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Classical Notes: Peter Guttman: In search of the most important record ever made
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Nov 16, 2011, 5:35:34 AM11/16/11
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I have the recommended recording, of course, but I never paid that much
attention to it. I only remark that many, if not most, of Glenn Gould's
and Willem Mengelberg's. No mention of string quartets, whose style of
playing changed more than anything else.
An excellent article!
Peter Guttman: In search of the most important record ever made
http://www.classicalnotes.net/features/joachim-nopix.html
From the earliest primal rite to the latest alternative rock, treble
clef graphic music has always served the same essential function: to
forge promise from the routine of daily life, to expand our vision,
to set us free. But all music opens vistas of broad future horizons.
So if any one record can claim to be the most important of all, then
it has to do even more: it must reveal some other path, one even
more tightly shut than the gate to the future. It must unlock a door
to the past, to something buried below the immediate roots of our
modern music, to a level that lies deeper than even the oldest
records that collectors love to cherish and explore.
Appreciation of any culture, including our own, begins in
understanding its foundations. Ironically, while musicologists have
succeeded in reconstructing performance practices of the Baroque and
even the Renaissance, the far more recent romantic era (roughly
coinciding with the last century) continues to elude a consensus.
And yet, it was that very epoch of unbounded emotional freedom,
exploration and discovery which, more than any other, paved the way
toward the liberated music of our own time. If we could only
experience the romantic era first-hand, even for a brief moment, it
would vastly enrich our feelings for the present.
But just how did the music of the years right before the phonograph
actually sound? This remains a frustrating and impenetrable mystery.
Literary descriptions are imprecise, memories have faded and
scholars can only speculate. Perhaps the key to solving this puzzle
lies in the groove of an obscure early record.
In the Beginning
The origin of the phonograph held little promise of its ultimate
value. History tells us that the first record was made in 1877 by
Thomas Edison, who recited "Mary Had a Little Lamb" onto a tinfoil
cylinder and played it back to an astonished staff. Unfortunately
for posterity, Edison's choice of "Mary" was a woeful herald of the
initial development of his marvel.
Edison conceived and first marketed his machine as a dictation
device, and only grudgingly stooped to cheapen it to such an
impractical purpose as mere entertainment. Even then, catalogues of
Edison records through the late 1890s overflowed with mawkish
recitations, maudlin songs and other Victorian trivia. The closest
these early efforts ever came to serious music were marches and band
arrangements of heavily cut light classical pieces. Edison may have
been a genius at invention, but his musical taste was appalling.
Edison's control over the manufacture and marketing of records
enabled him to dictate the content of commercial recordings for the
rest of the century. As an interesting aside, Edison exerted
comparable command over the other entertainment wonder of the age,
motion pictures, effectively limiting their first decade to
vaudeville turns. In retrospect, it is amazing and sad how one man's
dreary and abysmal taste so thoroughly compromised both our aural
and visual records of the culture of the late nineteenth century.
It is safe to say that until 1900 no artist of any stature made
commercial records. The only seeming exception was Ellen Beach Yaw,
who cut several sides for Berliner's Gramophone in March 1899. But
hers is the exception that proves the rule. Promoted as "Lark
Ellen," Miss Yaw apparently was known more as a vocal gymnast than
as a serious artist. Indeed, she is believed to have sung only two
opera performances in her life. Among her dubious talents were an
ability to sing an octave higher than normal soprano range and to
perform a trill in thirds rather than seconds. Collected on Pearl CD
9239, her records illustrate these feats but little else. Surely,
Lark Ellen was promoted not as a serious artist but as a freak
curiosity, comparable to the boxing dogs, butterfly dances and
occasional trick films that crowd early movie catalogues.
A fascinating recompense lay in the activity of Gianni Bettini, an
inventor who improved the diaphragm and stylus of the Edison
apparatus to obtain more listenable results. Equally important,
Bettini was a wealthy New York host who entertained the elite of the
opera world in his home and took the opportunity to record his
guests throughout the 1890s. While copies of Bettini's cylinders
were very expensive (up to six dollars when the norm was fifty
cents) and had small distribution, his catalogue eventually ran to
dozens of pages and read like a "who's who" of opera. Incredibly,
though, not a single one of Bettini's intriguing cylinders is known
to exist today.
And then, suddenly, with the turn of the century, the commercial
floodgates opened.
The first to venture into the void were singers, led by several
celebrities of the Russian Imperial Opera who recorded in 1901.
There followed an extraordinary proliferation of fine vocal records
by the likes of Plançon, Scotti, Ruffo, Calvé, Tetrazzini,
Schumann-Heink, Slezak, de Lucia, Battistini and Caruso. Within a
few short years, nearly every opera star succumbed to recording. As
a result, we have an embarrassment of riches - a nearly complete
picture of classical singing as it existed at the turn of the
century. Instrumentalists soon would follow. Irretrievably lost,
though, was the cream of the previous generation, whose artistry had
soared while Edison immortalized whistlers and coon songs.
The Records
But just how reliable are these artifacts to convey their era?
Unfortunately, their value is compromised by severe problems, both
artistic and technical.
From a purely artistic standpoint, the early records do not
necessarily represent masters at the height of their talents.
Nowadays, recording is an accepted, if not dominant, activity for
all but a handful of top artists. But at the turn of the century,
the experience was not only new, but daunting and even degrading.
Indeed, it is amazing that any reputable musician recorded at all.
Just picture what was involved. An artist accustomed to the lavish
caress of high society would report to a seedy building. In place of
the reverberant ambiance of the concert hall, he was shut up in a
closet with harsh acoustics. There was no audience whose reactions
were a necessary source of inspiration. Nor was there room for an
orchestra - just an upright piano. Accustomed to move freely about
the stage and to sway soulfully, our artist was warned to stand
rigidly before the recording horn. In place of subtle dynamic
shadings, he was ordered to sound each tone uniformly. And worst of
all, these demands came from a technician who could care nothing
about musical art.
Here is how the great pianist Ferruccio Busoni described his first
encounter with the recording horn:
Yesterday I suffered the gramophone drudge through to the end! I
feel pretty shattered ... as if I were awaiting surgery.... They
wanted the Gounod-Liszt Faust-waltz (which lasts a good 10
minutes) - but only four minutes' worth! - so I quickly had to
make cuts, patch and improvise, so that it still retained its
sense; give due regard to the pedal (because it sounds bad), had
to remember that particular notes must be struck louder or softer
- to please the infernal machine; not to let myself go - for the
sake of accuracy - and remain conscious throughout that every
note was being preserved for eternity. How can inspiration,
freedom, elan or poetry arise?
And Busoni was far from a true pioneer; his martyrdom came in 1919,
after decades of improvements!
It is hardly surprising that so many performances from this era are
stiff, mechanical and uninspired. The artist was in alien territory,
intimidated if not scared to death; everything he had spent a
lifetime learning had to be altered or ignored. The true wonder is
that any genuine artistry emerged from such trying circumstances.
But the musical giants both came and overcame. Even one of Busoni's
seven discs (collected on Pearl 9349) is brilliantly headstrong and
virtuostic.
To aggravate the problem of culture shock, the most enticing records
were made by concert veterans at the very end of long lives of
discovery, exploration and development during which their outlooks
constantly evolved and their skills began to dissipate. (In contrast
to our present notions of longevity, abetted by modern medicine, a
sixty-year old performer of the last century was already very old.)
The artistry of some survived intact but others' clearly did not.
Perhaps the most severe disappointment is a 1926 performance of
Beethoven's Symphony # 1 by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra led by
Sir George Henschel (last available on Past Masters LP PM-17). The
promise of this recording is uniquely compelling. Henschel was a
pupil of Ignaz Moscheles who, in turn, was the devoted assistant of
none other than Beethoven himself! With typical British reserve,
Henschel recalled: "On being introduced to him, I felt a certain
sensation of awe on shaking the hand of one who had seen Beethoven
face to face and had been commissioned by the master to prepare the
vocal score of Fidelio [Beethoven's only opera]." Henschel's record
is the only one made by a student of a protege of Beethoven--and
in rich, electrical sound, no less! This is the closest link we have
to the most influential composer of all time, whose symphonies
remain the interpretive touchstone for every modern conductor. A
reviewer of the time hailed the record as Henschel's "well known
interpretation" and assured readers that "judging from this
recording ... the distinguished conductor is far from impaired in
his powers." Surely, Henschel's way with the music would be
authentic. And yet, his performance is genteel, plodding, and
downright boring. How can Henschel's placid walk-through possibly
represent the aesthetic of Beethoven, the rebel who wrenched music
from its complacent classical moorings into a new emotive era and
who destroyed pianos trying to wrest more powerful sounds out of
them? If Henschel ever had absorbed Beethoven's obsessive visceral
temperament through Moscheles, then his art clearly did not survive
to his record.
Modern listeners also face technical challenges. The original
records themselves were far from faithful sonic reproductions. The
primitive acoustic recording apparatus successfully captured all of
the fundamentals and most harmonics of the human voice. Instruments,
though, were far worse served, as both their bottom and higher
reaches lay well beyond the limit of the mechanism's mid-range
registration.
Preservation compounds the problem of deficient fidelity. Master
material and archival copies of the earliest records are extremely
rare. Most modern transfers necessarily are from copies salvaged by
collectors which had been stored haphazardly and played repeatedly
with easily worn needles using stylus pressures that would slice
right through vinyl. These records are often in dismal condition and
fall far off the scale of traditional quality grading standards. It
is amazing that some of these battered survivors can yield any
useful sound at all.
To surmount these technical hurdles, three fundamental approaches
have emerged, each typified by an English firm specializing in
historical reissues. Each involves severe compromises in the elusive
pursuit of authenticity and none is wholly satisfying.
The Pearl label and its Opal subsidiary take a purist approach.
Their philosophy is to forego filtering, scratch removal and other
renovation in order to transfer as much of the original sound as
possible. As commendable as this seems on paper, it is often
infuriating in practice. Much of the source material is in terrible
shape, and it can take an enormous mental effort to weed out the
musical information from the aural tangle of surface noise, gouges,
cracks, stripped grooves and other defects that often overwhelm the
music. The Pearl/Opal catalogue of early classical records is by far
the most extensive, but don't rush out to buy an armful of their
releases until you've sampled one and have determined that you're up
to the challenge.
Nimbus takes a far different tack for its predominantly vocal
releases, playing the old discs on "state of the art" acoustic
phonographs in ambient rooms and recording the sound that emerges
from the bell of the horn, so as to approximate the enjoyment of a
well-heeled listener of the time. Although the Nimbus discs have a
lovely, smooth sound, detractors correctly point out that this
method accentuates the aural limitations and reinforces the peculiar
resonances of the acoustic process. (Amazingly, Nimbus uses the same
technique for electrical sides, unnecessarily degrading their
quality.) Those of us who collect acoustic 78s know that they
contain far more musical information than even the best apparatus of
the time could render.
The most intrusive extreme applies the full gamut of current
technology in an effort to enhance the music while suppressing
mechanical defects. In a misguided effort at modernization, though,
most labels seem unable to resist excessive tampering and manage to
yield only a falsified, synthetic sound that is more puerile than
pure. As befits a company begun as a labor of love by a violin
maker, Biddulph manages through intelligent restraint to achieve
consistently tasteful and eminently musical results. Some aural
flaws remain, but these are easily ignored by that most
sophisticated of all sonic restoration hardware: the human ear.
Unfortunately, the market for early historical releases is small and
duplication of repertoire is economically imprudent. Since Pearl,
Nimbus and careless dupers already have issued the most important
early material, Biddulph and other small, exacting firms seem
unlikely to compete with their own superior editions.
So, armed with forgiving ears and bold expectations, what can these
ancient messengers tell us of their era?
An instructive digression is a collection of Edison cylinders or
Berliner discs from the late 1800s (as on Symposium CD 1058), which
represent the first budding of the record industry: songs,
recitations, cornet, banjo, clarinet and trombone solos, vocal
quartets and band selections (including some by Sousa's Band). Both
the recordings and the performances are typically dreadful. This is
not desert island manna, but hearing such stuff once is essential in
order to place the glories to come in their proper perspective.
The Vocalists
The best place to start exploring the first decade of serious
recording is "A Record of Singers" (EMI RLS 7705 & 7706, 6 LPs each,
plus a one-LP supplement). The ambitious goal was to present at
least one example of the art of every famous singer who recorded
prior to World War I, including many who, although then in decline,
had been major figures of the last century. And so we begin with the
weird sound of Alessandro Moreschi, the only recorded castrato
(believe me--you really don't want to know!) and end an exhaustive
twelve hours later with an a capella Russian folk song by a young
Feodor Chaliapin (who would later emerge as the century's greatest
bass). The selections are superb and the transfers are stunning,
derived from original metal stampers and the cream of private
collections. The only regret is a lack of explanatory notes beyond
bare discographic information, but Michael Scott's wonderful The
Record of Singing (Duckworth, 1977) is intended as a companion.
There are many early vocal collections on single Pearl, Nimbus and
other discs, but "A Record of Singing" is the set to have and to
treasure. Sadly, it is unavailable on CD, but an affordable
alternative is "The Era of Adelina Patti" on Nimbus 7840/1 (2 CDs).
Also worthwhile is Sony's fine restoration on MH2K 62334 of the
first American opera series, recorded by Columbia in 1902-3. Several
individual singers, though, command greater attention.
Adelina Patti
--By far the most important of the past vocal masters to record was
Patti (1843 - 1919), the reigning diva of the second half of the
nineteenth century who virtually founded the florid "coloratura"
style still so admired today. Although she reportedly swooned with
delight upon hearing her first playback (destroying the soft wax
master in the process), her records are a mixed success. They are
really quite lovely to hear, and serve as well to preserve for us
certain techniques and embellishments that characterized her art
(and, by extension, authentic singing of her generation). And yet,
at times she sounds stiff and breathless; even her most ardent
admirers admitted that only a glimmer remained of the subtlety of
her extraordinary art by the time she came to record (1905-6). But
despite the ravages of age, you can't help but thrill at the
realization that what you are really hearing is a performance of the
mid-1800s by the most acclaimed vocalist of her era. Collected on
Pearl CD 9312, the authenticity of Patti's performances sweeps aside
any concern over her lapsed powers.
Patti's contributions to the recording industry were not wholly
aesthetic. The most flaming egos of our age pale in comparison to
hers. She commanded up to $5,000 per performance, more than the
President of the United States made in a year; when chided about
this, she reportedly challenged the President to sing as well as she
did! She refused to set foot in a studio and made engineers come to
her home; she insisted that her records bear a distinctive pink
"Patti" label; and she set their price at 21 shillings. (That's
right - about 3 minutes of music for the modern-day equivalent of
$50. And we complain about CD prices?)
Francesco Tamango
--Patti's business terms may have been severe, but they weren't
unique. Tamango's records, too, were recorded in his home, had
special labels, and cost one pound. But in one respect, at least, he
surpassed even Patti: one of his discs, the "Esultate" aria from
Verdi's Otello, lasts a mere 68 seconds, of which the first 25 are a
piano introduction! That this and his other records sold well, even
at their outrageously inflated price, attests to his fame.
Tamango (1850 - 1905) had been selected by Verdi to create the lead
role in the 1887 premiere of Otello. His bold and hyper-emotional
singing of the Otello arias is still startling (he gasps loudly for
breath as he expires!), preserving for all time the performance
intended by the greatest opera composer of his age for the hero of
his masterpiece. Unlike Patti, Tamango was still in full voice in
1903 when he recorded. All of his recordings, including outtakes,
are on Opal CD 9846.
Mattia Battistini
--Italian music of the 19th century was quintessentially vocal
music. Great opera composers such as Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti
emphasized purity, nobility, subtlety and the sheer beauty of the
human voice. With Verdi, though, a new ideal of "verismo" arose in
which drama, emotion and realism supplanted the older style.
Although his career came after the turn to verismo, Battistini (1856
- 1928) focussed his repertoire on the earlier style and was
universally acclaimed by those who had lived through the previous
era as one of its greatest exponents. His records, made from 1902 to
1924, are uniformly beautiful and, more important, are the fullest
evidence we have of the pre-verismo vocal style of the previous two
generations. Selections of Battistini's glorious output are
available on Nimbus 7831 and Pearl 9936, 9946 and 9016.
Enrico Caruso
--Fancy labels and other trivia aside, Caruso (1873 - 1921) was the
first, and perhaps the greatest, superstar of the record industry.
Beginning in 1902 he recorded prolifically, and his lifetime
royalties were said to have exceeded two million dollars. But as
with a certain King of more recent memory, Caruso's death in 1921
was more an inconvenience than an end; RCA was still issuing "new"
Caruso records well into the 1930's by dubbing his voice onto fresh
orchestral tracks!
The torrent of Caruso single reissues, LP compilations and now CD
collections has never let up, and with good reason. The tone of
Caruso's huge, ringing voice was beautifully captured by acoustic
recording and reproduced magnificently. Even today, his records
still sound marvelous. And Caruso could sing anything well, from
highly ornamented Handel to impassioned neapolitan songs - even a
rousing rendition of George M. Cohan's "Over There." As Michael
Scott explains it in terms of musical traditions, Caruso's art
embraced both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as his
technique was founded in the skills of the old style, but with
unprecedented tension and power that were thoroughly modern.
Caruso's complete output is available on 12-CD sets from RCA
(60445-2-RG) and Pearl (in four 3-CD volumes, EVC I, II, III and
IV). Good collections are available on numerous single discs from
RCA, Pearl and Nimbus. Unless you truly hate singing altogether, you
just have to love Caruso. And through him you can relive an era of
bold personality which serves, rather than supplants, the music. But
Caruso's true immortality transcends even RCA's marketing prowess,
as his style has been imitated and adopted by nearly every tenor
since. Much the same can be said for Patti and Tamango, whose art
survives in the skill of nearly all the sopranos and heroic tenors
on stage today. As a result, nowadays their pioneering work may seem
more familiar than enlightening and so we must turn elsewhere on our
quest to illuminate the past.
The Instrumentalists
Except as vocal accompaniment, few instrumentalists recorded at all
at the dawn of the twentieth century. Of those who did, many were
young prodigies whose stylistic roots did not extend very deep into
the past.
Among available compilations, "The Recorded Violin" (Pearl BVA I and
II, two 3-CD volumes) is conceived along lines similar to "A Record
of Singers" and is second only to that achievement in its scope.
Among the violinists included are many who were active in the 1800s
and who shaped or reflected the ideals of their time. A fine
single-disc survey of the most venerable pioneers is on Symposium
1071. A astute sampler is Opal CD 9851, which combines the complete
recordings of Joseph Joachim (1831 - 1907), the exemplar of German
tradition, with those of Pablo de Sarasate (1844 - 1908), the
preeminent pyrotechnic virtuoso of the glitzy French school, and
five sides by the great expressive Belgian violinist Eugene Ysaye
(1858 - 1931), whose complete work has just been issued in fabulous
sound on Sony MHK 62337.
"The Recorded Cello" (Pearl CDS 9981-3 and 9984-6, 3 CDs each) is a
companion to the violin set. But Pearl's transfers here are
especially rough and the nineteenth century cellists prove to be an
awfully strait-laced group from whom little style can be gleaned, as
distinctive personality only emerged with Pablo Casals (1876 -
1973). "The Recorded Viola" (Pearl CDS 9148, 9149 and 9150, 2 CDs
each) affords even less insight, as it begins with the twentieth
century revival wrought by Oskar Nedbal and Lionel Tertis (both born
in 1876) and tells us little of their predecessors.
Curiously, there has been no survey of early pianism, despite the
huge number of fine examples recorded by acknowledged masters. The
first were cut by the great French pianist Raoul Pugno in 1903,
whose bold personality and exquisite passagework are still amazing
to hear. (Actually, Pugno had been preceded in 1899 by Alfred
Grünfeld, but his first recordings were mostly precious salon stuff;
his artistry emerged only in later discs, collected on Opal CD
9850.) Pugno's twenty sides, (on Opal CD 9386) are all robust,
magnificently played and bursting with character. But they are
barely listenable, having been cut on a seriously defective
turntable with wildly fluctuating speed. Surely modern computers
could correct this, but the purists at Pearl apparently wouldn't
even think of such a thing. If nothing else, though, you may want
this CD on hand for the next time a non-hi fi friend questions the
point of wow and flutter measurements in analog equipment reviews.
Pugno was born in 1852. To Vladimir de Pachmann (1848 - 1933) falls
the distinction of being the most famed pianist on record who was
born in the first half of the nineteenth century. De Pachmann was
reputed to be an extremely sensitive artist and the greatest Chopin
player of his time. But by the time he came to record he was known
as the "Chopinzee," as antic eccentricities (weird dress, fussing
with the piano stool, lecturing the audience and outrageous
interview statements) had all but eclipsed his former talent. Opal
CD 9840 contains nineteen of de Pachmann's records; some are awfully
sloppy, but others display exquisite delicacy and successfully
invoke his former wonder. Included is a bizarre curiosity: a riotous
take of a Chopin Etude through which de Pachmann babbles incessantly
and after flubbing the ending protests: "Godowsky [his arch-rival]
was the author!"
Of other pianists born before 1850, the recorded evidence is mostly
inconclusive. The oldest was the versatile composer Camille
Saint-Saens (1835 - 1921), whose only disc in circulation is vocal
accompaniment from which little can be inferred. Francis Planté
(1839 - 1934) waited to record until he was ninety, by which time
the delicacy and nuance for which he was known had all but vanished;
his ten discs are on Opal CD 9857. The records of Louis Diémer (1843
- 1919) eluded LP or CD transfer. The nine sides cut in May 1903 by
pianist/composer Edward Grieg (1843 - 1907) emphasize the strength
and dignity he sought in the performance of his own works but do not
imply a more general style; two of his sides are on Pearl CD 9933
and all are on Simax PSC 1809 (3 CDs).
Speaking of venerable keyboardists, we should not overlook the "King
of Instruments" or Charles-Marie Widor (1844 - 1937), who recorded
his scintillating organ Toccata (on EMI CD 55037). It would be
unkind, though, to say more of his labored performance, other than
to note that he was 88 at the time.
Nearly every other great pianist in the concert halls at the end of
the nineteenth century (and in the recording studios at the
beginning of the twentieth) had been a pupil of either Franz Liszt
or Theodor Leschetizky. But both emphasized developing a performer's
individuality, and so there is really no consistent manner among
their students. Thus, the recordings of Liszt's own First Piano
Concerto by his pupils Emil van Sauer (Pearl CD 9403) and Arthur de
Greef (Opal 829, LP only) sound strikingly different. Similarly, the
graduates of the Leschetizky method, such as it was, included such
divergent stylists as Ignaz Friedman, whose reputation tended toward
headstrong, thundering virtuosity, Ignaz Paderewski, whose immense
popularity owed as much to his politics and charisma (not to mention
his abundant hair) than his flawed but deeply poetic playing, and
Artur Schnabel, whose cool, cerebral readings of Mozart, Schubert
and especially Beethoven went far toward molding our modern taste.
A fascinating cross-section of pianism is found on "Pupils of
Leschetizky" (Opal CD 9839) and "Pupils of Liszt" (Pearl 9972, 2
CDs). But while these collections amply attest to the students'
highly individual personalities, they tell us little of the style of
their teachers, who set the aesthetic of their time but whose
self-effacing methods refused to mold their pupils into mimicry.
So how did the nineteenth century masters themselves play? We have
no direct evidence. Liszt died in 1886. Leschetizky lived until 1915
but cut only piano rolls (one, a Chopin Nocturne, is on Opal CD
9839), which were often enhanced after the fact and tell little of a
pianist's tone or quality; Leschetizky's is stiff and opaque. And
yet, we do have a remarkable set of blueprints, albeit indirect
ones.
Liszt was not only one of the greatest teachers of his century, but
was also one of the two most influential performers, a supreme
virtuoso who revolutionized the keyboard with his bombastic playing.
He was also considered the greatest improviser of all time, unable
to resist recomposing even a new score as he sight-read it for the
very first time. The most extraordinary evidence of Lisztian playing
arose nearly a century after his death in a most unlikely guise.
Ervin Nyiregyhazi, born in Budapest in 1903, became enthralled and
obsessed with Liszt. Those who had known the master lauded the
teenager as his spiritual heir. But after a series of brilliant
debuts and ecstatic reviews of his mesmerizing playing, Nyiregyhazi
dropped out of sight. Fifty years and nine marriages later he
resurfaced in 1973 in a Los Angeles flophouse. Having barely touched
a keyboard in decades, he was coaxed into a recital in a local
church, part of which (two Liszt "Legendes") was taped on a cheap
cassette deck. Issued on Desmar LP IPA 111, this is perhaps the most
intense performance ever recorded, with a power and a spirituality
beyond anything else in the realm of modern experience. Following
his rediscovery, Nyiregyhazi went on to became a critical darling
and cut several studio albums, but none approached what he had
achieved in that one astounding concert in which he resurrected the
spirit of Liszt just once in our time.
The other most influential pianist of the nineteenth century was
Chopin, whose exquisite subtlety was a world apart from Liszt's
unbridled energy. Chopin died in 1849 and none of his students lived
to record. And yet, a reliable trace of his style also exists in our
century. Chopin's foremost pupil was Karl Mikuli, who devoted his
life to teaching his master's approach to his works. One of Mikuli's
pupils, Raoul Koczalski, was highly unusual in that he was a prodigy
of such a high order that after studying with Mikuli he had no need
of further teachers. Thus, having absorbed Chopin through Mikuli, he
remained relatively immune from other influences. His records,
collected on Pearl CD 9472, are as close as we will ever get to
Chopin himself. They exemplify the composer's reputed rhythmic
freedom, contain many ornaments not in the scores and reflect
outmoded practices (such as having one hand slightly lead the
other), all of which we must presume are authentic.
There is one more set of 20th century piano recordings which
provides a tantalizing link to the past: 1928-30 performances of
several Schumann piano works, including his Concerto, by Fanny
Davies (Pearl CD 9291). Davies was one of the last pupils of Clara
Schumann, who was not only a famous virtuoso in her own right but
also the widow of the great composer. For forty years following
Robert's death in 1856, Clara devoted herself to perpetuating her
husband's way of performing his music (much of which she had
inspired), insisting that her pupils observe her detailed
instructions exactly, just as she had absorbed them from Robert in
the 1830s. Thus Davies's earnest but relaxed elegance and unusual
phrasing are presumably those of the composer himself and transport
us back nearly a full century before her records were made. Yet
despite his romantic temperament and critical writing, Schumann set
few stylistic trends in his day, and so Davies's performances remain
more a lovely footnote than a guiding beacon to the sonic ideals of
a lost age.
Orchestral Music
Recordings of symphonic orchestras (as opposed to brass bands) were
quite rare prior to 1920. The acoustic apparatus simply couldn't
register the highest and lowest two octaves of orchestral sound.
Without upper harmonics, the tonal color became blurred and the
distinctive timbres of strings, brass and winds sounded confusingly
similar. Double basses, which give the orchestra its sonic anchor,
reproduced only as an overtonal whine and were routinely replaced by
tubas, whose more flatulent tone registered quite well. Beyond sonic
limitations, there was the sheer logistical problem of cramming even
reduced forces into a room sufficiently small to capture their
sound; indeed, not until 1917 in Boston was a full orchestra pickup
even attempted.
The few early orchestral recordings were dominated by young
conductors such as Thomas Beecham, Ernest Ansermet, Frederick Stock
and Leopold Stokowski, who generally sought an independent stylistic
course from their predecessors. Edouard Colonne (1838-1910)
reportedly was the first conductor with a solid nineteenth century
reputation to record, but his sides, cut in 1907, were never
transferred to LP or CD and remain elusive.
The only giant among romantic conductors whose work is preserved is
Artur Nikish (1855 - 1922), who was known for his luminous
orchestral sound (which the discs of the time barely suggest) and a
free-wheeling approach to interpretation (which the records convey
quite well). Nikish's first and most famous recording was of
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (1913). This was only the second set to
be made of a full-length work, as short pieces and single movements,
often drastically abridged, were previously deemed sufficient to
sate the limits of listener interest. Beyond its historical
importance, this performance displays lovely phrasing and excellent
dynamic control and balance (very difficult to achieve with the
acoustic process). It also exhibits Nikish's famed ability to pursue
impulse without violating the demands of the structure. His talent
is confirmed by a 1914 reading of Liszt's First Hungarian Rhapsody,
which begins with haunting atmosphere and then explodes into
crackling excitement. These and the remaining Nikish sides are
collected on Symposium 1087/8. They surmount their technological
limitations to suggest an awesome degree of headstrong individuality
rarely heard in our time.
As with the pianists, the most impressive, if indirect, evidence of
Nikish's art may rest with one of his students. Wilhelm Furtwängler
(1886 - 1954) idolized Nikish and succeeded to Nikish's posts upon
his death. Although Furtwängler's studio recordings are often
stolid, his concerts aroused the same ecstatic emotions as Nikish's.
Many were recorded and remain among the most exciting examples ever
captured of the way in which a brilliant interpretation can
revitalize an oft-heard score. Listening to Furtwängler's riveting
accounts of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony (Music & Arts CD 653), the
Bruckner Ninth Symphony (Music & Arts CD 730) or the Brahms
Symphonies (Music & Arts set 941 or super-budget Virtuoso 2699072)
transports us back to the heart and soul of the last century. But
beware--this is dangerous stuff: once you hear Furtwängler, it's
hard to return to the bland precision that passes for musical
interpretation nowadays. Furtwängler lived and breathed his music.
The other indisputably great and influential late-nineteenth century
conductor, Gustav Mahler, died in 1911. Although he left no
orchestral recordings to attest to his conducting style, he did cut
four piano rolls in 1905, now collected on Golden Legacy CD 101.
Fortunately, they were made in the new Welte-Mignon process, which
recorded both the notes and their dynamics so that the playback
unit, coupled to a concert grand, reproduced the feel and quality of
the playing in a way which eluded standard rolls. Although
interpretive extremes are far easier to achieve solo than with a
full orchestra, Mahler's highly impulsive rolls suggest his reputed
intensity on the podium.
Further glimmers of Mahler's style appear in early recordings of his
compositions by a trio of his disciples. Mahler's foremost protege,
Bruno Walter, lived into the stereo era and is remembered mostly for
his genial, humanistic late Columbia records which, while certainly
enjoyable on their own terms, seem worlds apart from the driven
angst of Mahler's piano rolls. In the late 1930s, though, Walter
recorded biting Vienna concerts of Mahler's last symphony and final
song cycle, Das Lied von der Erde (on EMI CD CDH 7 63029 2 and Pearl
CD 9413 respectively), of which he had given the world premieres
following Mahler's death. Similar intensity is displayed by Oscar
Fried, who waxed a wild 1924 acoustic account of Mahler's Symphony #
2 (on Pearl CDS 9929), and Willem Mengelberg, who left us a stunning
1940 concert of the Symphony # 4 (on Philips CD 426 108 2). All
throb with individualistic touches of the same type in which Mahler
reportedly indulged in his own performances.
The Joachim Legacy
So what can we make of all this? To which single artist can we best
turn for an entree to the past which can then deepen our
understanding of the present? The beauty of Battistini? The boldness
of Caruso? The poetry of Chopin? The mysticism of Liszt? The impulse
of Nikish? None can serve as an exclusive paradigm. Classical music,
after all, is not monolithic; its artists have always embraced a
wide gamut of styles, personalities and approaches. Perhaps the only
valid impression to be gleaned from the records of the authentic
exponents of the last century is that of diversity itself.
To return to our initial thought, can any of these be deemed more
important than the rest to represent the romantic era and to
illumine our own? Not really, since each has spawned an interpretive
style familiar in our own time. While historically significant, none
really tells us much more about music or performance than we already
know from contemporary concerts and records.
And yet there is something else out there that lies even deeper than
these well-explored roots of our modern age.
In our days of countless multinational stars, it is hard to
appreciate the unique importance of Joseph Joachim. He was, quite
simply, the violinist of the century, intimate friend of
Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms and considered the supreme
interpreter of their works (many of which, including the violin
concerti of Brahms, Bruch and Dvorak, were dedicated to him). From
the very start of his career in 1844, he and his pupils inspired and
taught nearly every great violinist for decades to come. More than
anyone else, Joachim defined classical performance in his time.
In 1903, near the very end of his long and remarkable life, Joachim
recorded a total of five sides: a trifle of his own, two solo pieces
of Bach and two Brahms Hungarian Dances. As heard on Opal 9851, all
are fascinating; the Hungarian Dance # 2 in d minor, though, is a
revelation.
Upon first hearing, the impression of this record is pathetic:
imprecise notes, sloppy bowing, shaky rhythm, coarse tone.
Historical curiosity aside, surely this seems the misjudged ego-trip
of a decrepit man no longer in control of his instrument, his former
technique ravaged beyond all recognition and worsened still by the
horrors of the recording experience.
But that's not it at all. The only thing "wrong" with this
performance is that we hear it through modern ears, ears accustomed
to the note-perfect sterility of twentieth century musicianship in
which any departure from the holy text of the written score is an
unpardonable artistic sin.
Of all the thousands upon thousands of old acoustic records, this
one confronts us with a unique challenge. Here is a style of playing
absolutely unknown in our time. Every note bursts with passion.
Every gesture throbs with meaning.
Joachim doesn't sharpen or flatten certain notes because he can't
reach them, but rather to emphasize the force of a melodic
progression or to shade the impact of a chord; indeed, his fingering
is so fluid that the individual notes of his passagework are barely
apparent. His rhythm is so constantly dynamic and alive that it
belies the very notion of tempo. And his bowing - the first
downbeats slash with splintering force and soon subside into a
whisper.
Joachim tears the notes right off the page. After hearing this
astounding performance, no classical artist should ever feel
embarrassed to play the romantic repertoire with the same unfettered
passion as a hard rocker.
But by what right does any musician so brutally distort the written
score? Joachim undoubtedly would insist that this is not only the
right but the duty of the true artist, who forms a team with the
composer. The score is always a mere starting point, and never the
finish line, for valid musical expression.
To regard written music as a complete record of a composer's
intentions is strictly a twentieth century notion. All earlier
composers knew that performers of their time were immersed in the
knowledge of how to breathe life into the cold written notation.
There simply was no need to clutter a score with directions that any
trained musician would assume as a matter of course. Even Toscanini,
the purist whose solution to every interpretive problem was to
consult the score, proclaimed that a true musician had to read
between the notes.
Our modern outlook leads us to forget the vital importance of
interpretative freedom in the performance of all music - including
classical. We expect blues, rock, jazz and pop artists to actively
recreate the pieces they perform. We are intrigued to hear two takes
by Robert Johnson that barely sound like the same song, much less
the one from which it was derived. We readily accept Bob Dylan's
constant reinventions of his earlier work. We laud Louis Armstrong
and his legions of successors for their creative transformations of
melody, harmony and structure. We salute the brilliance of Elvis and
the Sun gang for wresting their first rockabilly sides out of old
country standards. And yet, let a modern classical musician alter a
single marking in the score and he is condemned for placing a
swollen and arrogant ego above the calling of his art.
This attitude is absurd. All great classical performers of past
centuries were prized for their skill at improvisation. One of the
staples of early nineteenth century concerts was the performer's
extemporizing an entire piece, often from a fragment given on the
spot by the audience. Indeed, Beethoven's Piano Fantasia in g minor,
Op. 77 is believed to be a transcription of one of his concert
improvisations, taken down "live" in music shorthand. Any
self-respecting soloist of the time was expected to provide his own
cadenza (an extended solo display section toward the end of a
movement) in any concerto he performed.
By these valid historical standards, our few twentieth century
iconoclasts seem rather mild. So what if Furtwangler's tempos tended
toward extremes? Or if Stokowski's early electrical records wallowed
in overripe bass? Or if Glenn Gould galloped breathlessly through
Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata? Or if Bernstein distended adagios to
a near halt? For that matter, what's wrong with adaptations of the
classics played by Emerson Lake & Palmer or on a Moog synthesizer?
The conventional assumptions of so much of what we have come to
accept as modern musical taste are not only dull; they are just
plain wrong.
Edison, though, was right: the true value of the phonograph does
indeed lie beyond mere entertainment. While every other performance
and lesson of his life has long since faded into legend, Joachim's
immortality lies etched in the groove of his ancient record. At the
very dawn of our century, he braved the demon of the acoustic horn
and distilled the wisdom of a vanishing age into a mere three
minutes. His supremely precious legacy transcends words and memories
to directly preserve for all time the outlook of the greatest artist
of an entire era which, more than any other, gave rise to the soul
of our own.
While scholars, performers, critics and audiences may forever debate
the "proper" way to perform classical music, the evidence of
Joachim's record just may be worth more than all the academic
speculation and literature put together. It validates and unifies
the huge and bewildering range of styles presented by the other
surviving records of the era. It opens a crucial door to an
understanding of classical music, and perhaps to all music of the
past, that might otherwise have remained forever shut and, in so
doing, immeasurably deepens our grasp of the present.
More important still, it provides an urgent key to the future. Those
who prematurely mourn the death of the classics should instead heed
Joachim's clarion call. In that one brief moment so many years ago
Joachim told us as much as we will ever need to know about the
essence of all music: any performance is "correct" if it stems from
commitment, wisdom and passion.
No more important record has ever been made.
_____________
The historical facts in this article are derived largely from four
well-researched, informative and highly readable books: Roland
Gellatt's The Fabulous Phonograph (MacMillan, 1977), Michael Scott's
Record of Singing (Duckworth, 1977) and Harold Schonberg's The Great
Pianists (Simon & Schuster, 1963) and The Great Conductors (Simon &
Schuster, 1967). By all means, read them; but listen to the music.
--written in 1997
The English Ghost
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8852794/The-English-Ghost.html
[Thanks to Sarah for this.]
As Hallowe'en approaches, the spirits grow restless. Acclaimed historian
Peter Ackroyd has made a study of documented 'unnatural' happenings across
the length and breadth of our haunted land
attention to it. I only remark that many, if not most, of Glenn Gould's
and Willem Mengelberg's. No mention of string quartets, whose style of
playing changed more than anything else.
An excellent article!
Peter Guttman: In search of the most important record ever made
http://www.classicalnotes.net/features/joachim-nopix.html
From the earliest primal rite to the latest alternative rock, treble
clef graphic music has always served the same essential function: to
forge promise from the routine of daily life, to expand our vision,
to set us free. But all music opens vistas of broad future horizons.
So if any one record can claim to be the most important of all, then
it has to do even more: it must reveal some other path, one even
more tightly shut than the gate to the future. It must unlock a door
to the past, to something buried below the immediate roots of our
modern music, to a level that lies deeper than even the oldest
records that collectors love to cherish and explore.
Appreciation of any culture, including our own, begins in
understanding its foundations. Ironically, while musicologists have
succeeded in reconstructing performance practices of the Baroque and
even the Renaissance, the far more recent romantic era (roughly
coinciding with the last century) continues to elude a consensus.
And yet, it was that very epoch of unbounded emotional freedom,
exploration and discovery which, more than any other, paved the way
toward the liberated music of our own time. If we could only
experience the romantic era first-hand, even for a brief moment, it
would vastly enrich our feelings for the present.
But just how did the music of the years right before the phonograph
actually sound? This remains a frustrating and impenetrable mystery.
Literary descriptions are imprecise, memories have faded and
scholars can only speculate. Perhaps the key to solving this puzzle
lies in the groove of an obscure early record.
In the Beginning
The origin of the phonograph held little promise of its ultimate
value. History tells us that the first record was made in 1877 by
Thomas Edison, who recited "Mary Had a Little Lamb" onto a tinfoil
cylinder and played it back to an astonished staff. Unfortunately
for posterity, Edison's choice of "Mary" was a woeful herald of the
initial development of his marvel.
Edison conceived and first marketed his machine as a dictation
device, and only grudgingly stooped to cheapen it to such an
impractical purpose as mere entertainment. Even then, catalogues of
Edison records through the late 1890s overflowed with mawkish
recitations, maudlin songs and other Victorian trivia. The closest
these early efforts ever came to serious music were marches and band
arrangements of heavily cut light classical pieces. Edison may have
been a genius at invention, but his musical taste was appalling.
Edison's control over the manufacture and marketing of records
enabled him to dictate the content of commercial recordings for the
rest of the century. As an interesting aside, Edison exerted
comparable command over the other entertainment wonder of the age,
motion pictures, effectively limiting their first decade to
vaudeville turns. In retrospect, it is amazing and sad how one man's
dreary and abysmal taste so thoroughly compromised both our aural
and visual records of the culture of the late nineteenth century.
It is safe to say that until 1900 no artist of any stature made
commercial records. The only seeming exception was Ellen Beach Yaw,
who cut several sides for Berliner's Gramophone in March 1899. But
hers is the exception that proves the rule. Promoted as "Lark
Ellen," Miss Yaw apparently was known more as a vocal gymnast than
as a serious artist. Indeed, she is believed to have sung only two
opera performances in her life. Among her dubious talents were an
ability to sing an octave higher than normal soprano range and to
perform a trill in thirds rather than seconds. Collected on Pearl CD
9239, her records illustrate these feats but little else. Surely,
Lark Ellen was promoted not as a serious artist but as a freak
curiosity, comparable to the boxing dogs, butterfly dances and
occasional trick films that crowd early movie catalogues.
A fascinating recompense lay in the activity of Gianni Bettini, an
inventor who improved the diaphragm and stylus of the Edison
apparatus to obtain more listenable results. Equally important,
Bettini was a wealthy New York host who entertained the elite of the
opera world in his home and took the opportunity to record his
guests throughout the 1890s. While copies of Bettini's cylinders
were very expensive (up to six dollars when the norm was fifty
cents) and had small distribution, his catalogue eventually ran to
dozens of pages and read like a "who's who" of opera. Incredibly,
though, not a single one of Bettini's intriguing cylinders is known
to exist today.
And then, suddenly, with the turn of the century, the commercial
floodgates opened.
The first to venture into the void were singers, led by several
celebrities of the Russian Imperial Opera who recorded in 1901.
There followed an extraordinary proliferation of fine vocal records
by the likes of Plançon, Scotti, Ruffo, Calvé, Tetrazzini,
Schumann-Heink, Slezak, de Lucia, Battistini and Caruso. Within a
few short years, nearly every opera star succumbed to recording. As
a result, we have an embarrassment of riches - a nearly complete
picture of classical singing as it existed at the turn of the
century. Instrumentalists soon would follow. Irretrievably lost,
though, was the cream of the previous generation, whose artistry had
soared while Edison immortalized whistlers and coon songs.
The Records
But just how reliable are these artifacts to convey their era?
Unfortunately, their value is compromised by severe problems, both
artistic and technical.
From a purely artistic standpoint, the early records do not
necessarily represent masters at the height of their talents.
Nowadays, recording is an accepted, if not dominant, activity for
all but a handful of top artists. But at the turn of the century,
the experience was not only new, but daunting and even degrading.
Indeed, it is amazing that any reputable musician recorded at all.
Just picture what was involved. An artist accustomed to the lavish
caress of high society would report to a seedy building. In place of
the reverberant ambiance of the concert hall, he was shut up in a
closet with harsh acoustics. There was no audience whose reactions
were a necessary source of inspiration. Nor was there room for an
orchestra - just an upright piano. Accustomed to move freely about
the stage and to sway soulfully, our artist was warned to stand
rigidly before the recording horn. In place of subtle dynamic
shadings, he was ordered to sound each tone uniformly. And worst of
all, these demands came from a technician who could care nothing
about musical art.
Here is how the great pianist Ferruccio Busoni described his first
encounter with the recording horn:
Yesterday I suffered the gramophone drudge through to the end! I
feel pretty shattered ... as if I were awaiting surgery.... They
wanted the Gounod-Liszt Faust-waltz (which lasts a good 10
minutes) - but only four minutes' worth! - so I quickly had to
make cuts, patch and improvise, so that it still retained its
sense; give due regard to the pedal (because it sounds bad), had
to remember that particular notes must be struck louder or softer
- to please the infernal machine; not to let myself go - for the
sake of accuracy - and remain conscious throughout that every
note was being preserved for eternity. How can inspiration,
freedom, elan or poetry arise?
And Busoni was far from a true pioneer; his martyrdom came in 1919,
after decades of improvements!
It is hardly surprising that so many performances from this era are
stiff, mechanical and uninspired. The artist was in alien territory,
intimidated if not scared to death; everything he had spent a
lifetime learning had to be altered or ignored. The true wonder is
that any genuine artistry emerged from such trying circumstances.
But the musical giants both came and overcame. Even one of Busoni's
seven discs (collected on Pearl 9349) is brilliantly headstrong and
virtuostic.
To aggravate the problem of culture shock, the most enticing records
were made by concert veterans at the very end of long lives of
discovery, exploration and development during which their outlooks
constantly evolved and their skills began to dissipate. (In contrast
to our present notions of longevity, abetted by modern medicine, a
sixty-year old performer of the last century was already very old.)
The artistry of some survived intact but others' clearly did not.
Perhaps the most severe disappointment is a 1926 performance of
Beethoven's Symphony # 1 by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra led by
Sir George Henschel (last available on Past Masters LP PM-17). The
promise of this recording is uniquely compelling. Henschel was a
pupil of Ignaz Moscheles who, in turn, was the devoted assistant of
none other than Beethoven himself! With typical British reserve,
Henschel recalled: "On being introduced to him, I felt a certain
sensation of awe on shaking the hand of one who had seen Beethoven
face to face and had been commissioned by the master to prepare the
vocal score of Fidelio [Beethoven's only opera]." Henschel's record
is the only one made by a student of a protege of Beethoven--and
in rich, electrical sound, no less! This is the closest link we have
to the most influential composer of all time, whose symphonies
remain the interpretive touchstone for every modern conductor. A
reviewer of the time hailed the record as Henschel's "well known
interpretation" and assured readers that "judging from this
recording ... the distinguished conductor is far from impaired in
his powers." Surely, Henschel's way with the music would be
authentic. And yet, his performance is genteel, plodding, and
downright boring. How can Henschel's placid walk-through possibly
represent the aesthetic of Beethoven, the rebel who wrenched music
from its complacent classical moorings into a new emotive era and
who destroyed pianos trying to wrest more powerful sounds out of
them? If Henschel ever had absorbed Beethoven's obsessive visceral
temperament through Moscheles, then his art clearly did not survive
to his record.
Modern listeners also face technical challenges. The original
records themselves were far from faithful sonic reproductions. The
primitive acoustic recording apparatus successfully captured all of
the fundamentals and most harmonics of the human voice. Instruments,
though, were far worse served, as both their bottom and higher
reaches lay well beyond the limit of the mechanism's mid-range
registration.
Preservation compounds the problem of deficient fidelity. Master
material and archival copies of the earliest records are extremely
rare. Most modern transfers necessarily are from copies salvaged by
collectors which had been stored haphazardly and played repeatedly
with easily worn needles using stylus pressures that would slice
right through vinyl. These records are often in dismal condition and
fall far off the scale of traditional quality grading standards. It
is amazing that some of these battered survivors can yield any
useful sound at all.
To surmount these technical hurdles, three fundamental approaches
have emerged, each typified by an English firm specializing in
historical reissues. Each involves severe compromises in the elusive
pursuit of authenticity and none is wholly satisfying.
The Pearl label and its Opal subsidiary take a purist approach.
Their philosophy is to forego filtering, scratch removal and other
renovation in order to transfer as much of the original sound as
possible. As commendable as this seems on paper, it is often
infuriating in practice. Much of the source material is in terrible
shape, and it can take an enormous mental effort to weed out the
musical information from the aural tangle of surface noise, gouges,
cracks, stripped grooves and other defects that often overwhelm the
music. The Pearl/Opal catalogue of early classical records is by far
the most extensive, but don't rush out to buy an armful of their
releases until you've sampled one and have determined that you're up
to the challenge.
Nimbus takes a far different tack for its predominantly vocal
releases, playing the old discs on "state of the art" acoustic
phonographs in ambient rooms and recording the sound that emerges
from the bell of the horn, so as to approximate the enjoyment of a
well-heeled listener of the time. Although the Nimbus discs have a
lovely, smooth sound, detractors correctly point out that this
method accentuates the aural limitations and reinforces the peculiar
resonances of the acoustic process. (Amazingly, Nimbus uses the same
technique for electrical sides, unnecessarily degrading their
quality.) Those of us who collect acoustic 78s know that they
contain far more musical information than even the best apparatus of
the time could render.
The most intrusive extreme applies the full gamut of current
technology in an effort to enhance the music while suppressing
mechanical defects. In a misguided effort at modernization, though,
most labels seem unable to resist excessive tampering and manage to
yield only a falsified, synthetic sound that is more puerile than
pure. As befits a company begun as a labor of love by a violin
maker, Biddulph manages through intelligent restraint to achieve
consistently tasteful and eminently musical results. Some aural
flaws remain, but these are easily ignored by that most
sophisticated of all sonic restoration hardware: the human ear.
Unfortunately, the market for early historical releases is small and
duplication of repertoire is economically imprudent. Since Pearl,
Nimbus and careless dupers already have issued the most important
early material, Biddulph and other small, exacting firms seem
unlikely to compete with their own superior editions.
So, armed with forgiving ears and bold expectations, what can these
ancient messengers tell us of their era?
An instructive digression is a collection of Edison cylinders or
Berliner discs from the late 1800s (as on Symposium CD 1058), which
represent the first budding of the record industry: songs,
recitations, cornet, banjo, clarinet and trombone solos, vocal
quartets and band selections (including some by Sousa's Band). Both
the recordings and the performances are typically dreadful. This is
not desert island manna, but hearing such stuff once is essential in
order to place the glories to come in their proper perspective.
The Vocalists
The best place to start exploring the first decade of serious
recording is "A Record of Singers" (EMI RLS 7705 & 7706, 6 LPs each,
plus a one-LP supplement). The ambitious goal was to present at
least one example of the art of every famous singer who recorded
prior to World War I, including many who, although then in decline,
had been major figures of the last century. And so we begin with the
weird sound of Alessandro Moreschi, the only recorded castrato
(believe me--you really don't want to know!) and end an exhaustive
twelve hours later with an a capella Russian folk song by a young
Feodor Chaliapin (who would later emerge as the century's greatest
bass). The selections are superb and the transfers are stunning,
derived from original metal stampers and the cream of private
collections. The only regret is a lack of explanatory notes beyond
bare discographic information, but Michael Scott's wonderful The
Record of Singing (Duckworth, 1977) is intended as a companion.
There are many early vocal collections on single Pearl, Nimbus and
other discs, but "A Record of Singing" is the set to have and to
treasure. Sadly, it is unavailable on CD, but an affordable
alternative is "The Era of Adelina Patti" on Nimbus 7840/1 (2 CDs).
Also worthwhile is Sony's fine restoration on MH2K 62334 of the
first American opera series, recorded by Columbia in 1902-3. Several
individual singers, though, command greater attention.
Adelina Patti
--By far the most important of the past vocal masters to record was
Patti (1843 - 1919), the reigning diva of the second half of the
nineteenth century who virtually founded the florid "coloratura"
style still so admired today. Although she reportedly swooned with
delight upon hearing her first playback (destroying the soft wax
master in the process), her records are a mixed success. They are
really quite lovely to hear, and serve as well to preserve for us
certain techniques and embellishments that characterized her art
(and, by extension, authentic singing of her generation). And yet,
at times she sounds stiff and breathless; even her most ardent
admirers admitted that only a glimmer remained of the subtlety of
her extraordinary art by the time she came to record (1905-6). But
despite the ravages of age, you can't help but thrill at the
realization that what you are really hearing is a performance of the
mid-1800s by the most acclaimed vocalist of her era. Collected on
Pearl CD 9312, the authenticity of Patti's performances sweeps aside
any concern over her lapsed powers.
Patti's contributions to the recording industry were not wholly
aesthetic. The most flaming egos of our age pale in comparison to
hers. She commanded up to $5,000 per performance, more than the
President of the United States made in a year; when chided about
this, she reportedly challenged the President to sing as well as she
did! She refused to set foot in a studio and made engineers come to
her home; she insisted that her records bear a distinctive pink
"Patti" label; and she set their price at 21 shillings. (That's
right - about 3 minutes of music for the modern-day equivalent of
$50. And we complain about CD prices?)
Francesco Tamango
--Patti's business terms may have been severe, but they weren't
unique. Tamango's records, too, were recorded in his home, had
special labels, and cost one pound. But in one respect, at least, he
surpassed even Patti: one of his discs, the "Esultate" aria from
Verdi's Otello, lasts a mere 68 seconds, of which the first 25 are a
piano introduction! That this and his other records sold well, even
at their outrageously inflated price, attests to his fame.
Tamango (1850 - 1905) had been selected by Verdi to create the lead
role in the 1887 premiere of Otello. His bold and hyper-emotional
singing of the Otello arias is still startling (he gasps loudly for
breath as he expires!), preserving for all time the performance
intended by the greatest opera composer of his age for the hero of
his masterpiece. Unlike Patti, Tamango was still in full voice in
1903 when he recorded. All of his recordings, including outtakes,
are on Opal CD 9846.
Mattia Battistini
--Italian music of the 19th century was quintessentially vocal
music. Great opera composers such as Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti
emphasized purity, nobility, subtlety and the sheer beauty of the
human voice. With Verdi, though, a new ideal of "verismo" arose in
which drama, emotion and realism supplanted the older style.
Although his career came after the turn to verismo, Battistini (1856
- 1928) focussed his repertoire on the earlier style and was
universally acclaimed by those who had lived through the previous
era as one of its greatest exponents. His records, made from 1902 to
1924, are uniformly beautiful and, more important, are the fullest
evidence we have of the pre-verismo vocal style of the previous two
generations. Selections of Battistini's glorious output are
available on Nimbus 7831 and Pearl 9936, 9946 and 9016.
Enrico Caruso
--Fancy labels and other trivia aside, Caruso (1873 - 1921) was the
first, and perhaps the greatest, superstar of the record industry.
Beginning in 1902 he recorded prolifically, and his lifetime
royalties were said to have exceeded two million dollars. But as
with a certain King of more recent memory, Caruso's death in 1921
was more an inconvenience than an end; RCA was still issuing "new"
Caruso records well into the 1930's by dubbing his voice onto fresh
orchestral tracks!
The torrent of Caruso single reissues, LP compilations and now CD
collections has never let up, and with good reason. The tone of
Caruso's huge, ringing voice was beautifully captured by acoustic
recording and reproduced magnificently. Even today, his records
still sound marvelous. And Caruso could sing anything well, from
highly ornamented Handel to impassioned neapolitan songs - even a
rousing rendition of George M. Cohan's "Over There." As Michael
Scott explains it in terms of musical traditions, Caruso's art
embraced both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as his
technique was founded in the skills of the old style, but with
unprecedented tension and power that were thoroughly modern.
Caruso's complete output is available on 12-CD sets from RCA
(60445-2-RG) and Pearl (in four 3-CD volumes, EVC I, II, III and
IV). Good collections are available on numerous single discs from
RCA, Pearl and Nimbus. Unless you truly hate singing altogether, you
just have to love Caruso. And through him you can relive an era of
bold personality which serves, rather than supplants, the music. But
Caruso's true immortality transcends even RCA's marketing prowess,
as his style has been imitated and adopted by nearly every tenor
since. Much the same can be said for Patti and Tamango, whose art
survives in the skill of nearly all the sopranos and heroic tenors
on stage today. As a result, nowadays their pioneering work may seem
more familiar than enlightening and so we must turn elsewhere on our
quest to illuminate the past.
The Instrumentalists
Except as vocal accompaniment, few instrumentalists recorded at all
at the dawn of the twentieth century. Of those who did, many were
young prodigies whose stylistic roots did not extend very deep into
the past.
Among available compilations, "The Recorded Violin" (Pearl BVA I and
II, two 3-CD volumes) is conceived along lines similar to "A Record
of Singers" and is second only to that achievement in its scope.
Among the violinists included are many who were active in the 1800s
and who shaped or reflected the ideals of their time. A fine
single-disc survey of the most venerable pioneers is on Symposium
1071. A astute sampler is Opal CD 9851, which combines the complete
recordings of Joseph Joachim (1831 - 1907), the exemplar of German
tradition, with those of Pablo de Sarasate (1844 - 1908), the
preeminent pyrotechnic virtuoso of the glitzy French school, and
five sides by the great expressive Belgian violinist Eugene Ysaye
(1858 - 1931), whose complete work has just been issued in fabulous
sound on Sony MHK 62337.
"The Recorded Cello" (Pearl CDS 9981-3 and 9984-6, 3 CDs each) is a
companion to the violin set. But Pearl's transfers here are
especially rough and the nineteenth century cellists prove to be an
awfully strait-laced group from whom little style can be gleaned, as
distinctive personality only emerged with Pablo Casals (1876 -
1973). "The Recorded Viola" (Pearl CDS 9148, 9149 and 9150, 2 CDs
each) affords even less insight, as it begins with the twentieth
century revival wrought by Oskar Nedbal and Lionel Tertis (both born
in 1876) and tells us little of their predecessors.
Curiously, there has been no survey of early pianism, despite the
huge number of fine examples recorded by acknowledged masters. The
first were cut by the great French pianist Raoul Pugno in 1903,
whose bold personality and exquisite passagework are still amazing
to hear. (Actually, Pugno had been preceded in 1899 by Alfred
Grünfeld, but his first recordings were mostly precious salon stuff;
his artistry emerged only in later discs, collected on Opal CD
9850.) Pugno's twenty sides, (on Opal CD 9386) are all robust,
magnificently played and bursting with character. But they are
barely listenable, having been cut on a seriously defective
turntable with wildly fluctuating speed. Surely modern computers
could correct this, but the purists at Pearl apparently wouldn't
even think of such a thing. If nothing else, though, you may want
this CD on hand for the next time a non-hi fi friend questions the
point of wow and flutter measurements in analog equipment reviews.
Pugno was born in 1852. To Vladimir de Pachmann (1848 - 1933) falls
the distinction of being the most famed pianist on record who was
born in the first half of the nineteenth century. De Pachmann was
reputed to be an extremely sensitive artist and the greatest Chopin
player of his time. But by the time he came to record he was known
as the "Chopinzee," as antic eccentricities (weird dress, fussing
with the piano stool, lecturing the audience and outrageous
interview statements) had all but eclipsed his former talent. Opal
CD 9840 contains nineteen of de Pachmann's records; some are awfully
sloppy, but others display exquisite delicacy and successfully
invoke his former wonder. Included is a bizarre curiosity: a riotous
take of a Chopin Etude through which de Pachmann babbles incessantly
and after flubbing the ending protests: "Godowsky [his arch-rival]
was the author!"
Of other pianists born before 1850, the recorded evidence is mostly
inconclusive. The oldest was the versatile composer Camille
Saint-Saens (1835 - 1921), whose only disc in circulation is vocal
accompaniment from which little can be inferred. Francis Planté
(1839 - 1934) waited to record until he was ninety, by which time
the delicacy and nuance for which he was known had all but vanished;
his ten discs are on Opal CD 9857. The records of Louis Diémer (1843
- 1919) eluded LP or CD transfer. The nine sides cut in May 1903 by
pianist/composer Edward Grieg (1843 - 1907) emphasize the strength
and dignity he sought in the performance of his own works but do not
imply a more general style; two of his sides are on Pearl CD 9933
and all are on Simax PSC 1809 (3 CDs).
Speaking of venerable keyboardists, we should not overlook the "King
of Instruments" or Charles-Marie Widor (1844 - 1937), who recorded
his scintillating organ Toccata (on EMI CD 55037). It would be
unkind, though, to say more of his labored performance, other than
to note that he was 88 at the time.
Nearly every other great pianist in the concert halls at the end of
the nineteenth century (and in the recording studios at the
beginning of the twentieth) had been a pupil of either Franz Liszt
or Theodor Leschetizky. But both emphasized developing a performer's
individuality, and so there is really no consistent manner among
their students. Thus, the recordings of Liszt's own First Piano
Concerto by his pupils Emil van Sauer (Pearl CD 9403) and Arthur de
Greef (Opal 829, LP only) sound strikingly different. Similarly, the
graduates of the Leschetizky method, such as it was, included such
divergent stylists as Ignaz Friedman, whose reputation tended toward
headstrong, thundering virtuosity, Ignaz Paderewski, whose immense
popularity owed as much to his politics and charisma (not to mention
his abundant hair) than his flawed but deeply poetic playing, and
Artur Schnabel, whose cool, cerebral readings of Mozart, Schubert
and especially Beethoven went far toward molding our modern taste.
A fascinating cross-section of pianism is found on "Pupils of
Leschetizky" (Opal CD 9839) and "Pupils of Liszt" (Pearl 9972, 2
CDs). But while these collections amply attest to the students'
highly individual personalities, they tell us little of the style of
their teachers, who set the aesthetic of their time but whose
self-effacing methods refused to mold their pupils into mimicry.
So how did the nineteenth century masters themselves play? We have
no direct evidence. Liszt died in 1886. Leschetizky lived until 1915
but cut only piano rolls (one, a Chopin Nocturne, is on Opal CD
9839), which were often enhanced after the fact and tell little of a
pianist's tone or quality; Leschetizky's is stiff and opaque. And
yet, we do have a remarkable set of blueprints, albeit indirect
ones.
Liszt was not only one of the greatest teachers of his century, but
was also one of the two most influential performers, a supreme
virtuoso who revolutionized the keyboard with his bombastic playing.
He was also considered the greatest improviser of all time, unable
to resist recomposing even a new score as he sight-read it for the
very first time. The most extraordinary evidence of Lisztian playing
arose nearly a century after his death in a most unlikely guise.
Ervin Nyiregyhazi, born in Budapest in 1903, became enthralled and
obsessed with Liszt. Those who had known the master lauded the
teenager as his spiritual heir. But after a series of brilliant
debuts and ecstatic reviews of his mesmerizing playing, Nyiregyhazi
dropped out of sight. Fifty years and nine marriages later he
resurfaced in 1973 in a Los Angeles flophouse. Having barely touched
a keyboard in decades, he was coaxed into a recital in a local
church, part of which (two Liszt "Legendes") was taped on a cheap
cassette deck. Issued on Desmar LP IPA 111, this is perhaps the most
intense performance ever recorded, with a power and a spirituality
beyond anything else in the realm of modern experience. Following
his rediscovery, Nyiregyhazi went on to became a critical darling
and cut several studio albums, but none approached what he had
achieved in that one astounding concert in which he resurrected the
spirit of Liszt just once in our time.
The other most influential pianist of the nineteenth century was
Chopin, whose exquisite subtlety was a world apart from Liszt's
unbridled energy. Chopin died in 1849 and none of his students lived
to record. And yet, a reliable trace of his style also exists in our
century. Chopin's foremost pupil was Karl Mikuli, who devoted his
life to teaching his master's approach to his works. One of Mikuli's
pupils, Raoul Koczalski, was highly unusual in that he was a prodigy
of such a high order that after studying with Mikuli he had no need
of further teachers. Thus, having absorbed Chopin through Mikuli, he
remained relatively immune from other influences. His records,
collected on Pearl CD 9472, are as close as we will ever get to
Chopin himself. They exemplify the composer's reputed rhythmic
freedom, contain many ornaments not in the scores and reflect
outmoded practices (such as having one hand slightly lead the
other), all of which we must presume are authentic.
There is one more set of 20th century piano recordings which
provides a tantalizing link to the past: 1928-30 performances of
several Schumann piano works, including his Concerto, by Fanny
Davies (Pearl CD 9291). Davies was one of the last pupils of Clara
Schumann, who was not only a famous virtuoso in her own right but
also the widow of the great composer. For forty years following
Robert's death in 1856, Clara devoted herself to perpetuating her
husband's way of performing his music (much of which she had
inspired), insisting that her pupils observe her detailed
instructions exactly, just as she had absorbed them from Robert in
the 1830s. Thus Davies's earnest but relaxed elegance and unusual
phrasing are presumably those of the composer himself and transport
us back nearly a full century before her records were made. Yet
despite his romantic temperament and critical writing, Schumann set
few stylistic trends in his day, and so Davies's performances remain
more a lovely footnote than a guiding beacon to the sonic ideals of
a lost age.
Orchestral Music
Recordings of symphonic orchestras (as opposed to brass bands) were
quite rare prior to 1920. The acoustic apparatus simply couldn't
register the highest and lowest two octaves of orchestral sound.
Without upper harmonics, the tonal color became blurred and the
distinctive timbres of strings, brass and winds sounded confusingly
similar. Double basses, which give the orchestra its sonic anchor,
reproduced only as an overtonal whine and were routinely replaced by
tubas, whose more flatulent tone registered quite well. Beyond sonic
limitations, there was the sheer logistical problem of cramming even
reduced forces into a room sufficiently small to capture their
sound; indeed, not until 1917 in Boston was a full orchestra pickup
even attempted.
The few early orchestral recordings were dominated by young
conductors such as Thomas Beecham, Ernest Ansermet, Frederick Stock
and Leopold Stokowski, who generally sought an independent stylistic
course from their predecessors. Edouard Colonne (1838-1910)
reportedly was the first conductor with a solid nineteenth century
reputation to record, but his sides, cut in 1907, were never
transferred to LP or CD and remain elusive.
The only giant among romantic conductors whose work is preserved is
Artur Nikish (1855 - 1922), who was known for his luminous
orchestral sound (which the discs of the time barely suggest) and a
free-wheeling approach to interpretation (which the records convey
quite well). Nikish's first and most famous recording was of
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (1913). This was only the second set to
be made of a full-length work, as short pieces and single movements,
often drastically abridged, were previously deemed sufficient to
sate the limits of listener interest. Beyond its historical
importance, this performance displays lovely phrasing and excellent
dynamic control and balance (very difficult to achieve with the
acoustic process). It also exhibits Nikish's famed ability to pursue
impulse without violating the demands of the structure. His talent
is confirmed by a 1914 reading of Liszt's First Hungarian Rhapsody,
which begins with haunting atmosphere and then explodes into
crackling excitement. These and the remaining Nikish sides are
collected on Symposium 1087/8. They surmount their technological
limitations to suggest an awesome degree of headstrong individuality
rarely heard in our time.
As with the pianists, the most impressive, if indirect, evidence of
Nikish's art may rest with one of his students. Wilhelm Furtwängler
(1886 - 1954) idolized Nikish and succeeded to Nikish's posts upon
his death. Although Furtwängler's studio recordings are often
stolid, his concerts aroused the same ecstatic emotions as Nikish's.
Many were recorded and remain among the most exciting examples ever
captured of the way in which a brilliant interpretation can
revitalize an oft-heard score. Listening to Furtwängler's riveting
accounts of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony (Music & Arts CD 653), the
Bruckner Ninth Symphony (Music & Arts CD 730) or the Brahms
Symphonies (Music & Arts set 941 or super-budget Virtuoso 2699072)
transports us back to the heart and soul of the last century. But
beware--this is dangerous stuff: once you hear Furtwängler, it's
hard to return to the bland precision that passes for musical
interpretation nowadays. Furtwängler lived and breathed his music.
The other indisputably great and influential late-nineteenth century
conductor, Gustav Mahler, died in 1911. Although he left no
orchestral recordings to attest to his conducting style, he did cut
four piano rolls in 1905, now collected on Golden Legacy CD 101.
Fortunately, they were made in the new Welte-Mignon process, which
recorded both the notes and their dynamics so that the playback
unit, coupled to a concert grand, reproduced the feel and quality of
the playing in a way which eluded standard rolls. Although
interpretive extremes are far easier to achieve solo than with a
full orchestra, Mahler's highly impulsive rolls suggest his reputed
intensity on the podium.
Further glimmers of Mahler's style appear in early recordings of his
compositions by a trio of his disciples. Mahler's foremost protege,
Bruno Walter, lived into the stereo era and is remembered mostly for
his genial, humanistic late Columbia records which, while certainly
enjoyable on their own terms, seem worlds apart from the driven
angst of Mahler's piano rolls. In the late 1930s, though, Walter
recorded biting Vienna concerts of Mahler's last symphony and final
song cycle, Das Lied von der Erde (on EMI CD CDH 7 63029 2 and Pearl
CD 9413 respectively), of which he had given the world premieres
following Mahler's death. Similar intensity is displayed by Oscar
Fried, who waxed a wild 1924 acoustic account of Mahler's Symphony #
2 (on Pearl CDS 9929), and Willem Mengelberg, who left us a stunning
1940 concert of the Symphony # 4 (on Philips CD 426 108 2). All
throb with individualistic touches of the same type in which Mahler
reportedly indulged in his own performances.
The Joachim Legacy
So what can we make of all this? To which single artist can we best
turn for an entree to the past which can then deepen our
understanding of the present? The beauty of Battistini? The boldness
of Caruso? The poetry of Chopin? The mysticism of Liszt? The impulse
of Nikish? None can serve as an exclusive paradigm. Classical music,
after all, is not monolithic; its artists have always embraced a
wide gamut of styles, personalities and approaches. Perhaps the only
valid impression to be gleaned from the records of the authentic
exponents of the last century is that of diversity itself.
To return to our initial thought, can any of these be deemed more
important than the rest to represent the romantic era and to
illumine our own? Not really, since each has spawned an interpretive
style familiar in our own time. While historically significant, none
really tells us much more about music or performance than we already
know from contemporary concerts and records.
And yet there is something else out there that lies even deeper than
these well-explored roots of our modern age.
In our days of countless multinational stars, it is hard to
appreciate the unique importance of Joseph Joachim. He was, quite
simply, the violinist of the century, intimate friend of
Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms and considered the supreme
interpreter of their works (many of which, including the violin
concerti of Brahms, Bruch and Dvorak, were dedicated to him). From
the very start of his career in 1844, he and his pupils inspired and
taught nearly every great violinist for decades to come. More than
anyone else, Joachim defined classical performance in his time.
In 1903, near the very end of his long and remarkable life, Joachim
recorded a total of five sides: a trifle of his own, two solo pieces
of Bach and two Brahms Hungarian Dances. As heard on Opal 9851, all
are fascinating; the Hungarian Dance # 2 in d minor, though, is a
revelation.
Upon first hearing, the impression of this record is pathetic:
imprecise notes, sloppy bowing, shaky rhythm, coarse tone.
Historical curiosity aside, surely this seems the misjudged ego-trip
of a decrepit man no longer in control of his instrument, his former
technique ravaged beyond all recognition and worsened still by the
horrors of the recording experience.
But that's not it at all. The only thing "wrong" with this
performance is that we hear it through modern ears, ears accustomed
to the note-perfect sterility of twentieth century musicianship in
which any departure from the holy text of the written score is an
unpardonable artistic sin.
Of all the thousands upon thousands of old acoustic records, this
one confronts us with a unique challenge. Here is a style of playing
absolutely unknown in our time. Every note bursts with passion.
Every gesture throbs with meaning.
Joachim doesn't sharpen or flatten certain notes because he can't
reach them, but rather to emphasize the force of a melodic
progression or to shade the impact of a chord; indeed, his fingering
is so fluid that the individual notes of his passagework are barely
apparent. His rhythm is so constantly dynamic and alive that it
belies the very notion of tempo. And his bowing - the first
downbeats slash with splintering force and soon subside into a
whisper.
Joachim tears the notes right off the page. After hearing this
astounding performance, no classical artist should ever feel
embarrassed to play the romantic repertoire with the same unfettered
passion as a hard rocker.
But by what right does any musician so brutally distort the written
score? Joachim undoubtedly would insist that this is not only the
right but the duty of the true artist, who forms a team with the
composer. The score is always a mere starting point, and never the
finish line, for valid musical expression.
To regard written music as a complete record of a composer's
intentions is strictly a twentieth century notion. All earlier
composers knew that performers of their time were immersed in the
knowledge of how to breathe life into the cold written notation.
There simply was no need to clutter a score with directions that any
trained musician would assume as a matter of course. Even Toscanini,
the purist whose solution to every interpretive problem was to
consult the score, proclaimed that a true musician had to read
between the notes.
Our modern outlook leads us to forget the vital importance of
interpretative freedom in the performance of all music - including
classical. We expect blues, rock, jazz and pop artists to actively
recreate the pieces they perform. We are intrigued to hear two takes
by Robert Johnson that barely sound like the same song, much less
the one from which it was derived. We readily accept Bob Dylan's
constant reinventions of his earlier work. We laud Louis Armstrong
and his legions of successors for their creative transformations of
melody, harmony and structure. We salute the brilliance of Elvis and
the Sun gang for wresting their first rockabilly sides out of old
country standards. And yet, let a modern classical musician alter a
single marking in the score and he is condemned for placing a
swollen and arrogant ego above the calling of his art.
This attitude is absurd. All great classical performers of past
centuries were prized for their skill at improvisation. One of the
staples of early nineteenth century concerts was the performer's
extemporizing an entire piece, often from a fragment given on the
spot by the audience. Indeed, Beethoven's Piano Fantasia in g minor,
Op. 77 is believed to be a transcription of one of his concert
improvisations, taken down "live" in music shorthand. Any
self-respecting soloist of the time was expected to provide his own
cadenza (an extended solo display section toward the end of a
movement) in any concerto he performed.
By these valid historical standards, our few twentieth century
iconoclasts seem rather mild. So what if Furtwangler's tempos tended
toward extremes? Or if Stokowski's early electrical records wallowed
in overripe bass? Or if Glenn Gould galloped breathlessly through
Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata? Or if Bernstein distended adagios to
a near halt? For that matter, what's wrong with adaptations of the
classics played by Emerson Lake & Palmer or on a Moog synthesizer?
The conventional assumptions of so much of what we have come to
accept as modern musical taste are not only dull; they are just
plain wrong.
Edison, though, was right: the true value of the phonograph does
indeed lie beyond mere entertainment. While every other performance
and lesson of his life has long since faded into legend, Joachim's
immortality lies etched in the groove of his ancient record. At the
very dawn of our century, he braved the demon of the acoustic horn
and distilled the wisdom of a vanishing age into a mere three
minutes. His supremely precious legacy transcends words and memories
to directly preserve for all time the outlook of the greatest artist
of an entire era which, more than any other, gave rise to the soul
of our own.
While scholars, performers, critics and audiences may forever debate
the "proper" way to perform classical music, the evidence of
Joachim's record just may be worth more than all the academic
speculation and literature put together. It validates and unifies
the huge and bewildering range of styles presented by the other
surviving records of the era. It opens a crucial door to an
understanding of classical music, and perhaps to all music of the
past, that might otherwise have remained forever shut and, in so
doing, immeasurably deepens our grasp of the present.
More important still, it provides an urgent key to the future. Those
who prematurely mourn the death of the classics should instead heed
Joachim's clarion call. In that one brief moment so many years ago
Joachim told us as much as we will ever need to know about the
essence of all music: any performance is "correct" if it stems from
commitment, wisdom and passion.
No more important record has ever been made.
_____________
The historical facts in this article are derived largely from four
well-researched, informative and highly readable books: Roland
Gellatt's The Fabulous Phonograph (MacMillan, 1977), Michael Scott's
Record of Singing (Duckworth, 1977) and Harold Schonberg's The Great
Pianists (Simon & Schuster, 1963) and The Great Conductors (Simon &
Schuster, 1967). By all means, read them; but listen to the music.
--written in 1997
The English Ghost
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8852794/The-English-Ghost.html
[Thanks to Sarah for this.]
As Hallowe'en approaches, the spirits grow restless. Acclaimed historian
Peter Ackroyd has made a study of documented 'unnatural' happenings across
the length and breadth of our haunted land
Gerard
Nov 16, 2011, 9:32:01 AM11/16/11
to
Premise Checker wrote:
>
> --written in 1997
>
And now already in RMCR!
>
> --written in 1997
>
And now already in RMCR!
peter gutmann
Nov 16, 2011, 10:22:30 AM11/16/11
to
Thanks for the unexpected compliment -- I appreciate it!
Please note that I have not updated this article since I originally
posted it on my classicalnotes.net website over a decade ago, so many
of the CD editions it references have been superceded (or, sadly,
deleted altogether). And I also hope that certain bloodthirsty
critics of rmcr are willing to accept it for what it was intended to
be -- not a deeply detailed, comprehensive treatise on the full
history of early recordings, but rather a readible introduction
directed to those with a general interest in music but only minimal
exposure to the stuff we all love.
Please note that I have not updated this article since I originally
posted it on my classicalnotes.net website over a decade ago, so many
of the CD editions it references have been superceded (or, sadly,
deleted altogether). And I also hope that certain bloodthirsty
critics of rmcr are willing to accept it for what it was intended to
be -- not a deeply detailed, comprehensive treatise on the full
history of early recordings, but rather a readible introduction
directed to those with a general interest in music but only minimal
exposure to the stuff we all love.
peter gutmann
Nov 16, 2011, 10:26:19 AM11/16/11
to
Also -- please note that the link above is to the version without any
illustrations. For the full version with lots of pictures, please go
to: http://www.classicalnotes.net/features/joachim4.html .
illustrations. For the full version with lots of pictures, please go
to: http://www.classicalnotes.net/features/joachim4.html .
Kip Williams
Nov 16, 2011, 10:43:34 AM11/16/11
to
by Schonberg in _The Great Pianists_, if anybody's interested in seeing
a slightly different version that agrees on the facts given here.
Kip W
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