Best Grieg/Schumann recording?

[Pianorak]

The title was Classical Piano Magic, and it includes other great Earl Wild performances, including Franck's Symphonic Variations, Pictures at an Exhibition, the Dohnanyi Nursery Variations and many more. The set only includes Rachmaninov 2 & 4, both conducted by Horenstein.

Got that when it first came out - probably paid the full whack! But no regrets.

[Pianorak]

. . . I hope that your re-listening provides the pleasure that you're anticipating, Pianorak

Well, yes and no. I suppose one will always have a tender spot for a piece one hears for the very first time. Ou sont les neiges d'antant!

[Gordon]

Gordon

Gordon
Decca's first ever stereo recording was Rimsky Korsakov's Antar, made in the Victoria Hall Geneva with Ansermet and the Suisse Romande on 12th /13th May 1954
The engineer was Roy Wallace, and the performance can be found on CD with fascinating background notes about the sessions. I'm not sure if the mono was issued on LXT, but the recording did did appear on vinyl coupled with The Golden Cockerel on an Eclipse LP. I don't know whether this was stereo or elecronically enhanced mono.

Listening to the CD,which is on Decca Legends, it still sounds remarkably good. Ansermet was said to have remarked that it like being there, and of course it is very close sound, but impressive still with a convincing stereo spread. The performance has been rivalled, but not beaten.

The first published Stereo I mentioned was of course a Kingsway Hall first not a Decca first which I should have said so thanks Ferret for that clarifiction. These were Decca’s first stereo recordings in Geneva, note the highlighted LXT of Antar you queried [with thanks to Philip Stuart's discography]:

Pr: James Walker Eng: Gil Went (m), Roy Wallace (s)
[a] 13 & [b-f] (14-26) May 1954 Victoria Hall, Geneva
Suisse Romande Orchestra, Ernest Ansermet
[a] RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Symphony No.2 Op.9 “Antar” SAR857-62
[b] BALAKIREV Tamara SAR881-84
[c] LIADOV Baba-Yaga Op.56 SAR885
[d] LIADOV Kikimora Op.63 SAR886-87
[e] LIADOV Eight Russian Folksongs Op.58 SAR888-91
[f] GLAZUNOV Stenka Razin Op.13 SAR901-04
[b-e] (Oct54) LXT2966; (Jan55) LL1068 = (nr ’59) CS6167,
(Oct68) STS15066,
[af] (Nov54) LXT2982; (Dec54) LL1060,
[f] (Jun72) ECS641; (Mar74) STS15240,
[b] (May72) ECS642,
[cd] (Jun74) ECS735,
[e] (Oct74) ECS742,
[f] (Apr91) 430 348.2DM,
[a] (Mar02) 470 253.2DM,
[d] (Dec06) 475 8140DC6,
[c-f] (Sep08) Australian Eloquence 480 0038,
[b] (Jly08) Australian Eloquence 48

note the splendid Australians with their enterprising Eloquence label on CD.

This list may now be a bit out of date. Philip doesn't list your Eclipse [ECS] LP but there is a Golden Cockerel from Ansermet in Geneva from 1947. As with the Atwell Grieg, not many of these early stereo recordings actually made it to issued discs [superseded by later tapings?] and were subsequently issued on budget labels [ECS] sometimes as electronic stereo made from the mono suggesting some problems with the stereos eg incomplete sets of usable takes but your Legends release suggests otherwise. It seems to have been a while until Decca really got regular stereo LP issues along with monos from this early period. Same applies to some extent at EMI but they had Stereosonic tapes as a means of getting the stereo material out before LP stereo discs were standardised in 1958.

[Ferretfancy]

Gordon,
Thanks for those fascinating details, I know that there were lots of teething troubles with the earliest releases, and the first stereo cutter heads gave a lot of trouble.
As for the stereosonic tapes from EMI, they did not sell well, as so few people could afford stereo tape machines. At the beginning of this thread we were discussing the Grieg and Schumann concertos, with mention of Solomon's performances. I visited the old HMV Oxford Street shop with a friend in ( I think, late 1956 ) and in their large upstairs showroom heard the Solomon Grieg in stereo. There were two huge consoles, one housing the tape deck and a loudspeaker, and the other the amplifier and second speaker.
We were bowled over by the sound, but I can't remember how much the equipment cost ! You would need a small hall to do it justice. The other tape on demonstration was the Vittorio Gui version of The Marriage of Figaro, and we were asked to listen carefully as Cherubino jumped out of the window. Both these sets have remained in circulation in one form or another ever since.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I know that normally the opening "Has anyone mentioned yet the performance by ... " is followed by a series of replies pointing out the several references to the recording then mentioned, but nevertheless ...

Has anyone mentioned yet the Grieg/Schumann coupling by Shura Chekassky with Boult and the LPO?
This was my first encounter with the Schumann (I knew the Grieg from school Music lessons); bought whilst on holiday in Bournemouth in 1974 along with Tchaik Pathetique (Boston SO/Leinsdorf - both on budget MfP: even cheaper than CfP*! Wonderfully lyrical, engaged performances that put the works firmly in the "Favorites" list of my memory.

(*= IIRC, 70p as opposed to 85p!)

[Sir Monty Golfear]

I know that normally the opening "Has anyone mentioned yet the performance by ... " is followed by a series of replies pointing out the several references to the recording then mentioned, but nevertheless ...

Has anyone mentioned yet the Grieg/Schumann coupling by Shura Chekassky with Boult and the LPO?
This was my first encounter with the Schumann (I knew the Grieg from school Music lessons); bought whilst on holiday in Bournemouth in 1974 along with Tchaik Pathetique (Boston SO/Leinsdorf - both on budget MfP: even cheaper than CfP*! Wonderfully lyrical, engaged performances that put the works firmly in the "Favorites" list of my memory.

(*= IIRC, 70p as opposed to 85p!)

Yes , I had a copy of that record too......I wonder why EMI have not reissued it on CFP?.....my pressing was terrible, so a Cd reissue would be most welcome. As a sideline, I seem to remember that I also had a copy of Tchaikovsky 1st with Boult and the LPO . Cherkassky was one of my favourites.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

As a sideline, I seem to remember that I also had a copy of Tchaikovsky 1st with Boult and the LPO . Cherkassky was one of my favourites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x91Mus1teyE

[Sir Monty Golfear]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x91Mus1teyE

Brilliant !!.

[Pianorak]

. . . As a sideline, I seem to remember that I also had a copy of Tchaikovsky 1st with Boult and the LPO . Cherkassky was one of my favourites.

As another aside, there's Cherkassky playing Tchaikovsky 1st with Berliner Philharmoniker under L. Ludwig (on a 2CD set with Franz Liszt No. 1 with Fistoulari conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra. CD2 has Gieseking playing the Grieg PC and Franck Variations symphoniques with Karajan conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra).

[Sir Monty Golfear]

As another aside, there's Cherkassky playing Tchaikovsky 1st with Berliner Philharmoniker under L. Ludwig (on a 2CD set with Franz Liszt No. 1 with Fistoulari conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra. CD2 has Gieseking playing the Grieg PC and Franck Variations symphoniques with Karajan conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra).

It would be good to be able to get them on cd, or as a download .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Of course, when Mr Kovacevitch made his famous recording, he was called Stephen Bishop.

But that doesn't sound so grand...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Sviatoslav Richter (piano), Orchestre National de l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Lovro von Matacic
Krystian Zimerman (piano), Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan
Stephen Kovacevich (piano), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis
Howard Shelley (piano and conductor), Orchestra of Opera North
Leif Ove Andsnes (piano), Berliner Philharmoniker, Mariss Jansons
Lars Vogt (piano)City of Birmingham Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle
Tatyana Zagorovskaya (piano)/Pavel Egorov (piano), St. Petersburg State Academic Capella Orchestra, Cesare Croci
Dinu Lipatti (piano), Philharmonia Orchestra, Alceo Galliera/ Philharmonia Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan

[Gordon]

Gordon,
Thanks for those fascinating details, I know that there were lots of teething troubles with the earliest releases, and the first stereo cutter heads gave a lot of trouble.

Yes, I'm nor surprised!! The mount of power needed for moving coil stereo cutting heads is large and those early ones had massive magnets suspended from the ceiling!! Decca [I think] had a hand in inventing half speed mastering way back then to try and deal with this problem. I think EMI's Blumlein cutter from 1933 used moving coil cutters which are low impedance and would have needed a lot of current to drive the cutting tool and also a large magnet to give a strong field. Try and make that lot linear and resonance free over a wide frequency range!!

Mono cutters first used in the 1920s were made by Westrex but mechanically damped and Bumlein got around their patents with electrical damping and saved EMI a fortune in royalties. Westrex tried the same trick with stereo -- but see below:

Try this for some more info on Decca Stereo:

http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/April%201971/44/833646/ARTHUR+HADDY,+F.I.E.R.E#header-logo

or here

http://www.arsc-audio.org/journals/v18/v18n1-3p4-19.pdf

But beware this one [despite the author's connections with Decca] has a couple of small errors relating to the role Decca [ie Arthur Haddy Chief Engineer] had in standardisation of stereo in 1958. Apparently Westrex who are credited [even today, in the US, RCA had no excuse because they were partners of EMI in the 30s] as having invented the stereo LP disc had no idea that EMI/Blumlein had patented the system that was adopted in 1933 and were trying to bully the industry into large royalties but Haddy showed them a copy of the patent!!

At the beginning of this thread we were discussing the Grieg and Schumann concertos, with mention of Solomon's performances.

Solomon's record of the Grieg was made at Abbey Road in September '56 so was relatively early [18 months after their first release] but there are many from that era that have impressive stereo sound, at least in the original tapes. Try Giulini's Firebird from Kingsway also '56.

[Gordon]

Has anyone mentioned yet the Grieg/Schumann coupling by Shura Chekassky with Boult and the LPO? This was my first encounter with the Schumann (I knew the Grieg from school Music lessons); bought whilst on holiday in Bournemouth in 1974 along with Tchaik Pathetique (Boston SO/Leinsdorf - both on budget MfP: even cheaper than CfP*! Wonderfully lyrical, engaged performances that put the works firmly in the "Favorites" list of my memory.

(*= IIRC, 70p as opposed to 85p!)

That recording didn't get wide publication. It was made for World Records [then an EMI subsidiary]. Here's the discographic detail:

WORLD RECORD CLUB
*****************
17 & 22 November 1965 Abbey Road Studio 1
Adrian Boult
Shura Cherkassky (piano)
399 GRIEG Piano Concerto in A minor Op.16
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A minor Op.54
(Nov66) ST559, (Jun72) ZCWR559 and Y8WR559
(Oct72) MFP57002
(...76) SIT60037
(Aug78) ZCCOB656
(...79) Chevron CHVL170 and in 5LP pack CHVLC1002

From the weird catalogue numbers you'll see that it wasn't put out on major labels. The MFP seems to be the only familiar one. However, somewhere out there in the world of download....who knows? If you value this version hang on to that LP!!!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks, Gordon!