Old Wine in New Bottles

The Savoy 10-inch LP Collection
Charlie Parker
Craft Recordings CRO00010 (LP)/CRO2774 (CD) (charlieparkermusic.com)

Charlie Parker was a singularly creative force in bebop, influencing jazz improvisation on a scale comparable only to Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. The alto saxophonist’s greatest studio work was done in the 1940s, recorded by small, devoted companies. This set of four 10-inch LPs (or single CD) commemorates not just Parker’s Savoy recordings but replicates the form of his canonization. Originally released as 78-rpm records, one track per side, Parker’s principal work for Savoy – 28 tracks of it – were reissued as New Sounds in Modern Music Volumes 1-4, on four 10-inch LPs between 1950 and 1952. 

Tracks weren’t in scholarly chronological order: Volume 3 leaps from 1948 to 1944, covering the range of the recordings in reverse and putting a swing rhythm section including pianist Clyde Hart and guitarist Tiny Grimes after cool jazz progenitors Miles Davis and John Lewis on the set’s last session. Why revisit this order? It best captures Parker’s impact as bop spread its influence, the last time jazz genius compressed its full flight into three-minute units. Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Sevens, from two decades earlier, are the only comparables. 

Listening to Parker in this form, you hear the moments of transformation, as he uncovered new dimensions of harmony and rhythm with unparalleled joy, in company whose talents (Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie) sometimes approached his own. Parker soared as few other musicians have and soared highest here on recordings like Ko-Ko, Parker’s Mood, Cheryl and Constellation.

Atelier George Lewis – Rainbow Family 1984
George Lewis; Joëlle Léandre; Derek Bailey; Steve Lacy
Carrier 051 (carrierrecords.com/album/rainbow-family)

While forward-looking musicians (Sun Ra, Bob James) began fusing improvisation and electronic elements in the 1950s and 60s, composer/theoretician/trombonist George Lewis was among the very first to extend improvisational methodologies to computer programming. Best known for the work Voyager (beginning in 1986), he had entered the field with The Kim and I, a duet for trombone and programmed Moog synthesizer in 1979.

Rainbow Family is a previously unreleased 1984 concert from IRCAM in Paris. It integrates human and programmed computer improvisation, the program generating both its own material and reacting to the work of live improvisers through three Apple computers controlling three DX-7 Yamaha synthesizers. The work includes segments with individual improvisers – bassist Joëlle Léandre, guitarist Derek Bailey, bass clarinetist/flutist Douglas Ewart and saxophonist Steve Lacy – then Ewart and Lacy combine with the machinery before all four engage simultaneously with the program. 

What’s most fascinating is how the program can match individual musicians’ distinctive approaches, whether adapting to the fluidly expressive lines of Ewart, the playfully analytical approach of Lacy, or the comparatively abstract inventions of Léandre and Bailey. The synthesizers do what the improvisers do, balancing their own impulses with the sonic environment in which they find themselves. As one might expect, the later pieces with more musicians are significantly more complex and generally richer, a genuine meeting of human improvisation and human-constructed, programmed improvisation.

Rainbow Family has taken 36 years to appear, but it’s definitely worthy of contemporary attention.

His biography in the enclosed booklet begins, “Henryk Szeryng’s (1918-1988) career was unusual.” Somewhat of an understatement. Szeryng was born in Żelazowa Wola near Warsaw, Poland into a wealthy Jewish family and his mother began teaching him piano and harmony when he was five years old. Aged seven, he became interested in the violin, taking lessons from Maurice Frenkel, then Carl Flesch in Berlin. He made his debut in Warsaw on January 6, 1933 playing with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under George Georgescu performing the Brahms Violin Concerto. That concerto became the centrepiece of his repertoire through the years. In Paris, where he had moved with his family, he studied philology, philosophy, prehistory and early history at the Sorbonne. He spoke seven languages perfectly, being fluent in German, English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch, plus he understood all the Slavonic languages. After Poland was attacked in1939, Szeryng accompanied the Polish Prime Minister in exile to Mexico where he remained until 1954 when Artur Rubinstein encouraged him to begin concertizing again. By 1955, he was already engaged to play concertos with the Sudwestfunk Symphony Orchestra of Baden-Baden under the baton of Hans Rosbaud. Soon he was touring and performing worldwide. In 1960, he was elevated to Mexican Cultural Ambassador in recognition of his humanitarian deeds and popularity and in 1966, living in Paris, was named honorary director of the Conservatory of Music in Mexico City. He came back to Mexico twice a year and travelled worldwide as Mexico’s official Cultural Ambassador, a designation of which he was immensely proud. On an engagement in Toronto he visited the Classical Record Shop where we were informed by the record company’s PR person who accompanied him that he wished to be addressed as “Mister Ambassador.” He spent his last five years in Monaco and died in 1988 in Kassel, Germany. 

Szeryng’s technique and intonation were impeccable and beyond criticism. His radiant performances were not to be recognized by any identifiable mannerisms. Itzhak Perlman is quoted as stating that “if you hear such a performance and cannot identify the artist, then it is Szeryng.” Here are 12 perfect examples of performances as so described by Perlman:  

Henryk Szeryng – The SWR Recordings 1956-1984 (SWR>>CLASSIC SWR19092CD naxosdirect.com/search/swr19092cd) features 12 concertos with Szeryng and the SWR symphony orchestras for a five-CD set of exemplary performances with various notable conductors. There are two concertos by Bach, BWV1041 and 1042; three by Mozart K216, 219 and 271; also those by Beethoven, Schumann, Lalo (Symphonie espagnole), Brahms, Sibelius, Berg and Szymanowski (No.2 Op.61). From the liner notes: “The recordings were supposed to make the performances sound as concertante as possible without the performers letting themselves get carried away with too much scrupulous attention to detail.” Szeryng made himself perfectly clear: “A work should not be split into countless pieces. If I didn’t like a passage, I prefer to repeat the whole movement because recording bit by bit completely destroys the inner suspense.” Each of these 12 performances is a perfect example of these ideals. 

Their original SWR tapes have been remastered for this perfectly balanced, most attractive collection.

We leave 2020 and the celebrations of Isaac Stern’s 100th anniversary so well documented by Sony with the 75-CD boxed presentation of their complete catalogue of Stern’s commercially recorded performances. To complement that collection, Doremi has researched and prepared an edition Isaac Stern Live of six 2CD sets of live performances, none of which has been released in any form. There are rare archival items performed with orchestras and conductors with whom he did not record. Also works he did not record. Conductors with whom he was not commercially associated include Serge Koussevitzky, Charles Munch, Lorin Maazel, Bernard Haitink, Erich Leinsdorf, Raphael Kubelik, Josef Krips and Evgeny Svetlanov. Also, with Leonard Bernstein as pianist. 

The first album includes the Tchaikovsky concerto with Koussevitzky and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra with the 30-year-old Stern, followed by the Mozart Concerto No.3 with Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony from 1955. Then, from The Bell Telephone Hour on December 5, 1955 conducted by, of course, Donald Voorhees, Pugnani’s Largo and Sarasate’s Caprice Basque, Op.24. Then, on to the Brooklyn Academy of Music on January 22, 1969 with his permanent accompanist, Alexander Zakin, playing the Devil’s Trill sonata by Tartini/Kreisler, a sonata each by Beethoven and Prokofiev, then Four Romantic Pieces by Dvořák, Suk’s Burlesque and finally Mozart’s Rondo in C Major, K373. Before this review becomes a tiring list of repertoire let’s just mention that Volume Two includes Mozart’s Violin and Piano Sonata K305 with Leonard Bernstein and Volume Three opens with the Schubert Trio No.1, Op.99 played by Stern, Paul Tortelier and Artur Rubinstein from the Israel Summer Festival of 1967, followed by four heavy-duty concertos from Moscow and Carnegie Hall. These three volumes are available now, with three more to come in the new year. (Doremi DHR 8116/7, DHR 8128/9, DHR 8181/2 naxosdirect.com/search/dhr-8116-7)

During the 1950s through the 1980s, Belgian violinist Arthur Grumiaux (1921-1986) was one of the artists most highly esteemed by his fellows and popular with classical record buyers. His was a pure classical style, aristocratic, with perfect execution and exquisite taste. He recorded, as most readers know, for Philips and his discs are still in demand, as attested to by the listings in Amazon and others. Volume 2 of Arthur Grumiaux Live from Doremi (DHR8080 naxosdirect.com/search/dhr-8080) contains four exceptional broadcast performances. From Brussels, Mozart Violin Concerto No.1 K207, with the Chamber Orchestra of Belgian Radio conducted by Edgar Doneux (1973). Then three violin and piano sonatas from Munich with accompanist Hans Altmann: from May 11, 1955, Mozart’s Sonata in A Major K526; from October 2, 1954 Beethoven’s Sonata No.10 in G Major, Op.96; and finally Brahms’ Sonata in A Major Op.100 from September 14, 1952. Listening to this disc as I write, in fact to all the above, it is very satisfying to hear the artistry of these musicians of a generation-or-two ago, for whom getting the notes right was only just the beginning. I should add that it was said of some great instrumentalists of the past that their occasional wrong notes were better than a lesser player’s right ones. Alfred Cortot and Vladimir de Pachmann come to mind who, of course, also recorded before editing was possible.

Karajan Spectacular is from IDIS, an Italian company that is working on a series of Karajan reissues. I was unaware of these until we were sent Volume 6 (IDIS6741 naxosdirect.com/search/idis6741). On this disc Beethoven’s Egmont and Coriolan Overtures are played by the Philharmonia Orchestra recorded in Kingsway Hall in 1953. Also Wagner, played by the Berlin Philharmonic in 1957 and 1960 including the overtures to Der Fliegende Holländer and Tannhäuser, Lohengrin Prelude to Act 1 and Tristan und Isolde Prelude and Liebestod. To make a comparison I listened to the Philharmonia entries on EMI CDs. Particularly good sound, typical of EMI’s best. Then a shock! The IDIS sound is wider, deeper, with more body and certainly more involving. The Philharmonia was a magnificent orchestra and Karajan was at home with them. Same improvement for the Wagner. A recommendation for anyone interested in this repertoire.

Giant Steps – 60th Anniversary Edition
John Coltrane
Rhino-Warner Records/Atlantic SD 1311 (amazon.ca/Giant-Steps-60th-Anniversary-Coltrane/dp/B0864JZ9ZL)

Few jazz recordings have the historical significance of Coltrane’s Giant Steps, taking the tenor saxophonist from brilliant sideman to major figure. Recorded within weeks of Miles Davis’ 1959 classic Kind of Blue, to which Coltrane also contributed, Giant Steps was a different vision, its complex harmony a contrast to Davis’ spacious modality. If Kind of Blue signified sculptural perfection, Giant Steps, its title track still a jazz test piece, signalled hard work, running unfamiliar chord patterns – “Coltrane Changes” – at high velocity. The finished LP took three groups and multiple sessions to achieve the initial release. 

This commemorative two-CD (or two-LP) set presents snapshots of the record’s history. The first CD presents the original LP in all its glory. Including the flying Countdown, the modal Cousin Mary, the shimmering, bittersweet Naima, it’s a work of many moods and genuine mastery. 

The second disc, with eight rejected versions of key songs, demonstrates the many paths Coltrane could wend through material that stymied his sidemen. Only bassist Paul Chambers appeared consistently. An initial session with pianist Cedar Walton didn’t appear at all on the original disc, while pianist Tommy Flanagan and drummer Art Taylor required two sessions to record six of the original tracks. A satisfactory Naima was captured seven months later with pianist Wynton Kelly and Jimmy Cobb in a session for a different LP. 

Completists will want the Heavyweight Champion, the seven-CD set released in 1995, with nine false starts and alternates for Giant Steps alone, but for most, this set will suffice; a singular step in a great musician’s path.

During 2020, the classical music world celebrates, or at least recognizes, the 100th anniversary of the Salzburg Festival. Each year, for five weeks beginning in late July, Salzburg is teeming with all things Mozart, who was born there on January 27, 1756. It is a joyous time of music and theatre with a special focus on opera.

Over the years Unitel, in cooperation with Austrian Broadcasting, preserved these operas and has selected ten titles to issue in DVD and high-definition Blu-ray video discs in an Anniversary Edition boxed set, Salzburg Festival 100 (Cmajor 755704 naxosdirect.com/search/755704). Here are the operas, year, set designer, conductor, orchestra and leading voices: Verdi Otello (2008) [George Souglides] Riccardo Muti, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Aleksandrs Antoņenko, Marina Poplavskaya, Carlos Álvarez; Handel Theodora (2009) [Annette Kurz] Ivor Bolton, Freiburger Barockorchester, Christine Schäfer; Janáček The Makropulos Affair (2011) [Anna Viebrock] Esa-Pekka Salonen, VPO, Angela Denoke; Schubert Fierrabras (2014) [Ferdinand Wogerbauer] Ingo Metzmacher, VPO, Michael Schade; Strauss Der Rosenkavalier (2014) [Hans Schavernoch] Frans Welser-Möst, VPO, Krassimira Stoyanova; Strauss Salome (2018) [Romeo Castellucci] Welser-Möst, VPO, Asmik Grigorian; Rossini L’Italiana in Algeri (2018) [Christian Fenouliiat] Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Ensemble Matheus, Cecilia Bartoli; Mozart Die Zauberflöte (2018) [Katharina Schlipf] Constantinos Carydis, VPO, Matthias Goerne; Tchaikovsky Pique Dame (2018) [Christian Schmidt] Mariss Jansons, VPO, Brandon Jovanovich; Verdi Simon Boccanegra (2019) [Harald B. Thor] Valery Gergiev, VPO, Luca Salsi. 

I wonder how these ten performances were selected from what must have been quite an assortment of available choices. Most probably these were acclaimed productions that deserve the opera lover’s attention. As such, here is an esoteric collection that, from those I have watched, fills that bill. 

The latest edition, at this writing, of the Michael Gielen Edition is Volume 9, the Beethoven Complete Symphonies, Overtures and Mass in C Major (SWR19090, nine CDs and one DVD naxosdirect.com/search/swr19090). For those who are unfamiliar with Michael Gielen, he was a German-Argentinian conductor and composer who studied piano, composition and philosophy in Buenos Aires. He performed Schoenberg’s complete piano works there, and was also coach and assistant conductor of the Teatro Colón. He joined the Vienna State Opera in 1951 and was permanent conductor there from 1954 to 1960. He was also assistant and répétiteur for conductors such as Karl Böhm, Clemens Krauss and Herbert von Karajan. No better way to immerse in the classics than rehearsals and performances. From 1960 he was the first conductor of the Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm. Gielen was principal conductor of the National Orchestra in Belgium from 1968 to 1973 and of the Dutch Opera in Amsterdam from 1973 to 1976. He later conducted the West German Radio Orchestra in Cologne and from 1977 to 1987 was general music director of Oper Frankfurt. Concurrently from 1980 to 1986 he was music director of the Cincinnati Symphony and from 1986 to 1999 principal conductor of the of the SWR Orchestra of Baden-Baden and Freiburg. 

In Europe, Gielen was the most radical innovator of Beethoven’s music. He conducted the first live performance in Germany of the Eroica based on Beethoven’s tempo markings, in Frankfurt in October 1970. That performance is to be heard on the sixth CD in this set.

Outside the opera house he conducted contemporary music. He was a performer and promoter of works embracing the Second or New Viennese School, having premiered several works in the new tradition of Ligeti, Stockhausen, Zimmermann et al. His own works were premiered by respected soloists and ensembles of the day. 

Along with his involvement with the New Viennese School, throughout his career he paid particular attention to the First Viennese School of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. His first recordings of Beethoven were Symphonies Two, Seven and Eight which had been allocated to him as part of a complete Beethoven Symphonies edition with various conductors, made for Vox and later available on Audio Fidelity. The orchestra, incidentally, was composed of members of the Vienna Volksoper, identified on the label as the Wiener Staatsopern-Orchester.

Now, back to 1980 in Cincinnati where Vox made a widely discussed recording. During October of Gielen’s first year there, he recorded Beethoven’s Third Symphony, observing the composer’s prescribed tempos and markings in all four movements, particularly effective in the first, previously ignored by traditional conductors. Those were the days when it was claimed that Beethoven’s metronome was defective, only to be countered by the growing number of groups observing original performance practices. This collection offers the listener three performances of the Eroica. The 1970 from Frankfurt mentioned above, the celebrated 1980 from Cincinnati and another from the Festspeilhaus, Baden-Baden in February 2000 that is also to be seen on the enclosed DVD. Of the three I am attracted to the 2000 performance because of the distinct feeling that everyone in the orchestra, as a group and individually, is very happy to be there playing this music. That stood out to me on the first hearing and has not lessened in subsequent listenings. 

Along with the symphonies, Gielen offers these overtures: Egmont; Consecration of the House and two from Fidelio. Also, Gielen’s orchestration of the Grosse Fuge, and the Mass in C Major, Op.86 for soloists, choir and orchestra. There are many exciting differences from the accepted practice here. For instance, the first movement of the Fifth Symphony is not a proclamation of defiance or victory, but simply Allegro con brio. We hear with new and different ears throughout. In every respect, the SWR orchestra plays with effortless virtuosity. Note that these are modern instruments and not original instrument performances. The sound is uniformly ultra-realistic and articulate wherein the various instruments are clearly located. 

This could be the first choice for anyone thinking about a Beethoven set updated from the same-old, same-old weighty, routine editions. 

SOMM has issued Volume II of Elgar from America containing three archive performances of his music played by the NBC Symphony Orchestra (Ariadne 5008 naxosdirect.com/search/ariadne+5008). On this disc we are treated to three favourites, all from Studio 8H in New York’s Rockefeller Center, now the home of SNL. In 1945, Arturo Toscanini, conductor of the NBCSO, had invited Malcolm Sargent to conduct four concerts of English music. On February 18, 1945 Sargent conducted the Cockaigne Overture (In London Town) Op.40. One week later, Yehudi Menuhin joined Sargent for the Violin Concerto in B Minor Op.61. The Introduction and Allegro for Strings Op.47 had been in Toscanini’s repertoire since 1911 when he prepared the orchestra there for Elgar’s impending arrival. This is the third work on this disc in a hugely impressive Elgarian performance from April 20, 1940. Toscanini evinces a rounder sound, more akin to a British orchestra than Sargent does in the overture and the concerto, but both performances are most enjoyable and Menuhin is inspired. 

The restoration, from available sources, is produced by Lani Spahr, who was responsible for earlier discs devoted to historic Elgar performances.

Annie Fischer was a Hungarian pianist who was born in Budapest in 1914 and rose to become a much-admired artist for her freedom of expression over half a century. But she is not so known nor appreciated here, although she had a loyal following in the Classical Record Shop where news of a new Fischer disc spread… albeit mostly to Hungarians. She died in Budapest in 1995. Annie Fischer SECRETS (Hungaroton HCD 32845-46, 2CDs, naxosdirect.com/search/5991813284525) features two of her beloved composers, with Schubert Sonatas D845 and D959, and Schumann’s Fantasiestücke Op.12 and Kreisleriana Op.16. As a little encore, Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp Minor, Op.27 No.1. The “secret” of these recordings is quite fascinating but too long for here. You’ll just have to check it out for yourself. You’ll find it well worth the effort!