The First Complete Recording of the "New World" Symphony

Hamilton Harty, from the 1927 Columbia Catalogue

After all these years, the symphony most associated with America remains Dvořák's ever-fresh Symphony "From the New World." It is one of the peculiarities of the early recording industry that its first complete outing on shellac should have emanated from London, played by a Manchester-based orchestra conducted by an Irishman. Oh, the famous "Largo" had been recorded in the USA several times, by bands and orchestras including those of Philadelphia and New York, always abridged to one four-minute side. In 1919-21, Landon Ronald made the first recording of all four movements, issued piecemeal and with all but the Scherzo being cut. Then in 1923 came Harty's fine version, his first recording of any symphony, absolutely complete except for one repeat in the Trio of the Scherzo:

Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 ("From the New World")
The Hallé Orchestra conducted by Hamilton Harty
Recorded April 10, October 23 and October 24, 1923
Columbia Masterworks Set No. 3, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 103.11 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 63.84 MB)

This would be the only complete "New World" recorded acoustically; the next recording would be Stokowski's 1925 early electric version (which can be heard here). Harty would re-record the symphony in 1927, as would Ronald; interestingly, both conductors would be knighted during the period between their respective recordings.

Happy Birthday, Antonín Dvořák!

Tuesday marks the 174th anniversary of the birth of Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904). I guess that means I'm a year ahead of celebrating a nice round number (175th), but so what? - any excuse to listen to Dvořák's music seems a good one to me. And so here is his Cello Concerto, one of the works composed in America, and suffused with nostalgia and homesickness. Of course, almost every cellist of note has recorded it, and most of these recordings that I've heard fall short of the ideal interpretation. It requires a performance of total emotional commitment, while at the same time avoiding sentimentality, and that's a fine line indeed! I think this version by Piatigorsky, himself a lifelong exile, comes as close as any I've heard (naturally, it doesn't hurt to have the support of Ormandy and his great orchestra):

Dvořák: Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104
Gregor Piatigorsky, cello
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded January 17, 1946
Columbia Masterworks set MM-658, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 88.01 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 64.36 MB)

This cover design of this set affords another excuse to add to my ongoing Alex Steinweiss gallery:

Isaac Stern in Music from "Humoresque"

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

With another Academy Awards ceremony looming (the 87th!), it seems a fitting time to share this album of music from the 1946 Warner Brothers romantic melodrama, "Humoresque." This story about an aspiring young violinist's doomed affair with a wealthy socialite, played by Joan Crawford, has long been admired by Crawford's fans as one of her finest performances on film. I can see why, but for me, the film only works because of its glorious music, played on the soundtrack by Issac Stern and Oscar Levant, who also plays the part of best friend to the on-screen violinist (played by John Garfield). My problem with the picture is that neither of the lead characters seems particularly likable; in fact Levant's character is the most sympathetic in the film, unusually for him! Nor did I care for the underlying message, which seems to be: "don't get involved with a musician; they're all crazy and will drive you to suicide if you're so unfortunate as to fall in love with one!" When I watched the movie for the first time, it felt like I was sitting through endless periods of bickering dialogue while waiting for the all-too-brief musical interludes.  I'm sure that my little review probably tells more about me than about the film, but having said that, the best part of it, for me, is right here:

"Humoresque" - Selections from the film:
Dvořák: Humoresque
Rimsky-Korsakov: Flight of the Bumblebee
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde - Fantasie (arr. Waxman)*
Sarasate: Zigeunerweisen
Bizet: Carmen - Fantasy (arr. Waxman)
Isaac Stern, violin; *Oscar Levant, piano;
Orchestra conducted by Franz Waxman
Recorded August 14, 1946 (except the Wagner)
Columbia Masterworks set MM-657, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 87.39 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 55.99 MB)

The Wagner fantasie is the only work played uninterruptedly in the picture (as its climax, in fact), so it was dubbed from the soundtrack; the other pieces were studio recordings.

The story goes that Warner Brothers originally wanted Jascha Heifetz for the job of playing the violin on the soundtrack, but he demanded more money than Jack Warner was willing to pay, So "J.L." said "we'll get a talented kid to do it," went to San Francisco to hear Stern in a recital, and hired him on the spot. It was undoubtedly a big boost to Stern's career. He was all of 25 years old, and had just begun recording for Columbia.

Symphonies at 16⅔ R.P.M.

This one is, frankly, little more than a curiosity, and until about a week ago, I had forgotten that I even owned it.  But my memory was piqued upon seeing this YouTube video featuring a rare record changer, in which the presenter states that it's difficult to find a 16-rpm record that isn't of "Christmas music, crappy music, or talking books."  Well, Dvořák's "New World" Symphony, though it might be overplayed, certainly isn't "crappy music," and his comment triggered a memory of buying, some twenty years ago in a used book shop, this and three other symphonic works on 7-inch 16⅔-rpm records for a dollar each.  A bit of searching around the house produced the little records in question, all by anonymous performers, in a short-lived series designed as supplementary to the producing company's main business, which was, in fact, "talking books."  It isn't hard to see why the series was so short-lived.  The slower speed really doesn't lend itself well to music, especially when pressed on such inferior material as Audio Book was using at the time (1956) - the same type of cheap plastic that Columbia was pressing its 45s in.  I confess that my main reason for offering this transfer here is to find out if anyone out there knows anything about these records, and especially what source Audio Book may have been drawing from for the recordings.  Any guesses as to the identity of the orchestra and conductor are welcome!

Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 ("From the New World")
Anonymous orchestra and conductor
Issued in 1956
Audio Book Music Series WG-805, one 7-inch 16⅔-rpm record
Link (FLAC files, 113.12 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 52.92 MB)

The Audio Book Company, incidentally, is still very much with us, and is still purveying many of the same "talking book" recordings they first offered as small 16-rpm records in the 1950s, only now as cassettes and CDs here at their website.  One that I have particularly fond memories of is Marvin Miller's virtuosic reading of Carlo Collodi's "Pinocchio" in unabridged form on 4 CDs.  I had it in the early 70s as a set of five 16-rpm discs, purchased from the same shop where I bought 78-rpm Young Peoples Records - the Educational Record Center in Decatur, Ga.

More Symphonies from Philadelphia

Two American symphonies, one about America which is among the most well-known in the symphonic repertoire, and one by an American which should be far better known, are the subjects of today's post.  Both originate from Philadelphia, and are conducted by the indefatigable Eugene Ormandy:

Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 ("From the New World")
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded December 18, 1944, and January 12, 1946
Columbia Masterworks MM-570, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 93.78 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 50.23 MB)

William Schuman: Symphony No. 3 (1941)
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded March 11, 1951
Columbia Masterworks ML-4413, one LP record
Link (FLAC files, 80.74 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 36.02 MB)

This was the first recording of William Schuman's Third Symphony, one of his finest works, and was recorded under the auspices of the Walter W. Naumberg Foundation, which awarded the symphony its American Composition Award in 1950.  It was released just a little too late to be issued as a 78 set, though eight 78-rpm matrices (XCO 45351 through 45358) were assigned to it.  Ormandy's recording is far less known than the one Leonard Bernstein did about ten years later, which it complements nicely.  I first offered it as an upload in May, 2007; the Dvořák, however, is new.  Ormandy, though content to play the "New World" straight for the most part, nevertheless indulges in adding, in the finale, two additional cymbal crashes to the one which Dvořák actually wrote. (In fairness to Ormandy, these were probably an inheritance from his Philadelphia predecessor Stokowski.)

Symphonies from Sir Landon

Back in 2008 I posted three acoustically-recorded symphonies conducted by the Gramophone Company's "house conductor," Sir Landon Ronald (1873-1937).  Actually, he wasn't yet "Sir" when the first of these was made (he was knighted in 1922):

Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 ("From the New World")
Royal Albert Hall Orchestra, conducted by Landon Ronald
Recorded November 1, 1919, and September 8 & November 29, 1921
HMV D 536, 537, 587 and 613, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 90.14 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 33.38 MB)

All movements are cut except the Scherzo, and I've spelled out the cuts in detail, in a text file accompanying the download.  As of July, 2010, this had proven my most popular download, with Mediafire calculating 545!  Sir Landon did re-record the "New World" electrically, and complete, in 1927.  This is available from Historic Recordings, in Damian's fine transfer.

Landon Ronald's next recording of a symphony was of Beethoven's Fifth, a work that holds the distinction of being the symphony recorded complete the most times during the acoustic era.  Ronald's version is the fifth, after Friedrich Kark's for Odeon (in 1910), Artur Nikisch's for Deutsche Grammophon (1913), Josef Pasternack's for Victor (completed in 1917) and François Ruhlmann's for Pathé (of unknown date, but surely before 1922):

Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67
Royal Albert Hall Orchestra, conducted by Sir Landon Ronald
Recorded in September and October, 1922
Victor Blue Label 55250 through 55253, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 95.07 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 37.89 MB)

I have the original album, a handsome "Music Arts Library of Victor Records" production, and I have included JPEGs of each sleeve, on each of which are printed liner notes in a florid style characteristic of the time.

Ronald also re-recorded the Beethoven Fifth electrically.  He did not, however, re-record the Tchaikovsky "Pathétique" (this job fell to Albert Coates):

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74 ("Pathétique")
Royal Albert Hall Orchestra, conducted by Sir Landon Ronald
Recorded in January, May and June, 1923
Victor Blue Label 55240 through 55244, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 123.66 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 42.7 MB)

Sir Landon made two further acoustical recordings of symphonies: the Schubert "Unfinished" (a complete version of 1923 to replace an abridged version of 1912), and the Brahms Second.  The latter can be heard at the CHARM website.  He also made the first electrical recording of a symphony: Tchaikovsky's Fourth (which, again, is available in Damian's transfer at Historic Recordings).

Symphonies from Sir Henry

The reissues continue, with a trio of recordings by the great British conductor Sir Henry J. Wood (1869-1944).  Among these are the first two complete recordings of symphonies made by Sir Henry, the Franck from 1924 and the Haydn "Surprise" from 1925.  Previously, he had recorded the Schubert "Unfinished" (in 1919, re-recorded in 1923), the Beethoven "Eroica" (in 1922) and the Tchaikovsky "Pathétique" (in 1923), but these had all been abridged.  The Franck and Haydn are not, but they sure are fast!  The Franck takes 31 minutes, and the "Surprise" takes 18.

Franck: Symphony in D minor
New Queen's Hall Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry J. Wood
Recorded July 2, 9, and 16, 1924
Columbia Masterworks Set No. 10, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 83.33 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 34.77 MB)

Haydn: Symphony No. 94 in G, "Surprise" and
Järnefelt: Praeludium
New Queen's Hall Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry J. Wood
Recorded February 5, March 25 and 26, 1925
English Columbia L 1668 through 1670, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 62.68 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 22.79 MB)

Sir Henry had a long recording career with Columbia, spanning from 1915 to 1934, before he moved to Decca in 1935.  For Decca he made recordings of Beethoven's Fifth, Vaughan Williams' London Symphony, and Elgar's Enigma Variations, and this one of Dvořák's Symphonic Variations:

Dvořák: Symphonic Variations, Op. 78 and
Handel-Wood: Sailors' Dance and Rigaudon
Queen's Hall Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry J. Wood
Recorded April 1 and 2, 1937
English Decca X 182 through 184, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 58.16 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 24.41 MB)

Coming up next: recordings by Albert Coates, including his 1923 Beethoven Ninth!

The Budapest Quartet Play Dvořák

A string quartet with a Hungarian name, consisting of four Russians playing the music of a Czech composed in America - what could be more international than that?  Here is the great Budapest String Quartet with its classic lineup of Joseph Roisman and Alexander Schneider (violins), Boris Kroyt (viola) and Mischa Schneider (cello), pictured above in that order in 1940.  Here they play Dvořák's "American" Quartet in a 1940 recording, one of their last for RCA Victor before they jumped ship and moved to Columbia where they remained for the rest of their career (until 1967; in all fairness, Columbia promoted the ensemble far more extensively than RCA ever did).  This was once available on a Biddulph CD but this is now long out-of-print.  Here's a nice Frank Decker cover from my copy of the 78 set, one of the most attractive of the generic designs RCA used for its album covers in the late 1940s:

Dvořák: Quartet No. 12 (old No. 6) in F, Op. 96 ("American")
Budapest String Quartet
Recorded February 2, 1940
RCA Victor set DM-681, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 58.47 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 29.45 MB)

Back in 2008, I transferred another great Dvořák recording by the Budapest Quartet with assisting artists, of the String Sextet; this is still available, and I have just made new FLAC files of this recording as well:

Dvořák: Sextet in A, Op. 48
Budapest String Quartet with Watson Forbes (viola) and John Moore (cello)
Recorded May 31, 1938
Victor Musical Masterpiece set M-661, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 73.44 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 36.17 MB)

Gladys Ripley sings "Sea Pictures"

This post features the British contralto Gladys Ripley (1908-1955), a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice, whose life, sadly, was cut short by throat cancer at the age of 47 (the age I am now!).  Here she sings Elgar's fine orchestral song cycle, "Sea Pictures" (composed in 1897-99) with, as a filler, a surprisingly gloomy song by Haydn, "The Spirit's Song" ("Hark! Hark what I tell to thee").  This 1946 recording features the collaboration of that greatly underrated conductor, George Weldon (1908-1963), who conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Elgar: Sea Pictures, Op. 37 (+ Haydn: The Spirit's Song)
Gladys Ripley, contralto
Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by George Weldon
Recorded May 28, 1946
HMV C 3498 through C 3500, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 63.46 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 32.17 MB)

I have up several other George Weldon recordings with the orchestra of which he was Music Director from 1944 to 1951, the City of Birmingham Orchestra.  (That's Birmingham, England, of course - not Birmingham, Alabama! Those of us here in the Southern US have to be reminded of that periodically.)  The first of these is a new offering, and the others are re-uploads of transfers I made over three years ago; however, the Dvořák symphony upload now contains scans of the booklet for the set that I was unable to provide earlier.  Here are the details:

Sibelius: King Christian II Suite - Elegie and Musette
City of Birmingham Orchestra, conducted by George Weldon
Recorded March 22, 1945
Columbia DX 1220, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC files, 18.53 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 7.76 MB)

Edward German: Welsh Rhapsody
City of Birmingham Orchestra, conducted by George Weldon
Recorded April 16, 1945
Columbia DX 1274 and 1275, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 43.43 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 19.7 MB)

Dvořák: Symphony No. 5 in F, Op. 76, and
Glinka: Ruslan and Ludmilla - Overture
City of Birmingham Orchestra, conducted by George Weldon
Recorded June 25-27, 1945 (Dvořák) and June 7, 1946 (Glinka)
Columbia DX 1315 through 1319, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 105.57 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 48.23 MB)

For those interested in reading further about George Weldon, there's a free downloadable biography (in PDF format) available here.

Janáček's Confidential Letters

Here is the first recording of the last major work by Leoš Janáček, his String Quartet No. 2 of 1928 (subtitled "Confidential Letters" on the record labels, though nowadays more commonly translated as "Intimate Letters").  The quartet, like many of the works of Janáček's last ten years, was inspired by his unrequited love for Kamila Stösslová, a married woman 38 years his junior, and its title was Janáček's own.  It is played in this recording by the Černý Quartet, which was really the Prague String Quartet - however, the recording was made during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, and the Nazis forbade "nationalistic" names for native organizations, so the ensemble became known after its violist, Ladislav Černý (1891-1975).  The other players were Alexander Plocik and Herbert Berger, violins; the cellist was either Iwan Vectomov or Josef Simandl.

Janáček: String Quartet No. 2 ("Confidential Letters")
Černý Quartet
Recorded April 5, 1943
Ultraphon G 12968 through G 12970, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 57.03 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 24.63 MB)

About two years ago I posted an earlier Prague String Quartet recording, which I have re-uploaded:

Dvořák: String Quintet in E-Flat, Op. 97
Prague String Quartet with Richard Kosderka, second viola
Recorded November 17, 1937
Victor Musical Masterpiece set DM-811, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 100.61 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 54.5 MB)

As you all can see, I am back after my hiatus with the Bach Brandenburg. It went reasonably well, despite the fact that a string broke on my harpsichord just minutes before the concert, as I was tuning it. I don't think I'll be playing the harpsichord again any time soon. Temperamental beasts, they are. I've even changed my picture on this blog from one of me playing the harpsichord to one of me as I looked when I began seriously collecting 78-rpm records. I love the Brandenburg #5 and would gladly play it again, but the next time it will be on a modern piano. After all, if Cortot, Serkin, Lukas Foss and Murray Perahia could play it, beautifully, on the piano, why can't I? Their recordings, especially Cortot's, blow all the harpsichord recordings of the piece out of the water. If only Artur Schnabel had recorded it! - it was in his repertoire.

Vaughan Williams: Violin Concerto

Here is another recording première: the Vaughan Williams Concerto in D Minor for violin and string orchestra, written in 1925 for Yelly d'Aranyi, and given the rather ironic subtitle "Concerto Accademico" - a subtitle the composer came to dislike. Ironic, because there really is nothing academic about it; it's earthy, vigorous and boasts a particularly beautiful slow movement. There is the slight aura of Bach about it: if Villa-Lobos could write works he called "Bachianas Brasileiras" (Bach in Brazilian style) then this is surely a "Bachianas Anglicanas" or something like that - Bach in English peasant dress. In any case, I loved this concerto on first hearing it at age 13, and it remains one of my very favorite Vaughan Williams works.

Vaughan Williams: Concerto in D minor (Concerto Accademico)
Frederick Grinke, violin, with the Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded May 8, 1939
English Decca X 248 and X 249, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 44.85 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 17.8 MB)

This recording features Winnipeg-born Frederick Grinke as the violin soloist, with the Boyd Neel String Orchestra conducted by - you guessed it - Boyd Neel. While Grinke moved from Canada to England as a young man, Neel made the reverse transition in middle age, becoming head of Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music in 1953. The strong Canadian ties of both men ensure that a fair number of their recordings can be heard at The Virtual Gramophone (see my list of links at the right), but this Vaughan Williams concerto is not among them. Nor are two other Boyd Neel String Orchestra recordings that I posted to RMCR previously, which are still available for download:

Dvorak: Serenade for Strings in E, Op. 22
Boyd Neel String Orchestra (leader: Frederick Grinke) conducted by Boyd Neel
Recorded Dec. 10, 1937 and February 18, 1938
English Decca X 214 through X 217, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 64.39 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 27.49 MB)

Stravinsky: Apollon Musagètes - Ballet (1928)
Boyd Neel String Orchestra (leader: Louis Willoughby) conducted by Boyd Neel
Recorded Feb. 17 and April 29, 1937
English Decca X 167 through X 170, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 71.62 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 29.09 MB)

The Stravinsky ballet is also a first recording (though Koussevitzky, with the Boston Symphony, had recorded one section of it in 1928), and the Dvorak Serenade might be, too.