BEECHAM R. Strauss: Don Quixote; Bloch: Violin Concerto (1932/39) – PASC410 Les magasins à Paris et en Île-de-France

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BEECHAM R. Strauss: Don Quixote; Bloch: Violin Concerto (1932/39) – PASC410
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R. Strauss Don Quixote
Bloch Violin Concerto
Studio and live recordings · 1932/1939
Total duration: 73:32

Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor
Alfred Wallenstein, cello
Joseph Szigeti, violin
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York
London Philharmonic Orchestra

578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9review_titlefb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5fFanfare Review578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9review_quotefb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5fA new transfer of Beecham’s 1932 recording which, apparently, was the very first recording of the work…578a9379d1e540bd96d26f03a79628d9review_bodyfb55cd020f0643f08418183279e63a5f

Sir Thomas Beecham made a celebrated studio recording of Don Quixote
in 1947/8 for HMV when his cellist was Paul Tortelier. I believe that
the latest incarnation of that recording is as part of a substantial
Beecham box that David Bennett reviewed
in 2011. When I was offered the chance to review a new transfer by
Pristine Audio of a Beecham performance of the work I assumed I would be
getting a copy of that recording; that would have given me the chance
to compare the Pristine transfer with the EMI transfer that I already
own, which is in the Great Recordings of the Century series. I mean no
disrespect whatsoever to Paul Tortelier when I say that what arrived
through my letterbox was something even more interesting. For what
Pristine offer here is a new transfer of Beecham’s 1932 recording which,
apparently, was the very first recording of the work.
 
At the
time he made the 1947 recording Paul Tortelier was just emerging from an
orchestral career and was seeking to establish himself as a solo
cellist – the booklet note in my copy of the EMI CD, written by the late
Lyndon Jenkins, relates the amusing and typically Beechamesque cavalier
fashion in which he came to be engaged to play the work for Beecham’s
1947 Strauss festival in London. However, even though Tortelier was not,
in 1947, an established international soloist it seems clear that
Beecham engaged him as a concerto-like soloist rather than using
principals from the orchestra, as Strauss intended. In 1932 matters were
arranged rather differently: this recording followed the composer’s
preference for the use of orchestral principals. So Beecham had the
services of Alfred Wallenstein (1898-1983) who later became a conductor
but who was at that time – since 1929 – the principal cellist of the
Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York. Joining Wallenstein on the
soloists’ roster were Michel (Mishel) Piastro (1891-1970), the
orchestra’s concertmaster from 1931 to 1943, and René Pollain who was, I
believe, the principal violist at this time.
 
In this
recording you won’t hear Wallenstein balanced as an up-front soloist and
Mark Obert-Thorn, who has made the transfer, suggests that he may have
been seated in his customary place in the orchestra. That seems entirely
plausible but nonetheless you can hear Wallenstein perfectly clearly
and a fine soloist he makes. Beecham’s contribution is a distinguished
one too and he – and the recording engineers of the time – make sure
that plenty of detail is audible in the often-complex textures of the
Introduction. Beecham seems to me to characterise the music well, often
with a twinkle in his eye. For instance, the sheep graze placidly in
Variation II until Quixote panics them and they scatter in confusion.
The recording can’t really do justice to ‘The Ride through the Air’ –
one longs for the amplitude of modern sound – but it’s still possible to
hear the washes of sound that Beecham gets from the orchestra, the
trumpets and horns well to the fore.
 
As well as a very good
Don Quixote the performance benefits from an equally good Sancho Panza
and both Wallenstein and Pollain are heard to good effect in Variation
III, ‘Dialogue of Knight and Squire’. Wallenstein plays eloquently in
Variation V, ‘The Knight’s Vigil’ and towards the end, as the Don is
dying I feel that Wallenstein conveys the world-weariness of the Don and
the pathos of the scene pretty well. Hereabouts there’s a nice
simplicity of utterance to his playing and he and Beecham bring off the
ending very successfully.
 
Mark Obert-Thorn has made a very
good job of the transfers. The original recording was made on
experimental 33 1/3 rpm discs, each side of which was the equivalent of
two 78 rpm sides, and these have been the source material used. I’m very
glad to have heard this historic performance.
 
I wish I could
be as enthusiastic about the Bloch Violin Concerto but I’m afraid that
I’ve listened to this a couple of times and it really doesn’t engage my
sympathies. That’s not the fault of the performers. Szigeti is superb
and, since he’s well to the fore in the recording it’s possible to
appreciate his virtuosity in a demanding solo role. Even more admirable
is the singing purity of his tone. A prime example of that comes in an
extended slow, reflective passage in the first movement (5:52-8:50).
Szigeti’s poetic side is also strongly in evidence in the rather
haunting slow movement. I liked this movement the best – perhaps in part
because it’s the shortest movement. The first movement, however, at
18:10, is nearly three times as long and I think it’s too extended for
its own good. In particular the cadenza (12:48-15:25) just seems to go
on and on – and to no great purpose. The opening tutti in the finale
sounds brash – how much, I wonder, is that down to the recording rather
than the music; the recording can’t really cope with the volume of this
passage and, indeed, sonically this is the most problematic movement in
the concerto. Here, as elsewhere, all the performers demonstrate
commitment to the music.
 
Unfortunately, despite the best
efforts of Andrew Rose there are issues with the sound in this concerto.
There’s a good deal of surface noise; in loud passages the orchestra
can sound strident; and the sound often crumbles in loud passages.
Naturally, one must make allowances given the provenance of the
recording, which was captured – off air? – from a live performance in
1939, which was the UK première of the work. Later that same month
Szigeti made a studio recording with Charles Munch. We learn from the
notes that the present recording was found to have four gaps in it, each
of about 30 seconds. Prior to the only previous release of the
recording, on a 1973 LP from the American Beecham Society, these gaps
were filled by splicing in the relevant passages from the Munch
recording. That editing was done pretty seamlessly, it seems. Andrew
Rose has used the 1973 release for his transfer.
 
Summing up,
this release from Pristine will be of considerable interest to Beecham’s
many admirers. The Bloch is not a piece with which one would have
associated him – did he ever return to it, I wonder? So this is an
important addition to his CD/download discography, especially for
listeners who warm to the work more than I do. The Strauss is especially
significant, I suggest, not least because this was the work’s first
recording and it’s a very good one. I’m very glad to have it sitting on
my shelves next to Beecham’s 1947 recording.
 
John Quinn
MusicWeb International, August 2014

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Sir Thomas Beecham conducts Strauss and Bloch – world première recordings

Rare recorded outings of Beecham conducting his contemporaries

release brings together two world première recordings of
concertante works made by Sir Thomas Beecham in the 1930s. The studio
recording of Don Quixote has an interesting pedigree. Recorded by Victor
at the behest of EMI in 1932 and issued on that label in the USA, it
was released on Columbia in Europe, perhaps the only recording to appear
simultaneously on these two rival imprints. This was most likely a
result of the then-recent merger of English Columbia and HMV, Victor’s
British affiliate, into EMI. Beecham was a Columbia artist, so the
apparent reasoning was that he had to continue to appear on that label
in the UK. Within a few years, however, his name was on both labels
interchangeably.

Beecham is heard here conducting the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra
of New York, an ensemble with which he had first appeared four years
earlier along with another debutant, Vladimir Horowitz, in a notorious
performance of the Tchaikovsky B-flat minor concerto which saw the two
taking divergent interpretive paths. Apparently, he had no similar
difficulties working with the orchestra’s first desk players, which
included future conductor Alfred Wallenstein handling the pivotal cello
part. The recording is rather curiously balanced, with the brass and
winds seeming to overpower the strings, and Wallenstein sounding rather
recessed – probably playing in his usual place in the orchestra rather
than up front. This recording was simultaneously made for Victor’s
Program Transcription series, an early attempt at long-playing records.
Each 33 1/3 rpm side was the equivalent of two 78 rpm sides, which
accounts for the skipped number every third matrix.

While Beecham would go on to re-record the Strauss with his own Royal
Philharmonic and Paul Tortelier as soloist fifteen years later, he
never re-recorded (or indeed made an official studio recording) of the
Bloch Violin Concerto, even though he had already made three classic
concerto recordings with the soloist, Joseph Szigeti. Szigeti premièred
the Bloch in Cleveland under Mitropoulos in December, 1938. The present
recording of the first British performance with Beecham dates from the
following March. Later that month, he performed and recorded it in Paris
with Munch, and followed up with a further broadcast under Mengelberg
in Amsterdam that November.

While the Munch recording and Mengelberg broadcast have been reissued
several times on CD, the Beecham performance has curiously been
unavailable since a single American Beecham Society LP release in 1973.
That transfer, which was the basis for what Andrew Rose used for his
present XR restoration, filled in four gaps in the original acetates
(two in the first movement, and one each in the others), each lasting
about 30 seconds, with the Munch studio recording. A slight difference
in sound demarcates each patch. Although some disc noise and distortion
remain and the first note of the third movement is clipped, the
recording is valuable not only in preserving a historic collaboration,
but also in presenting an infrequent recorded instance of Sir Thomas
conducting contemporary music.

Mark Obert-Thorn

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R. STRAUSS Don Quixote (Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character), Op. 35
Recorded 7 April 1932 in Carnegie Hall, New York
Matrix nos.: CSHQ 71658-1, 71659-1, 71661-2, 71663-1, 71665-2, 71666-2, 71668-1, 71669-1, 71671-1 and 71672-2
First issued as Victor 7589/93 in album M-144 (USA) and as Columbia LX 186/90 (UK)
Transfer and remastering by Mark Obert-Thorn

Alfred Wallenstein, cello
René Pollain, viola
Michel Piastro, violin
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York
 

BLOCH Violin Concerto
Live recording, 9 March 1939 in Queen’s Hall, London
First issued on The Sir Thomas Beecham Society (USA) LP WSA-5
XR remastered in Ambient Stereo by Andrew Rose

Joseph Szigeti, violin
London Philharmonic Orchestra

Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor

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