of them. Quando rapito, with its exquisitely done decorations, and finely moulded sequences, completes one's utter enjoyment of what is clearly going to be a great performance of the part. Stefano, who now appears, uses his fine voice more circumspectly than in I Puritani and the ensuing duet, with a thrilling entry by Callas at "Deh, ti placa", is most enjoyable. Both artists excel in the singing of Veranno a te, which it is silly to write off as a commonplace waltz. It can only be made into that by the adoption of the wrong tempo.

After the duet between Ashton and Lucia (Callas puts a wonderful amount of pathos into her singing of "0 Ciel") the aria of Raimondo (Bide-the-Bent) is cut, and Ari� has to wait for his chance until later in the opera. The cuts throughout are, indeed, extensive.

The celebrated Sextet, Chi mi frena, is preceded by one of the funniest remarks in opera, Lucia's "Tis Edgar ! Oh thunderbolt", disguised for most of us, in the Italian text, as "oh fulmine". The Sextet may seem small beer compared to the Rigoletto quartet, or the Meistersinger quintet, but it is undeniably effective sung with such an excellent ensemble-how cunningly the orchestral start, pizzicato, fixes one's attention-and the contract episode is most dramatically presented. The first scene of Act 3 (A Hall in the Castle of Ravenswood) is cut and the act begins with the festive music of the next scene, a Hall at Sir Henry Ashton's Castle. A tribute may be paid here to the unfailingly lively singing of the chorus. Ari� sings a brief aria well and is followed by the tuneful chorus "Oh! qual funesto", in which he joins.

And now comes the great moment, the Mad Scene. Sutherland Edwards pointed out, many years ago, that the heroine of Lucia can go mad in two different ways. Patti, Nilsson, Albani (we can add Melba) did not rave, were not "insanely eccentric, scarcely ever flighty". They were regretful, moonstruck, with a poetry not unlike that of certain Nocturnes by Chopin. He continues that Jima de Murska, a famous singer of his day, took quite another line and behaved like a lunatic who at any moment might become dangerous, though remaining, naturally, in perfect control of her voice!

Callas's impersonation lies somewhere between these two. It is filled with the deepest pathos (as in her singing of "Alfin son tua", in the section beginning "Ardon gli incensi", which is quite unforgetable) and it has an impulsive, excitable note in it that conveys the derangement of the poor girl's mind. With all this goes the most superb vocalisation. In the cadenza before Spargi d'amaro, Callas knocks the flute out and we hear him only as a little timid tootle in the background. Here is certainly some of the finest singing of our time, and there is one moment in the repeat of Spargi d'amaro when the voice is recorded with all the actuality of three dimensional sound. It is startling. After the final thrilling E flat I had (this is a joke now with my friends) to take a turn in the garden to cool down!

It is rough luck on Edgardo to have to follow on such an achievement : but without any straining after effect Stefano sings his celebrated aria Fra poco a me ricovere very well : and in the later scene, when he stabs himself, his singing, to a beautifully played 'cello obbligato, is very moving. Much credit is due to Tullio Serafin for his admirable direction of the opera and to the engineers for a most excellent recording. 
  

A. R., The Gramophone, March 1954              

  

  

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David Oistrakh & Igor Oistrakh
play Trio sonatas

David & Igor Oistrakh
David & Igor Oistrakh
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Bach  Trio Sonata in C, BWV 1037
Hans Pischner, Harpsichord
rec. 19 April 1957,
Staatlische Rundfunk, Berlin

Benda - Trio Sonata in E
Vladimir Yampolsky, piano
rec. 18 April 1957, Kongresshalle, Leipzig

David Oistrakh - violin
Igor Oistrakh - violin

Transfer from
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This transfer by Dr. John Duffy

 

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