Inter-War Recordings

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Recent discussion of the Toscanini/NYPO Beethoven #7 on the Essential Classics Thread reminded me that I've been intending to start a Thread on pre-LP recordings since Record Review's "Buschgate" back in January. Following a comment by verismissimo, I started a count of all the CDs I own which are transfers of recordings made in the 78rpm "era" - I gave up after I'd got to 100, and had still many more to get through.

I tend to concentrate on recordings made by composers and/or the performers who knew them (so lots of Elgar, Strauss, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Sibelius, RVW etc - as well as some Schoenberg, Berg, Debussy) rather than "historic" recordings of earlier repertoire - but there are still a lot of marvellous exceptions, not least the Busch and Toscanini Beethovens. There are some irreplaceable Musical insights in many of these recordings that easily overcome any problems of recorded sound for me (and it's astonishing how well-sounding so many of them are - far better than they sounded on LP releases in the 1970s).

I've given the Thread the convenient title "Inter-War", because that's when most in my collection were made - but I'd be very interested to see what other Forumistas' attitudes are to recordings (including Piano Rolls, Wax Cylinders, etc etc) from the days before LP, and what favourites and recommendations are suggested.

[pastoralguy]

Well, for me, Menuhin's recordings are the ones I go to since he was, imho, at his technical peak in those days before his unrelenting concertising during WW2 started his decline, although I suspect his visits to concentration camps did little to help his fragile state. His sonatas with his sister are, again imho, unsurpassed. A great favourite is the Lekeu Sonata which is some of the greatest music making ever committed to disc.

Being a big Elgar fan, I love his recordings and was over joyed at the 'Stereo' issues from last year by Lani Spahr.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Oh, yes - Menuhin's Bach (solo and with Enescu) are among my favourites - as are Enescu's recordings of the solo Violin works (the one positive thing I took away from the Bachathon of wretched memory) and Fischer's "48". I think that YM was a much finer Musician before the 1950s.

[PJPJ]

Oh, yes - Menuhin's Bach (solo and with Enescu) are among my favourites - as are Enescu's recordings of the solo Violin works (the one positive thing I took away from the Bachathon of wretched memory) and Fischer's "48". I think that YM was a much finer Musician before the 1950s.

Heifetz's interwar recordings are well worth hearing, too. Boult's early recordings with the BBC SO are an ear-opener, lithe athletic readings. As for Mengelberg, his studio recording of Brahms 3 never fails to impress me.

Mengelberg

Gramophone is not as impressed: "The 1932 Willem Mengelberg recording is a somewhat portentous affair. The first movement, complete with its exposition repeat, is positively Gladstonian and the two inner movements are much pulled about. Neither of these versions compares well with the 37-year-old Clemens Krauss’s 1930 recording with the Vienna Philharmonic, which remains one of the truest of all accounts of the symphony on record. "

Krauss

[richardfinegold]

I prefer Rachmaninov recordings of his PCs to any other versions. The digital restoration tech is are superb; the amount of bass in the 1929 recording of the 2nd defies belief. Most importantly hearing the composer in this music is an irreplaceable joy. There are so many passages that even the greatest interpreters leave sounding like empty repetition or note spinning that come to life and meaning when the composer plays them.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I prefer Rachmaninov recordings of his PCs to any other versions. The digital restoration tech is are superb; the amount of bass in the 1929 recording of the 2nd defies belief. Most importantly hearing the composer in this music is an irreplaceable joy. There are so many passages that even the greatest interpreters leave sounding like empty repetition or note spinning that come to life and meaning when the composer plays them.

- Serge is pretty damn good in Schumann's Carnaval, too.

[aeolium]

Not quite inter-war but recorded in the 78 era is the Griller Quartet's wonderful performance of Mozart's K387, in very good sound transfer by Dutton. And I also very much like the Haydn quartet recordings of the Pro Arte Quartet, which have been well transferred by Pristine Classical.

Here's Bronislaw Huberman in a 1934 recording of the Beethoven concerto with Szell and the VPO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnbgqfkUg4E

There is also an interesting recording - in worse sound, from 1925 - of Huberman playing the Kreutzer sonata: not very much vibrato, but quite a lot of portamento.

[Serial_Apologist]

I prefer Rachmaninov recordings of his PCs to any other versions. The digital restoration tech is are superb; the amount of bass in the 1929 recording of the 2nd defies belief. Most importantly hearing the composer in this music is an irreplaceable joy. There are so many passages that even the greatest interpreters leave sounding like empty repetition or note spinning that come to life and meaning when the composer plays them.

Absolutely! My father had the second and third on 78s, and he always thought the composer's own interpretations eccentric, but probably as intended: Rach was, after all, a noted virtuoso! I bought him the whole set on CD for his 90th birthday - just enough time for him to enjoy them without the excessive surface noise of the substitute 78 rpm gramophone I'd mistakenly purchased the previous year.

[makropulos]

Great thread. I too tend to concentrate on composer-performed inter-war records (Elgar, Strauss, Rach, Bartók, Stravinsky et al) but also some others including:
Mahler 9, Bruno Walter, VPO
Wagner Walküre Act I, Bruno Walter et al
Brahms 3, Bruno Walter, VPO
Beethoven, Busch Quartet
Brahms chamber music, Busch et al
Dvorak 6, Talich CPO
Dvorak 7, Talich CPO
Smetana Má vlast, Talich CPO, 1929 (and the 1939 broadcast performance)
Some of the inter-war complete operas made at La Scala cond. Sabanjo et al.
Lots of Boult,
and so on...!

[Bryn]

Let's not forget a certain Beethoven piano sonatas survey.

[cloughie]

The Sibelius box with recordings of Historical recordings and rarities 1928-1945 with Kajanus doing some of the Symphonies and Beeecham's wonderful recording of Leminkainen's Return amongst others is testament to the great performances and what can be done to the recordings. Most of these were transferred to LP by EMI and were on the WRC historical series back then but the CDs are well worth a listen.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The Sibelius box with recordings of Historical recordings and rarities 1928-1945 with Kajanus doing some of the Symphonies and Beeecham's wonderful recording of Leminkainen's Return amongst others is testament to the great performances and what can be done to the recordings. Most of these were transferred to LP by EMI and were on the WRC historical series back then but the CDs are well worth a listen.

Indeed - and gives us the Heifetz/Beecham Violin Concerto, too (the only pre-War recording of the violinist I own). The boxed set is a stonker of a bargain - and we get the composer's only recording as a conductor, too!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jean-Sibelius-Historical-Recordings-Rarities/dp/B012PMZM4Y

[vinteuil]

The boxed set is a stonker of a bargain - and we get the composer's only recording as a conductor, too!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jean-Sibeli.../dp/B012PMZM4Y

... altho' a comment on that amazon site has doubts :

"This is a very nice compilation of early Sibelius recordings, but Warner has perpetuated the error of giving us a performance of the Andante Festivo NOT conducted by Jean Sibelius. Sibelius conducted the work for a shortwave broadcast on January 1, 1939, and that performance was supposedly released over the years on several LPs. However, several years ago, the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) discovered (to their chagrin) that the recording that was offered for LP release was in fact another recording by a conductor not listed on the transcription. This performance by an unidentified conductor was the one released on LP and is the one offered in the Warner set. The correct recording was subsequently issued on a YLE "

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[Bryn]

Is this, perhaps, the real thing?