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.

The first is an unusual recording by the wonderful British baritone Dennis Noble, and is not listed in the discography of Noble which appeared in The Record Collector in 2004. The record label is a private EMI pressing made to promote the National Savings scheme. The songs on one side are a “Silver Lining Medley”, and on the other “Look for the Silver Lining.” These were presumably chosen to tie in with the film “Look for the Silver Lining”, a 1949 biopic of Marilyn Miller. In the medley, Noble sings two songs, and C Wright (a very English tenor crooner) sings another. A fourth is assigned to the chorus. The second side has Noble singing with the chorus. Both sides are introduced by actor Norman Shelley (“Hello everyone! Are you a national saver?”).

Around the same time, Eugene Goossens was conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and can be heard in Delius’s The Walk to the Paradise Garden.

Some decades before, a Russian conductor made recordings in the US – Vassily Andreyev took his Balalaika Orchestra on tour there in 1911. One of the sides he made cropped up as a filler side for Landon Ronald’s abridged recording of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. The recordings this time are from a Victrola 78.

An altogether different sound comes from an early single-side Zonophone of Fucik’s “Entry of the Gladiators”, recorded a little before it acquired its circus connotations. The “Zonophone Military Band” credited on the label is actually the Band of H.M. Colstream Guards, conducted by John Mackenzie-Rogan.

Maintaining the Czech theme, Dvorak’s New World Symphony receives a compelling performance from Jascha Horenstein on a Vox LP. The tempi are occasionally slower than one might expect, but the conductor’s attention to detail makes for a highly satisfying account.

And finally, Dean Dixon makes a long overdue appearance on my site. He claimed he could divide his career into three phases, where he was respectively “the black conductor Dean Dixon”, “the American conductor Dean Dixon”, and then after success in Europe, simply “the conductor Dean Dixon.” He recorded extensively in Europe, through to the 1970s, and indeed I have more recordings by him than can appear on my site, as many are still in copyright. The three LPs I’ve uploaded this time include Schumann’s 3rd and 4th Symphonies, Schubert’s 4th and 5th Symphonies, and Schubert’s Rosamunde music. All were recorded in the 1950s.

I listened to yesterday to the new Naxos Historical issue of Bartok’s American recordings – highly enjoyable, and in excellent sound. The excerpts from Mikrokosmos were a particular delight. Last weekend I finally found time to listen to the Gobbi/Christoff/de los Angeles recording of Simon Boccanegra, also reissued on Naxos Historical, with the vocal score to hand. It’s a fascinating work, and hearing Gobbi heading the cast makes me curious to hear quite what Placido Domingo does with the title role – I understand there will be a live BBC relay of one of his Covent Garden performances later this year.

On the website side of things, there are several new items, which will be appearing within the next few days, including symphonies conducted by Dean Dixon and Jascha Horenstein, an early “Entry of the Gladiators” nominally by the “Zonophone Military Band”, but actually John Mackenzie-Rogan and the Coldstream Guards Band. There will also be a balalaika orchestra, and one of Eugene Goossens recordings for Victor.

There will be also be a late 1940s 78 featuring Dennis Noble, but one which the baritone’s discography in The Record Collector doesn’t include. It was a private issue by EMI promoting the National Savings scheme. Noble gets a few brief solos, as does a C Wright, presumably a singer of lighter fare, whose first name I have been unable to track down.