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HANSON
American Music 4
Harris, Griffes, Barber Mercury, 1953-55
CLASSIC REVIEW
As a record reviewer, I have to fight the urge to claim that every CD I like is an important album. That's because now and then, a CD like the present one falls into my hands, and I don't want to be in the position of the boy who cried "Wolf!" This is an important release. We have here some of the finest, if not always the most popular, American symphonic works of the 20th century, interpreted by a brilliant conductor whose advocacy for American music was second to none. What's more, these recordings showcase a sound engineering team that, even in the monaural era, pioneered audiophile recordings. In other words, this is Howard Hanson on Mercury, and American music doesn't get much better than that.
Written in 1937, Roy Harris's Third Symphony perhaps is the finest American symphony since the four by Charles Ives. Hanson's performance is the best I've ever heard, with rich, beautifully balanced string tone and superb proportions. Hanson renders the work's pathos with strength and an absence of sentimentality. Indicative of this is the fact that Hanson's version requires two minutes less time than Leonard Bernstein's second recording. The value of Mercury's single-microphone recording technique is obvious here, leaving the orchestral balance entirely in Hanson's hands. The orchestra's first-desk players, drawn from the Rochester Philharmonic, shine. (Andrew Rose of Pristine Audio should consider reissuing Erich Leinsdorf's Rochester Philharmonic recordings from this period.) In the symphony's culminating section, the brass choirs play with beautiful ensemble rather than glaring obviousness. This is simply outstanding Harris.
Charles Tomlinson Griffes is one of the most important American composers of tone poems. The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan is a rare example of orientalism in American music, comparable with Anatol Liadov. Hanson creates a languorous atmosphere here, without ever resorting to kitsch. The White Peacock receives lush playing that belies the fact that Hanson's orchestra is mainly made up of students. As a composer, Hanson must have envied Clouds, a masterly study in orchestral color. The Bacchanale from Saint-Saëns's Samson and Delilah may have inspired Griffes's work with the same title, although the latter composer's opus sounds more epicurean than the Frenchman's orgiastic riot of sound. Is it too fanciful to suggest that Griffes's piece epitomizes the moderate sensual sensibility of a composer who maintained a gay relationship with a married New York City policeman?
Samuel Barber's First Symphony, almost contemporary with Harris's Third, gets an unusually lucid performance from Hanson. His orchestra dispatches the rhythmically challenging second section, allegro molto, with commendable clarity. This leads into an andante tranquillo that begins with a ravishing oboe solo. Mercury's single-microphone technique copes well with Barber's thick orchestration, although the Chandos sound for Neeme Järvi is more revealing. Experiencing Hanson's empathy with Barber's sound world should lead one to investigate the conductor's stereo version of the Medea ballet suite. Andrew Rose secures highly listenable transfers of all these recordings. The orchestral balance almost always seems just so, a sign that Rose gets the equalization right. Occasionally there is a tinge of fizz on the violin or higher winds sound, which just may be an artifact of the LP pressings Rose uses. Interestingly, the Barber symphony was recorded on the same day, May 9, 1955, as a Holst and Vaughan Williams album by Frederick Fennell and the Eastman Wind Ensemble. This was reissued in 1999 on a Mercury Living Presence CD, with a transfer from the original master tapes by Mercury's Wilma Cozart Fine. Even taking into account the fact that the Barber might have employed a different microphone in a separate placement, plus a distinct recording level, Rose's remastering from the LP only yields slightly to the Fennell in dynamic range and frequency response. He has given us vintage recordings of great music in mainly natural sound, and that should be cause for rejoicing.
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NEW REVIEW
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MusicWeb International
6 March 2013
Walter's Mahler
by John Quinn
"Excellent new Pristine transfers of two recordings that belong in any Mahler collection. "
 These two famous stereo recordings were both originally issued on LP by Columbia. They represent Bruno Walter's final thoughts on each symphony. The recording of the Ninth is the only one he made under studio conditions. There was an earlier recording of the First, made in New York and first issued in 1955, which I have never managed to hear. More recently, two live performances of the First have been made available by Music & Arts, a 1939 reading with the NBC Symphony (review) and a 1942 traversal with the New York Philharmonic which was reviewed recently by Jonathan Woolf. Having heard both of those performances it seems to me that they might plausibly be taken as standing in relation to the 1961 studio reading in a similar manner to the way that his 1938 and 1961 accounts of the Ninth relate to each other.
The late Tony Duggan admired much about Walter's 1961 view of the Ninth in his survey of recordings of that symphony. If anything, he was even more complimentary about the First in his survey of that symphony. His comments on both recordings remain well worth reading.
Much earlier in his career, in 1938, HMV had captured Bruno Walter's incendiary live performance of the Ninth Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic. That remains a precious document despite the inevitable sonic limitations. Walter's approach to the work is significantly different in these two recordings; as a generalisation, his Vienna tempi are swifter, as the following table of timings for each movement suggests.
A couple of minor points should be noted. Each track in the Vienna performance starts four or five seconds before the music begins so in fact the performance is actually about 20 seconds shorter in overall duration than stated above. Secondly, in the 1961 performance the first and last movements have a few seconds of run-off: the timings shown above indicate where the music stops. Do these slower speeds indicate that the 1961 recording is the work of an old man, running out of steam? I'd argue strongly that this is not the case. Sony's Original Jacket release of the 1961 recording included a documentary feature, lasting some 21 minutes and narrated by the producer, John McClure, which includes rehearsal extracts for the first two movements. McClure comments that Walter had the appearance of a man in his sixties - he was 84 at the time of the sessions. What we hear in this feature is a vastly experienced musician at work, displaying a keen attention to detail, especially in matters of dynamics. McClure says that the music was new to most of the musicians and, rightly, he draws attention to Walter's patience and "gentle insistent correction" during the rehearsals. We hear a man who knew what he wanted in a score that he knew intimately - it was dedicated to him and he had given its first performance nearly fifty years earlier. Incidentally, Pristine may be in error in stating that the symphony was recorded in a single day, on 16 January 1961; John McClure says there were six three-hour sessions.
REVIEW CONTINUES HERE
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CONTENTS
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This Week Continuing Walter's Mahler
The Beatles Not again? Mon Dieu!
Walter Mahler Symphony No. 5
PADA Leonid Hambro plays Bartók's Out of Doors
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A lengthy restoration finally emerges
How Walter's Mahler changed the way I work
This Week's Preview
This week we return to Bruno Walter and his recordings of Mahler with a recording that's taken me longer to remaster than any previous issue on Pristine.  | | Gustav Mahler |
To be honest, though, it's not that I've been working on it for the last eight months. But this recording did very nearly come out last July in an XR remastered version which was all prepared and ready to go. At the last minute, however, I decided that various niggles I had with it meant it would be a mistake to issue the recording as it then stood, and so it was the first - and so far only - Pristine release to be abandoned within 48 hours of its intended release. It's worth pointing out that a lot of my projects never make it. It's often quite clear that a particular remastering simply isn't working out as I'd like quite early into the process. Some do admittedly get further than others, some I come back to over and over again before giving up, but never before had I reached the point where the artwork was complete, the final masters prepared, and the FLAC files uploaded to our servers before changing my mind. In some regards it marked a turning point for us. In the week in question the Mahler was due to be the second of two releases I'd prepared. With nothing else quite ready to take its place, we put out a single release, and I looked forward on the Friday of issue with some trepidation to a big drop in sales over that weekend. So it was a pleasant and unexpected surprise to find we actually had a very good weekend, despite only half the planned new releases being available, suggesting that our two-a-week schedule wasn't as necessary as I'd suspected. This got me thinking. Why was I busting a gut trying to get so much squeezed into the week, risking rushing my work, coming within a hair's breadth of releasing something that I would later consider sub-standard? Various changes to the way I work, most significantly the addition of pitch stabilisation to my work, means that every restoration takes much longer to complete than it did, for example, two or three years ago. Quite simply the workload was becoming overwhelming - and I'd rather risk a slight drop in overall revenue if it means we can continue to improve the quality of our output. Which brings me back to this week's release. I knew when I began working on the 1961 stereo recordings of the First and Ninth symphonies (see the review further down the page - so long that I had to continue it online) that I would also wish to return to the Fifth. So it was back to the drawing board; a lot of the groundwork had already been done, so it wasn't quite starting again from scratch, but it wasn't far off. This was in December. By the time we released the 1961 Walter Mahler recordings I knew I was on course for a much improved Fifth, which was by then already well underway. I put it to one side and returned to it towards the end of last month. By last Wednesday I felt I had a finished version. I then went away for a few days over the weekend, and on my return listened again with fresh ears. A couple of further minor adjustments occurred to me, and there it was: an absolutely magnificent sound, from just the tiniest of tweaks, like fitting the final piece of a jigsaw to complete the puzzle! I think it's fair to say I'm rather proud of this one. Not only has it taught me a number of useful lessons along the way, and helped us change the way we operate, it now ranks among one of the very best-sounding recordings I've heard from the pre-tape era. I had a call a couple of days ago from one of our long-standing friends, a man whose passions for historic recordings span far and wide. I mentioned that I was just preparing (again!) the artwork for this release, and I could hear his excitement: for him, this is the best Mahler 5 ever recorded. Well I try to keep out of subjective judgements on taste wherever possible, but I think he may have a point. What I will say for certain is that it's never sounded anything like as good as this before. The Beatles - in "Le Monde" | | The Beatles in the 1960s |
Last week I told you that national French newspaper of record Le Monde had come a-calling to talk to me about The Beatles, the imminent changes in copyright law and their detrimental effect on those of us who occasionally wish to listen to music other than mainstream pop classics. Well the following day the article was published - alas I missed it as I was out of the country! Although it's on Le Monde's website, it'll cost you a couple of Euros to read, and if your French isn't up to much you may struggle. Here's how it begins:  " Pour leurs étrennes 2013, et à la barbe des grandes compagnies, 4 300 heureux mélomanes ont reçu en cadeau dans une newsletter le titre Love Me Do, des Beatles, à télécharger. Une action symbolique menée par Andrew Rose, un ancien de la BBC travaillant en Dordogne, pour protester contre un nouvel acquis de l'industrie du disque.Comme toutes les oeuvres enregistrées jusqu'en 1962, les droits de reproduction de cette chanson sont tombés (Love Me Do est paru en 45-tours en octobre 1962). Mais les titres postérieurs des Beatles, n'entreront pas de sitôt dans le domaine public. En vertu d'une directive européenne de novembre 2011, les maisons de disques ont en effet obtenu que leurs droits sur les oeuvres enregistrées à partir de 1963 soient étendus à soixante-dix ans, ce qui leur laisse désormais le monopole de ce marché jusqu'en 2033, voire plus, s'ils refont une demande avec succès..."
The outline of the story is much that of my previous comments - but it's good to see it in a major newspaper such as this, and I note that we've had a number of new subscriptions to this newsletter since publication - so a warm bienvenue to those who're reading this for the first time.
Alors, mes amis, once again, I'll provide that link to Love Me Do, the XR-remastered FLAC version of course, and we'll see if anyone else is interested this week... Andrew Rose
8 March 2013
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Bruno Walter's Mahler 5: "First class in every way" - The Gramophone
A new XR remastering that sounds truly incredible - for any recording of this vintage!
Recorded 1947
Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer:
Andrew Rose
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York
Web page: PASC 382 Short Notes "The enormous structure could scarcely be given a better chance of making its multitudinous points than on this new set of discs, which are first class in every way. Walter takes very great care, in particular, over accentuation, over the shaping of every one of Mahler's phrases. The result is often to propel the music when it stands most in need of propulsion: not all performances disclose a rhythmic shape to a cloud of notes as clearly as this one ... Throughout the players respond readily not only to Walter's forward urge, but also to all the other demands of the music."
- The Gramophone 1957
Bruno Walter's 1947 recording of his great friend Mahler's Symphony No. 5 is one of the finest ever captured in the grooves of a disc. And it's never sounded anything like as wonderful as it does in this new XR-remastered issue, which has taken perhaps two decades off the recording's perceived age, if not more. Walter's splendid vision of Mahler's score is now sonically fuller and more magnificent - and far closer to the sound of the day it was recorded - than ever! Notes On this recording This recording, made at the end of the 78rpm direct-to-disc era, both benefits and suffers as a result, as has been clear from previous issues. The Philips LP referred to in our Gramophone review struggled with a lack of clarity, especially at the top end, whilst later CD issues have suffered a surfeit of surface noise. No previous issue has successfully tackled the somewhat constricted sonics of the original recordings in the manner that this new 32-bit XR remastering has succeeded in doing, unlocking the broad sweep both of Mahler and Walter's collective visions. Rebalancing the orchestral tone has revealed a fuller and more glorious sound than I had dared to anticipate in a remastering process that has taken on numerous incarnations since I began it eight months ago.
Andrew Rose Review 1957 LP issue In THE GRAMOPHONE for November, 1953, I wrote about this symphony at some length, expressing in general a degree of doubt as to its total coherence. The enormous structure, however, could scarcely be given a better chance of making its multitudinous points than on this new set of discs, which are first class in every way.
Walter takes very great care, in particular, over accentuation, over the shaping of every one of Mahler's phrases. The result is often to propel the music when it stands most in need of propulsion: not all performances disclose a rhythmic shape to a cloud of notes as clearly as this one. Particularly does the Scherzo benefit; and the alert reading results not merely in a winning effect but also in a practical advantage - the Adagietto can then be accommodated on the same side, leaving the whole third side of the set available for the Finale, with obvious engineering advantages.
Throughout the players respond readily not only to Walter's forward urge, but also to all the other demands of the music. The brass are on top of their form, with superbly confident trumpets and rich-sounding trombones; so are the strings, with dash, unanimity, and, particularly in the Adagietto, a very full quality of tone. This movement does to some extent lack a clear reproduction of the important harp part; but the previous Scherzo always makes clear the at least equally important solo horn part, here most beautifully played.
The recording is sonorous, even in the severest of Mahler's climaxes, which it approaches without flinching. The sonority does not, save exceptionally, exclude clarity; and it establishes beyond a doubt the superiority of this version of the symphony to the earlier Nixa set. That was very clearly recorded (again, curiously, except as to that elusive harp part), but the overall sound was not as warm as that of the new Philips; nor did Scherchen achieve quite the felicities of phrasing, or, In places, the forward urge of Walter. M.M., The Gramophone, December 1957
MP3 Sample 2nd movement
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Ambient Stereo MP3
mono 16-bit FLAC
Ambient Stereo 16-bit FLAC
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CD purchase links and all other information:
PASC 382 - webpage at Pristine Classical
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Serly conducts Bartók
 | | Tibor Serly |
PADA Exclusives
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Bartók
Divertimento for String Orchestra, Sz. 113
String Orchestra
Tibor Serly conductor
Recorded c. 1950
Issued as Bartok Records No. 905
This transfer by Dr. John Duffy
Additional pitch stabilisation & remastering by Andrew Rose
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