It’s been almost two weeks since I updated my website, and I’ve not posted about it here. So it’s about time for the details.

Gordon Jacob: William Byrd Suite – Coldstream Guards Band, Mackenzie-Rogan, 1925

Jacob’s arrangement of a number of keyboard pieces by William Byrd was made for Military Band in 1923 and orchestra in 1924. It is likely that this late acoustic recording was the earliest recording of these three movements. At 78rpm the record playes at A=452Hz, which was the standard pitch for British military bands at the time, slightly more than a semitone sharper than modern pitch. It wasn’t until a change to the King’s Regulations in 1927 that A=439Hz was adopted.

Brahms: Hungarian Dances Nos.1&2; Elgar: Pomp and Circumstance No.1 – Stanley Chapple and the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra

Chapple (1900-1987) was music director for the Aeolian Company, and conducted frequently for them, though his recordings are hard to find now. These  Broadcast Twleve sides are badly affected by the persistent whistle which seems so common a feature of records on this label. I have done my best to alleviate this problem, so when you notice the remnants of it, bear in mind that it was originally much worse than it sounds now. As the whistle oscillates in pitch, whilst also gradually decreasing pitch and increasing amplitude until the end of the record, correcting it proved to be a major task!

Coates: London Suite, London Again; Elgar: Pomp and Circumstance No.1; Gershwin: An American in Paris – Franz André and L’ Orchestre Symphonique de la Radiodiffusion Nationale Belge, Franz André

Franz André needs no introduction for those who visit my site regularly. It’s interesting to hear him in English and American music, and the Elgar provides a nice comparison with Chapple’s version.

Richard Strauss: Tod und Verklärung – Frieder Weissmann with Philharmonic Orchestra

My first attempt at remastering this was about four years ago, before my website and blog were even born. This is a completely new transfer, in much improved sound.

Thalberg: Home Sweet Home; Ascher: Alice, Where Art Thou? – Arthur Meale, piano

Meale was the regular organist of the Queen’s Hall. He made many organ recordings in a light and popular classical vein. This record gives us the rare opportunity to hear him as a pianist, in two nineteenth century virtuoso salon pieces. For UK comedy fans, Ascher’s melody is the one that was used as the title music for the Ronnie Barker and David Jason sitcom “Open All Hours”.

The record is in very poor condition, with a serious fracture, and a noisy surface with significant distortion – it’s still a fun listen, though.

Mussorgsky: The Song of the Flea; Traditional: Drinking (In cellar cool) – Capiton Zaporojetz, bass with Orchestra

I was prompted to transfer this after seeing Zaporojetz’s name mentioned in a couple of places recently. Firstly, in the booklet notes for “Firebirds of Paris”, a Ward Marston CD of French recordings of Russian repertoire from around 1930. Zaporojetz is noted as singing Prince Yuri in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Kitezh in 1926 in Paris, then in 1929 in the premiere of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. He also sang the same role in Kitezh in 1935.

A few weeks after reading this, I was reading the June 2010 issue of “The Record Collector”, and the article on Marguerite D’Alvarez mentioned a concert on 2 October 1927 in London, where Thomas Beecham conducted “An Afternoon of Grand Opera” at the Royal Albert Hall. with Austral, Burke, D’Alvarez and Zaporojetz.

Early recordings by Julie Andrews

Gounod’s Je veux vivre and Easthope Martin’s Come to the fair have appeared on my site before, but again these are new transfers. In the Martin, teenager Julie Andrews is heard in duet with her step-father Ted. Barbara, her mother, plays the piano.
The other record is of the Ah! vous dirai-je mama variations and Benedict’s The Wren.

Damian’s 78s

I hope to have more new transfers soon, including more from Franz André, and possibly some Hermann Scherchen and Henry Wood.

On the recordings side of things, there will soon be updates to my site. These will include Franz André conducting Elgar, Coates and Gershwin, and a much improved transfer of Frieder Weissmann’s recording of Rihard Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung. There will also be Elgar and Brahms from Stanley Chapple, 19th century show pieces played on the piano by organist Arthur Meale. There will also be some of the 78s recorded by the teenaged Julie Andrews. There are one or two other items that I’m considering, but that will have to wait.

I’ve still been trying to find time to keep up with CDs, including the recent Marston issue of French singers in Russian repertoire, which was a great pleasure, in impeccable transfers. I’m also attacking the Mendelssohn box from Brilliant Classics, which has given me a much wider view already of his younger works. “Legends of the Piano”  – a recent Ward Marston contribution to Naxos Historical – proved an interesting compendium of acoustically recorded pianists including Saint-Saens and Grieg.

As ever, there’s so much to listen to, and so little time

Among CDs I’ve listened to recently, I finally got round to Mark Elder’s recording of Gerontius, which was highly enjoyable, though I’ll still go back to Sargent with Heddle Nash! Somm’s reissue of Boult conducting Walton’s First Symphony and Belshazzar’s Feast was a fantastic listen – I’d forgotten quite how quickly Boult takes some parts of the great choral work. Also on British vocal music, Divine Art’s reissue of 2CDs worth of 78s of works by Peter Warlock was enthralling, with Peter Dawson, Roy Henderson and Dennis Noble particularly involving.

In the LP and 78 area, my collection of recordings by Franz André continues to grow, and more of these will reach my website in the coming months. These include his recordings of works by Coates, Elgar and Gershwin, and his 1812 overture. I also got hold of a French LP of Mozart recordings on “disques vogues”. It contains Jean Witold conducting Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Pauline Aubert playing the Rondo alla Turca on harpsichord, and two of the K107 Piano concertos (arrangements of JC Bach sonatas) played by Robert Veyron-Lacroix and the Collegium Musicum de Paris under Roland Douatte. The sound balance in the concerti may need some work, but the recordings are all quite interesting. The sleeve notes include an excitingly multi-coloured spectrum illustrating the full range of human hearing, as reproduced on the record, and the brief descriptions of the recordings are translated from French to rather bad English. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik contrives on sleeve and label to have its second movement split in two as “Romance” and “Andante”.

The latest update to my website will be live in the next couple of hours, and contains the following:
Fabien Sevitzky conducts the Philadelphia Chamber String Sinfonietta in Arensky’s Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky (1942)
Marie Novello plays Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 (abridged, 1921)
Thorpe Bates sings the Captain’s Song from HMS Pinafore, with chorus of Ernest Pike, Stanley Kirkby, Peter Dawson (1906)
Joseph Batten conducts “March of Victory” for the National Savings Movement, with baritones Thorpe Bates and Walter Saull (1945)
Henry Wood conducts Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music (improved transfer 1938)
Michael Zacharewitsch plays violin solos (c1920)

http://www.damians78s.co.uk

In other musical news, I purchased the Historic Masters repressing of Francesco Tamagno’s 10” recordings. These were an absolute joy to listen to, his voice ringing out clearly more than a century after the recordings were made.

I’ve also had the pleasure of the final instalment of Marston’s Conchita Supervia edition. There’s very much a Spanish focus on the recordings included, apart from some Lehar in French. Even greater joy than listening to Tamagno. In addition, the package included the latest Lagniappe disc, a bonus to subscribers. This time it was a selection of recordings by Paul Payan. This wonderful French bass displayed great flexibility and variety of colour. There were times when his timbre reminded me of Ezio Pinza.

I’ve been working through the EMI Classics 10CD Stokowski box. Of course, it includes some less familiar works, which make a great impression, but it’s when you get to the more familiar stuff that Stokowski’s choices can be frustrating. There are tweaks to the orchestration of Holst’s Planets, and his Carmina Burana cuts out middle verses of many parts of the score, and plays around with tempos and pauses outrageously. There are some tender and affecting parts, but as a whole it was disappointing.

I’ve also enjoyed Reginald Goodall’s EMI recording of Parsifal, though I think I prefer my Parsifals a little brisker than his.

There are still piles of 78s, LPs and CDs which I haven’t listened to. Among those that reached my turntable today were another National Savings promotional record, recorded just a few days before VE Day (when the outcome of the war in Europe was pretty much known) and paying tribute to all of the British armed forces and volunteers who contributed to the war effort. It’s a fascinating snapshot, with solos from baritones Thorpe Bates and Walter Saull. Joseph Batten conducts the London Symphony Orchestra. I hope to get this transferred soon. I’ve also just listened to Marie Novello’s recording of Liszt’s 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody, somewhat abridged on two sides of a 10” Winner disc. It’s an unusual performance – it isn’t the hackneyed barnstorming approach, and is perhaps the most rhapsodic version of the rhapsody I’ve heard. I’ve also listened to the violinist Daniel Melsa (on Broadcast Twelve), Stanley Chapple conducting Brahms and Elgar (again Broadcast Twelve), Virgilio Ranzato in two violin solos (Pathé), and assorted other things that may make it to my site soon. But my half-term holiday has just finished, so it’s back to work next week, with less time for transferring recordings.

The National Savings record is probably the next item on my list for restoration, though, for its unusualness.

Damian

http://www.damians78s.co.uk/index.html

Damian

Franz André’s recordings of Bizet’s Arlèsienne Suites are almost ready for my website, and should be available there for the New Year. I hope also to have some interesting Balakirev recordings, that although from a 1961 Saga LP were almost certainly recorded in the early to mid 1950s.

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As well as this, I’ve included restorations of 8 sides recorded in 1916 and 1917 by the Australian violinist Daisy Kennedy (who has her own dedicated page at my site), featuring a number of rare photographs, and a radio recording of an interview she gave with the BBC. 6 of the sides I’ve newly made available are from the collection of Cheniston Roland. He has kindly allowed me to make them available at my site.

There are other things in the pipeline – many, in fact. The trouble is that it’s a very long and slow moving pipeline. I’ve just digitised Franz André’s mid 1950s account of Bizet’s L’Arlèsienne Suites, which are delightful, and show off the French system woodwinds (and saxophone) of the Belgian National Radio Orchestra. I have a feeling that this may be the next item to appear on my site. There’s so much more, including several more André LPs. There are of course post 1959 LPs which I’ll transfer for my own enjoyment, and will not be available online for copyright reasons (such as “Introducing Patricia Routledge” from 1973 – songs by Rodgers, Porter, Coward, Novello and so on; a far cry from Routledge’s famous TV characters of Hyacinth Bucket, Kitty and Hetty Wainthrop)