A British take on Bohemian composition

I have written on the London String Quartet before for my website www.jolyon.com [admittedly not updated for a year or more because its a complete faff and much easier to post on a blog] I can't think I have ever seen this Dvořák Quartet re-issued so thought it needed an outing.

London String Quartet

John Pennington (first violin) Thomas W. Petre  (second violin)

Harry Waldo Warner (viola) Charles Warwick Evans, (cello)

Dvořák: Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96, S. 116

Allegro ma non troppo

Lento

Molto vivace

Finale: Vivace ma non troppo

Columbia L2092-2094 

[WAX3124-1; WAX3125-1; WAX3126-1

WAX3127-1; WAX3128-1; WAX3128-2]

Recorded: Monday 21^st November 1927

Link (FLAC files, 73 MB)

The leader of the London String Quartet was originally Albert Sammons then James Levy and by 1928for  this recording it was John Pennington. Pennington was born in Bournemouth in 1902 and by 11 was playing in Sir Dan Godfrey's symphony concerts - probably just as illegal then as now. He became a member of the LSO, Covent Garden Opera Orchestra, leader of he first Wireless Orchestra during 1923-24 and concert master of the San Francisco orchestra from 1934 when the Quartet was disbanded for a time. I have not been able to find a photograph of the line up at the time the recording was made. The viola player Harry Waldo Warner had to retire in 1929 due to ill heath so I have instead included a photograph with his wife at the foot of this post.

An excellent article by Tully Potter can be found in Autumn 2010 issue of Classical Recordings Quarterly [Very well worth subscribing to by the way] He calls the performance 'so-so' I shall drop him a line on this as he may not have heard the performance in goodish sound - there are a few pitch problems in the set too that have been corrected here.

The London String Quartet.
Top to bottom: Warwick Evans, cello; John Pennington, first violin;
William Primrose, viola; Thomas Petre, second violin.

The Gramophone contains the following review for June 1928  'This is as fine a performance as one expects it to be with this excellent ensemble. The recording, though faultless, is slightly on the thin side, a fact which makes me wonder all the more whether it was a very happy idea of Dvořák's to use these tunes as material for a romantic string quartet which - small wonder - has a good deal more to do with the land of the Czechs than with U.S.A. I honestly feel that the fruitiness of the negro-idioms is far more suitable in shows like "The Black Birds " and others than in the little string quartet, however well written it is.'

'Discus' in The Musical Times for June 1928 has a brisk review and  liked the performance 'Chamber Music recordings have a popular addition in Dvořák s 'Nigger' Quartet, played by the London String Quartet, who give a sensitive performance of this beautiful quartet.'

The unfortunate appellation of the 'N' word was quite universal at this period, as can be seen from the label illustrated above. This thankfully starts to die out by the 1940s when the more acceptable 'American' was substituted. Neither is correct as Dvořák never gave any title to the work.

Probably the performance was thought to sound too British without enough Bohemian vitality and edge in it, but having listened to it a few times I think it has a spirit all of its own. The set was issued by Columbia in May 1928 and withdrawn  probably around January 1933 when Columbia replaced it with a performance given by the Lener String Quartet.

The Columbia Supplement for May 1928 seems slightly unsure of the recording quality as they explain in their blurb that 'The ensemble is so perfect that the four  play like one instrument. The fact that the beautiful viola playing of Mr Waldo Warner stands out a little above the rest is entirely due to the prominent place that Dvořák gave this instrument. it does not stand out a moment longer than it should and thus shows the perfect artistry of the quartet. The recording is very rich, and the string tone is perfectly reproduced.'

I quite like old W.W. Corbett's description of the piece in his Cyclopedia of Chamber Music OUP 1929 'Dvořák spent eight months in the chaos of metropolitan life in a society and nation quite strange to him, in journalistic world both sensational and polemical, amid vociferous praise and celebrations given in his honour; then suddenly he found himself in the strangely quiet beauty of the the heart of America, surrounded by a circle of Czech agriculturalist, worthy farmers, lusty peasants, cheery priests, and kindly old wives, who listened with tears in their eyes to the old church music of their native Bohemian villages which the musician played for the them on the organ at mass. here then, is the origin of the fundamental mood which inspired this charming, quickly written (in three days) [sometime between 8-23 June 1893] but detailed work, touches the places with painful yearning, yet with smiling, idyllic sentiment prevailing throughout.'

Rose & Harry Waldo Warner

Going completely off at a tangent the Rose in the photograph was born Rose Amy Pettigrew and was to  marry Harry in 1896. Daughter of a cork cutter, and one of 13 children she became, from an early age, a model who sat for Rudolph Onslow Ford, William Holman Hunt, Frederic Leighton, John Everett Millais, Edward Poynter, Val Prinsep, John Singer Sargent, Walter Sickert,  Philip Wilson Steer and James McNeill Whistler.

Best friend with Charles Ives

 

 Elie Robert Schmitz (Piano)

Debussy: Arabesque No. 2 in G Major

Debussy: Children's Corner - Suite  

5. The Little Shepherd  6. Golliwogg's Cake Walk  

Edison Diamond Disc 80690

[18261 B-1-7; 18262 B-2-2]

Recorded: Saturday 25^th February 1928

Chopin: Nocturne in F Sharp Major Op. 15, No. 2

Chopin: Waltz in C Sharp Minor Op. 64, No. 2

Edison Diamond Disc 80696

[18590 B-1-3; 18591 B-1-2]

Recorded: Monday 25^th June 1928

Link (FLAC files, 73 MB)

I don't think these four electrically recorded solos played by  Elie Robert Schmitz (1889-1949) on Edison have ever surfaced on CD or the Internet. The Schumann Piano Quintet Op 44 (see below) is however available through the British Library site but only to Europeans so I thought I should tag this recording onto the end. I also recommend listening to Bryan's transfer at Shellackophile blog of Beethoven: Piano Quartet in E-Flat, Op. 16 with members of the Roth String Quartet.

A biography of Schmitz can be found on Wikipedia and Yale University (who hold his archive) has an even more fulsome details. Being both well acquainted with Debussy and his works and a pupil of Louis Diémer, teacher of Cortot among many others, his small recorded output ought to have had more exposure.

I don't agree with Charles Timbrell's assessment (in his essay on Debussy in Performance in The Cambridge Companion to Debussy) that Schmitz playing was affected due to an injury on his left hand during the First World War and that it 'may account for the inelegant and erratic playing heard on his Debussy recordings.' Trimbell had access to only the recordings of Debussy Preludes Books I & II from 1947 but still I think he has misunderstood Schmitz's interpretations.

Of the Chopin the middle section of the Nocturne is quite magical and I would dearly have like to heard more of Schmitz's Chopin playing, especially so considering his pedagogical lineage.

I feel a better assessment of this musician place in the history of performance is better understood by Ronald V. Wiecki in his article (Two Musical Idealists - Charles Ives and E. Robert Schmitz: A Friendship Reconsidered American Music Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), pp. 1-19.) Wiecki also gives cogent reasons why Schmitz is near forgotten, and when remembered, often misunderstood:-

'For a number of interconnected and complex reasons, Schmitz's importance, not only for Ives, but also for the history of music in America between the two world wars, has been overlooked. In part, this is because his musical and cultural ideals were at odds with the dominant trend of the time toward commercialization of "classical" music and reliance on "superstar" virtuosi. But, in addition, Schmitz's internationalist outlook in music means that he does not fit easily into the nationalistic perspective of historians studying the emergence of post-World War I "American Music." From his early association with American composers such as Emerson Whithorne and Leo Sowerby through Ives to Virgil Thomson, Schmitz was a friend of American music more committed than many American-born musicians. Schmitz has fallen into relative obscurity because he has been commonly perceived as insufficiently "modern."' his, in spite of the fact that the composers he championed were at the time considered to be among those seriously committed to carrying on the musical tradition through the combination of both old and new elements.' 

Elie Robert Schmitz (Piano) & 

Philharmonic String Quartet of New York

Scipione Guidi (vn), Arthur Lichstein (vn), 

Louis E. Barzin (va), Osvaldo Mazzucchi (vc)

Schumann Piano Quintet Op 44 (abridged)  

Edison Diamond Disc 80885-80886

[18051 B-1-3; 18052 C-2-1; 18055 C-1-2; 18056 C-1-3 [1-1] ]

Recorded: Tuesday 22^nd  & Wednesday 23^rd November 1927

Link (FLAC files, 90 MB)

Of the Schumann Piano Quintet one member of the Philharmonic Quartet remembered the recording session and was none too happy about the result:-

HARVITHS: We know that you took part in a recording of the Schumann Piano Quintet for Edison in the late 1920s, with E. Robert Schmitz and the Philharmonic String Quartet of New York.

BARZIN: I wasn't at all happy with that quintet release [issued on Edison Diamond Discs EDD 80885/6, out of print]. If I hadn't been bound by contract, I wouldn't have allowed it to be released.

Schmitz was a French pianist who came to this country. He wanted to record, and his outlet was Edison. He knew me from Europe, so he came to me, mentioned the upcoming recording, and I said, "Well, if you want to play that quintet, use the Philharmonic Quartet. Why go and get four strangers?" That's how the project started.

HARVITHS: As a musician who recorded for both Victor and Edison in the 1920s, how would you compare the behind-the-scenes recording operations of the two companies?

BARZIN: You know, that dog in front of the horn is quite a symbol. The professional music world completely disregarded Edison. The people who registered the sound at the other companies knew more about what they were registering and therefore tried to get more fidelity and a sense of live music._;

HARVITHS: And you felt that musicians were more in control at the Victor Company?

BARZIN: Much more. The staff was geared totally differently. At Victor you kept in contact with a musician who was the head of what they called serious music. There was the sheet music department, you had the jazz department. I mean, they had people who handled things. It was better organized, and certainly commercially they were much better, distribution was much greater.

At Edison you didn't know. There was no musician attached to the department. You might have been talking to a very good, efficient bureaucrat, yes. But you were never talking directly to a musician. They just worked from a scientific point of view. They were never interested in the relation of the tone of a violin to the tone of a viola, for instance. They just let us play through the quintet, and they took it. They never said, "This bar or this passage could be clearer." They just took it, and that was it. The other companies made you play it six or seven times before they would make a take.

HARVITHS: What kind of reliance do you think present-day musicians can place on recordings of forty, fifty, sixty years ago?

BARZIN: Reliance is purely nostalgic.

HARVITHS: You really don't think there is anything of substance that we can rely on in those recordings?

BARZIN: Well I hear, for instance, pianists say "X," and they go into ecstasy. I hear a recording of "X" and I say, "Yes, he must have been great, but that's not the way he played." Artists sit in the studio and repeat and repeat. Or they finally say, "All right! I allow you to send this out." But inwardly, they're not very happy. Understand what I mean? They're never
happy.

HARVITHS: What do you think the advantage of recording has proved to be, then?

BARZIN: Purely as home recreation. "I heard Schnabel; I'd love to have him home." That was the original idea. If I could hear today a recording of [violinist Eugene] Ysaye, I wouldn't care if it was a terrible recording. Because having known him, I'd say, "Oh, yes, but this is the way I hear
him." I hear him as a human being; I don't hear him because of the record. I hear what he would have done.

HARVITHS: So you would say that anyone who listens to recordings would have to have an idea of what the artist sounded like in person?

BARZIN: I think so. I think there should be some kind of human contact.

Edison, musicians, and the phonograph : a century in retrospect edited by John Harvith and Susan Edwards Harvith. New York : Greenwood Press, c1987 (pp. 170-171).

Slightly earlier in the interview Barzin complains of playbacks sounding different from the performance. From this I believe that the pitch problems in the Edison's – apart from the balance and abridgement of the piece, caused his negative judgement.  

The first side starts about a quarter-tone down and sinks another quarter tone towards the end – the next three side are about a half-tone out and again are not consistent. In fact Edison Diamond Discs seem to have a tendency to speed up or slow down! I have managed to correct this annoying habit in these downloads.

The usual problems with Edison is the amount of rumble and the variability of the pressings - I'd rather leave in the noise than loose any of the sound.

Losing the plot

Edison lost the plot and also lost the war of the Phonographs to the ever rapacious Gramophone. A few last futile attempts to record something better than excerpts and transcriptions of chamber music were however made. This wonderful, compelling, artless performance has been left to languish far too long. I don't think anyone has ever attempted to re-issue it, and I have not been able to locate any reviews either, it did however manage to get listed in WERM.

The set has a few pressing problems that I have minimized as much as possible without interfering too much with the sound quality; side joins were also a bit tricky due to rallentandos.   On The New York Trio much of the information I have pulled from the web, various newspapers and journals but big gaps still remain in  my knowledge of this group.

Schubert: Piano Trio in B-flat major, D.898 (Op. 99)

The New York Trio

Clarence Adler, piano Louis Edlin violin  

Cornelius van Vliet cello

Edison Diamond Disc 80899-80901

[18527 B-1-1; 18528 A-1-1; 18529 A-1-4; 18530 B-1-1; 

18531 A-1-1; 18532 A-1-1; 18533 A-1-2; 18534 A-1-4]

Recorded: Thursday 24^th May 1928

Coupled: Monday 17^th September 1928

Discontinued: Tuesday 31^st December 1929

4 Flac files in a .rar file, Here at Mediafire. [about 86Mb]

The New York Trio was founded about October 1919 the original members being Scipione Guidi, violin, Cornelius van Vliet cello and Clarence Adler piano. Scipione Guidi left the trio in 1923, probably due to his commitments as Concert Master of the the New York Philharmonic from 1921 and was replaced by the violinist Louis Edlin. The trio remained with these three players until at least 1929. I believe for the a number of years there was some sort of interregnum as I find no mention of the trio again until 1936 when the group now included John Corigliano as violinist but was not named as The New York Trio.

Biographies:

Cornelius van Vliet

Cornelius van Vliet (1889-1963), the founder of the trio, was born in Holland. He played with the Concertgebouw and later became principal of the orchestras at Leipzig and Prague. He moved to the United States in 1911 to play with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. He went on to become principal cello with the New York Philharmonic from around 1922 to at least 1928. His time probably coincided with Mengelberg,s tenure as music director. He then became principle cellist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. This could have been prompted by the dispute between Mengelberg and Toscanini which lead to Mengelberg leaving New York in 1930. Van Vliet later taught at the University of Colorado, and retired in 1953.

Aaron Copland & Clarence Adler

Clarence Adler (1886-1969) was born in Cincinnati. He was spotted by Romeo Gorno, a professor at the Cincinnati College of Music, and at the age of twelve Adler was already giving concerts in the South and Midwest of America. By 1902 he realized he needed more advanced training and moved to Berlin where he became a pupil of Alfred Reisenauer, himself a pupil of Liszt and Leopold Godowsky. In 1913 Adler returned to the United States and settled in New York, where he performed with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Willem Mengelberg and the New York Symphony under Walter Damrosch. It was probably through these concerts that he met with van Vliet to form the New York Trio. From 1919 Adler became a respected pedagogue and pianist who taught both Aaron Copland and Richard Rogers. He still performed, often on radio, but his main influence was teaching private classes in New York and Lake Placid.

Victor de Gomez (l) & Louis Edlin (r)
Cleveland Symphony Orchestra 1920

Louis Edlin was born in New York in 1889 of Russian-Jewish parents. He began studying at the age of nine with Arnold D. Volpe (1869-1940), a Lithuanian-born American composer and conductor who came to the United States in 1898. Arnold Volpe organized and conducted his Volpe orchestra, a training orchestra in the years prior to WWI and Louis Edlin gained his first orchestral experience there. Eldin moved to Europe in 1906 and first studied at the Paris Conservatoire with the Belgium Guillaume Rémy and then to Berlin from 1909 where he studied with Fritz Kreisler, among other teachers. Returning to New York in 1911 Eldin played in the first violin section of the New York Symphony from 1911 to 1913. In the 1913-1914 season, Edlin become Concertmaster of the Russian Symphony of New York. Then in the next season he became a member of the first violin section of the Philharmonic Society of New York where he stayed until 1919. At the recommendation of the Philharmonic conductor Josef Stransky, Edlin was appointed Concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra where he stayed until the end of the 1923. During his Cleveland years, Edlin taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music and played in the Cleveland String Quartet. In 1923, Edlin returned to New York City and joined the faculty of the Institute of Musical Art (Juilliard) and also that year became a member of the New York Trio. In 1926 Louis Edlin became radio conductor of the Atwater-Kent radio orchestra and later served as a section head of violins and a conductor at the National Orchestral Association, a training orchestra for orchestral musicians in New York City in the 1940s. My last notice of Edlin is from 1951.

Repertoire:

I have but meagre information on what the trio performed although the Schubert was in their repertoire from at least 1922. I have tabulated the information I have managed to glean online from various articles and newspapers of all the concerts known to me which can be downloaded HERE [10Kb PDF]

Recordings:

Of recordings I have only been able to trace the Schubert and a live recording from 1953.


Interestingly a different, unpublished? take of the first side [A-1-1] of this performance is available through the Thomas Edison National Park HERE.

A tape held at the Library of Congress of a concert by New York Trio recorded in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress, Washington, on Feb. 6, 1953. This includes Mozart trio B flat major, KV502; Beethoven Variations on Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu, op. 121a Beethoven Trio in B flat major, op. 97 and Walter Piston Trio (1935), The Piston I understand was issued on a disc – anyone have that?

Chronology:

The Altenberg Trio web page HERE has the following information on the The New York Trio history.

NEW YORK TRIO (I) [ New York, NY (US) ] (1919 - 1923)

piano: Clarence ADLER * 10.03.1886 Cincinnati, OH (US)† 24.12.1969

violin: Scipione GUIDI 

cello: Cornelius van VLIET * 01.09.1886 Rotterdam (NL)

NEW YORK TRIO (II) [ New York, NY (US) ] (1923 - )

piano: Clarence ADLER * 10.03.1886 Cincinnati, OH (US)† 24.12.1969

violin: Louis EDLIN * 30.09.1893 New York, NY (US) 

cello: Cornelius van VLIET * 01.09.1886 Rotterdam (NL)

NEW YORK TRIO (III) [ New York, NY (US) ] 

piano: Clarence ADLER * 10.03.1886 Cincinnati, OH (US)† 24.12.1969

violin: John CORIGLIANO * 28.08.1901 New York, NY (US)† 01.09.1975 Norfolk, CT (US) 

cello: Cornelius van VLIET * 01.09.1886 Rotterdam (NL)

Edison:

I ought to say something about Edison. It was unusual to have such a long work recorded over eight sides by Edison so it must have been partly to celebrate the Schubert Centenary and partly to compete against the Cortot, Thibaud, Casals, issue on HMV & Victor.

Edison was losing sales rapidly for the following reasons: a) his sales were concentrated on short popular pieces b) Edison himself vetted all records – he was not too musical and deaf as a post c) hill & dale recordings were not compatible with any other system of reproduction d) the company had made losses since 1924 e) their main clients were outside the cities and almost all rural f) they were late into using electrical recordings – well I could go on but I think you can see where this is headed. The company was wound up in October 1929 and all stock sold or destroyed. The records were issued sometime after the coupling date and from the matrix number I don't think they sold many copies. Three takes were made, A, B and C from which one would be chosen for issue. A mould would be made; and stampers made from that mould: thus A-1-1 equates to take A mould 1 stamper 1. You can see that most of these did not get past the first stamper and those that did may have been due to failures in processing.

Edison Advertisement:

As an addenda I have copied out the blurb in the Edison Supplement for July, August, September 1928.

'Franz Schubert is to-day probably the best known and best loved of all the world's great composers. Yet one hundred years ago he lived and wrote obscure and penniless in his native city of Vienna – a simple, cheerful, generous soul. On November 19 1828, he died there – practically of starvation and almost friendless – at the lamentable age of thirty-one. They found in his room “ a quantity of old music, value $2” now part of the richest single heritage of music ever bestowed upon an astonished world.

'Of the many lovely things that Schubert wrote, one of the loveliest is his Trio in B flat – an exquisite tone-poem, to be approached in loving reverence by musicians – to be heard in thrilled silence by the listener. It is music that speaks of the soul.

'In 1919 three great artists – Adler, Edlin and val Vliet – founded the New York Trio. Nine rich years of ensemble experience have brought to their present performance a perfection of finish and balance which, combined with the music of Schubert, results in beauty almost incredible … Hear this great Trio complete on four records -80898-80901.'

First Edition of the Op 99 Trio, published Vienna 1836

Something a bit longer

I have spent most of the day preparing a wall ready to be daubed with paint tomorrow and I have a dripping nose, so thought to listen to some Schubert for comfort. BBC Radio 3 has had wall-to-wall Schubert the week before last but I can't think they broadcast these performances. Another good blogger, Grumpy Nick is coming over tomorrow in order that we do Coleridge-Taylor Festival!

Schubert: Piano Trio in E-flat major, D.929 (Op.100)

Michael Raucheisen,  piano, Jani Szántó violin 

& Josef Disclez, cello

Polydor: 95225-95229 

[526bi IV-541 bi IV] 

Recorded 1928, Berlin

Score at IMSLP

Schubert: Ave Maria D. 839 

arr. for violin & piano by August Wilhelmj 

Georg Kulenkampff, violin & Franz Rupp, piano

Polydor: 95229 

[371 be] 

Recorded 1928, Berlin

Score at IMSLP

2 Flac files in a .rar file, HERE at Mediafire. [about 118Mb].

The labels on the records have the rather bizarre name of the group as Munich Chamber Music Combination. I know from the German catalogues and WERM that the members of the 'Combination' are in fact Raucheisen, Szántó and Disclez [biogs below]. The recording was undoubtedly issued as part of the great Schubert Centenary celebrations, each side with the usual 1928 copyright date on the discs. That the records could only be obtained in the UK and USA via specialist shops, or on special order has made them difficult to find, and unlike a great number of the Polydor issues, this particular set did not make an appearance on Brunswick or Decca labels. I do not believe it was reviewed in The Gramophone or reissued on CD.

The recording takes up nine sides so a ‘lollipop’ filled the tenth side. I know it is Ave Maria by Schubert but this performance by the violinist Georg Kulenkampff with Franz Rupp as his accompanist is utterly lovely,  portamento and rubato, what happened? why did we loose these so so human qualities in our music making for so long, big softy that I am. The trio is not half bad either just in case you think I’m slacking here. Note at the end of the Ave Maria someone is hammering!

Towards the end of the 19th century the school of Munich composers led by Ludwig Thuille began to gain a reputation which spread beyond the city. The representatives of the Munich school active in the early years of the 20th century, such as Courvoisier, von Franckenstein and von Waltershausen, were succeeded by Haas, Kaminski and others such as Fritz Büchtger, Karl Höller, Harald Genzmer, Günther Bialas, Wilhelm Killmayer and Josef Anton Riedl, while Carl Orff and Karl Amadeus Hartmann achieved international standing. (Cribbed from Grove) Something more for me to explore!


Below are biogs of the three performers, Raucheisen is well documented but I have found it difficult to locate much information on his partners in this recording; any further information gratefully recieved.

Michael Raucheisen

Michael Raucheisen (1889-1984) was born in Rain, Swabia From 1902 Raucheisen lived in Munich, and from 1920 until the end of his pianistic activity in 1958, in Berlin. He studied at the Munich High School for Music. Around 1906 he played first violin at the Prinzregententheater and was organist in St. Michael. In 1916 he focused exclusively on the role of the piano accompanist and from the beginning of the 1920s until the end of the Second World War he was song accompanist for many singers, including Frida Leider, Erna Berger, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Karl Schmitt-Walter, Karl Erb and Helge Rosvaenge, to mention only a few. From 1933 he strove to create a complete catalogue of German language songs on gramophone recordings, for which, from 1940, he became head of the department of song and chamber music at the Berlin Rundfunk. After the War he was banned from his work for some years on account of his possible collaboration with the Nazi regime, and afterwards he appeared only occasionally in public.

Jani Szántó

Jani Szántó (1887-1977), a Hungarian violinist he studied in Budapest, Vienna, and Leipzig and was  appointed professor at the State Academy of Music in Munich in 1918 and with Felix Saupe, Haas and Josef Disclez he form the Munich String Quartet in 1920. He had left Germany in 1939 to escape Nazi persecution, and became the director of the Philadelphia Musical Academy in 1943 there he remained the director until he retired in 1962.


Josef Disclez (1888-1955) was born at Namur, Belgium, trained at the Brussels Conservatoire and subsequently worked in Brussels, Berlin and Munich and from 1914 he was principle cellist in the Bavarian State orchestra and a professor at the State Academy of Music in Munich.