Wilhelm Kempff – The Complete Schubert Recordings On Deutsche Grammophon (deutschegrammophon.com, 9 CDs + 1 Blu-ray audio disc). Wilhelm Kempff was born in Jüterbog, Germany in 1895. He grew up in Potsdam where his father was the organist at the St. Nicolai Church. His grandfather was also an organist and his brother the director of church music at the University of Erlangen. Wilhelm’s first teacher was his father; then, when he was nine, he went to the Berlin Hochschule für Musik where one of his piano teachers was Karl Heinrich Barth with whom Arthur Rubinstein also studied. His teacher for composition was Robert Kahn. Kempff would write two symphonies, piano concertos, violin concertos, four operas, chamber music and choral works. In 1914 he continued his studies at the Viktoria Gymnasium in Potsdam after which he returned to Berlin to finish his training. In 1917 he won both the Mendelssohn Prizes. By 1916 he was already recognized as one of the leading pianists of his time, especially noted as a Beethoven interpreter. His first major recital was in 1917 playing predominantly major works including Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata and Brahms Variations on a theme of Paganini. From 1924 to 1929 he was director of music at the Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart. From then he devoted himself to concert appearances throughout the world. He was so well received in Japan that, it is said, they named an island for him, Kenpu-san. His first recital there was in 1936, returning frequently until 1979. Kempff made his first London appearance in 1951 and his New York debut in 1964. He gave his last public performance in Paris in 1981, retiring for health reasons (Parkinson’s disease), dying in Positano in 1991.

In 1934/1935 Kempff made his first Schubert recordings. With the exception of a 1935 recording of Liszt’s cute arrangement of Schubert’s Stänchen D889, here only on CD, his complete Schubert recordings from DG are also contained on the single Blu-Ray audio disc in immaculate sound. Included are every one of the piano sonatas plus these no lesser works: six Moments Musicaux, D780; four Impromptus D899; four Impromptus D935; “Wanderer” Fantasy in C major D760; Three Piano Pieces D946; Andante in A Major D604; Allegretto in C Minor D915; Scherzo in B-flat Major D593 No.1, and finally his last Schubert recording for DG: from August 1970, 13 Variations on a Theme in A Minor by Anselm Hüttenbrenner D576.

From the very first sonata to be heard in this welcome assembly of Kempff performances, it is clear that this pianist was a natural Schubertian who understood and projected the composer’s thoughts beyond the printed score.

A new CD from SWR Classic contains an in-concert recording of a piano recital from the 1962 Schwetzinger Festspiel with Wilhelm Kempff playing in the Schwetzingen Schloss (SWR 19412). The program consists of short pieces by Rameau, Couperin, Handel, Beethoven and Schubert’s Piano Sonata, D845. Poetic repertoire and pleasingly charming.

Bridge Records has reissued an album produced in association with the Musical Heritage Society for the Walter Fund Prize for Young Concert Artists first published in 1989 recorded at the SUNY Purchase Recital Hall. The artists involved are cellist Marcy Rosen and pianist Susan Walters playing Cello Sonatas of Richard Strauss and Edvard Grieg (Bridge CD 9512 bridgerecords.com).

Marcy Rosen has a high profile among concertgoers in the United States, Canada, England, Italy, France and The Netherlands. She was born in Phoenix, Arizona and her teachers include Marcus Adeney, Felix Galimir and Sándor Végh. She has collaborated with a who’s who of luminaries including Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, Mitsuko Uchida, Isaac Stern, Robert Mann, Sandor Végh, Kim Kashkashian and the list goes on. She is currently Professor of Cello at the Aaron Copeland School of Music at Queens College.

Susan Walters studied piano at the Curtis Institute and the Mannes College of music. She joined the New York City Ballet as a solo pianist in 1997 and has performed many important piano solos with the company. She performs outside the ballet with renowned artists including Midori, Mendelssohn Quartet, Orpheus Chamber Ensemble and with members of the New York Philharmonic. She works regularly with Jacques d’Amboise at the National Dance Institute. Walters is on the faculty at the Mannes College of Music in NYC. She is to be heard on recordings from the major studios including Bis, DG, Sony, Philips, Koch and others.

Together these two are a superlative chamber music team. Rosen is in perfect command of her instrument. Her playing has a beautiful singing quality and Walters’ piano is sensitive to it. Together their music making flows spontaneously. With such harmonious playing our attention is on the music, not the players. Such a pleasure. Some credit must go to the engineers who perfectly balanced the two instruments.

Back in the days of 78 rpm discs the pieces that took only one or two sides were the backbone of the industry. Recordings in the classical field of an overture, a waltz, an intermezzo, etc. were all safe bets to release just about anywhere. In Europe, Electrola was the company and their recordings were issued worldwide on HMV and their affiliates. In April 1935 Electrola made their first studio recording with the Saxon State Orchestra (Staatskapelle Dresden) conducted by their recently appointed (in 1933), 38-year-old conductor, Karl Böhm. Those two recordings of ballet music from Undine and the Clog Dance from Zar und Zimmermann, in remarkably fine sound, are included in a 2CD set of recordings from 1935 and 1938-39 of Overtures and Entertaining Concert Pieces (Profil PH18035 naxosdirect.com) all recorded in the Semperoper in Dresden. There are 24 tracks including overtures to Die Fledermaus; The Marriage of Figaro; The Abduction from the Seraglio; Leonore 3; Egmont; Der Freischütz; Aida (prelude); Oberon; Donna Diana and The Bartered Bride. Other pieces include the Interlude Music from A Thousand and One Nights; Eine Kleine Nachtmusik; two Hungarian Dances by Brahms; the Rákóczy March; the Emperor Waltz and other lollipops including a truncated version of Capriccio Italien. Dazzling would be the right word to rate the sound on these transfers. Not one quibble about the performances. 

Universal Music, owner of DG, Decca, Phillips and others has been reissuing existing sets and creating new ones for re-release together with everything on an included single Blu-ray disc. Early releases included the complete Solti Ring Cycle, soon followed by the complete Karajan Ring from Berlin. Then the Complete Beethoven Symphonies under Karajan from 1962. Just to hand are The Complete Symphonies of Anton Bruckner played by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Decca 4834660, 10 CDs plus one Blu-ray disc).

These are the versions plus the Te Deum in distinguished performances with Bernard Haitink conducting issued by Phillips, recorded between 1963 and 1972. The Te Deum dates from September 1966 with soprano Elly Ameling, contralto Anna Reynolds, tenor Horst Hoffmann, bass Guus Hoekman and The Netherlands Radio Choir. Bruckner collectors like to know what performing version is employed, so for them, No.1 uses the Linz 1866; No.2 the Haas 1938; No.3 the second version 1877; No.4 the 1878 with the 1880 finale; No.6 original 1881 version; No.8 the Haas 1939 and No.9 the original 1894 edition. At the time of these recordings Philips’ producer Jaap van Ginneken did not care to employ the then-latest noise reduction circuits. Instead, if I recall correctly, he increased the level of high frequencies’ overall volume where the hiss lay, taking it back down on replay. That he was correct is amply demonstrated by these discs that display natural dynamics, a wide frequency response and are free of any sonic manipulations. As usual, Haitink is predictably professional and without editorializing allows the music to speak for itself.

We always have the greatest expectations of any new film from biographer Bruno Monsaingeon. His 2017 biography of Mstislav Rostropovich, The Indomitable Bow, has just been released by Naxos on both DVD and Blu-ray video (Naxos 2.110583 DVD). Rostropovich is visited over the span of his life, first as a baby in his father’s cello case. His adult years include playing with Prokofiev and Shostakovich and standing by them when they were totally banned. Prokofiev introduces him to Sviatoslav Richter with whom he developed a long association. Conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky tells of Rostropovich’s first visit to Prague where he played the Dvořák concerto conducted by Václav Talich, “That was the great breakthrough which launched him onto the international scene. He became famous worldwide.” As Rostropovich states, “In that system going abroad was like a breath of fresh air, a great privilege. I was the third musician, after Gilels and Oistrakh, to go to America. It was amazing! From that point on, I was a ‘somebody.’” There were later political dictates from Moscow that stood in his path and also blocked soprano Galina Vishneskaya, his wife. His Russian citizenship was revoked but later reinstated through the intercession of his friend Yehudi Menuhin.

There is so much more here to learn and enjoy. Rich with interviews and great music, this is video is not to be missed. There are bonus in-concert tracks: The Rococo Variations, variation VII through the end (Paris, Ozawa, 1986), Beethoven’s Archduke Trio with Wilhelm Kempff and Yehudi Menuhin (Paris,1974) and the Sarabande from the Bach Cello Suite No.2 (1969). Also, there are 40 minutes of unique conversations with Olga Rostropovich, Elena Rostropovich, Natalia and Ignat Solzhenitsyn elaborating on the extraordinary, poignant friendship and bond between Rostropovich and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. 

In this 150th anniversary year of the death of Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) the flood of new issues and even more re-issues is about to flow. One such is a live performance from 1953, the 150th anniversary of Berlioz’ birth, of The Damnation of Faust conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent (Cameo Classics, CC9108, 2CDs). Intriguing, as two names rarely mentioned in the same sentence are Berlioz and Sargent. This is an English-language performance using a singing translation by Paul England. Berlioz composed this Dramatic Legend as he called it, for three soloists, Faust, Marguerite and Mephistopheles, to be performed in a concert setting. Faust is sung by the ubiquitous tenor of the day, Richard Lewis; Marguerite is Australian mezzo-soprano Joan Hammond; and Mephistopheles is the great Polish bass Marian Nowakowski. The three fit their roles convincingly. A fourth character, a student named Brander, sung by bass-baritone Hervey Alan seems to have nothing to do with the plot.

I was most interested in hearing Joan Hammond as I was quite a fan and had not heard her for years. She was still in fine voice here, aged 41, but ten years later an operation affected her hearing and she retired to Australia. In addition to the Berlioz there is a live performance of Dvořák’s Te Deum from 1954 (the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death) also recorded in Royal Festival Hall. The soloists are Elizabeth Schwarzkopf and baritone Bruce Boyce. In this performance Sargent conducts the BBC Symphony and Choral Society. Ah, Schwarzkopf. 

One of the most deserving artists resurrected from the archives that I had not heard in a long time is the late Greek pianist Vasso Devetzi. Born in 1927 in Thessalonica, her outstanding talents were recognized at a young age, giving her first recital aged seven. Her international career began in Paris playing the Schumann Piano Concerto under Albert Wolff. In the Soviet Union where she remained for several years in the 1960s and 70s she was associated with classical music superstars David Oistrakh, Rostropovich and Rudolf Barshai with whom she performed and recorded extensively in a repertoire including Haydn, Mozart, Shostakovich, Beethoven, Bach, Fauré and others. Back in France she was a close friend of fellow Greeks Maria Callas and Mikis Theodorakis. Devetzi died in 1987.

Devetzi’s keyboard artistry is a harmonious combination of style, control, transparency and touch. To elaborate somewhat, she demonstrates a most sympathetic affinity with the unique style of the each composer. Her control is manifested by a magic blend of energy and purity. Her level of performance transparency and clarity is reminiscent of Glenn Gould (without mannerism or arrogance) and Dinu Lipatti. She is providing us with a personal measure of humour and communication. Her touch has a rare versatility, the ability to transform her instrument into an organ, a harp, a clavichord or a mandolin. In addition, with captivating lightness she can almost make the piano a non-percussive instrument. In summary, a delightful treat for the listener.

Volume 1 of the Doremi projected Vasso Devetzi / Rudolf Barshai collection (DHR-8063/4 naxosdirect.com) presents the six solo keyboard concertos, BWV1052 to BWV 1058 with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. In addition there are works for solo keyboard: Partita No.1 in B flat Major BWV825; Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue BWV903; French Suite No.6 in E major BWV817 and the Prelude and Fugue No.5 BWV850 from The Well-Tempered Clavier.

Volume 2 (DHR-8069) is all Haydn, with the same cast playing the Concerto in D Major Op.21, (Hob. XIII:11) in addition to four solo piano sonatas: C Major, Hob.XVI:35; F Major Hob.XVI:23: D Major, Hob.XVI:51 and A-flat Major, Hob.XVI:46.

The series is off to an exuberant start with the remarkable synergy between all concerned. There is lots of Mozart promised for the coming months. 

The Christa Ludwig Edition (deutschegrammophon.com), is a 12-CD portrait of her artistry heard through a cross section of recordings spanning repertoire from oratorio, lieder, opera, symphony and Broadway; from Bach to Bernstein. Only one of the composers could contribute an opinion. On March 2, 1990 Leonard Bernstein wrote this in praise of the mezzo soprano: “I always thought Christa Ludwig the greatest Brahms singer among her peers, but that was only until I heard her sing Strauss. Then she was the greatest Marschallin until I heard her do Mahler. Again I had to reassign her to another throne. But then I heard her sing Wagner and the same thing happened, and then recently I heard her incredible interpretation of the Old Lady in my operetta Candide. Then I had to give up. She is simply the best, and the best of all possible human beings.”

The first CD contains 15 arias from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, St. Matthew Passion and Mass in B Minor and the final CD features Schumann’s, Liederkreis Op.39, and Hugo Wolf’s Mignon-Lieder and Italienisches Liederbuch, accompanied by Erik Werba and Daniel Barenboim. In between, there is a treasure trove of outstanding performances reflecting her reliability to be present in the role.

A CD of Ludwig and Karl Böhm has arias from Nozze di Figaro and Cosi fan tutte that are so exquisite that I gave them an immediate encore. On the same disc are two arias from Tristan und Isolde and four from Rosenkavalier. Rounding out this program there are about 15 minutes of three interviews in German. There’s a very fine Alto Rhapsody with Böhm and the VPO and then her collaborations with Karajan including Abscheulicher from Fidelio and much Wagner with excerpts from The Ring. Karajan continues with works by Mahler, the three songs for soprano from Das Lied von der Erde, Kindertotenlieder and five Rückert Lieder. There is the Lux aeterna from the Verdi Requiem and an aria from Madama Butterfly, Reverenza! from Verdi’s Falstaff and two arias from Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten. The selections with Bernstein begin with the final 15 minutes of Mahler’s Second Symphony from Urlicht and O glaube with Barbara Hendricks, the Westminster Choir and the New York Philharmonic. From Mahler’s Third Symphony she sings O Mensch! Gib Acht! From Bernstein’s First there is the Lamentation followed by the Love Theme from his music for the soundtrack of On the Waterfront. There are three songs from Candide including I Am Easily Assimilated (The Old Lady’s Tango) of which Bernstein wrote in his above quoted appreciation.

CD8 is titled “Great Songs and Arias with Various Conductors.” Those conductors are Lorin Maazel, Ferdinand Leitner, Daniel Barenboim, Claudio Abbado, Georg Solti, Ricardo Chailly, Richard Bonynge, Colin Davis, Seiji Ozawa, István Kertész and Karajan. Composers range from Pergolesi to Orff in 19 great songs and arias. The last four discs are devoted to Schubert lieder. Winterreise D911 accompanied by James Levine was recorded in Vienna in 1986, and 29 assorted lieder accompanied by Irwin Gage were recorded in Vienna in 1973 and 74.

In sum, the above entries and more should prove to be a gift to Ludwig’s admirers and others to whom the repertoire might appeal. Her mezzo voice illuminates the words, serious to the whimsical. Charming where called for. 

Eight years ago Doremi issued Volume One of Tatiana Nikolayeva that includes Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op.87. Her version was the composer’s very favourite… He had written them for her.

Nikolayeva was an incredible musician and among her most admired specialties were her performances of Bach. She excelled in all classical styles, but for her Bach she is considered “a priestess,” similar to Rosalyn Tureck, with the exception that Tureck was devoted to Bach exclusively. Nikolayeva’s repertoire included all his compositions for the keyboard and many other Bach works which she transcribed for the piano. Volume 2 (DHR-8056-8, 3CDs naxosdirect.com) includes all 12 concertos, BWV1052 though BWV1065, for one, two, three and four keyboards heard in live concerts from December 11,13 and 14, 1975. She is accompanied by the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra conducted by Saulius Sondeckis, an elite group with whom she often performed. These concertos were written for harpsichord, however the piano maintains the spirit and style admirably as is also clearly demonstrated by such authorities as Rosalyn Tureck and Glenn Gould. No doubt Bach himself, given the opportunity, would have embraced the use of piano, for as we know Bach transcribed many of his works for diverse instruments. Most of these piano concertos existed before as concertos for violin and were transcribed by Bach himself. Furthermore, Bach’s concerto for four keyboards is actually his transcription of a four-violin concerto by Vivaldi.

Bach is played throughout with profound authority and hearing these treasured performances from long ago is such a pleasure. The crisp and faultless sound comes from Melodiya originals, not air-checks. There is a significant bonus. From the recital in Tokyo on April 22, 1988 are the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV565; the Partita No.2, BWV826; the Ricercar from The Musical Offering, BWV1079 and the Contrapunctus 1 and 9 from The Art of The Fugue, BWV1080. Different repertoire, same empathy. 

Bach333: J.S. Bach – The New Complete Edition
Various Artists
Deutsche Grammophon 4798000 (222 CDs; bach333.com/en/)

When I was presented with this edition for review a little while ago I was delighted. Now I can play absolutely any Bach work at any time, I rejoiced. Then it sunk in. What exactly can be written to appraise excellence? “Are you going to recommend it?” “Will you listen to 222 CDs?” were typical questions from friends. After assessing the enormity of the collection and playing something from just about every category, I settled down to watch the one DVD in the box, Bach: A Passionate Life, a documentary written and presented by Sir John Eliot Gardiner. This is an engrossing documentary and unfolding story, an appreciation with conversations with colleagues and others. Gardiner describes Bach’s life from his birth in Eisenach on March 21, 1685 through his early years and Lutheranism in Eisenach, his family and musical education. Gardiner follows his life and works in Arnstadt, Mülhausen, Weimar and finally on July 28, 1750, at the age of 65, his death in the Thomasschule in Leipzig following a botched operation. Interwoven in the narrative are period-informed performances of significant passages from several genres, the ensemble works mostly directed by Gardiner. I mention this most informative and absorbing DVD because, quite unexpectedly, my appreciation of many of Bach’s original works in the collection, all of them, choral, concertos, concerted works, string solos, organ and keyboard works, etc. has been heightened.

So, what’s in the box? Everything. There are 48 CDs of sacred cantatas conducted mainly by Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir with some performed by Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium, Japan. Others are by Philippe Herreweghe and the Collegium Vocale Gent, Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, Joshua Rifkin and the Bach Ensemble, and more. The 22 secular cantatas are directed by Suzuki, Rifkin, Hogwood, Goebel, Koopman, Leonhardt, Gardiner, Alexander Grychtolik and Helmut Rilling. The three Magnificats are under Gardiner, Simon Preston and Paul McCreesh. The Mass in B Minor is from Frans Brüggen. Peter Schreier conducts Masses BWV 234-236. Two versions of St John Passion are by Gardiner and Suzuki, two versions of St Matthew Passion, by Gardiner and McCreesh. Two Christmas Oratorios, Gardiner and Chailly. And there are many more works for voice and voices including, as the title states, everything else. Complete texts with translations are in four accompanying booklets. Before leaving the vocal works there are 23 CDs of historic recordings from 1933 on. They include conductors Mengelberg, Scherchen, Karl Ristenpart, Fritz Lehmann, Karl Münchinger, Neville Marriner, Benjamin Britten, Raymond Leppard and Roger Norrington. Karl Richter and the Munich Bach Orchestra and Choir has 13 CDs including another complete Matthew Passion. Vocalists include Karl Erb, Magdá Laszló, Hilde Rössel-Majdan, Waldemar Kmentt, Helmut Krebs, Alfred Poell, Fischer-Dieskau, Agnes Giebel, Elly Ameling, Ileana Cotrubas, Hugues Cuénod, Julia Hamari, Birgit Finnilä, Helen Watts, Werner Krenn, Tom Krause, Janet Baker, Robert Tear, Peter Pears, Matthias Goerne, Peter Schreier, Anna Reynolds, Hertha Töpper, Ursula Buckel and about 50 more including Emma Kirkby, Gundula Janowitz and Fritz Wunderlich.

The second half of this everything collection is devoted to instrumental works beginning with the entire catalogue of organ works on 20 discs played by distinguished soloists. Bach was a superlative organist and composer, hence his compositions are best served by virtuoso performers, as these are here, playing organs throughout Europe, Scandinavia and England. Mavens will recognize their names including: Simon Preston, Ton Koopman, Peter Hurford, Wolfgang Rübsam, Helmut Walcha, Daniel Chorzempa, Graham Barber and Christian Schmitt. CD124 presents 20 “Free Works of Unproven Authenticity.” They are organ works and each has a BWV number assigned to it, BWV898 with the rest spotted between BWV 533 to 598. Played by Hurford and Preston and two others, the risk is leaving them out of a complete edition… they may be authentic.

The keyboard works are shared by harpsichordists and pianists. Harpsichordists include Trevor Pinnock, Gustav Leonhardt, Justin Taylor, Kenneth Gilbert, Huguette Dreyfus, Ton Koopman, Keith Jarrett, Masaaki Suzuki, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Christopher Hogwood, Christophe Rousset, Mahan Estahani and others, both familiar and unfamiliar. Pianists include Brendel, Argerich, Hewitt, Jarrett and Ashkenazy, Schiff and Nelson Freire, Murray Perahia, Maria João Pires, Benjamin Grosvenor and Pogorelich. There are five CDs of keyboard legends; pianists Edwin Fischer, Gulda, Lipatti, Gieseking, Backhaus, Tureck, Myra Hess (Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring), Richter, Horowitz, Gilels and others. Organists include Albert Schweitzer and Helmut Walcha.

The Brandenburg Concertos, the violin and keyboard concertos and the orchestral suites are directed by Goebel and Pinnock and Hogwood, all with period instrument soloists. Following six CDs of a miscellany of “Orchestral Traditions” there are seven CDs of, “Instrumental Traditions” containing famous pre-informed versions from 1935 on. A group of Bach works include “Solo and Chamber Works” played by alternative instrumentalists. The first alternative is a rather unexpected version of the mighty Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV565 played on a lone period instrument by violinist Andrew Manze. So simply perfectly correct and satisfying in every respect, one could easily believe that this is the original, not an alternative version.

There are many other sub-groups: “The Bach Family”; “Concertos at Weimer,” arrangements of Telemann, Vivaldi and Marcello; “Bach Renewed – From Bach’s Sons to Mahler”; “Bach Reimagined,” with orchestrations by Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms, Busoni, Respighi and Stokowski; “Bach Orchestrated – Reger to Stokowski”; “Inspired by Bach – Gounod to Pärt”; “Bach & the Virtuoso Piano – Liszt to Busoni”; “Bach & The Virtuoso Piano – The 20th century”; “Bach à la Jazz”; and finally, on CD222, “New Colours of Bach.”

Each CD sleeve is numbered 1 to 222, and colour-coded. Finding a certain CD is easy, either categorically or finding the location within from the directory listing by BWV number, title or artist. The CDs sit vertically on an A-frame construction within the box. Very clever. Deutsche Grammophon has, once again, outdone themselves and everyone else in preparing this uniquely unmatched collection containing “every known note from the great master.” There are over 280 hours of music, including 10 hours of new recordings, totaling 750 performers. For this monumental edition, DG collaborated with Decca and 30 other labels and the Leipzig Bach Archive. Three books are included, the scholarly up-to-date BWV listing, a fine quality 222 page hard-bound with an appreciation of every composition on every disc, and a matching hardcover book covering every aspect of Bach’s life, complete with essays by noted authorities.

So, my reply to the questions in the first paragraph is Yes and No.

One of the truly great violinists of the last century was Henryk Szeryng, an artist who is usually overlooked in discussions when today’s pundits gather. Decca has issued Henryk Szeryng Complete Philips, Mercury and Deutsche Grammophon Recordings (DG4834194, 44 CDs, deccaclassics.com).

Szeryng’s life story is fascinating and unique. He was born on September 22, 1918 in Źelazowa Wola, the birthplace of Chopin near Warsaw. Through his parents he knew Ignacy Jan Paderewski and Bronislaw Huberman. When he was five, his mother began teaching him piano and harmony but at seven he was drawn to the violin, taking lessons from a former assistant of the great Leopold Auer. When Huberman heard the nine-year-old play he wanted him to advance his studies with Willy Hess, Carl Flesch or Jacques Thibaud. He studied with Hess in Berlin for a time but found him to be old-fashioned and switched to Thibaud. A significant move, for as Szeryng stated, “Everything I know violinistically speaking I learned from him.” Continuing with Thibaud at the Paris Conservatory, he graduated with a first prize in 1937. He also studied composition with Nadia Boulanger from 1933 to 1937. He had already made his solo debut in 1933 playing the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Warsaw Philharmonic under George Georgescu. Following the outbreak of WWII, Szeryng, fluent in seven languages, accepted the post of liaison and interpreter of the Polish Government in Exile. On a mission to Mexico in 1941 seeking a home for 4,000 Polish refugees, he was so moved by the positive reception that he decided to become a naturalized Mexican citizen, which he did in 1946. In 1943 he was asked to head the string department of the National University of Mexico, and he assumed that post in 1945.

Artur Rubinstein, a fellow Jewish refugee from Poland, gave a recital in Mexico City in 1954, after which Szeryng visited him back-stage where Rubinstein invited him to his room to play for him. Szeryng played some unaccompanied J. S. Bach and deeply moved Rubinstein who recalled that the playing “reduced me to tears… Real music lovers want emotion… great moments… which Szeryng’s playing gives them.” Rubinstein and Szeryng played music together for the rest of their careers. Szeryng began concertizing around the world and his recordings were honoured with many coveted awards. In addition to many other honours he was made an Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in Paris in 1963. In 1960 he was named Mexican Cultural Ambassador, an honour that he took very seriously. During a trip to Toronto some years later, he came to the Classical Record Shop accompanied by the PR person from Polygram, Lori Bruner, who made it clear that he should be addressed as Ambassador. We did, of course. Henryk Szeryng died on March 3, 1988 in Kassel, Germany.

The performances in this new collection include the Bach unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas BWV1001 to 1006, the six sonatas with harpsichord, BWV1012 to 1019 with Helmut Walcha, three Brandenburgs 2,4 and 5 with Rampal (Flute), George Malcolm (harpsichord) and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Neville Marriner. All sublime. He is soloist and conductor of Bach’s three violin concertos with the Collegium Musicum Winterthur. There are Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, Triple Concerto (Arrau and Starker) and the two Romances; Brahms’ Violin Concerto, Double Concerto (Starker, Haitink); 13 pieces by Fritz Kreisler and Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico and The Four Seasons in which he is both soloist and conductor. Other concertos include those of Mozart, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Tchaikovsky, Wieniawski, Szymanowski, Paganini, Lalo, Bartók and Saint-Saëns. There are four essential sets of four CDs: The complete Beethoven trios with Wilhelm Kempff and Pierre Fournier; the complete Beethoven sonatas for violin and piano with the impeccable Ingrid Haebler; the Mozart 16 great sonatas and Variations K359 & K560 for piano and violin, also with Haebler, and finally Mozart’s complete works for violin and orchestra with the New Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Sir Alexander Gibson. Add works by Handel, Schubert, de Falla and a host of encore-type pieces by a miscellany of composers including those from Central and South America, some familiar, some not. We have here a collection that, beyond the obligatory warhorses, reflects his eclectic repertoire. Well done, Ambassador.

Rudolf Nureyev’s choreography of three favourite ballets, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and The Nutcracker plus Minkus’ Don Quixote, have been released in a boxed set of Blu-ray video discs by Cmajor: Nureyev (707104, 3 Blu-ray video discs cmajor-entertainment.com). The Vienna State Opera Orchestra and the Vienna State Ballet are common threads and each ballet has its individual music director. The dancers for Swan Lake (recorded in 2012) are headed by Vladimir Shishov as Prince Siegfried, Olga Esina as Odette and Eno Peci as Rothbart, the Magician, with Dagmar Kronberger as the Queen, the Prince’s mother. The set – there’s only one – and costumes are by Luisa Spinatelli; the conductor, Alexander Ingram. Frankly, if I weren’t aware of the plot I would be lost.

Using Nureyev’s stage directions, the 2012 performance of The Nutcracker is another story. It is a delight from curtain-up and danced most exquisitely by Liudmila Konovalova as Clara and Vladimir Shishov as Drosselmeyer and the whole corps with specialty dances for the Arabian, Chinese, the Flutes, etc. Entirely satisfying, the performances are quite delightful, the costumes from whimsical to luxurious.

The third ballet in this box is Don Quixote (2016), set to the music of Ludwig Minkus orchestrated and adapted by John Lanchbery. The ballet by Marius Petipa has a prologue and three acts. Petipa was the co-deviser of the above Swan Lake. Once again drawing on Nureyev’s stage directions, the Spanish milieu was all he needed to create gorgeous solos, pas de deux and ensemble scenes. The sets, devised by the set and costume designer Nicholas Georgiadis, are minimal and clearly place the events. The conductor is Kevin Rhodes; Kamil Pavelka is Don Quixote, Christoph Wenzel is Sancho Panza, Maria Yakovleva is Kitri/Dulcinea. The sound and the Blu-ray video is state of the art. 

The Verbier Festival, held in the Swiss Alps each year, is celebrating its 25th anniversary and earlier this year Deutsche Grammophon issued a smart little set of four CDs containing eight memorable live performances: Verbier Festival 25 Years of Excellence (DG4835143, 4CDs bound together, deutschegrammophon.com). From a performance on July 23, 2015 Valery Gergiev conducts the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony. From July 30, 2005 mezzo-soprano Malena Ernman sings 11 Folk Songs set by Luciano Berio supported by the Festival orchestra conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, and from July 31, 2009 Yuja Wang plays the Mendelssohn First Piano Concerto under Kurt Masur. July 22, 2009 found Martha Argerich playing the Beethoven Second Piano Concerto with conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy. July 31, 2015 featured Daniil Trifonov, piano; Ilya Gringolts, violin; and Truls Mørk, cello, playing Brahms Trio No.1 in B Major, Op.8. On July 30, 2004 Evgeny Kissin, piano; Vadim Repin, violin 1; Laurent Korcia, violin 2; Yuri Bashmet, viola; and Alexander Kniazev, cello, got together for Dvořák’s Quintet No.2 in A Major, Op.81. The fourth CD contains the complete third act of Die Walküre from July 25, 2013, conducted by Gergiev with a complete complement of Walküren and Bryn Terfel as Wotan, Eva-Maria Westbroek as Sieglinde and Iréne Theorin as Brunnhilde. The whole act comes through splendidly, culminating with an unexpectedly heartfelt Leb wohl from Terfel.

This is a set of great music-making, all truly inspired performances as live festival performances always are. There is, in addition, music by a composer that is new to me: Alexander Tsfasman (1906-1971), a Soviet jazz pianist, composer, arranger and publisher. He flourished from the mid-1920s until the late 1960s, during which time he was an important figure in Soviet jazz. Around 1945 he wrote a Suite for Piano and Orchestra. We hear it from August 4, 2013 with pianist Mikhail Pletnev and Kent Nagano conducting a reduced festival orchestra. It is a short work, 16 minutes, but it’s immediately captivating, polite and whimsical. In four movements: Snowflakes; Lyrical Waltz; Polka; Presto. 

Claudio Abbado & the Berlin Philharmoniker: The Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon (DG 4835183 60 CDs deutschegrammophon.com/en/cat/4835183) Claudio Abbado’s collaboration with the Berlin Philharmonic began in 1966 when he first stood before the orchestra. Born in Milan on June 26, 1933 he was just 33 years old at the time and his name was already familiar to music lovers and record collectors around the world. He had been principal guest conductor with the London Symphony Orchestra from 1975 to 1979 at which time he was named principal conductor, the post he held until 1987, having also been appointed music director in 1984. During his LSO tenure he made many exemplary recordings for DG, most of which are still in the catalogue. My favourite version of Le Sacre du Printemps was, and probably still is, his February 1975 spectacular recording made in Fairfield Hall, Croydon. From 1982 to 1985 he was principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra where DG produced many recordings. He had already recorded the Mahler Second Symphony with them in 1976 and it is the only Mahler symphony not in this new set of Berlin recordings. In 1986 he became the general music director of Vienna and at the same time music director of the Vienna State Opera. In 1988 he founded the music festival, Wien Modern.

Herbert von Karajan died on July 16, 1989 and in that same year Abbado was voted to succeed him as the orchestra’s new chief conductor and music director, a position he would hold from 1990 to 2002. Abbado had already done some recording with the orchestra but now what does a record company do? They record another Beethoven symphony cycle. So it began, not in Berlin but live in Rome in the Academia di Santa Cecilia. During February 2001 they recorded the first eight, returning to the Philharmonie in Berlin for the Ninth. The difference between the two conductors is apparent. Karajan always sought the most beautiful sounds, which had its rewards, but Abbado looks deeper and reveals the sinews that support the satin exterior. I played the symphonies right through simply for hearing these warhorses anew. Why didn’t I do that when they were issued on CD? Checking the original issue, the venue for the First through the Eighth is the Philharmonie with different recording dates starting in 1999. These are different performances, except for the Ninth and are not included in this edition. The five piano concertos with Maurizio Pollini are brilliant. They also collaborate on a disc of the Schumann and Schoenberg piano concertos. The Brahms Symphonies are equally transparent and most often sound freshly minted. As an example, the opening movement of the First has a very positive feeling, missing the lumbering juggernaut often heard elsewhere. There is a Mahler Symphonies cycle minus the Second. It sounds like everything Abbado touched he illuminated without lessening the impact. There are two Prokofiev Third Piano Concertos, with Evgeny Kissin and Martha Argerich.

Guest artists in various repertoire include Anne Sofie von Otter, Thomas Quasthoff, Karita Mattila, Michael Schade, Bryn Terfel, Christine Schafer, Lilya Zilberstein, Roberto Alagna, Alfred Brendel, Gil Shaham and many others including Viktoria Mullova. The repertoire includes Debussy, Dvořák, Hindemith, Janáček, Stockhausen, Berg, Mozart, Richard Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Wagner and many others. No Bach, no Vivaldi. A most interesting collection indeed.

Leonard Bernstein at Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival (Cmajor 746704, Blu-ray video cmajor-entertainment.com/movie/leonard-bernstein-at-schleswig-holstein-musik-festival-746704) is a captivating documentary of the “Teaching, Performing, Lectures and Master Course” in Salzau, south east of Kiel, to create an orchestra for the 1988 Musik Festival there. I should have written assemble, as create strictly means making something out of nothing. Not so here. The orchestra was composed of 120 eager young men and women from around the world chosen from the 1600 young musicians who competed in national auditions. In Part 1, the orchestra is working through various repertoire, particularly Le Sacre du Printemps negotiating tricky passages, working on ensemble, etc. Clearly these young musicians did not come here to learn to play. They have no technical difficulties. They are rehearsed and advised by various teachers including more than a few members of prominent orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic. In addition to the orchestral work there are times for get-togethers for duets, trios, quartets and the rest plus extra-musical frivolity and socializing. Eventually, they become an orchestra that can confidently play Le Sacre, the work from 1913 considered unplayable for decades. They are ready for the maestro.

In Part 2 Bernstein meets the orchestra and the first thing he asks is that they show him the entire orchestra playing a C-major scale from the lowest sounding C on their instrument, up and down. He is more than pleased. He guides them, always in good humor, through the thorny passages instructing them by example, often using similes and metaphors to illustrate a point. Absolutely fascinating. Watching all this, we can also learn a lot and may ourselves pay extra attention at these junctures at a performance. His last words to the orchestra, “I cannot do this to you anymore. You are fantastic.”

Part 3 is a record of the Master Course for conductors. They are there to better their ways of letting the players know exactly what they should be doing. There is some body language that we viewers in the audience can watch for, although some conductors do it mostly with their eyes. One of the conductors in the competition is Marin Alsop who was to later regard Bernstein as her mentor. There is a bonus. From the Musikverein in Vienna, Bernstein conducts the Schumann A-Minor Piano Concerto with Justus Frantz and the Philharmonic. Enthusiastically recommended to anyone with more than a passing interest in music.

Cmajor also recently compiled a set of their DVDs as Leonard Bernstein Volume 1 (Cmajor 743008, 6 DVDs shop.cmajor-entertainment.com/items/leonard-bernstein-vol.1-416692) containing extraordinarily powerful, over-the-top live performances of Symphonies 1, 2, 5 & 7 by Sibelius with the Vienna Philharmonic; Debussy’s Images, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and La Mer with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra; Beethoven’s String Quartet No.16 with the Vienna Philharmonic and Haydn’s Mass in Time of War with Judith Blegen, Brigitte Fassbaender and the orchestra and chorus of the Bavarian Radio; a documentary on Bernstein, Larger Than Life with interviews by scores of notables, and finally Tanglewood – 75th Anniversary Celebration. Avid collectors may already have one or two of these.

I have long been a fan of the videos from the Royal Opera House making their release of the Da Ponte Operas by Mozart, Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi Fan Tutte a noteworthy event (OpusArte BD7251, 4 Blu-ray video discs naxosdirect.com/items/mozart-the-da-ponte-operas-458931). Don Giovanni was recorded in 2014 conducted by Nicola Luisotti with direction by Kasper Holton. Mariusz Kwiecien is Giovanni, Alex Esposito is Leporello, Malin Bryström is Donna Anna and Véronique Gens is Donna Elvira. The Commendatore is Alexander Tsymbalyuk. The costuming is contemporary, very natural and not at odds with the libretto and Mozart’s score. Le Nozze di Figaro from 2006, is conducted by Antonio Pappano with direction by David McVicar. Included in the cast we have Erwin Schrott as Figaro, Miah Perrson as Susanna, with Gerald Finley singing Count Almaviva and Dorothea Röschmann as the Countess. Cherubino is sung by Rinat Shaham and Philip Langridge is Don Basilio. Cosi fan Tutte from 2016 is conducted by Semyon Bychkov with direction by Jan Philipp Gloger. Daniel Behle is Ferrando, Alessio Arduini is Guglielmo and Johannes Martin Kränzle is Don Alfonso. Corinne Winters sings Fiordiligi, Angela Brower is Dorabella and Despina is sung by Sabina Puértolas.

Each of these productions is much better than average, being most satisfying on all counts wherein Mozart’s genius easily shines throughout. In sum, the staging for all three is creative and imaginative, with unfailing wit. The voices for the most part are perfectly ideal for the roles. The directing is inviting and the acting continuously convincing, enhancing the subtleties of both Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Everything works. A delight for Mozart lovers. There are lots of extras including the director’s voiceover commentary on Don Giovanni and more. Both audio and video quality are state of the art in this Blu-ray edition, sturdily slip-cased with a 70-page fine-art, four-colour booklet. 

Music lovers may recognize the name of pianist Alicia de Larrocha and those who do might recall that she was a prime proponent of the music of Spanish composers such as Manuel de Falla, Rodrigo, Albéniz, Granados, etc. However, as we knew back then, she had a much more extensive repertoire, confirmed by Alicia de Larrocha, Complete Decca Recordings (Decca 4834120, 41 CDs deccaclassics.com/en/cat/4834120). This set presents it all, even adding the recordings for Hispavox, S.A. and her first recordings for American Decca in 1953-55 in New York City.

Alicia de Larrocha y de la Calle was born on May 23, 1923 in Barcelona. Both her parents were pianists and she was also the niece of pianists. She began studying with Frank Marshall when she was three and gave her first public performance at the age of five at the International Exposition in Barcelona. The following year she appeared at the World’s Fair in Seville and later made her orchestral debut at the age of 11. By 1943, her performances were selling out in Spain and she toured internationally in 1947. In 1950, three years after her first concert outside of Spain, she performed the Poulenc Concerto for Two Pianos with Poulenc at the second piano. The conductor was Carlos Surinach. In that same year she married her regular piano partner Juan Torro, who had been a fellow student of Marshall. In 1954 she toured with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In 1969, de Larrocha performed in Boston for the Peabody Mason Concert Series. By 1966 she had already engaged in a first strenuous tour of Southern Africa, which proved so wildly popular that three further tours were undertaken. She enjoyed early encouragement from Alfred Cortot, Claudio Arrau and from her lifelong friend Arthur Rubinstein. She was considered one of the great piano legends of the 20th century. Reuters called her “the greatest Spanish pianist in history.” Time addressed her as “one of the world’s most outstanding pianists” and The Guardian declared that she was “the leading Spanish pianist of her time.” She won multiple Grammy Awards, a Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts and in 1995 she became the first Spanish artist to win the UNESCO Prize. Quoting from the enclosed booklet, “In the second half of the 20th century, if you wanted to witness a Who’s Who of New York City-based keyboard luminaries gathered in one place, you simply had to purchase a ticket for an Alicia de Larrocha recital.” De Larrocha retired from public performances in October 2003 and died in Barcelona on September 25, 2009.

Browsing through this box, wherein the discs are sturdily individually sleeved in reductions of the original LP covers, there were a few old friends but some were new to me. The 24 Preludes of Chopin are more than familiar and, as de Larrocha’s was new to me, that was the first dip into the set. Listening to her was a far different experience from other versions at hand, Pollini, Argerich and Ashkenazy. Alongside de Larrocha’s their readings now sound mostly facile. Music is a performer’s art and the score is a starting point, not the end. It is clear that de Larrocha sees the score this way and she passes on to an audience what the notes tell her.

There are three interesting Schumann discs, including two performances of both Carnaval (1978 and 1987) and the Allegro in B Minor, Op.8 (1971 and 1987). Also the Fantasie in C major, Op.17, Kreisleriana and four others, including the A Minor Concerto, Op.54 with the Royal Philharmonic under Dutoit. Listening to discs picked out at random have provided hours of hearing familiar and some unfamiliar repertoire in these treasured performances, including concertos and/or solo works by Beethoven, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Schubert, Bach, Franck, Ravel, Debussy, Fauré, Mendelssohn, Grieg, Chopin, Khachaturian, Liszt, Handel, Scarlatti and Tchaikovsky. Making this collection unique and doubly exciting are the compositions by her countrymen, performances and recordings that are authoritative for sure and may reasonably be regarded as yardsticks. Here are their family names: Surinach, Halffter, Nin-Culmell, Mompou, Montsalvatge, de Falla, Soler, Albéniz, Turina, Granados and Esplá.

Of all the big boxed collections issued for one reason or another, this one has the best reason to exist. It certainly will ensure the greatest return on investment.

A recent addition to the reissue of important CDs on Blu-ray audio is the Karl Bohm/Berlin Philharmonic set, Mozart – The Symphonies (Deutsche Grammophon 4835174, ten CDs, one Blu-Ray disc deutschegrammophon.com/en/cat/4776134). The original recording sessions were in the legendary Jesus-Christus-Kirche in Dahlem, Berlin between 1959 and 1969 and issued as the Mozart 46 Symphonies. The extra five symphonies over the recognized 41 were works contemporary with the earlier numbered ones but not published as symphonies. The ten CDs in the new set are identical to the earlier issue. The Blu-ray is simply perfect! The performances are proven, the instruments are placed right where they should be, dynamics are right and the more convincing illusion draws one into the occasion. And they’re on one perfect disc… all 46!

Julian Olevsky was one of the finest violinists of the 20th century. He was born in Berlin in 1926. His family fled the Nazis and moved to Argentina, where at age 12 he debuted with orchestra as guest soloist under the direction of Fritz Busch. Following a series of recitals and orchestral appearances throughout South America, in 1947 he immigrated to the United States, making his debut in Town Hall in New York to great success. In the 1950s and 60s he toured in many of the world music centres and appeared with many of the world’s finest orchestras. Doremi has issued Volume 5 of their continuing series of Olevsky recordings (DHR-8054/5 doremi.com, 2 CDs) containing all the violin concertos that Olevsky recorded: Mendelssohn, Bruch, Wieniawski, Brahms and Lalo. The original issue of the Lalo Symphonie Espagnole had only four of the five movements. The third movement, Intermezzo, was omitted as was the practice in those days, even with Huberman, Heifetz, Elman, Francescatti and Milstein. However, in the Olevsky, Westminster recorded it and didn’t use it but gave Olevsky a copy. Doremi has a copy and is able to release the complete five-movement work. Evident throughout these recordings is his silky, warm sound, a strong personality and a refined style. The sound of these Westminster stereo recordings is lifelike but dated.

If you are one who appreciates absolutely impeccable playing and artistry from a violinist, you simply must hear the late French violinist Devy Erlih playing Bach Six Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin in a very rare Adès recording from 1969. Erlih was born in Paris to Bessarabian-Jewish immigrants. By his tenth birthday he was already a member of the folk orchestra in a French brasserie run by his parents. His father was a folk musician who played the cimbalom and pan pipes. Devy’s playing would reflect, of course, his strong Slavic roots but tempered by a French refined elegance. Initially he played by ear but he went on to win the Long-Thibaud competition in 1955 in addition to the coveted Paris Conservatoire Premier Prix. He toured throughout Europe, America and Japan. He was killed in a road accident in Paris on February 7, 2012. Volume One of a proposed Devy Erlih series contains those unparalleled Bach performances on Adès in immaculate transfers that immediately captivate the listener through to the very last note (Doremi DHR 8061 doremi.com).

Rafael Kubelík (1914-1996) was one of the finest conductors of the last century. He was the son of Czech violinist and composer Jan Kubelík (1880-1940), with whom he studied violin. At 14 he entered the Prague Conservatory studying violin, piano, composition and conducting, graduating at the age of 19. As a pianist he served as accompanist to his father, whom he adored, on a United States tour in 1935. In 1939 he became music director of the Brno Opera until November 1941 when the company was shut down by the occupying Nazis. The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, however, was permitted to continue playing and Kubelík became its principal conductor. He refused to conduct Wagner during the occupation and declined to give the Hitler salute to the Nazi Reichsprotektor. He left Prague for obvious reasons and disappeared into the countryside. In 1945 he conducted the Czech Philharmonic’s first post-war concert and he helped found the Prague Spring Festival, a perennial event. Following the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia he moved to England.

Kubelík was music director of the Chicago Symphony from 1950 to 1953, the Royal Opera House from 1955 to 1958 following Solti, then the Bavarian Radio Symphony from 1961 to 1979 following Eugen Jochum. During these appointments and after, he was a sought-after guest conductor in Europe, North America and Australia where I first heard him. I retain a vivid memory of that concert.

In his earlier years Kubelík recorded for EMI. Following his tenure in Chicago, where he recorded for Mercury, he appeared on other major labels with various orchestras but most significantly for DG. His entire catalogue of DG recordings has been assembled in Rafael Kubelík Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon (4799959, 64 CDs, 2 DVDs, 120 page booklet). The works of the many composers represented in this set include the celebrated edition of the complete Beethoven Symphonies with nine different orchestras: London Symphony (1); Berlin Philharmonic (3); Concertgebouw (2); Bavarian RSO (7); Israel Philharmonic (4); Boston Symphony (5); Orchestre de Paris (6); Vienna Philharmonic (7); the Cleveland Orchestra (8) and finally back to Munich for his Bavarian RSO (9). The two Sevenths were recorded four years apart and the same movements are within seconds of each other.

Discs 27 to 36 contain the complete Mahler symphonies with the Bavarian RSO, recorded in 1967-70 in the Herkulessaal, Munich. Many times over this cycle, the performances leave the attentive listener with a new or better understanding of the composer. Quoting Daniel Barenboim, “I often thought I was missing something in Mahler until I listened to Kubelík. There is a lot more to be discovered in these pieces than just a generalized form of extrovert excitement. That is what Kubelík showed.”

Deservedly, there are 11 CDs of the music of Dvořák, including what many regard as the definitive collection of the complete symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic recorded in the Jesus-Christus-Kirche in Berlin in 1966 and 1971/73. Happily listening through them again confirms that these could arguably be the finest versions on record. There is an always-exciting, wonderfully fresh feeling of discovery in them, with the orchestra in total sympathy with the Czech conductor. The Dvořák-fest continues with the ever-uplifting Scherzo capriccioso Op.66 with his Bavarian RSO from 1973 and two CDs of overtures and symphonic poems from 1973/74. Just a reminder, they are: My Homeland (1962), Husitská Op.67, Amid Nature Op.91, Carnaval Overture Op.92, Othello Overture Op.93, The Water Goblin Op.107, The Noon Witch Op.108, The Golden Spinning Wheel Op.109, The Wood Dove Op.110 plus the Symphonic Variations Op.78. The complete Slavonic Dances, Opp.46 and 72 are here and also the Stabat Mater Op.58 with soloists, chorus, organ and orchestra. All the Bavarian recordings were made in the Herkulessaal in Munich. To tie off the Dvořák offerings, Kubelík appears with the English Chamber Orchestra in London conducting the Legends Op.59 and the Serenade for Strings. Op.22.

There are the four Schumann Symphonies from Berlin and a haunting Gurrelieder and so much more. Glancing over the contents one can only be impressed by his repertoire. Composers represented include Bartók, Berg, Bruckner, Falla, Grieg, Handel, Janáček, Mozart, Orff, Smetana, Wagner and others. The two DVDs contain revelatory performances of Mozart’s 38th (VPO), Beethoven’s Second and Leonora III (Concertgebouw), the Eroica (BPO) and the Bruckner Fourth (VPO). As a bonus: “Scenes from a musical life,” an informative biography with conversations, rehearsals, etc.

Kubelík’s performances were never matter-of-fact. He drew music from the score without any excessive subjective hyperbole in tempi or accents or balances to make a point. This set will be a must-have for those who can appreciate his art. Noticeably absent are the four Brahms symphonies. He recorded them for Decca with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1956/57. Symphonies 1 & 4 are on Australia’s Decca Eloquence, available through Amazon Canada for $11.21.

Our review in the last issue enthused over La Nilsson, containing her complete Decca/DG recordings. Now as a complement there is a DVD, Birgit Nilsson A League of Her Own, an exultation of her life and art (Cmajor 800008). This is a documentary, a solid 89 minutes with not a minute wasted on any item not pertinent to her life, development and career, with videos to the point. We see and hear her singing in many venues – the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, the Met – and she talks about memorable incidences including encounters with Karajan, Knappertsbusch, Böhm, Rudolf Bing and producer John Culshaw. During the recording of Götterdämmerung in Vienna, Nilsson is distinctly unhappy with the recorded balance between the orchestra and her voice, stating (correctly so) that in tuttis she does not soar above the orchestra as it is heard in the studio and the opera house. She quotes another scene not involving her that further illustrates that Culshaw always favours the orchestra. Culshaw agrees that he does and there is a tacit armistice. There are interviews with many of her colleagues, including her longtime special friend Plácido Domingo. A really interesting program.

Another significant DVD from Cmajor is the video of Leonard Bernstein’s controversial Tristan und Isolde from Munich, recorded live in 1981 with the Bavarian RSO and Choir (746208, 3 DVDs). The Tristan is Peter Hofmann, Hildegard Behrens is Isolde, Yvonne Minton is Brangäne, Bernd Weikl is Kurwenal. It was Bernstein’s lingering tempi that bothered many upon its CD release on Philips, particularly in the Prelude. Being there and seeing him rapt by the music, his tempo is perfect and not a whit overlong. This was a concert performance with the singers performing before a very large scrim behind the orchestra. One’s attention is held by the characters, not by any stage business. The new listener should read the plot given in the enclosed booklet. The cast clearly convey all the intended emotions, always supported by the engaged conductor. Altogether, a most welcome and illuminating release. A real treat.

Another DVD of Leonard Bernstein has him directing an appropriately reduced Vienna Philharmonic in the Musikverein playing Haydn (Cmajor 746408). There are three G-Major symphonies, No.94 “Surprise,“ No.92 “Oxford” and the beautiful No.88. Adding the Sinfonia Concertante in B-flat Major makes a perfectly charming, undemanding 110-minute concert. Nothing sensational here, but does everything need to be?

Over the last few years, 2008 to 2015, LSO Live has released recordings of the three Rachmaninov Symphonies with Valery Gergiev conducting, recorded live in the Barbican Centre. They now come in a boxed set as three CD/SACD hybrid discs plus one Blu-ray audio disc of the symphonies and more (LSO LS000816). Gergiev would seem to be the right person to conduct the music of his countryman, even though there are others, including Russians, who have recorded all three Rachmaninov symphonies or individual entries. Back in the day, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra were the go-to recordings and were regarded as pretty well definitive. As an aside, Rachmaninov consulted with Ormandy while orchestrating the (included) Symphonic Dances Op.45. Gergiev takes these Rachmaninov scores very seriously and offers them boldly, without apology. Being accustomed to hearing a brazen First, I was quite taken aback by Gergiev’s assertive, majestic performance. The opulent, hour-long Second, the jewel of the cycle, is simply perfect… nostalgically beautiful throughout, particularly in the first and the third movement Adagio. The Third was written some 30 years later and does not enjoy the same popularity. Also included are Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances and two Balakirev symphonic poems, Russia and his acknowledged masterpiece, Tamara.

The performances are played with commanding conviction, enjoying full and brilliant sound. A winning edition. And think about this: when you acquire this set you own all these pieces three ways, on CD, on SACD and in Blu-ray 5.1 surround sound.

Exciting beyond words! A friend asked me about Universal’s omnibus collection of the recordings of Birgit Nilsson (La Nilsson - The Complete Decca · Deutsche Grammophon · Philips Recordings Decca 4832787) to which I answered impulsively, “Exciting beyond words.” Just consider the contents drawn from the archives of DG, Decca, Philips, the BBC, the ORF and the Metropolitan Opera. On 79 CDs and two DVDs there are 27 complete operas, four by Richard Strauss and 12 by Wagner (including two Rheingolds that do not feature Nilsson!) in addition to those by Mozart (Don Giovanni, two versions, Leinsdorf and Böhm), Beethoven (Fidelio, Maazel), Verdi (Un Ballo in Maschera, Solti; Macbeth, Schippers and Aida, Mehta), Puccini (Tosca, Maazel; La Fanciulla del West, Matacic and Turandot with Jussi Bjoerling and Renata Tebaldi, Leinsdorf) and Weber (Oberon, Kubelik and Der Freischütz, Heger). Also many recitals, duets, arias and rehearsals.

As for any staged work, the supporting cast in any opera is hardly of minimal importance and the producers of these original performances certainly knew their jobs. First out of the box is the Tristan und Isolde from September 1960 with Fritz Uhl (Tristan), Regina Resnik (Brangäne), Tom Krause (Kurwenal) and Arnold van Mill (King Mark). The Vienna Philharmonic is conducted by Georg Solti. John Culshaw produced. (After Nilsson’s heartbreaking Mild und leise, the informative CD that follows, telling us in perhaps too much detail “how the watch was made,” somewhat breaks the spell. There is a second version of Tristan conducted by Böhm, live from Bayreuth in August 1966 with Wolfgang Windgassen, Christa Ludwig, Eberhard Wächter and Martti Talvela. Also a CD of excerpts from Tristan conducted by Hans Knappertsbusch, who was Decca’s first choice to conduct the complete Ring, an honour that defaulted to the less experienced Wagnerite, Georg Solti. Next up is Die Walküre from September 1961 with the LSO under Leinsdorf. Nilsson is Brunnhilde, Jon Vickers is Sigmund and George London is Wotan. 1958 saw the first installment of the Decca/Culshaw Ring with the VPO, Das Rheingold without Nilsson but with Kirsten Flagstad as Fricka. A very nice gesture by producer John Culshaw to employ Flagstad, the greatest Brunnhilde of her day, then aged 63. Walküre follows from 1966/67 with the cast for the full cycle: Nilsson, Hans Hotter (Wotan), Wolfgang Windgassen (Siegfried), Christa Ludwig (Fricka) with the Ortlinde sung by Helga Dernesch who would be Brunnhilde in Karajan’s Ring Cycle for DG. In Siegfried the Forest Bird is sung by Joan Sutherland. The famous BBC video of the final session of Gotterdämmerung in Vienna in 1965 with Solti, Nilsson and the horse is included.

Further along in this Nilsson treasury, there is the live Böhm Ring from Bayreuth in 1966/67 with Nilsson’s Brunnhilde and Theo Adam as Wotan. When asked of their own favourite roles in all opera, both Kirsten Flagstad and Birgit Nilsson named Brunnhilde, particularly in Gotterdämmerung, which demands both a heroic singer and dramatic actress. Also, Nilsson stated that her best recorded performance in the role was this live Bayreuth production with Böhm. Under Böhm’s direction, there is palpable tension and drama. Tannhäuser from 1969 recorded in the Jesus Christus-Kirche in Berlin is conducted by Otto Gerdes with the Deutschen Oper Berlin featuring Wolfgang Windgassen as Tannhäuser, Nilsson as Elizabeth and Venus, Theo Adam as Hermann and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Wolfram von Eschenbach.

The first of the Richard Strauss operas is Salome, recorded in the Sofiensaal in Vienna during 1961. Again John Culshaw is the producer. As conducted by Solti, Nilsson’s Salome is wanton, Gerhard Stolze is an incestuous Herod and Grace Hoffman is a scheming Herodias. Eberhard Wächter is the unfortunate Jochanaan. This is an astonishingly realistic, atmospheric recording with, it seems, virtually unrestrained dynamics that bring the goings-on right into the room. The book tells us that this is a 2017 remaster. What an exceptional performance and recording this is!

The first of two recordings of Elektra dates from 1966, also in the Sofiensaal, and features, of course, Nilsson as Elektra with Regina Resnik as Klytämnestra, Marie Collier as Chrysothemis, Gerhard Stolze as Aegist and Tom Krause as Orest. Nilsson is Elektra and once again the recording of the often ferocious score is well up to the above Salome. The second version of Elektra is a DVD of the live performance at the Met in February 1980 with Mignon Dunn as Klytämnestra, Regina Resnik as Chrysothemis and Donald McIntyre as Orest. That was some 14 years after the version above, but Nilsson’s artistry and presence remained intact; and watching her and Resnik made this a performance to remember. Elektra’s death scene is unique. There are some bonus tracks on the DVD including Nilsson delivering a curtain speech at a MET Anniversary Gala on April 27, 1996 honouring James Levine. Finally, Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, conducted by Karl Böhm in 1977 with the Vienna State Opera chorus and orchestra has Nilsson as Sein Weib and the last change of scene includes James King, Leonie Rysanek, Lotte Rysanek and Walter Berry.

The very impressive, 200-page hardcover art book contains a biography of Nilsson, lavishly illustrated with lots of full-page photographs and full details of the recording sessions. This is not merely a collection of recordings but a fitting homage to a great artist. Uniquely boxed, La Nilsson is a 100th anniversary limited edition of 79 CDs and 2 DVDs with 27 complete operas and bonus features (Universal 8327874).

Hänssler has issued a set of the Mozart Complete Sonatas for Piano and Violin played by Dmitry Sitkovetsky, accompanied in 2006 by Antonio Pappano and by Konstantin Lifschitz in 2007/8/9 (Hänssler HC17013, 4 CDs). The sonatas on disc one with Pappano, K304, K305, K380 and K454, were recorded in Potton Hall, Suffolk and the rest, all with Lifschitz, originated in the studio in Heidelberg. The brisk tempos in some of the sonatas give them an attractive quality but on the other hand are often too fast to develop the phrasing in the accepted Mozart style.

The slower tempo sonatas K378 and K301 and some others are ideal. The two-movement K304 in E minor, the only sonata in a minor key, is a charmer, particularly the first theme of the first movement sung without vibrato. Altogether, a pure delight. As is K403 on CD4… as are all 17 sonatas.

There are other complete recordings that give more attention to the intrinsic Mozart style. But Sitkovetsky has more than enough interesting qualities to justify this one. They are truly presented as sonatas for piano and violin, offering correct recorded balances throughout… a very nice job by the engineers, wherein for the most part the piano is leading. Sitkovetsky is not a flamboyant performer but is eloquent and compact, maintaining a consistent and satisfying presentation. He is an excellent chamber music player.

Audite continues to issue historic live performances from the Lucerne Festival in the mid-20th century. These recordings are the first issues to be taken directly from the original master tapes recorded by the Swiss Radio and Television, the SRF, at the International Music Festival. The latest issue is a concert from August 16, 1953 conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler of Schumann and Beethoven. The recordings are so fresh, dynamic and realistic that for the listener (at least this one) the intervening years evaporate, and then is now. This two-disc set is available in two forms, as a 2CD set (23-441) or on 2 SACDs (91-441). The concert consisted of the dramatic Schumann Overture to Manfred, Op.115, followed by a mighty performance of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony as only a Furtwängler could inspire. The Schumann Fourth Symphony performance is another triumph in which, from the very first bar, everything about it reflects a real sense of occasion… which indeed it is. The playing of the Swiss Festival Orchestra is, of course, inspired and the dynamics of the recording take us right inside the Lucerne Kunsthaus.

To celebrate Aaron Copland’s 75th birthday on November 14, 1975, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra engaged him to conduct his own works in their home, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Naxos has issued a Blu-ray video of that concert as it was broadcast across the continent (Copland Conducts Copland Naxos NBD0068V). The concert opens, rather appropriately, with a fanfare, the Fanfare for the Common Man, written at the request of his friend, conductor Eugene Goossens. We know this because, in a voiceover, Copland says a few words to introduce each piece to the audience at home. Also on the concert were El salón México, the Clarinet Concerto with the dedicatee Benny Goodman as soloist and Hoe Down from Rodeo. For the concluding work, a suite from his opera, The Tender Land, the sizeable Los Angeles Master Chorale joined the orchestra for the work’s finale The Promise of Living. The composer’s beat and cues to the players are clearly observed, resulting in a good time had by all. 

A new release from Doremi of performances by Tossy Spivakovsky deserves attention. The opening work, Bach’s Chaconne, is so magnificently played and recorded that arguably it is worth the price of the whole set. Spivakovsky is using the curved Vega Bach bow and with it, instead of arpeggios the violin affects organ-like sonorities. The result is breathtaking and hypnotic. Spivakovsky was not only an impeccable virtuoso but a thorough musicologist. As we learn from his spoken introduction immediately preceding the performance recorded by Swedish Radio in 1969, his use of the Vega Bach bow followed years of research and study of Bach’s original manuscripts. In his day, he was one of those elite soloists such as Heifetz, Casadesus and Stern who were regularly invited to perform with the New York Philharmonic, not only for the standard repertoire, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, but many contemporary works such as Bartók, Martin, Sessions, Menotti and William Schuman. He was a close friend of Bartók and premiered his Second Violin Concerto in 1943 in Cleveland, followed that year by a performance with the Philharmonic in New York.

Nathan “Tossy” Spivakovsky, born in Odessa, a part of Imperial Russia in 1906, was an outstanding child prodigy. As teenagers he and Jascha, his pianist older brother (himself also considered a prodigy), played throughout Europe to great acclaim. On tour, he was heard by Wilhelm Furtwängler who engaged him at 18 to be concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, where he worked with the greatest conductors of the era. With Hitler’s rise to power he left Germany, going to Australia and New Zealand before coming to the United States. His brother Jascha stayed in Australia where he was a lauded pianist, concertizing extensively. 

Tossy Spivakovsky – Live Performances with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra 1943-1966 (Doremi DHR-8025-8, 4 CDs) contains eight concertos of various styles and periods, all brought to life in authoritative and impressive performances. According to critics of the day, Spivakovsky had one of the most formidable techniques of all and flawless musicianship. He was one of the busiest soloists, guesting with the great orchestras of the world. The works on these four CDs, except for the Tchaikovsky from Stockholm (Nils Grevillius, 1960) and the Schuman from Buffalo (Lucas Foss, 1966), are all with the New York Philharmonic. Heard are the Prokofiev Second (Schippers, 1959), Beethoven (Amerigo Marino, 1963), Frank Martin (Robert La Marchina, 1963), Bartók No.2 (Rodzinski, 1943), Brahms (Josef Krips, 1961) and the Mendelssohn E Minor (Paul Paray, 1956). The very good sound throughout (except for the Bartók 1943 acetates) comes from master tapes from various sources. The enclosed booklet includes a beautifully written, informative seven-page biography of the artist who died at 91 on July 20, 1998 at his home in Westport CT. 

As 2018 is the centenary year of Claude Debussy’s death, record companies are assembling Debussy performances from the archives and, provided that the sound quality is reasonably acceptable, producing an anniversary set. It goes without saying that based on the calibre of the artists involved, some of these anniversary compilations are bound to be more attractive than others. To hand is Debussy Complete Works from Deutsche Grammophon (4798642, 22 CDs, 2DVDs + 206 page booklet) containing “at least one version of all the composer’s music published in his lifetime as well as some posthumously issued juvenilia and fragmentary works.” The edition is arranged as follows: volumes 1-4 Orchestral; 5-11 Piano Solos and Duets and Chamber Music; 12-15 Mélodies; 16, 17 Pelléas et Mélisande; 18, 19 Staged Works and 20-22 Historical Bonus. Finally, two DVDs of a different performance of Pelléas et Mélisande. Disc one of the orchestral works contains the Bernstein/Santa Cecilia Images, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and La mer. The other 16 titles including concerted works are offered in proven performances from conductors Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, Iván Fischer, Jean Martinon, Bernard Haitink, Eduard van Beinum, Ricardo Chailly and Charles Dutoit.

Debussy’s ever-fascinating and seductive piano music comprises the 24 Preludes, the 12 Etudes, Images, Suite bergamasque, Children’s Corner, two Arabesques and so many familiar and unfamiliar exquisite jewels. This repertoire is given to Pierre-Laurent Aimard; Maurizio Pollini; Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli; Jean-Yves Thibaudet; Rafał Blechacz; Zoltán Kocsis; Támas Vásáry; Seong-Jin Cho, et al. The chamber music is played by musicians of the calibre of Reginal Kell (clarinet), the Emerson String Quartet, the Kontarsky brothers, Brooks Smith, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Lambert Orkis, Hélène Grimaud and Wolfram Christ. Singers in the four CDs of Mélodies include Véronique Dietschy, Gérard Souzay, Elly Ameling, Mady Mesplé, Christine Schäfer and Pierrette Alarie. There are four CDs of stage works, namely Le gladiateur, L’enfant prodigue, Le chûte de la maison Usher, Trois chansons de Charles d’Orléans; Salut printemps; Invocation and Le printemps. Plus, of course, Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien and two different performances of Pelléas et Mélisande: the 1991 Vienna recording conducted by Abbado with Maria Ewing and François Le Roux, José van Dam, etc. on two CDs, plus a two-DVD set conducted by Boulez with Alison Hagley and Neill Archer from Cardiff in 1992.

Historical Bonus CDs contain many treasures performed by Ansermet, Karajan, Dervaux, Gulda, Monique Haas, Richter, Arrau, Ciani, Oistrakh, Souzay and others. Altogether, 26 discs of first-class performances, all in the best DG sound.

I recently attended the Toronto Symphony concert conducted by Bramwell Tovey that included the Brahms Second Piano Concerto, billed to be played by Lars Vogt. Substituting for the indisposed Vogt was Inon Barnatan, a young man with a favourable reputation and a fluid technique. The monumental Brahms concerto demands a soloist with a big sound but, to my ears, Barnatan as brilliant as he was, did not have the essential horsepower to fit the occasion.

On recordings, an outstanding pianist who most certainly did have that power was Wilhelm Backhaus (1884-1969) who recorded the work several times from 1939 with Karl Bohm in Dresden and finally in 1967 with Böhm again with the Vienna Philharmonic. He had recorded the First Concerto in 1932 with Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony. He was renowned as a Brahms pianist… also Beethoven, Grieg, Mozart, Schumann, etc. The latest releases from SWR, Beethoven Brahms Recital/Concertos (SWR 19057CD, 3 CDs) includes a set of performances by Backhaus including his final encounter with the Brahms Second Concerto. These discs contain performances by Backhaus recorded live with the SWR, the Südwestrundfunk (Southwest Broadcasting) Symphony Orchestra. The first two discs are all Beethoven beginning with three sonatas, the Third (Op.2 No.3), the Waldstein and the Hammerklavier all recorded in the Ludwigsburg Schloss, Ordenssaal in 1953. The Emperor Concerto follows with the SWR Symphony conducted by Joseph Keilberth recorded in the Liederhalle in Stuttgart in 1962. Finally again from the Liederhalle in 1959 the Brahms Second conducted by Hans Mûller-Kray followed by three Brahms waltzes as encores. The sound quality throughout is astoundingly clear within a marvellous acoustic and correctly balanced from top to bottom, effortlessly handling the tuttis. Backhaus’ performances are all in the grand manner, once accepted and expected, now a thing of the past. Nonetheless, these are confidently committed accounts.

Finally, a Blu-ray video centred on the only surviving footage of a Maria Callas operatic performance. Callas Magic Moments of Music – Tosca 1964, A Film by Holger Preusse (Cmajor 745104, also on DVD). After a two-year hiatus she returned in the second act of Tosca at Covent Garden in 1964. The set was designed expressly for the occasion by Franco Zeffirelli. Her Scarpia was Tito Gobbi, who sang this role in the still-outstanding 1953 recording from Milan under Victor de Sabata. Gobbi was Callas’ close friend and admirer who wrote that “with Maria it was not performing but living.” Gobbi is Scarpia, from head to toe the grand personification of evil and lust. Together with pertinent interviews and comments by Antonio Pappano, Rolando Villazón, Thomas Hampson and others, this is an absorbing release. 

In 2009, to celebrate their 111th year of making recordings, DG issued 111 years of Deutsche Grammophon in two collector’s boxes of 55 and 56 CDs containing landmark recordings from the earliest days to the (then) present. Issued as limited editions, they are still to be had… at a price! Since then they have produced more “111” collections: sets featuring the violin and the piano, as well as 11 Great Videos (a 13DVD set) – all a boon to the enquiring minds of countless collectors. The latest, 111 - The Conductors (DG 4797477, 40 CDs) offers outstanding performances from 40 maestros recorded by DG who were part of the classical music scene since the 1930s. There is absolutely no padding in this collection; each performance was critically praised in the initial release, very often becoming the recommended performance in its repertoire. Here are some: Daphnis and Chloe, etc. (Abbado); Saint-Saëns Third Symphony, etc. (Barenboim); Mahler First and Second Symphonies (Bernstein); Bruckner Eighth Symphony (Böhm); Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms, Schoenberg (Boulez); Mendelssohn Fourth, etc. (Fritz Busch, 1950); Prokofiev Third Symphony, etc. (Chailly); Messiaen Turangalîla-Symphony (Y. and J. Loriod; Chung); Brahms Fourth Symphony, Kodály (de Sabata); music of Revueltas, Ginastera, etc. (Gustavo Dudamel); Johann Strauss works (Fricsay); Brahms First, Schubert Eighth (Furtwängler,1952); Beethoven Fourth and Sixth (Gardiner), Bruckner Ninth (Giulini); Mozart Violin Concertos Three, Four and Five (Gidon Kremer, Harnoncourt), Sibelius tone poems (Neeme Järvi); Mozart “Jupiter,” Schubert “Unfinished” (Jochum); Beethoven Ninth, etc. (Karajan 1962); Beethoven Symphonies Five and Seven (Carlos Kleiber); Dvořák Symphonies Eight and Nine (Kubelik).

Know that this is not a list of the best of the best, selected from the 40 CDs, but the exact contents of the first 21 discs, conductors A to K! These honoured performances with the finest orchestras, Berlin, Vienna, Boston, Leningrad, London and others, all in the best sound, are beyond any serious criticism. The other 19 include Lehmann, Leitner, Levine, Maazel, Markevitch, Mravinsky, Andris Nelsons, Ozawa, Nézet-Séguin, Rattle, Steinberg, Previn, Sinopoli, Thielemann, Minkowski, Schuricht … and the list goes on. An irresistible collection all around. See the complete track listing at deutschegrammophon.com/en/cat/4797477.

Deutsche Grammophon also offers special editions of selected conductors’ recordings, including Karl Böhm’s acclaimed interpretations in Karl Böhm: Great Recordings 1953-1972 (4797021, 17 CDs). Böhm was of the old school of conductors, in the best sense of that appellation. He conducted with a firm beat and, as far as I’ve seen or heard, was not inclined to romanticize. Included is a cross section of powerful performances, mostly with the Berlin Philharmonic with whom he had a close working relationship over the years: Beethoven, Symphonies 3, 5, 7 and the Missa Solemnis; Brahms Symphonies 1 and 2; Haydn The Seasons; lots of Mozart; Mahler Kindertotenlieder and four Rückert Lieder (Fischer-Dieskau); and lots of Richard Strauss. Just as one would expect. Also of interest is a 40-minute rehearsal followed by the complete performance of Schubert’s Ninth Symphony (Berlin, 1963).

As an aside, consider Böhm’s business-like tempi in Wagner’s Ring as heard in the 1966/67 live recordings from Bayreuth issued a few years ago, re-mastered on Decca (4782367, 14 CDs). It has been argued that Böhm’s faster-than-usual, objective tempi are a downside, but listening with a different attitude can lead to a different appreciation. Incidentally, Birgit Nilsson fans may know that of all her recordings including the Solti, she considered this to be her finest Brunnhilde.

It is a fact of life that in the performing arts, fame can be and often is short-lived for instrumentalists, vocalists and conductors alike. Appian Recordings has gone to a lot of search and research to issue a 2CD set of pianist Leff Pouishnoff – The Complete 78-rpm and selected Saga LP recordings (APR2022 aprrecordings.co.uk). I’m sure that some aficionados recognize the name but I did not. Leff Pouishnoff (1891-1959) was born in Odessa, the birthplace of so many famous names in the classical hierarchy. The parents of George Gershwin and Bob Dylan also migrated from Odessa. Pouishnoff studied composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Rimsky-Korsakov, Liadov and Glazunov, graduating in 1910 with a Gold Medal. In 1911 he toured with violinist Leopold Auer. The Russian Revolution forced him into exile and he went to Persia, where he became the first pianist ever to tour that country. He went to Paris but soon moved to London where he did rather well, giving five recitals in Wigmore Hall during February and March 1921 playing Bach, Rachmaninov and Scriabin to great acclaim.

From 1921 on, one can almost track the course of his life via his recordings. He played at the Proms in 1922 and recorded four sides for Columbia that are to be heard on the first disc of this release. Six more sides in 1923. He made his North American debut in 1923, then back at the 1923 Proms, returning to tour the United States in 1924. It was in the 1920s he earned a reputation as a Chopin player and in 1926 gave a week of Chopin recitals in Wigmore Hall. So successful were they that he repeated the series in 1927.

In May 1926, the dawn of electric recordings, Pouishnoff set down the Rosamunde Ballet music of Schubert and Glazunov’s Polka. In March 1928 for the Schubert centenary, he recorded the Sonata in G Major “Fantasie” op.78 “that displays all of Pouishnoff’s best qualities, the luminous tone, elegance and suave control.” Heard here on CD1, it does. He made his last recordings for Columbia in February and March 1929. During the Second World War he continued playing and gave concerts for the troops but in truth, his halcyon days were back in the 1920s.

After the war, it seemed that his repertoire was out of favour, to be replaced by such heavies as Artur Schnabel and Wilhelm Backhaus playing more substantial works from the Austro-German school. He returned to the studio in mid-1948, this time for HMV where he recorded five Chopin sides. In 1958 Saga Records brought him back for some Chopin and the longer Theme and Variations by Glazunov and much more. Leff Pouishnoff died in June 1959, followed less than three weeks later by his wife, who chose to die. All his 78s are here and some Saga items although there is a mystery, detailed in the booklet, concerning the whereabouts of the missing Saga tapes. Along with the Schubert Sonata, which runs 31 minutes, and the Glazunov Theme and Variations at 18 minutes, there are 33 charming short pieces by the masters, masterfully delivered. Very pleasant listening. The two-disc set is priced as one.

Decca and DG are reissuing some outstanding analog recordings in new remastered editions on Blu-ray audio discs. I should say audio disc, singular, as there is the complete Karajan Ring Cycle on one disc, and a complete Salome with Nilsson sounding shockingly real on one disc. Now we have the five Beethoven Piano Concertos from Vladimir Ashkenazy with Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on a single Blu-ray disc packaged with three newly remastered regular CDs. These acknowledged performances and recordings enjoy a new reality, particularly on the +Blu-ray edition (Decca 4832579, 3 CDs & 1 Blu-ray disc).

In the 1930s and into the 40s, two high profile conductors shared the attention of the record-buying public in the United States: Arturo Toscanini and Leopold Stokowski. Both men and their orchestras, the NBC Symphony in New York and the Philadelphia, were then under contract to RCA Victor, which profited either way. Both men had their disciples and a free-bowing performance by the rapturous Stokowski could not be mistaken for the taut Toscanini. For Stokowski, the printed score was a point of departure. His recordings were in demand around the world, as were Toscanini’s. The Disney 1940 avant-garde film Fantasia with Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra recording (most of) the soundtrack widened his reputation and certainly attracted newcomers to the classics.

As it had been quite some time since I listened to a Stokowski performance, the arrival of a new compilation was unexpected and welcome. Leopold Stokowski: Complete Decca Recordings (4832504, 23 CDs) contains the recordings made in Europe from 1962 to 1973. Orchestras are The New Symphony Orchestra of London, the London Symphony, the London Philharmonic, the New Philharmonia, the Royal Philharmonic, the Czech Philharmonic, the Hilversum Radio Philharmonic and l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. It was said that Bruno Walter could make any orchestra sound like the Vienna Philharmonic and similarly, a performance from anywhere conducted by Stokowski usually feels like a performance conducted by Stokowski. His performances of absolute music, symphonies, concertos, etc. were straightforward with variations of tempi and expression. In program music his interpretations could be and usually were flamboyant and hyperbolic. CD9 in this set contains three perfect examples: Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, Tchaikovsky’s Marche Slave and Mussorgsky’s Night on Bare Mountain in Stokowski’s own mighty orchestration, in over-the-top performances heard in Decca’s best Phase 4 sound. Phase 4 technology basically employed more than a score of microphones over the orchestra, enabling the recording engineer to spotlight instruments and re-balance the performance to suit his own taste, presenting an obvious dichotomy. It was the ultimate in multi-miking. The raison d’être for this collection is Stokowski plus the repertoire plus Decca’s Phase 4 sound. A partial list is in the set mentioned below but check amazon.co.uk for the complete track listing.

The 23rd disc is Leopold Stokowski A Memoir with voices of Stokowski, John Georgiadis, Hugh Maguire, Gervase de Peyer and other colleagues, plus excerpts of the recordings. An interesting section is Leopold Stokowski Remembers Gustav Mahler. Thomas Martin Recalls Auditioning for Leopold Stokowski has the double bass player recounting his audition for the Houston Symphony when Stokowski was their music director. An unusual and nice way to conclude the collection.

In 2014 Decca issued a 41CD set, Phase 4 Stereo Concert Series (4786769), that contained a broad collection of singular performances of some familiar standard repertoire and more, featuring international artists such as Sean Connery, Ivan Davis, Eileen Farrell, Ruggiero Ricci, Marilyn Horne and Robert Merrill. Conductors include Bernard Herrmann, Stanley Black, Edward Downes, Antal Doráti, Arthur Fiedler, Anatole Fistoulari, Jean Fournet, Henry Lewis, Lorin Maazel, Erich Leinsdorf, Charles Munch, Eric Rogers, Miklós Rózsa and Leopold Stokowski. There are nine Stokowski CDs that also appear in the above collection; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, Pictures at an Exhibition, Scheherazade, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth and the 1812 Overture, Glazunov’s Violin Concerto with Silvia Marcovici, a collection of Bach transcriptions, excerpts from Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and suites from Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty ballets.

Well, this collection is certainly a curate’s egg, “Good in Parts.” Purists will certainly abhor most of it but others may simply revel in it.

Karl Böhm was one of the very last great conductors in the German tradition that had been omnipresent in the music world. No longer with us are the likes of Clemens Krauss, Erich Kleiber, Wilhelm Furtwangler, Felix Weingartner and Bruno Walter. DG has assembled a collection of his recordings under the title Karl Böhm The Operas with the subtitle Complete Vocal Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon (4798358, 70 CDs boxed with a 144-page 190mm-square book). The enormity of this collection of incomparable music-making is overwhelming and one might wonder what Karl Böhm was all about.

He was born in Graz, Austria on August 28, 1894 and after receiving a degree in law he attended the conservatory there, later enrolling at the conservatory in Vienna. He became an assistant repetiteur at Graz in 1917 and by 1920 he was the senior director of music there. In 1921 he was engaged by Bruno Walter at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. In 1927 he was appointed chief music director in Darmstadt. A few more appointments later and in 1933 he conducted Tristan und Isolde in Vienna. He became director of the Semper Opera in Dresden succeeding Fritz Busch in 1934, remaining in there until 1942. He conducted the first performances of two Richard Strauss operas, Die schweigsame Frau in 1935 and in 1938 Daphne, of which he is the dedicatee. In 1938 he premiered in the Salzburg Festival with Don Giovanni, becoming a permanent guest conductor there.

After 1948 he conducted Don Giovanni at La Scala and from 1950 to 1953 directed the German season in Buenos Aires. In 1957 he made his debut at the Met in New York with Don Giovanni and became a favorite of Rudolph Bing. At the Met he directed 262 performances, including many premieres. He leaned towards Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and Verdi, and certainly had a special connection to the music by his close friend, Richard Strauss. Böhm made his debut in Bayreuth in 1962 with Tristan und Isolde and directed performances there until 1970, and from 1965 to 1967 he conducted Der Ring des Nibelungen, Wieland Wagner’s last production. Böhm continued conducting and recording and in his last years he was associated with the London Symphony, with which he had an affectionate relationship and which had named him LSO president. He was still recording with them in June 1980 about one year before his death on August 14, 1981 in Salzburg.

Included in this edition are operas by Beethoven, Berg, Mozart, Richard Strauss and Wagner, plus two and a half CDs of Böhm speaking in German about his life, etc.

Soloists in top voice include Martti Talvela, Peter Schreier, Anton Dermota, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Fritz Wunderlich, Evelyn Lear, Gundula Janowitz, Birgit Nilsson, Sherrill Milnes, Hans Hotter, Gwyneth Jones, Christa Ludwig, Hilde Güden… and the list goes on.

Yes, it is an expensive set but the ROI (return on investment) is very high.

The Berlin of 1946 was a war-ravaged city divided into four sectors according to the nationality of the occupying force. The American, the Russian, the British and the French sectors each had their own restrictions and protocols. The situation was the setting for countless successful novels and films then and since. In the midst of the poverty and homeless refugees, Berliners turned to music and the performing arts. “Every shed and every garage might serve as a little temple of the Muses,” ex-POW Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau recalled. “The plentiful supply reflected the demand. Every evening queues formed outside the box offices (where people had to queue in spite of everything).” The American radio station, the RIAS, formed a new symphony orchestra, the RIAS Symphony Orchestra. They gave their first concert on December 12, 1948. On the podium was a young Hungarian conductor, Ferenc Fricsay. In 1956 the orchestra renamed themselves the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and in 1993, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, Berlin. Ferenc Fricsay: The Mozart Radio Broadcasts (DG 4798275, 4 CDs in a hardcover book) includes recordings from Deutschlandradio (1951-52).

The repertoire: Symphonies 1, 4-9, 23 and 27, the Bassoon Concerto K191, Sinfonia Concertante K297b, Cassation K63, Serenade K375, Ein Musikalischer Spass K522, Serenata Notturna K239 and Divertimenti K247 and 334. Also Sull’aria from Le Nozze di Figaro (with Suzanne Danco and Rita Streich) and In quali accessi, o Numi … Mi trade quell’alma ingrate  from Don Giovanni (Suzanne Danco).

From the very first bars I knew this was something special and during the afternoon played through all four discs. It barely matters that the pristine sound is mono. These are performances not for critiquing but for simple joy.

Last year some important omnibus editions did not reach us before the closing date of the December/January issue. Here are three outstanding productions of lasting interest that missed the boat: Wagner’s Ring Cycle conducted by Karajan on one Blu-ray audio disc from DG; The Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon of the Amadeus Quartet and The Complete Piano Concerto Recordings of Vladimir Ashkenazy on Decca.

Karajan’s recordings of the Ring’s four parts were made one a year, beginning in August, September and December, 1966 with Die Walküre. Rhinegold followed in December 1967 and Siegfried was made in December 1968 and February 1969, followed by Götterdämmerung that October. The venue was the much vaunted Jesus-Christus Kirche in Berlin. Longtime associate Otto Gerdes was the executive producer and the ubiquitous Gunther Hermanns was the recording engineer. The LPs of Walküre appeared in 1967 with Gotterdammerung completing the cycle in 1970. In 1998 DG issued a boxed CD edition of the complete cycle in their Original Image re-processing. Now there is a third incarnation complete on one High Fidelity, Pure Audio Blu-ray disc (DG 4797354, slip-cased with a 400-page hardcover book). Let it be understood that the original recordings were all analog, made on magnetic tape. Certainly, there would have been backup tapes and microphones at various positions. Dynamic range was some 20db less than digital. Fifty years later audio engineers have newer technology at their fingertips that can, in the right hands, reveal but not create hidden information from the originals, resulting in “lossless high fidelity.” Does all this newer technology allow us to hear anything better than on the earlier Original Image CDs? What I had mainly hoped for was a more solid bass line on a firmer footing. Unencumbered by old technology the presence in the voices and exchanges between the protagonists are more convincing and the balances between instruments, top to bottom, is exemplary. Karajan paid meticulous attention to details, including the interaction between the characters to one another and the situation. As an example, in the first act of Walküre, as Siegmund, Jon Vickers’ declaration of love, Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond to Gundula Janowitz as Sieglinde begins very quietly, at first gently intimate before becoming quite impassioned, leading to her spontaneous response, Du bist der Lenz. Between them they now set in motion fateful events that set up the rest of the cycle right to the very end. One of the great scenes in opera. This disc displays and names an abundance of access points so that any scene, vocal or orchestral can be easily queued. If you wish you can start at the first note of Rheingold and finish at the last note of Götterdämmerung. Already very familiar with these performances, I am thrilled with the superiority of this transparent new edition.

It was a sad time for the music world when the Amadeus Quartet dissolved in 1987 after 40 years as one of, if not the world’s most esteemed string quartets. Their history is unique and is sure to remain so. Three of the four came together in an internment camp in Britain during WW2. Being Jewish, violinists Norbert Brainin, Siegmund Nissel and Peter Schidlof left Vienna for England after the Anschluss and, as aliens, were interned lastly on the Isle of Man. After their release they studied, free of charge, with violin teacher Max Rostal who introduced them to cellist Martin Lovett. Schidlof changed his violin for a viola and in 1947 the Brainin Quartet was formed. They changed their name to the Amadeus Quartet for their premiere concert in London’s Wigmore Hall on January 10, 1948. Upon the death of Schidlof in 1987, the surviving members simply disbanded.

DG honours this 30-year anniversary with a complete edition of all the recordings that they had made, plus all that Decca had, together with the early recordings that the quartet had made for Westminster: Amadeus Quartet – The Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon (DG4797589, 70 CDs with a 170-page full-colour book). As some works were recorded more than once over the years, we can make comparisons for ourselves and look for any changes in their overall interpretations or execution. For instance there are three performances of Beethoven’s Third Razumovsky Quartet, 1959 (Hanover), 1983 (Wigmore Hall) and 1987 (St. Barnabas, for Decca): one work, three dates and venues, two recording philosophies. How about four different Mozart Hunt Quartet recordings: 1951, 1956, 1963 and 1982. The quartet excelled in the Austro-German repertoire so we find much Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms. Favourites include works by Bruckner, Dvořák, Smetana and Tchaikovsky. Guest luminaries heard with the group include Cecil Aronowitz, Christoph Eschenbach, Karl Leister, William Pleeth, Andreas Brau, Lothar Koch, Gervase de Peyer, Walter Klein, Rainer Zepperitz, Gerd Seiffert, Clifford Curzon, Emil Gilels and Benjamin Britten. Unexpected entries include Sir Ernest MacMillan’s String Quartet in C Minor and Two Sketches on French Canadian Airs recorded in Canada’s centennial year. The 70th disc contains some surprises. If I tell you now they won’t be a surprise.

Vladimir Ashkenazy has been performing for more than 65 years and is best known as a pianist, but he is also a world-class conductor. I recall around 1990 chatting over dinner with a well-informed gentleman from Decca and asking him when Decca will finish their Ashkenazy/Shostakovich symphony cycle. “Never,” he replied, explaining that a soloist cannot become a credible conductor to the record buying public. It just won’t happen. Years later Decca issued a box set of the 15 Shostakovich symphonies with Ashkenazy that is still an active title. Also an outstanding cycle of the Rachmaninov symphonies with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Ashkenazy is much more than a pianist. He is a superb musician and this shows in his playing.

Is there a pianist other than Ashkenazy on whom his or her record company has expended the time and money to record four complete versions of the Beethoven concertos? At this moment I can’t think of one. All four, including a DVD cycle are included in Ashkenazy The Complete Piano Concerto Recordings (Decca 4831752, 46 CDs, 2 DVDs, hardbound 115-page book). As with the Amadeus set above, comparing versions is a collector’s pleasure. As well as the Beethovens, this set is a music-lover’s treasure chest including, in alphabetical order, the following concerti: Bach BWV1052, Bartók complete, both Brahms, both Chopin, the 27 Mozart, the five Prokofiev, the complete Rachmaninov twice, all Schumann’s concerted works, both Scriabin and, of course, the Tchaikovsky First. There are lots of orchestral fillers and some solo recordings. On several of the concertos he also conducts from the keyboard. Other conductors include Solti, Mehta, Haitink, Kertész, Previn, Fistoulari, Maazel, Kondrashin, Zinman and Schmidt-Isserstedt. The two DVDs contain concerts from the Royal Festival Hall during March and April 1974 broadcast and recorded by the BBC. The London Philharmonic is conducted by Bernard Haitink in inspired performances of, you’ve guessed it, Beethoven’s five piano concertos together with the overtures Leonore 2 and 3 and Egmont. Dated video but well worth enjoying.

Doremi has, over recent years, issued an impressive resurrection of live performances of the young Martha Argerich from her earliest years. The latest is the second evening of a joint recital with the great violinist Ruggiero Ricci presented in Leningrad in 1961. The first from April 21 was issued by Doremi two years ago and here (Leningrad Recital II, DHR-8053) we have the following evening, April 22. Listening to this CD reminded me of what collecting recordings is all about. It’s about the ability to, at will, re-experience such sublime music-making as this that otherwise can be remembered only by those present or hearing the broadcast. Recordings such as this can resurrect, as they say, “immortal performances.” Not virtual reality but the next best thing. At this time Argerich was 19 years old, well before she won the Chopin competition in Warsaw and became an international celebrity. Ricci, at 42, was already well recognized as one of the leading violinists of the century. The result of two compatible intellects at work – at play – is evident. Their complete absorption into the music is profound. Quite extraordinary. You would need to hear it to appreciate it. Here is the repertoire with a comment or two. The Bach Chaconne BWV1004. Beethoven’s First Violin Sonata Op12, No1; the Franck Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major; Bartók Six Romanian Folk Dances Sz56; Paganini, Introduction and Variations for solo violin on Nel cor più non mi sento from La bella molinara by Paisiello and finally Tartini Devil’s Trill Sonata. The Bach Chaconne is astonishingly majestic while the Paganini is humanly impossible to play… except that he does so, easily and with style. There are delights in every track. The very natural, textured recording was made by Leningrad Radio in the Great Philharmonic Hall. There’s some audience shuffling but the performances, all 82 minutes, shine through.

Many of us continue to be thrilled by the Bolshoi Ballet DVDs and Blu-rays that have arrived from their distributor over the last couple of years. The latest is The Art of David Hallberg at the Bolshoi (BelAir Classics BAC617, 2 DVDs). A performance of Auber’s Marco Spada choreographed by Pierre Lacotte from 2014 is slip-cased with the now ubiquitous Sleeping Beauty choreographed by Yuri Grigorovich from 2011. Both ballets are still available separately. Well worth owning, Marco Spada is a dashing performance, but you may not want another copy of Sleeping Beauty.

Leonard Bernstein - The Remastered Edition (100 CDs)
Sony 541714

In her 1998 DVD Reaching for the Note, Susan Lacey recalls the way the moment felt. “It is very rare that someone dies and the whole community seems to be part of that event. It’s as if everything else stopped and for that moment the world turned around that event.”

Such was the case in New York City following the death of Leonard Bernstein on October 14, 1990. When the funeral cortege left from the Dakota, his apartment on the Upper West Side, there was already a large gathering across 72nd Street to pay homage and see him off. “There was this phalanx of motorcycle cops and police cars leading this enormous cortege out to Brooklyn’s Greenwood cemetery… When we came out on the Brooklyn side of the East River there was a big construction project and in spite of all the cops and motorcycles and police cars and everything, we came to a dead halt. And on the side were all these hard hats and mothers of various sorts with baby carriages and Orthodox Jews who just happened to be passing by. A perfect cross-section of New York City. And finally the sirens began again as this slowly started to move out, all these people! I especially remember the hard hats all waved and took off their hats and said. ‘Goodbye Lenny, goodbye.’ I can’t think of anything, anything, in the world that would have pleased Lenny more than that.”

Leonard Bernstein – The Remastered Edition does not pretend to be in any way encyclopedic, but it gives profound insight into every facet of his musical life. New York City claimed him but Bernstein, conductor, composer, pianist, educator, author and music lecturer was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts on August 25, 1918, the eldest of three children of Ukrainian-Jewish parents. Soon after, they moved to Boston where father Samuel built up a prosperous business in hairdressing supplies. Samuel expected, naturally, that his elder son would go to college, return and take over the business. However, when Leonard was only ten, cousin Lillian’s unwanted upright piano was moved into their parlour and the die was cast. From the first note he knew that music was his calling. He could play by ear the tunes he had heard and improvise freely. At 13, he composed a piano concerto with a program, “a war between the Russians and the Gypsies.” At 14, after a disastrous year with two really incompetent teachers, he went to Heinrich Gebhard, one of Boston’s most respected teachers who entrusted him to his assistant, Helen Coates. She completely understood her earnest pupil’s impatience with practise and studies but instilled in him self-discipline. Bernstein credited her with being a decisive influence in his training. When he became known and successful he sent for her to be his personal secretary. She became his close friend and lifelong personal assistant and representative. Their letters are part of the Bernstein Collection in the Library of Congress.

At 16, he heard his first live concert when he went with his father to hear the Boston Symphony under Serge Koussevitzky who later became his teacher and close friend. He attended the Boston Latin School. In the summers at Sharon, Massachusetts, he produced and directed shows with the Boston Public School Orchestra with entertainments like Gilbert & Sullivan and Carmen. He graduated in 1935 and thence to Harvard, where he met many of those who would become his lifelong friends. He studied with Walter Piston, Edward Burlingame Hill and Arthur Tillman Merritt. He met Aaron Copland who became a major influence. Also, Dimitri Mitropoulos asked him to play and was so exceedingly impressed that he invited Bernstein to rehearsals with the Boston Symphony. For Bernstein’s part, he was taken by the older conductor’s intellect, his unique conducting style and his personal dynamism. He graduated from Harvard in 1939 and enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he studied conducting with Fritz Reiner, orchestration with Randall Thompson, counterpoint with Richard Stöhr and score reading with Renée Longy Miquelle. Reiner said later that Bernstein received the only “A Grade” he ever awarded. After Curtis he spent some time in NYC, then in Boston where Koussevitzky, who was sort of a father figure, was a major influence on Bernstein’s emotional interpretations.

Shortly after he had been appointed (under Artur Rodziński) assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein made his life-changing major conducting debut. Guest conductor Bruno Walter was unable to conduct the afternoon concert of November 14, 1943. Bernstein was told early that morning that he was to conduct the concert. He had not rehearsed but stood before the orchestra and conducted the concert that was heard coast to coast on the CBS Radio Network. A star was born and Leonard Bernstein was well on his way.

In 1958, after he guest conducted major orchestras around the world, he was appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic, a post he held until 1969. After that he was seen and heard around the world conducting and teaching, making recordings and videos and, when he could make time, composing. In truth he most solemnly desired to be remembered as a composer. Consider his works for the theatre that include Peter Pan (1950), On the Town (1944), Trouble in Tahiti (1952), West Side Story (1957) and Candide (1956 rev.1973 rev.1989); also all the ballets, Fancy Free (1944), Facsimile (1946) and Dybbuk (1974), all of which are included in this unique edition of the remastered original recordings. His own works for the concert hall chosen for inclusion are the three symphonies, Jeremiah (Symphony No.1, 1942), The Age of Anxiety (Symphony No.2, 1949 rev.1965) and Kaddish (Symphony No.3 1963 rev. 1977). Prelude, Fugue and Riffs (commissioned by Woody Herman in 1949) is here with Benny Goodman. Torontonians heard this work with Bernstein conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Roy Thomson Hall in the late 1980s.

Mahler figured prominently in Bernstein’s programs, recording all the symphonies except the Eighth with the Philharmonic during his tenure there. His Mahler was something to hear and see, as his demeanour suggested an enraptured identification with the composer. Mahler’s symphonies Two, Three, Six and Nine are here together with Kindertotenlieder and excerpts from Rückert Lieder both with Jennie Tourel, and Des Knaben Wunderhorn and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Christa Ludwig, Walter Berry and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. In this unique collection are the works of 70 composers from A to Z in compositions ranging from marches, incidental music, ballets, encore-type pieces, chamber music, concertos, symphonies, operas, ballet music, lieder, film music, overtures, etc. Assisting artists include Isaac Stern, Lucas Foss, Adele Addison, Glenn Gould, Eileen Farrell, Andre Watts, Charles Bressler, Felicia Montealegre, Benny Goodman, Zino Francescatti, Regina Resnik, Erich Kunz, Yehudi Menuhin, Julius Baker, Judith Raskin, Judith Blegen, Robert Casadesus, Barbara Cook and others. Also heard are the Juilliard String Quartet, the Westminster Choir, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna State Opera Chorus and the Camerata Singers, among others.  

In summary: this edition is a collection of some significant recordings from 1945 to c.1976 issued by Columbia/Sony, either recently or newly remastered for the occasion. The opulent boxed set of 100 CDs in original covers includes a lavishly illustrated, 196-page hardcover book of presentation quality outlining the often complex remastering of the process. Compared to the previous releases of all the recordings that I have sampled these new incarnations are a revelation. For instance, I was disappointed in the perfunctory performance on the original release of Liszt’s Faust Symphony, also with the version on The Royal Edition. However, in this new presentation the sound is immediate and dynamic, revealing playing that is most certainly alert.

I wonder, out of the many hundreds of Bernstein performances of so many different works in the Sony archives, how particular recordings were chosen. It certainly wasn’t the choice of someone or other with little or no knowledge, nor was it a computer’s choice based on sales. For example, the performance of The Age of Anxiety decided upon is the original mono version recorded on February 27, 1950 with soloist Lucas Foss, a recording that required a lot of time and dedication to restore the less-than-mint original elements. How much easier it would have been to utilize the 1965 performance with Philippe Entremont. Regardless, it is the earlier performance that we hear on this well-chosen collection. Well-chosen indeed; there are works one would never think of including, but there is not one that I would remove.

There are complete details of every disc at arkivmusic.com and an interesting YouTube video about the project, titled Leonard Bernstein – The Art of Remastering.

Carl Schuricht was an esteemed German conductor in the first half of the 20th century. He was born in Danzig into a dynasty of organ builders in 1880 and studied at the Berlin Hochschule from 1901 to 1903. During his first years as a conductor he was to be heard in Mainz, Kreuznach, Dortmund, Goslar and Zwickau. From 1909 he conducted the Rühl Oratorio Society in Frankfurt-am-Main. From 1912 to 1944 he was the chief conductor and general music director of Wiesbaden and was also active as a guest conductor. He was a guest of the St. Louis Symphony in 1927. After 1944 he conducted and recorded with the finest orchestras, the Vienna, Berlin and London Philharmonics, the Swiss Romande Orchestra, etc. In 1956 he returned to North America with the Vienna Philharmonic on a 12-city tour, appearing in Washington, New York, Cleveland, Cincinnati and elsewhere on the East Coast, and including Toronto’s Massey Hall on November 28, winding up before the General Assembly of the UN in New York on December 10. He continued to conduct concerts and record in Europe over the next decade. He died in 1967.

Today, as time and technology march on, his name is really familiar only to collectors such as those who support the long list of his recordings at amazon.com (far fewer at amazon.ca and elsewhere). Newer editions appear from time to time, the most recent from Audite and Decca which contain interesting and engaging performances reflecting his sensitivity and understanding of the composer’s intentions.

Decca’s CDs are in a compact box, Carl Schuricht; The Complete Decca Recordings (4831643, 10 CDs). Part of this set is contained in Decca’s Original Masters five-CD set from 2004 with some interesting additions. There is a Beethoven Second taken from the 1947 78s with the Swiss Romande, produced by the renowned Victor Olof, who produced just about all the (then) state-of-the-art recordings in this collection, all of which, barring this one, sound very clean and dynamic. Another 1947 Swiss Romande recording features violinist Georg Kulenkampff and cellist Enrico Mainardi in the Brahms Double Concerto. There are many others worthy of attention leading to the tenth disc, an all-Wagner program played by the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra, France’s leading orchestra at the time consisting of professors from the Conservatoire and their pupils. Heard are the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Siegfried’s Rhine Journey leading into Siegfried’s Death and Funeral March from Gotterdämmerung. Heaven only knows how many times I’ve heard these but I do not recall being so affected by the poignancy of the Tristan nor the sweep of the Siegfried. There is a wealth of superior performances here, sounding clean and dynamic, so do check them out at arkivmusic.com for complete details, except recording dates.

The Audite CD (Lucerne Festival Historic Performances, Vol. 11: Carl Schuricht Conducts Mozart & Brahms, Audite 95645) finds Schuricht joined by pianist Robert Casadesus with the Swiss Festival Orchestra playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.27 in B-flat Major, K595 on August 19, 1961. Schuricht had been appearing at the Lucerne Festival since the end of 1944 when he conducted Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. He was welcomed there as “the only representative, apart from Otto Klemperer, of the generation of old German conductors still remaining active.” The Neue Zürcher Zeitung later reported that “Even if the 81-year-old has difficulty walking to his podium, his music making has remained astonishingly young. His economical, precise beat and the security and suppleness with which he effects modifications of the basic tempo give no hint of fatigue or decline of mental or emotional faculties.” The second item of concerts from Lucerne is the Brahms Second Symphony from September 8, 1962 with the Vienna Philharmonic. A listener might care to compare this performance with the 1953 version also with the Vienna Philharmonic in the above Decca set. It certainly shows what this 82-year “old German conductor” could draw from an orchestra.

I remember years ago collecting the recordings of Walter Gieseking, including the various Schubert shorter pieces that he played with such élan and affection that one would think that they were personal friends. Appian has released a four-CD set of Gieseking’s complete solo recordings of Brahms, Schubert and Schumann that he made for English Columbia in the 1950s (APR 7402, 4 CDs). After looking over the list of contents, I put disc two into my player to hear again Gieseking playing the eight Klavierstücke, Op.76; the Seven Fantasies, Op.116; the Three Intermezzi Op.117 and the six Klavierstücke Op.118. There were some disappointments but many more were just as I remembered. Perhaps the overload of hearing one piece and then another and another is not really an ideal way to judge a work, nor fair to the artists. An overload.

Of interest is that the above four works were recorded over three days, June 20 to June 22, 1950. Unlike many of his colleagues Gieseking enjoyed making recordings. He just sat there and played, so this must have been a treat for him. Also he claimed that he never practised as giving recitals was practise enough. He had the score clearly in his head. The third disc contains the two sets of Impromptus Op.90 and 142. The fourth and last disc with Schubert’s Six Moments musicaux Op.94 and Three Pieces D946 concludes with two Chopin pieces, the Berceuse Op.57 and the Barcarolle Op.60 and two Scriabin pieces, Poème Op.32 No.1 and Prélude Op.15 No.4.

A better way to clear one’s musical taste buds would be to return to disc one for Brahms’ Klavierstücke Op.119 and the Two Rhapsodies Op.79 followed by some music by Brahms’ close friend, Schumann. Here is a gentle reading of Kinderszenen Op.15 and an enthusiastic, at times passionate version of Carnaval Op.9; then a farewell with Schlummerlied, No.16 of Albumblätter Op.124 and some parting notes from the enigmatic Vogel als Prophet, No.7 of Waldszenen Op.82.

There was nothing pretentious about Gieseking’s playing. One gets the distinct feeling that he is sharing his thoughts. Simply, the art that conceals the art.