Volume 21 Issue 1 - September 2015

Old Wine, New Bottles
Fine Old Recordings Re-Released
BRUCE SURTEES
The summer hiatus provided a comfortable
window to leisurely absorb the many reissues
that have arrived since the June issue.
None has given greater continuing pleasure
than a fascinating eight-CD set from Radio
France – 80 Ans de Concerts Inédits (FRF020-
27, mono and stereo) – of live performances
spanning eight decades given by the Orchestre
National de France. A series of distinguished conductors and many
renowned soloists are heard in 31 works, all but a few derived from
performances in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. This orchestra was
founded in 1934 in the midst of the Great Depression, angering many
who viewed the expenditure at that time as ill-advised. In addition to
artist profiles, the comprehensive booklet recounts the creation of the
orchestra and details its history with its ups and downs over the years.
Record collectors will be pleased to know that there are no
Beethoven or Brahms symphonies nor any warhorses that persons
who assemble collections seem obliged to include. Each disc of the
eight is a well-thought-out, eclectic concert of familiar or unfamiliar
works that, curiously, hold the listener’s attention to the end.
Some examples:
Disc 1, “The French Tradition,” contains Debussy Nocturnes (Désiré-
Émile Inghelbrecht); Lalo Le Roi d’Ys Overture (Paul Paray); Roussel
Bacchus et Ariane Suite No.2 (Charles Munch); Poulenc Chansons
villageoises (Roger Désormière with baritone Pierre Bernac) and
Magnard Hymne à la justice (Manuel Rosenthal).
Disc 2, “Expansion of the repertoire in the 1950s,” contains Coriolan
Overture (Carl Schuricht); Mahler Songs of a Wayfarer (Carl Schuricht
with the 32-year-old Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau from September 9, 1957
in Besançon, about the time we heard him sing this cycle in Massey
Hall); Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Joseph Krips); Alban Berg
Altenberglieder (Jascha Horenstein with soprano Irma Kolassi); Ravel
Deux Mélodies hébraïques (Paul Kletzki with soprano Victoria de los
Angeles); Stravinsky Firebird Suite (André Cluytens).
Discs 6 & 7, “Sublime Encounters,” contain once-in-a-lifetime
performances of four favourite concertos…OK, warhorses. From
April 9, 1964 with Eugen Jochum conducting, Christian Ferras plays
the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with such dazzling virtuosity and
daring that the audience bursts into spontaneous applause after the
first movement. From 1969 Martha Argerich and Claudio Abbado
imbue the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto with fresh energy especially
a “making-a-run-for-the-border” first movement. Then Eugene
Ormandy and the unmistakable 1972 sonorities of Isaac Stern in the
Brahms concerto and Charles Dutoit and Yo-Yo Ma bring the Dvořák to
life in 1993.
There are many other inspired performances from the 22 conductors
and 12 soloists, so please check complete details on the ArkivMusic
site, arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=1737327.
I continue to be very impressed by Radio France’s stereo sound that
may be described as incandescent. This is noticeably different from
the various Rundfunk productions that, to finish the analogy, sound
fluorescent.
Edwin Fischer, the Swiss pianist, was born in 1886, studied at the
Stern Conservatory in Berlin, a pupil of Martin Krause who also taught
Claudio Arrau. Krause himself had been a pupil of Liszt. Fischer’s
core repertoire centred around Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and
Schumann. He was one of the first to direct concerted works from the
keyboard and formed his own chamber orchestra for that purpose.
A consummate musician, he was held in the highest regard by his
colleagues and public alike. He faded from the music scene after 1954
due to ill health and died in January 1960.
Appian has issued a three-CD set of his
complete Mozart studio recordings for EMI
made between 1933 and 1947 on Mozart Piano
Concertos (APR 7303). Included are three
concertos with his chamber orchestra; Nos.17,
K453 and 20, K466 and the Rondo K382.
Three concertos, Nos.22, K482; 24, K491 and
25, K503 are with Barbirolli, Collingwood and
Josef Krips and together with two sonatas and
several solo works total almost four hours of sublime music-making.
His love and understanding of the composer is complete, his playing
is self-effacing but never tentative. I’m sure that this has been said
before, that here the performer gets out of the way and the music
seems to be playing itself. An exhilarating performance of the Haydn
Concerto hob XVII:11 made with Fischer conducting the Vienna
Philharmonic is the icing on the cake.
Some might dismiss these performances because of their vintage
but those who do will miss hearing the most elegant, civilized and
persuasive insights into Mozart. The transfers by ex-EMI producer
Bryan Crimp retain all the sparkle of the originals with a minimum of
artifacts.
Footnote: Testament issued a CD of a 1964 recording of Fischer
conducting from the keyboard of the third and fourth Beethoven
concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra (SBT 1169). Praga has
remastered a 1951 EMI recording of the Beethoven fifth concerto with
Furtwangler conducting the Philharmonia (Praga PRD/DSD 350074,
hybrid CD/SACD). Truly magic moments in this performance include
the soloist’s arched transition into the last movement in which
Fischer’s intuitive hesitations suspend the calm before the storm.
As a longtime resident of Toronto I was
exposed to the artistry of Stanley McCartney,
the principal clarinet of the TSO and later
the COC orchestra, as a chamber musician
in Stratford and as a member of the Toronto
Woodwind Quintet. From its inception in 1965
the Orford String Quartet (Andrew Dawes,
Kenneth Perkins, Terence Helmer and Marcel
Saint-Cyr) was recognized as exceptional and
would soon enjoy an international reputation.
McCartney was regularly heard with the Orford Quartet and on the
occasion of July 14, 1969, they played the Brahms Clarinet Quintet
Op.115 that was recorded by the CBC. That performance together
with their 1970 live reading of the Mozart Quintet in A Major, K581
is now available on a DOREMI CD (DHR-6612). Both performances
are outstanding, winningly alert and decisively expressive. The
long second movement of the Brahms, the Adagio, is extraordinarily
moving and I don’t believe there is a finer, more sympathetic reading
around. Brahms’ exquisite score and the oneness of the five musicians
reward the listener with a plaintively beautiful experience (overly
sentimental I know but that’s how it affects me, upon no matter how
many hearings). In the equally introspective, more euphoric Mozart,
the collective sound of clarinet and strings is again miraculous. I
would rather that the undeniably well-deserved applause had not
been included here. It jolts the listener back to earth.
It is for inspired performances as these that tape recordings
were invented.
76 | Sept 1 - Oct 7, 2015 thewholenote.com