title: Sonically, this sounds like today. Not so stylistically, but the Vitali Chaconne transcends any stylistic limitations

text:
Remember Jan Tomasow? The very-old timers, maye. He was the soloist on many of Vanguard's early recordings of baroque music, made from the mid 1950s to early 1960s, Vivaldi's L'Estro Armonico with the Chamber Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera under Mario Rossi (and Willi Boskovski as the other soloist), various Violin Concertos with the same ensemble but now conductor-less and with Gustav Leonhardt at the harpsichord, The Four Seasons with I Solisti di Zagreb under Antonio Janigro, Bach's Brandenburgs and Mozart's Divertimentos K 287 and 334 with the full Vienna State Opera Orchestra under Felix Prohaska, and others. He doesn't have an entry on Wikipedia and, other than an original vintage handsigned photo currently sold on eBay which says "Jan Towasow, Argentine violinist" (see my upload), I have found no further biographic detail about him online. BUT (a post-script from June 2015), thanks to Jan's brother Ruben for providing the biographical info through private correspondence, and I'll share it here:

He was born July 13, 1914 in Buenos Aires, Argentina and took up violin lessons when he was 4 years old.

At 22, unable to win a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture by reason of being Jewish, he went to Europe on his father's own means in order to take lessons with violin masters such as Jacques Thibaud and others.

Later, after returning to Argentina, he decided to move to the US and became "concertino" (concert master?) with the WGN radio station orchestra in Chicago (the orchestra was in existence from 1925 to 1956). From Chicago, he moved to Washington, DC where he took the post of concertmaster with the National Symphony Orchestra under Hans Kindler and Howard Mitchell. In 1952 he moved to New York and was concertmaster with The Little Orchestra under Thomas Schermann until 1957.

He played Bernstein's Serenade for violin, strings, harp and percussion with the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra under the composer's baton. Among other stints, he was concertmaster with the orchestra (probably the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra) that performed with the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet on their visit to the US. He was also concertmaster of the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra on their tour of the Soviet Union.

He passed away in November 1961 after having suffered a long illness.

There is, available on CD, another recital by him outside of those baroque concertos, one of French Violin & Piano music (with the sonatas of Debussy and Fauré), accompanied by Franz Holetschek. Although of Vanguard origin (recorded in Vienna in 1954 and originally published on Vanguard VRS 464 - one copy, with jacket in far-less-than-perfect condition, sold for 50 on eBay a year ago), for some reason it was reissued on the label Amadeus, not Vanguard, [[ASIN:B00005JI4F French Masterpieces for the Violin / Fauré / Debussy / Tomasow]] - more about that anon. Harpsichordist Anton Heiller was another stalwart of the early Vanguard, the harpsichordist or organist in many of their baroque repertoire initially published on Vanguard's subsidiary label The Bach Guild.

It is in fact an interest for the Vanguard catalog that brought me here, and sorting out the various Vanguard CD reissues is a complicated matter. The Vanguard catalog was sold by its founders, the brothers Solomon, in the mid-1980s, to a Welk Music Group, which initiated a program of CD reissues, but were more interested by the pop catalog (including Joan Baez) than by the classical one. In 1990 one of the two brothers, Seymour, was able to repurchase that classical catalog (and some of those pop as well, apparently), in cooperation with a Dutch company, Arcade, which held the distribution rights in Europe. Solomon, through his company Omega Records, and Arcade launched their extensive program of reissues, which ran from the early 1990s to Solomon's death in 2002 (after which it was sold again, to an Artemis company, which folded a few years later). Label numbers were different (OVC XXXX and SVC XX and XXX for Omega and 08 XXXX 7X for Arcade, the last X with Arcade representing the number of CDs), presentation was the same in some series (The Bach Guild), slightly different in others, entirely different in some. As far as I can ascertain the transfers were the same. Usually the same programs were issued on both sides of the Atlantic, but not always. For instance, Arcade paired Alfred Deller's recording of Tallis' Lamentations of Jeremiah with the same's Hymns, as on the original LP, for a short TT of 45' (on no less than three different series, Bach Guild, 08 2026 71, Alfred Deller series, 08 5062 71, and "Musica Sacra" series, 08 5028 71), while Omega coupled it with Couperin's Leçons des Ténèbres, on OVC 2525, for a better value of 69' - but never reissued the Hymns. Omega's Amériques of Varèse by Abravanel came with the sames' Nocturnal and Equatorial and Honegger's Pacific 231 on OVC 4031, while in Europe it was paired, at least on one of Arcade's series, 08 5047 71, with the rare Structures Sonores of Henry Lazaroff, which got there its only CD reissue (not listed here, search EAN 3351475047715 on the European sister companies).

Where it defies my abilities at logical thinking is when some recordings were issued in Europe and NOT on the North American market. You'd think it would have been the opposite, Solomon reissuing some Vanguard material for which Arcade didn't think there was a market in Europe, but no. I can understand, to an extent, why some recordings of Alfred Deller were distributed in Europe and not the US, maybe Deller is more popular there and Solomon thought the prospects for sales were more limited in the US. But who, outside of Salt Lake City, would be interested by Leroy J. Robertson's Oratorio from the Book of Mormon by the Utah forces under Maurice Abravanel? Yet that one got two different releases by Arcade, and none by Omega (both are listed here, 08 5041 71, [[ASIN:B0000254I8 Oratorio from The Book of Mormon]] and 08 9302 71, [[ASIN:B003XRN6K8 ORATORIO FROM THE BOOK OF MORMON]]). Go figure. Another cause for puzzlement are those releases on the Amadeus label, which I mentioned above. The label was subtitled "Seymour Solomon Collection", and was launched by Solomon in the early years of the new millenium, keeping the barcodes of Omega's Vanguard series and, even more puzzling, pursuing a series begun under Vanguard's legitimate banner, with OVC 7001 and OVC 7002/3 but thereafter, starting with 7004, substituing Amadeus to Vanguard and AMD to OVC, although still reissuing some Vanguard material, which for some had also benefited from earlier reissues in the mid-1990s on Arcade's Vanguard in Europe but none until then by Omega. Two examples are the exquisite Rameau and Couperin recitals by harpsichordist Anton Heiller who accompanies Tomasow here, [[ASIN:B00004RJN4 Virtuoso Harpsichord 1]] and [[ASIN:B00004SU6M Virtuoso Harpsichord]], already released by Arcade in 1996 on 08 6105 71 (EAN 3351476105711) and 08 6106 71 (3351476106718). Why did Solomon NOT publish those programs simultaneously with Arcade in the mid-1990s (apparently he was responsible for the digital remasterings, so all the masters used by Arcade must have originated with him), why did he wait so long to do so and why, in the early 2000s, start Amadeus and not pursue Vanguard? I don't know. Maybe the latter had to do with the lawsuit that Solomon filed against Arcade already in the mid-1990s, accusing them of squandering the reputation and brand name of Vanguard by issuing their own (and, he contended, inferior) productions under the label's moniker.

Long story to say that this recording of Italian Violin Sonatas is one that came out in Europe only, in 1996, on Arcade's budget Vanguard series "Everyman" like the Rameau and Couperin recitals just mentioned, and, so far as I could establish, never had an equivalent issue in the US, neither on Vanguard nor on Amadeus. Not that this is of any great importance, except to the obsessive collector and list-maniac. The only question that will matter to normal music-lovers is: what is it worth?

First: here, as with other Vanguard reissues, I am flabbergatsted by the quality of the sonics. The recital first came out on Vanguard's subsidiary label The Bach Guild BG 583 (mono), BGS-5013 (stereo), somewhere in the very late 1950s (see my upload of a cover photo of the stereo LP). Recording date is not indicated on the CD, but The Gramophone reviewed its UK release, on the Top Rank label (and in mono only), in its May 1960 issue, so it must date from 1959 at the latest. It sounds easily 10 years later, with an instrumental presence and naturalness that belie its age. Only faint traces of pre-echo and some background tape hiss that, frankly, I hear only in the moments of silence, let you know that this is not digital. I don't think Vanguard enjoys an audiophile aura like labels from the same era, like Everest and Mercury. From all the CD transfers I've heard of Solomon's Vanguard CD reissues, they should have, and they should.

Stylistically, it is another matter. The problem, I think, is that Tomasow and Heiller stand in between two worlds, and in something of a stylistic no-man's land. That the violin is accompanied by harpsichord rather than piano pulls it away from the 19th century romantic approach to Baroque music (still illustrated way into the 20th century by all the big violin virtuosos, always happy to play 18th Century music in corrupt 19th Century or early 20th-Century editions, from Heifetz, Oistrakh and Milstein to Sarah Chang), but the absence of a cello in the continuo, and the use of modern pitch and modern violin still maintain strong links to that tradition, and the combination doesn't really work. It is not just a matter of tempos - certainly, the performers' expansive and solemn-to-sentimental approach to the Largos changes those compositions into either 19th-to-early 20th century salon music or 19th-to-early 20th century church music, but on the other hand Tomasow's allegros are very lively, in comparison to which, in the Albinoni Sonata for instance, my period-instruments-and-style Locatelli Trio sounds positively plodding ([[ASIN:B000002ZWZ Albinoni: Sonate da Chiesa, Op. 4 / Trattenimenti Armonici, Op. 6]]). The liveliness lends the music a boisterousness that makes it still valid today, as in the Finale of that same Albinoni Sonata (individual movements not cued, it starts at 6:15) or the Allegros of the Marcello Sonata (track 5).

But even there it is a matter of plushness vs leanness of tone, of not ornamenting vs ornamenting, of playing the notes or playing more than just the notes. I had a hard time locating which Vivaldi "Sonata in G minor" was played - not any of the G minor Trio-Sonatas of opus 1 (those are for two violins anyway), not any of the G minor from opus 2, not even transcriptions from Chédeville's Il Pastor Fido, long known as Vivaldi's Opus 13. Turns out that it is RV 26. The blessed International Music Scores Library Project offers a very moving facsimile of the manuscript, with its very sparse continuo line. I don't have any other recording in my collection, but there's a version on YouTube, recorded live in 2011 in Lyons, France by Reynier Guerrero, violon. Guerrero is not always as virtuosic as Tomasow in the Allegros, but still, he's wild. The YouTube post is subtitled "il delirio fantastico", which seems to refer to the interpretation rather than the piece itself. I don't know how much of that is "authentic", e.g. if modern research tends to show that performers in late 17th-early 18th Century Venice were as wild in their interpretation and realization of the notes on the score. Nevertheless, this is one thousand times more imaginative and riveting that Tomasow's very "respectful" playing.

In the "Grave" introduction to Tartini's Violin Sonata op. 1 No. 4 (track 6) as well as in the opening "Affetuoso" of Sonata Op. 1 No. 10, the so-called "Didone abbandonata" (track 4), Fabio Biondi ([[ASIN:B00004UI2F Tartini: Five Sonatas for Violin and Basso Continuo]]) may be twice as slow as Tomasow, but he invests his phrasings with unique rhetorical eloquence; Tomasow is merely pretty. And in the ensuing Allegro of No. 4, Biondi may be markedly more pedestrian than Tomasow, but his rich continuo (harpsichord, theorbo and cello) fills the fugal textures much more lavishly and imaginatively than Heiller's sole harpsichord, and as lively as Tomasow is also in the Finale, Biondi and his continuo are simply way more imaginative in their phrasings and ornamentation. Tomasow's Presto of No. 1 is great, lively and boisterous, but to that Biondi adds the explosive vigor of his continuo, and his imaginative embellishments in the repeats. The Finale of No. 1 is, again, pretty music  with Tomasow. With Biondi, it is theatre, and you can easily imagine the plangent moaning of abandoned Dido.

What Tomasow and Heiller do with the formidable Chaconne of Tomaso Vitali is very typical. Vitali's Chaconne was "rediscovered" in the 19th century by the violin virtuoso and composer Ferdinand David, who published it in his collection of 17th and 18th Century works for violin and piano "Die Hohe Schule des Violinspiels" (1867), claiming that it came from a manuscript kept in the Dresden library. It was long considered a hoax, and a composition by David himself. In fact, the manuscript DOES exist in the Dresden library, and it was established that it was by a copyist from the early 18th Century, which lends credence to its authenticity (although the authorship of Vitali is still disputed).

That said, when you compare the manuscript and David's Violin and Piano score (both also available on IMSLP, bless them again), you can see that David "interpreted" quite a lot and even extrapolated, not only in realizing the threadbare continuo part for piano in a highly elaborate manner, but even in the violin part, expanding on the manuscript and using violin techniques (like the spiccato arpeggios starting here at 3:02) that are entirely alien to it and to the era, more Paganini than Vitali. The version customarily played by fiddlers, apprentices or stars, is not David's, but another elaboration based on it, from circa 1910, by Leopold Charlier, which pushes the violin part even further in the direction of Ysaye.

So you'd think that, playing it with harpsichord, Tomasow and Heiller would have gone back to the original. Not at all: they play (with two small cuts) the David score, which is even more paradoxical for the harpsichord (playing a 19th-century piano part, even if Heiller simplifies its it in some passages) than the violin. When the young Arthur Grumiaux recorded the same Chaconne in 1956 with Riccardo Castagnone, sure, he was accompanied by a piano: but HE went back to the original manuscript, and with a very sparse realization of the figured bass, so there is more "authenticity" there (if less virtuosity) than in Tomasow and Heiller's version ([[ASIN:B005F7F4HC Arthur Grumiaux - Tartini.Corelli.Vitali.Veracini:Sonatas [Japan LTD CD] UCCD-9814]]).

And with all that said, one doesn't need to be an extremist in these matters, and acknowledging the fact that Tomasow and Heiller's Chaconne is neither fish nor fowl - it sounds great. The harpsichord "de-romanticizes" David's piano part, and, moving at a flowing tempo, Tomasow plays with grand tone and pathos but no sentimentality. The result is grandiose, and this is possibly the version of Vitali's Chaconne I'll most eagerly return to whenever I want to listen to this magnificent and formidable work.

That's one reason to keep this CD. Amateurs of 18th Century music played on period instruments and in period style should however approach with caution. An "authentic" version of Vitali's Chaconne can be found here: [[ASIN:B0086WQO8G Ciaconna]]. The noted Austrian period violinist Eduard Melkus also recorded it in 1971 (it is said, on his Wikipedia article, to be the first recording of the original version, but that is disregarding Grumiaux), but it is available only in a big set of Melkus' recordings for Archiv imported from Korea, [[ASIN:B00G8QWBD4 [CLASSIC CD] Eduard Melkus - Eduard Melkus The Great Archiv Recordings (20CD)[003kr]]], so maybe it is better to wait (there was also an earlier individual CD issue from Japan, Polydor F20A 20073, listed here under ASIN B003TQXT50, but that one doesn't appear very often. I've just been outbid on eBay, on June 30, 2014). For those still into ancient technologies, writing with ink-pens and traveling on stage-coaches and sea-liners, the LP sells under ASIN B007FXKL5O.

But those who still cringe at Historically-Informed-Performance are likely to find here much to enjoy.


title: for Busoni, don't look here

text:
Ronald Stevenson is the legendary - well, all is relative: legendary, I guess, among a minuscule circle of pianists and music lovers - Scottish pianist and composer who fell in the music of Busoni when still a music student at the end of the 1940s, and never got out of it, composing extremely elaborate and complex Passacaglias and Fugues modeled after Busoni's Fantasia Contrapuntistica ([[ASIN:B000003IYF Ronald Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH / Recitative & Air, for Dmitri Shostakovich / Prelude, Fugue & Fantasy, on Themes from Busoni's "Doktor Faust"]]), and Piano Concertos that sound like Busoni's 2nd and 3rd ([[ASIN:B000003W7T Stevenson: Piano Concertos No. 1 & 2]]).

But this here isn't quite of the same ilk. These are compositions by Ronald Stevenson the Scottish pianist and composer - stress on Scottish. They are only harmonized Scottish folk melodies, played on violin and piano. The music is sentimental, wistful, merry, and inconsequential. The harmonizations are more or less elaborate - as Stevenson writes, he's interested in the two styles of harmonizations, the one used by Kodaly in which the harmony is derived from the tune's melody, or the freer approach preferred by Percy Grainger. But there's no Busoni in the piano part, that's for sure, and Stevenson doesn't treat the folk tunes as Busoni treated the great Bach organ pieces or Violin Chaconne when he transcribed them for piano. May I add: too bad.

The CD ends with two original compositions of Stevenson, a little more demanding, the slow and meditative Recitative and Air, composed with Shostakovich in mind and sounding like it, and a Nocturne, dedicated to the memory of John Field and going from sentimental salon-music to lusher atmospheres reminiscent of French music at the turn of the 20th Century or some of Ernest Bloch's Violin and Piano compositions without the Jewishness.

The violin is played by Stevenson's grand-daughter. The recording pickup is a little too close for the full beauty of the violin tone to fully unfold, but it is okay - and this isn't Bach after all. TT is 41:04. Not that I wished for more, but it is pretty stingy. If it is Scottish folk music that attracted you here, you might want to explore this, too: [[ASIN:B000003IY1 Salute to Scotland]]. But it is the Busoni-influenced Stevenson you are interested in, better go to his piano music - or to the source itself, Busoni (which Stevenson has recorded, too, [[ASIN:B000003IY2 Toccata]]).


title: Fine Fourth, disappointing Second

text:
Is "slower" progress or regress? Either way, you can't stop it, and Dutoit conducts the slowest introductory "molto moderato" to Honegger's Second Symphony I've ever heard - if only by a minuscule margin over Baudo in 1960 ([[ASIN:B000025R6S Honegger-Symphonies [Complete]]]) or Munch in 1942/4 ([[ASIN:B00009WVLI France Resistante]]), more than ten beats under the composer's metronome indication (in fact metronomes don't descend that low). Not that I'm complaining, the music can take that brooding and mourning mood, although Dutoit leaves me with the lingering impression that he's overdoing it.

But with the ensuing Allegro proper, at 2:33, begins disappointment. Dutoit's complete Honegger Symphonies was an important cycle in the early days of the CD (3 & 5 were recorded in 1982, [[ASIN:B000WM56ZK Honegger: Symphonies 3 & 5; Charles Dutoit]], and the cycle was completed in 1985, with this and [[ASIN:B000005E63 Arthur Honegger: Symphony No. 1 / Pastorale d'Été / Pacific 231 / Rugby / Symphonic Movement No. 3, to Wilhelm Furtwängler - Charles Dutoit]]) and not only because it was the first one available on the new medium and in digital sound. Dutoit's other offerings, Symphonies No. 1, 3 and 5, were interpretively excellent too, even though the sonics were always somewhat too comfortable, the brass a little too mellow and lacking a touch of presence, vividness, rawness, glare, impact, even brutality, for these works that should never sound comfortable, but aggressive and angry.

But Dutoit's Symphony No. 2 is not on the same level, alas. With the first attacks of double basses and cellos it is clear that he is going for weight and deliberation rather than the kind of angry bite brought to the music by Munch, Baudo or Plasson ([[ASIN:B0000CE7FR Honegger: Symphonies #1-5, Pacific 231; Michel Plasson; Orchestre du Capitole du Toulouse]]). Timings tell at least part of the story and Dutoit conducts the longest first movement I've ever heard (and I've heard nearly twenty different recordings). That phenomenal bite of attack AND deliberation can go together was shown by the contemporary recording of Rozhdestvensky (see my review of [[ASIN:B0002I692I A.Honegger - Symphony No.2, Phedre: Suite for the Tragedy by d'Annunzio, Three extracts from film 'Napoleon']]). Dutoit's first movement doesn't convey as sluggish an impresion as Ansermet's (Ansermet is overall faster, but only because he drives the slow pasages faster, [[ASIN:B0075480RY Honegger: Symphonies Nos. 2, 3 & 4 / Martin: In terra pax]]), but it's in that direction. It is a reading that lacks drama, intensity, rage, fury, and here again the slightly too comfortable and distant sonics contribute by giving it a sense of elegance rather than drama. Honegger's Symphony for strings should be dramatic, not elegant: it was written in 1941 as a cry of revolt against German occupation of France, not a tribute to Paris Gay Paris under German rule.

You can commend Dutoit's slow movement for being the closest of all versions available on CD to Honegger's metronome mark, but again I find the result quite disappointing: it makes the music sound blandly middle of the road, neither passionately urgent like Munch nor mourningly slow like Karajan's ([[ASIN:B00000E3YY Honegger: Symphony No. 3 "Liturgique", Symphony No. 2 for String Orchestra and Trumpet]]) or Plasson's. But worse still is that again the sonics deprive it of any intensity and drama, leaving the listener, so to speak, as if listening through a closed window. I still have an old scratching version on LP with Jean-François Paillard and his chamber orchestra playing the same Symphony for strings (already on Erato - sadly it has never been reissued on CD) and his choice of tempos here is strikingly similar to Dutoit's, but the leaner and more translucent textures of his chamber orchestra and much more vivid sonics generate incomparably more tension than Dutoit. A number of other versions - Ansermet, Plasson, Rozhdestvensky, Paillard, even Munch with Orchestre de Paris ([[ASIN:B00005NW08 Ravel: Bolero; Rapsodie Espagnole; Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2/Honegger: Symphony No. 2]]) - have proven that it is possible to bring great tension to the finale even at an unrushed tempo, if it is offset with great robustness of articulation. Sadly Dutoit has the unrushed tempo but not the robustness and, hence, the tension. Again the impression is of (slightly soporific) elegance rather than drama.

Dutoit's reading is probably not as bad as I make it sound. But in this highly competitive field, there are so many much better ones to choose from - all those of Munch, Baudo's, Karajan's, Rozhdestvensky's - that it makes this one a non-runner.

Too bad, really, because on the other hand the Swiss conductor offers a fine 4th Symphony. In the first movement his tempos are always flowing and the mood appropriately unsentimental, but more important still he gets the tempo relationships right and keeps Honegger's subtle and delicate architecture cogent, eschewing the kind of stop and go and accordion-playing with tempo that mars, for instance, the first movement of Munch, in his 1967 recording with Orchestre National ([[ASIN:B00006DICB Honegger: Symphony No. 4 / Dutilleux: Metaboles]]). Of equal importance is that the textures are pellucid, the strings gossamer (those of Plasson are so thick as to cover all the rest), woodwinds never covered so that the ear can always follow how the counter-melodies run from one woodwind to the other, and the music makes its effect with no undue spotlighting (as the sonics tend to do with Baudo). The price to pay may be a certain lack of vividness and impact of the brass and woodwinds, but this very gentleness suits the music well. Following the lead of Munch, although not to the same extreme, Dutoit conducts the middle Larghetto at a slower tempo than Honegger's metronome mark, highlighting its funeral march character. His Bavarian basses do not articulate with the same bite as Baudo's Czech players in the quasi-passacaglia rhythm that opens the movement and underpins it, but his violins are very soft and lyrical, and the sonics afford great clarity on the woodwind filigree. Dutoit takes the Finale at a tempo slightly faster than Honegger's rather deliberate metronome and than the norm of every one else save Munch (who was even more urgent), drawing unexpected relations with the symphonies of Kurt Weill. His Finale is excellent, my only small reservation being again that his brass are a little too mellow and lacking glare and incisiveness.

Too bad really for the disappointing 2nd. It is the weak point of an otherwise fine cycle.


title: a marvelous recital by Alfred Deller, in stellar voice

text:
This is a truly marvelous recital of English lute songs by Alfred Deller and Desmond Dupré. It was first published, in LP form, on Vanguard's subsidiary label The Bach Guild, BG-576. The great Deller discography compiled by Pierre-F. Roberge hosted on medieval dot org dates it from May 1954 ("recording site unknown"), but I am doubtful. The CD reissue bears only the copyright indication of 1958, and indeed that's the year it was released, as testified by listings in the Schwann catalog. It could of course have been recorded earlier, but why would Vanguard have kept it in the vaults for four years? But the main consideration is that, in Vanguard's CD transfer, the sonics sound much, MUCH better than 1954. I can't really say if it is stereo or mono, because voice and lute doesn't really need stereo placement, but if mono, I am not longing for a stereo image: the voice and lute sound with exquisite vividness, clarity and naturalness. There is a small measure of tape hiss, but anybody who'd be bothered by it would clearly be enamoured with sonics rather than music, and if so, too bad for them and good for us, and best they leave the CD to those able to appreciate it. I wonder if May 1954 isn't the recording date of the purely instrumental pieces, the so-called In Nomines for viols, played by an ad-hoc ensemble called The In Nomine Players (individual members not credited - Roberge indicates here "presumed: Maxwell Ward, Michael Mitchell, Denis Stevens, Desmond Dupré, Dennis Nesbitt, Francis Baines"): they do sound mono and somewhat distant. On the other hand, Vanguard issued and CD-reissued other Deller recitals in which he plays lute songs of Dowland or Purcell with Dupré, said to have been recorded in Viennna in May 1954 and for sure released around 1955-56 (see my reviews of [[ASIN:B0000023G2 Elizabethan & Jacobean Music]] and [[ASIN:B0000E1WJQ Alfred Deller Sings]]), and also sounding exceptionally good - not "exceptionally good for the vintage", just exceptionally good. So it will remain, for the time being, an unresolved point. Not that it matters much: the essential point is that, 1954 or later, the sonics are great.

Given the paucity of Amazon's product info, here is the track listing:

1. Francis Pilkington: Rest, sweet Nymph

2. John Dowland: What if I never speed

3. John Bull: Fantasia for viols: In Nomine (à 5)

4. Thomas Campian: Care charming sleep

5. Thomas Tomkins: Fantasia for viols: In Nomine (à 5)

6. John Dowland: Shall I sue

7. Robert White: Fantasia for viols: In Nomine (à 4)

8. Anon.: Have you seen but a white lilly

9. Philip Rosseter: When Laura smiles

10. John Dowland: Come again! Sweet love doth now invite

11. John Danyel: Chromatic tunes

12. Christopher Tye: Fantasia for viols: In Nomine (Trust) (à 5)

13. Thomas Campion: Shall I come sweet love to thee

14. Thomas Morley: Will ye by a fine dog

15. Christopher Tye: Fantasia for viols: In Nomine (Crye) (à 5)

16. John Dowland: Me, me and none but me

17. John Dowland: Wilt thou unkind

18. John Taverner: Fantasia for viols: In Nomine (à 4)

The "In Nomines" are, to quote the liner notes, "a uniquely English form of chamber music developed early in the 16th century (...), polyphonic fantasias which owe their name to the fact that they are all based on the cantus firmus of the Mass Gloria tibi Trinitas, by John Taverner, as  it apppears at the words In nomine Domini". But, as interesting as they are, I don't suppose anybody will have landed here for them, rather than for Deller. The CD's running time is 53:47, and 13:30 of that is for the viol fantasias, which leaves 40 to Deller.

The songs are marvels, most are love songs, mostly in plaintive mood, a few more lively, but even the plaintive ones are so beautiful and, with their lute accompaniment, feel so intimate that no sense of monotony whatsoever arises. Some are true gems, Pilkington's "Rest sweet Nymphs" (a haunting lullaby), Dowland's ear-catching "What if I Never Speed" and "Wilt Thou Unkind" and his "Me, Me and None but Me" (a harrowing song of longing for death: "he never happy liv'd that cannot love to die"), Morley's hilarious "Will ye by an fine dog" (with a dildo). It's not only the music that is stabbingly beautiful and moving: the poetry is as well. I was particularly taken with the anonymous "Have you seen but a whyte lillie grow?": "Have you seen but a whyte lillie grow / Before rude hands had touch'd it; / Have you mark't but the fall of the snow / Before the Earth had smuch'd it / (....) Oh so whyte, oh so soft, oh so sweet was she").

Campian's despondent "Care charming sleep" is one of the prizes of the collection (..."the easer of all woes, brother of death..." - Hamlet should have sung that, after "to die? to sleep, no more"), especially in the way Deller floridly embellishes the repeat with vocalizes. But the jaw-dropping masterpiece is John Danyel's Chromatic Tunes: an extended (8 minutes) and extraordinary song on chromatic scales, again in despondent mood ("Can doleful notes to measur'd accents set / Express unmeasured griefs which time forget?"), it must qualify as one of the most unbelievable and greatest songs of the English 17th Century.

Deller is in stellar voice, luminous in the upper range and firm in the lower range, with a wonderful mastery of dynamic shading, and his art of English diction is incomparable, although, about this, I do have one quibble, that is probably of concern to no one but me. One of the axes I like to grind is the issue of poetic diction. One major tenet of poetic writing from the Renaissance to the 18th and 19th Centuries, whether in French, English, Italian and German, is that the rime, the syllables and phonemes that end the verse, are not for the eye (the riming words do not need to be spelled alike, and in the songs sung here by Deller, "subdues" rimes with "muse", "mourn" with "forlorn", "shafts" with "laughs") but for the ear (they need to sound alike). Rimes in ancient poetry are one of the surest ways to know how words were pronounced back then, and it often yields fun surprises! (in Mozart's Magic Flute, for instance, in Tamino's opening aria, the word "schön" rimes with "gesehen", which show that in Mozart's Vienna, "gesehen" was pronounced "gesöhn" - in fact, it probably still is today... And even in Bizet's Carmen, 1875, the word "fils", son, pronounced something like feess in modern vernacular French, rimes with "prix", price, pronounced pree. Doesn't work, because in poetic language at least, ever since Racine and Corneille, "fils" was pronounced fee').

Of course, because singers these days don't even know what poetry is about and what rules the poets followed and care even less, they never observe even such basics and put entire paid to the carefully devised poetic consonnance of ending sounds. But Deller's rendition of the words "Farewell", "cruel" (pronounced cruwell, with stress on the final syllable) and "jewel" in Dowland's "Wilt Though Unkind" seemed to show that he may have been a little more aware of the issue. Alas, not so, and he is like everybody else in:

Pilkinton's "Rest, Sweet Nymphs", where "eyes" should rime with "sympathies", "ye" and "lie", "groves" and "loves", "gone" and "moan" (I did say that ancient rime afforded lots of fun surprises...)

Dowland's "What If I Never Speed": "love" and "prove", "forlorn" and "return",

Dowland's "Come Again": "to die" and "sympathie", "I die" and "misery",

Campian's "Care-Charming Sleep": "sweet" and "night",

Rosseter's "When Laura Smiles": "appear" and "there", and this one which leaves even me scratching my head: "power" and "lure". Could they have pronounced "pewer"?

And Deller is really disappointing in the anonymous "Have you seen but a whyte lillie grow", because it didn't require much effort to rime "bry-er" adn "fire" - but he doesn't.

Okay, enough axe-griding for today. This is a marvelous recital, not to be missed. Good liner notes, texts of songs included. The same recital was CD reissued by Vanguard-Europe on their Alfred Deller series, "The Deller Edition" 08 5095 71, not listed here, search 3351475095716 on the European sister companies.  Note also that the songs were reissued without the viol pieces on [[ASIN:B000027OQK The Art of English and Italian Song]], paired with the songs from another recital of Italian songs, but - despite the none-too generous TT of 52 minutes - without the anonymous "Have you seen but a whyte lillie grow" and the extraordinary song of John Danyel, and with no liner notes, no texts, faulty track listings and credits, so it is best avoided in favor of the two original CDs (the Italian recital is on "The Deller Edition" 08 5056 71, not listed here, EAN 3351475056717 on the European sister companies).

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title: a great neglected Mahler 9th from Abravanel and Vanguard

text:
I was curious to hear Maurice Abravanel's Mahler 9th. In the great "Mahler surge" of the 1960s and early 1970s, Abravanel's complete cycle with his Utah Symphony Orchestra for Vanguard was "the last one" after those of Bernstein, Solti, Haitink and Kubelik - not in the sense that it came last (it was recorded between 1962 and 1974, which makes it roughly contemporary with the others. Haitink's was begun simultaneously and was completed three years earlier, Kubelik's was begun later but ended before) but because it is the one that seems to have been granted the least favorable critical reception. The notion (or at least the impression it has left in my memory) was always that Abravanel wasn't competitive on account of his second-rate orchestra, and of an interpretive approach that was understated and superficial. So far I've heard only Abravanel's [[ASIN:B0000023B4 Symphony 5]], and it tends to bear out the negative reputation: the conductor zips through so fast that he makes it sound as if he was trying to break speed records of sorts, one-upping the venerable Bruno Walter, highlighting the military at the expense of the funeral, lacking flexibility other than going from fast to faster, and often pressed to the point of being under-characterized.

But I've had good surprises too, both with Abravanel and the Utah Symphony in other repertoires (see for instance my review of [[ASIN:B0000023FF Milhaud: Pacem in Terris / L'Homme Et Son Desir]]), and with the sonics of Vanguard, and for some reason I had a feeling that this one could be one of them, on one front or the other

Bang on, and on both accounts.

First, the sonics. They are great. Vanguard doesn't enjoy, I don't think, the reputation of being a great audiophile label, unlike, for instance, Mercury. But from ALL the CD-transfers that I've heard, made by Vanguard's original founder Seymour Solomon who was able to repurchase the rights to his classical music catalog in the early 1990s from the same company he had sold them to in the mid-1980s, it was. On this European edition of this 9th, 08 4012 72, Vanguard doesn't give any indication of recording date, not even a copyright year of the original recording, but the great and definitive [[ASIN:B004AE40PI Mahler Discography (Second Edition, 2010)]] of Peter Fulöp dates it April 1969. There is a marvelous transparency of textures which lets you hear with a rarely-approached clarity every strand of Mahler's dense part-writing - the first and second violins aren't assigned to right and left channel as in some recordings, but Mahler's  divisi writing is clearly distinguished, and the cello counter-melodies come out felicitously well -, but with no artificial and aggressive spotlighting either, of the kind Solti was happy to obtain from Decca. Who needs digital when you have this?

And it sits well with Abravanel's approach. There's nothing of the superficial zipping through that, to my ears, marred his later Fifth (1974). Tempos in the first movement are rather expansive, but with no exaggeration as will later be found in the recordings of Levine or the later Bernstein (no critisim implied: exaggerated Mahler can be emotionally great Mahler - but not always a Mahler for all tastes), in fact closest to those of Bernstein's Columbia version in New York, and everything flows very naturally, with a sure sense of tempo and tempo relationship. The symphony opens very spacisously and with a feeling of lyrical warmth, if not the unique tenderness that Giulini brought to these first phrases in Chicago ([[ASIN:B000001GHX Mahler: Symphony No. 9]]). Everything is tastefully done, the instrumental events and outbursts don't call attention upon themselves as they can with Solti or the generation(s) of later performers, but they are all there. Abravanel is beautifully responsive to the score's tempo shifts - try for instance the "plötzlich sehr mässig und zurückhaltend" (suddenly very measured and held-back) at 8:01 - and shows a great sense of instrumental balances - you might be put of by the horn jumping at you at 9:37, but then Mahler indicates "softly sung, but much standing out" ("sehr hervortretend") and that's exactly what Abravanel does. There are a few spots where I thought his "instrumental events" (Mahler's score is filled with them) could have slightly more bite and, yes, call slightly more attention upon themselves, or that he could animate slightly more some of the accelerandos to build more breathtaking tension, but then, those moments were rare and they are minuscule details, detracting nothing of the beauty of the music.  And on the other hand, his great crashing climax at 18:58 is among the most crashing I can remember (nobody beats the old Bruno Walter from 1962, [[ASIN:B0006393HC Mahler: Symphony No. 9]]) - but the timps at 19:04 after the crash, notated ff, are subdued rather than blasting (as they are, for instance, in Karel Ancerl's recording, [[ASIN:B00000359H Mahler: Symphony No 9 in D Major]]).

I also want to squash that notion that Abravanel's Utah Symphony was a second-rate orchestra. Here as already in Milhaud's Pacem in Terris, I hear none of that. I hear a tremendous orchestra, with a string section that may not sound as silky as in Vienna (depends if Vienna is in a good day) and violins that may sound a bit lean, but the woodwind and especially the brass sections are glorious, and there is an admirable precision of ensemble of all. If anybody can tell me what is "inferior" in the execution of this performance, please do - with precise details, please, not just generalities -, I'll be happy (no irony) to learn a thing or two. When I hear this orchestra, I don't particularly long after Solti's London Symphony, Bernstein's New York or Haitink's Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra.

The two middle movements may lack, in some spots, a touch of fury and wildness - which might also make them easier to take by many listeners; a typical example is the ff cello & double bass eighth-note chords at the end of the second movement Ländler at 14:25, which sound here very subdued when they could, should and have been blasting. But still, the movements are superbly done, the sonics afford great instrumental character (the woodwinds are particularly and felicitously in evidence in the Ländler), the tempos feel very natural, eschewing again the extremes of both slow and fast, although the beginning of the Ländler exudes a fine sense of nonchalant bonhomie, heightening the contrast when comes the "poco più mosso subito (tempo II)" at 2:41. I'd like to single out especially Abravanel's shaping of the middle and appeased section of the wild Rondo-Burleske (third movement), starting at 6:17. Here, Bernstein established a kind of tradition that was followed by many after him, brutally slowing down the tempo and playing constant rubato, and even accordion, with the pulse (see my review of [[ASIN:B00000C298 Mahler: Symphony No. 9 (Bernstein Century)]]). Sure, it all makes musical sense, and nobody without a score is likely to be shocked by it. But Mahler writes no tempo change at the beginning of that middle section, and his only indications are, a few bars later, "a little held back / etwas gehalten", a little later "with great feeling" (mit grosser Empfindung) and further, "do not press / nicht eilen" (which, in Mahler, may, but doesn't have to, be construed as an invitation to hold back a little). Abravanel observes exactly these indications, he plays in tempo, and his "etwas gehalten" registers more as an expressive relaxation than as a true slowdown. So, if you want to hear heart-on-sleeve emoting, Bernstein is fine. But if you want to hear it exactly as Mahler wrote it and decide whether it "works" that way too, go to Abravnael. Note that there is an unfortunate edit at 9:11, where the resonance of the harp's last chord is brutally cut off - obviously a retake spliced in.

Abravanel tops it off with a Finale whose expansiveness had very little precedent in 1969 (only Horenstein back in 1952 had taken such a spacious approach, [[ASIN:B000001KC5 Mahler: Symphony 9 and Kindertotenlieder / Norman Foster / Jascha Horenstein (2 CDs)]]), again remarkably faithful to every prompting, tempo shift and tempo relationship of the score, not emotionally intense like Bernstein's (and Bernstein's 1979 live version in Berlin explodes the controls of the Richter scale of emotional intensity, [[ASIN:B000001GFX Mahler: Symphony No. 9]]) but elegiac, sounding almost like an extended lullaby.

The same recording was issued by American Vanguard in 1996, [[ASIN:B00000I6OS Symphony 9]]. I don't know if it was in remastered and improved sonics - and I doubt that it was.  Anyway, given the sonics on my European edition, I don't even wish for better, and the US edition presently sells for twice as much as this one.

I'll return later to the Adagio of the 10th, but this 9th alone makes this a worthwhile purchase. The Mahlerites were fortunate to be offered many great recordings of the 9th alreay in the pre-digital era. This one deserves to join the glorious roster. Re-reading some of the negative-to-damning reviews that it received leaves me incredulous (see more about that in the comments hereafter). It has been one of the neglected great versions ever since it came out in 1970. Almost a half-century later, it is time to make a public statement of its worth.


title: sloppy production but generous offering and great music and music-making

text:
First: the irritants. This compilation was issued specifically for the French market by the company that, in the 1990s, held the distribution rights of the Vanguard catalog in Europe, Arcade Music Company. Given Alfred Deller's association with the French label Harmonia Mundi from the late 1960s to early 1980s, I guess they figured that there WAS a market for him in France. But they also seem to have thought that the French were a public of brainless potatoes, content to listen to pretty music without knowing anything about it, and caring even less.

So: the liner notes are in French only, but that's only the lesser of the problems of an issue marked by careless production values. If you don't read French, good for you, it will be one lesser cause for irritation, because then you won't know that the notes refer only to "The Cries of London" part of the compilation, and not "The Cruel Mother". Worse still, only the title of the songs are given on the back cover track listing, no indication whatsoever of composers. Not such a problem with the second part of the compilation, The Cruel Mother, since all those are anonymous folk-songs. But not so with the Cries of London, most have legitimate composers.

About performers, the only indication given is "Alfred Deller, contre-ténor, The Deller Consort". Which members comprise "The Deller Consort", oh those brainless potatoes aren't interested in those intellectual details. There is an instrumental ensemble in some of the pieces from The Cries of London, and a lute and/or guitar in some of the folk songs of The Cruel Mother: who plays? Oh the French brainless potatoes do NOT want to be bothered with such high-browed details!

Oh, and the back cover indicates that The Cruel Mother was recorded in 1959, but gives a copyright year for it of 1956. A guy named "Laurent Zahut" is credited for the "Design" of this CD. Was he really paid for this???

Fortunately there is a fantastic discography of Alfred Deller by Pierre-F. Roberge that is hosted on the website medieval dot org, and all the info is there. And now starts the good news.

The CD is the compilation of two LPs, Vanguard "The Bach Guild" BG-563 with The Cries of London (the LP sells here, [[ASIN:B002I5FYVA Cries of London]]), recorded in 1956, and Vanguard VRS 1073 The Cruel Mother and other English ballads anf Folksongs, from 1959 (Roberge says "mono", which leaves me doubtful. The CD reissue is certainly in stereo). The LP sells here, [[ASIN:B00933N5FM ALFRED AND THE DELLER CONSORT The Cruel Mother LP Vanguard VRS 1073 English Folk]]. The compilation clocks 78:16 - hard to beat that. In fact, two songs from the original Cries of London had to be left out, William Savage's "Muffins Ho!" and Luffman Atterbury's "One a Penny, Two a Penny". Given the quality of the rest it is regrettable, but then the sacrifice is excusable.

Here's the complete info:

The Cries of London
Fantasias by Weelkes, Dering, Ravenscroft and others
The Deller Consort, Ambrosian Singers, London Chambers Players - Alfred Deller, cond.

John Cobb (17c.; ed. Denis Stevens)
1. These Are the Cries of London Town

Thomas Ravenscroft (c.1590 - c.1633; ed. Stevens)
2. New Oysters

Richard Dering (d.1630; ed. Stevens)
3. The Cries of London

Thomas Ravencroft (ed. Stevens):
4. A Bellman's Song

Anon. (ed. Stevens):
5. New Oysters
6. The Painter's Song

Richard Dering (ed. Henry Revell)
7. Country Cries

Anon. (ed. Stevens)
8. A Quart a Penny
9. I Can Mend Your Tubs and Pails

Edmund Nelham (ed. Stevens)
10. Have You Any Work for the Tinker?

Thomas Ravencroft (ed. Stevens)
11. Brooms for Old Shoes

Thomas Weelkes (ed. Jeremy Noble)
12. The Cries of London

Performers:
[1]-[2], [5], [8]-[11] The Ambrosian Singers
Denis Stevens, cond.
[3]-[4], [6], [7], [12] The Alfred Deller Consort:
Alfred Deller (counter-tenor - solo in [4]), April Cantelo (soprano - solo in [12]), Wilfred Brown (tenor - solo in [6])
[with the Deller Consort] London Chambers Players:
Granville Jones (violin), James Barton (violin), Patrick Ireland (viola), Kenneth Essex (viola), William Pleeth ('cello)
Alfred Deller, dir.

The Cruel Mother
and Other English Ballads and Folksongs
A. Deller, D. Dupré, The Deller Consort

Anon., from various collections:
13. When Cockleshells Turn Silver Bells
14. An Eriskay Love Lilt
15. Peggy Ramsay
16. Bushes and Briars
17. Brigg Fair
18. The Cruel Mother
19. A Sweet Country Life
20. The Bitter Withy
21. Lang A-Growing
22. The Lover's Ghost
23. Lovely Joan
24. She Moved Through the Fair
25. A Brisk Young Lad he Courted Me
26. Geordie

Performers:
The Deller Consort
Alfred Deller (counter-tenor), Eileen Poulter (soprano), Mary Thomas (soprano), Wilfred Brown (tenor), Gerald English (tenor), Maurice Bevan (baritone), Geoffrey Coleby (bass)
Desmond Dupré (lute)
Alfred Deller, dir.

So, "Deller Consort"??? The Deller Consort performs only 5 from the 12 songs from The Cries of London, accompanied by the so-called London Chamber Players, the seven other tracks are sung by the Ambrosian Singers, a cappella. Although Roberge credits Desmond Dupré as playing the lute in The Cruel Mother recital, it sure sounds like a guitar to me.

And now, last but the primary consideration: it is a marvel of a recital. The various Cries of London are fun, irresistibly witty, entertaining, wonderful. The folk songs gathered on The Cruel Mother are beautiful, most of them solos by Deller (either a cappella - the ballad The Cruel Mother, which gave its title to the LP, is a 6-minute tour-de-force - or with lute or guitar accompaniment), a few sung by a cappella ensemble (15, 19, 25), most wistful and deeply touching, some more lively. Deller is vocally stellar, and there's a joy of making music together in all the vocal ensembles.

Sonics are fine, cut (as all the Vanguard Deller reissues which I've heard) at a very high level wich requires turning down the volume, somewhat more opaque in the mono Cries of London and, in both, with a touch more tape hiss than I've been used to in Vanguard's Deller reissues from that era, but all sounding natural, vivid - and definitely stereo in The Cruel Mother.

The same compilation was also issued by Arcade in Europe, in their Alfred Deller series, 08 5072 71, and it is listed here, [[ASIN:B00000AXSZ Cries of London-The Cruel]], but I haven't been able to find online a scan of the back cover, so I don't know if the listing is as sloppy as on this French release and if the liner notes are any better. I'd appreciate a comment of someone who knows. Omega Records, the company of Vanguard's founder Seymour Solomon, retained the distribution rights for the US, but for some reason not all the CDs published by Arcade were issued here (and the other way around). To the best of my knowledge, only The Cruel Mother part of the recital was distributed by Omega, OVC 8110, [[ASIN:B000006299 Cruel Mother]], with its frustratingly short timing.


title: it would have been a magnificent CD, with a stellar Alfred Deller, if it hadn't been for some not-so-minor production irritants

text:
First, some negatives. As concerns presentation, track listing and other product info, this is a surprisingly and disappointingly sloppy job from Vanguard-Europe (the distribution rights of the Vanguard catalog in Europe in the 1990s were held by a Dutch "Arcade" company, while the founder of Vanguard Records Seymour Solomon had the rights for the North-American market through his company Omega Records. But for some reason, many of the Vanguard Deller reissues were not distributed in the US, and this is one of those). Usually the CDs in Vanguard's Alfred Deller's edition, as well as those in their Bach Guild edition (and many Deller recordings were reissued issued in both series) have elaborate liner notes from the original LPs, text of songs, detailed track listings, dates of recordings, label number of the original LP release(s). Here, you get only the general presentation of the Alfred Deller series by his son Mark, and a very short bio of Alfred, but no indication whatsoever of sources or dates. Furthermore, the only track listing is the one given on the back cover, where only the family names of the composers are indicated. Sure, we all know that Dowland is John and we can safely bet that the Scarlatti who wrote the airs is Alessandro, the father, and not the son, Domenico; but do you know off-hand the first name of Saracini and Pilkington? Do you know that "Wert" is Giaches de Wert, Rosseter is Philip, and Morley is Thomas? And does Deller really sing "La speranza mi tradizee" (hope betrays me, should have been "mi tradisce")? One hopes his Italian accent is better than that!

Anyway, the marvelous and comprehensive Deller discography of Pierre-F. Roberge hosted on medieval dot org has enabled me to sort out the matter of sources, composers' first names and exact titles of songs. Here is the track listing:

1. Francis Pilkington Rest sweet Nymphs
2. John Dowland What if I never speed
3. Thomas Campian (also spelled Campion) Care charming sleep
4. Dowland Shall I sue
5. Dowland Come again! Sweet love doth now invite
6. Philip Rosseter When Laura smiles
7. Campion Shall I come sweet love to thee
8. Thomas Morley Will ye by a fine dog
9. Dowland Me, me and none but me
10. Dowland Wilt thou unkind
11. Giulio Caccini Pien d'amoroso affeto
12. Claudio Saracini Pallidetto qual viola
13. Giulio Caccini Amarilli mia bella
14. Alessandro Scarlatti Difesa non ha
15. A. Scarlatti O cessate di piegarmi
16. A. Scarlatti Bellezza che s'ama
17. A. Scarlatti O dolcissima speranza
18. Claudio Saracini Da te parto
19. A. Scarlatti La speranza mi tradisce
20. Giaches de Wert Dunque basciar

In fact, the CD is the partial compilation of two Vanguard LPs, both reissued on CD:

- BG-576 English Lute Songs (tracks 1-10), performed by Deller with Desmond Dupré at the lute, recorded, says Roberge, in May 1954 (the original LP is sold here, [[ASIN:B00933GVR6 ALFRED DELLER English Lute Songs LP Vanguard BG 576 Desmond Dupre Vinyl Album]]), CD reissued on "The Bach Guild" 08 2038 71, [[ASIN:B0000254L3 English Lute Songs]] and "The Deller Edition" 08 5095 71 (not listed here, search 3351475095716 on the European sister companies). The original album and its CD reissues also had/have fantasias for viols of Bull, Thomas Tomkins, Robert White, Christopher Tye and Taverner, which have been left out of the present compilation, but absent are also two of the Deller-sung songs: the anonymous "Have you seen but a white lilly", and John Danyel's Chromatic Tunes.

- BG-565 Italian Songs (tracks 11-20), Deller with Dupré at the lute in half the songs, and George Malcolm harpsichord and Dupré now playing the viola da gamba in the others (here tracks 14-17 & 19), recorded in 1956, CD-ressued in Europe on "The Deller Edition" 08 5056 71, not listed here, EAN 3351475056717 on the European sister companies. Here, other than two pieces for harpsichord, it is three airs that have been left out of the compilation: Marco da Gagliano Valli profonde, Giovanni Pietro Berti Da grave incendio, Baldessare Donato Dolce mio ben.

Even with the instrumental pieces, the original LPs and their CD reissues were relatively short, 53:45 for the English Lute Songs and 47 minutes for the Italian recital. So it was, in principle, a good move of Vanguard-Europe to leave out the instrumental pieces and to combine the Deller-sung songs only. But, with a new TT of 52:02 (says my CD player, not 51:01 as the back cover claims), the decision of Vanguard to ditch as well five of the songs is a frustrating one, and it is PARTICULARLY the case with the two English lute songs (I haven't heard the original CD of Italian songs): both are absolutely beautiful, not only in their music but also in their poetry ("Have you seen but a whyte Lillie grow / Before rude hands had touch'd it; / Have you mark't but the fall of the snow / Before the Earth had smuch'd it / (....) Oh so whyte, oh so soft, oh so sweet was she"), and Danyel's Chromatic Tunes is even better than that: an extended (8 minutes) and extraordinary song on chromatic scales ("Can doleful notes to measur'd accents set / Express unmeasured griefs which time forget?"), it must qualify as one of the most unbelievable and greatest songs of the English 17th Century.

It makes it easier of course when you DON'T know what you've lost, and even with its losses, this remains a treasury of a recital (that was my impression when I first heard it, before buying and hearing the CD of English lute songs). Hearing the songs with lute, it is hard to believe that the English songs were recorded in 1954. And in fact, although this is the date given by Roberge, I am doubtful. The label numbering points to a later issue than the Italian recital and according to info gathered in various Schwann catalogs the LP came out in 1958. There is a small measure of tape hiss in the Italian songs with lute which I find entirely inobtrusive and there is even less of it in the English songs; but in both, the voice and lute sound with exquisite vividness, clarity and naturalness. I am guessing that 1954 was when the fantasia for viols were recorded: THEY do sound mono and somewhat distant. The Italian songs with harpsichord and gamba accompaniment also sound somewhat more distant and opaque in sound than the lute songs, and obviously they weren't recorded at the same sessions as even the Italian songs with lute, but they are still very listenable.

Deller is in stellar voice, luminous in the upper and firm in the lower range, with a wonderful mastery of dynamic shading, and his art of English diction is incomparable (his Italian is more tinged with an English accent - but he does NOT sing "mi tradizee"!). The songs are marvels, most are love songs, with an alternation of the plaintive and the more lively, but even the plaintive ones are so beautiful and, with their lute accompaniment, feel so intimate that no sense of monotony whatsoever arises. Some are true gems, Pilkington's Rest sweet Nymphs (a haunting lullaby), Dowland's Me Me and None but Me (a harrowing song of longing for death: "he never happy liv'd that cannot love to die"), Morley's hilarious Will ye by an fine dog (with a dildo), Dowland's Wilt thou unkind, but Campion's Care charming sleep (..."the easer of all woes, brother of death...") must be the prize of the collection, especially in the way Deller embellishes the repeat with vocalizes. There are also beautiful embellishments in some of the Italian songs, Caccini's Pien d'amoroso affeto track 11 and Saracini's Da te parto track 18.

No texts, but the advantage of today over the 1950s and even the 1990s is that they can be found online. But those texts ARE provided in the original CD of English Lute Songs. The short TT, the absence of liner notes and texts and sloppy crediting would have been only minor irritants. But the absence of the two English Lute Songs - and, possibly, of the three Italian songs, although here I don't yet know what I'm missing - are irreparable casualties. If you can, find the two original CDs. It may cost you more, but, in the case of the English Lute Songs recital, it is worth it. This CD is only if you can't wait, and are ready to be content with what you are getting and to bear the loss of what you now know you are missing.


title: A compilation of tracks by Ofra Harnoy from various sources

text:
A 55-minute compilation of recordings by Ofra Harnoy from various sources - which IMP doesn't list, just giving a copyright of 1996, which is the year of release of the CD.

1. Tchaikovsky's Valse sentimentale with Michael Dussek at the piano, 6. Rimsky's Flight of the Bumble Bee and 7. Gershwin's Summertime, the two latter with Catherine Wilson (the credits are not entirely clear about who the pianist is in track 6) were already on RCA's [[ASIN:B000003F2U Salut D'Amour]], but that RCA CD seems to be itself a compilation of licensed tracks. In fact all the Gershwin tracks, Summertime but also the Summertime Variations on track 8, Variations on I Got Rhythm track 9 and I'll Build A Stairway to Paradise track 10, come from a Mastersound CD, [[ASIN:B00000DWVS Ofra Harnoy Plays Gershwin]]. The sound is distinctly inferior on track 6 and 7, with a piano sounding distant and unnatural in the Rimsky, and clangy in the Gershwin, but maybe that's intented. I like the schmaltz with which Harnoy plays Summertime, both with piano (track 7) and with saxophone (track 8).

2. Only the first movement of Schubert's Quintet is given, with the Orford String Quartet. I've reviewed the complete recording here, [[ASIN:B00008FLY5 An Evening with Ofra Harnoy and the Orford String Quartet]], and it is a fine version. The same Pro Arte disc has the Dvorak Waltz op. 54 No. 1 with the same Orford Quartet that is on track 3. It's a little gem.

4. Massenet's Elegie, a Mélodie with piano and a brooding cello obligato, with Maureen Forrester and Andrew Davis (now better known as a conductor than as a Lied accompanist) comes from [[ASIN:B00008FEQW The Art of Maureen Forrester]] on the label Mastersound, published in 1991. That disc first originated in 1987 on the Canadian Fanfare label, [[ASIN:B002RRY2VM An Evening with Maureen Forrester and Andrew Davis (Fanfare 1987, Canada)]], but the Massenet track with Miss Harnoy was added in the reissue. Maureen Forrester's deep contralto remains impressive, but I find that it gives her a matronly character, and her French diction is acceptable, but not perfect.

5, 12 and 13: I'm not sure where the Danzi Duo No. 2 op. 64 for flute and cello (with Jeanne Baxtresser), the Bozza Duet for Oboe and Cello (Senya Trubashik) and the Andante for Two Cellos of Halsey Stevens (with Vladimir Orloff) originally came from. The Danzi can be found on a number of CDs which themselves seem to be compilations of previously issued material, like [[ASIN:B00000DWVT Best of Ofra Harnoy]] or [[ASIN:B00000E5UM Friends]]. Doremi recently published a compilation of Harnoy recordings which they claim were previously unissued, [[ASIN:B007PSY20O Ofra Harnoy Vol. 2]], but it has the Danzi, Bozza's Five Contrasts for Oboe and Cello (the Duet is one of them) and Stevens' Five Duos for Two Cellos which include the Andante, and all with the same performers as here, so I am guessing that these are the same recordings. The Bozza and Danzi are inconsequential trifles, but the somber and mourning Andante of Stevens is a great piece, making you long to hear the rest.

10. Here Comes the Sun with the Armin Electric Strings comes from a 1985 Fanfare CD, [[ASIN:B000GHBLAK Electric Beatles]]. The year before Harnoy had recorded another recital of Beatles arrangements with the Orford String Quartet, and they've been reissued together, with a few deletions, on [[ASIN:B000009KDC Beatles Book]]. I find those arrangements, and the way Harnoy and friends play them, lovely. See my review for more details.

Note that a very similar program was issued by the label Mastersound on ASIN:B003TUBBPQ or ASIN:B00008FER5 Duets: Ofra Harnoy & Friends (sorry, I'm out of authorized product links), but with three more Beatles tracks substituting for the Bozza and Stevens pieces.

Harnoy was very much hyped when she stepped into the limelight in the early 1980s and, for that reason, was greeted with a barrage of flak, which seems to have exploded her in the air. I find her playing fine and fine-toned. This compilation can be recommended if you are interested in such a compilation. I prefer to have the sources and, with them, much more: the complete Schubert Quintet, the Beatles album, the Gerswhin album and the Doremi compilation.


title: Exceptional sonics for the vintage, Deller in resplendent voice with a (future) stellar cast of instrumentalists - but short TT

text:
In a way this recital of Alfred Deller is the blueprint of the famous one he made for Harmonia Mundi in 1979, "[[ASIN:B000027NRW Purcell: Music for a While; O Solitude]]". It was recorded, we are told, in May 1954, in Vienna, and first came out on Vanguard's subsidiary label The Bach Guild, BG 547. It is here reissued on Vanguard Europe's Alfred Deller Edition, 08 5104 71, as on the LP, with its TT of 52:43, which was generous for an LP back in '54 and still acceptable for a CD, especially if you can find it cheaply priced. I have it in another CD incarnation, from 1994, 08 2029 71, also a European Vanguard issue  but in their Bach Guild series, not listed on this website at the time of writing, easiest located online (including on the European sister companies) searching on its EAN code, 3351472029714. Strangely - given that the Vanguard remasterings of the 1990s originated in the US under the aegis of Vanguard's original founder Seymour Solomon through his company Omega Records, and were licensed for distribution in Europe to a Dutch Arcade company - it doesn't seem to have been released on the North American market back then. It was reissued, though, in 2003, [[ASIN:B0000E1WJQ Alfred Deller Sings]]. But that was after Solomon had died (in 2002) and the Vanguard catalog had been sold to a short-lived Artemis company.

Some of the players from the accompanying instrumental ensemble weren't perhaps as stellar in '54 as they later became: Gustav Leonhardt, harpsichord and direction, Marie Leonhardt (wife of Gustav), baroque violin, Eduard Melkus and Alice Hoffelner on the treble viols, Messrs Nikolaus Harnoncourt (also playing the baroque cello in the Purcell airs) and Gustav Leonhardt on the bass viol. Even fans of Nikolaus Harnoncourt may be excused for not knowing offhand who this Alice Hoffelner is. But they may have heard of Alice Harnoncourt, the wife of Nikolaus and for decades one of the stalwarts of his Vienna Concentus Musicus: Alice Hoffelner had married Nikolaus just the year before. I was very puzzled to see Leonhardt credited as playing the bass viol in the pieces for viol consort (and this is confirmed by the medieval dot org discography): I didn't know that he played anything else but the keyboard, but I've seen confirmed elsewhere that he made other recordings playing the bass viol, so it must be true (and if it isn't, then one viol player is missing in the quartets).

The recital sounds (on my Bach Guild edition, but I believe the same remasters were used for this one) much, I mean MUCH better than its 1954 vintage would suggest: Deller's voice, and the harpsichord when it plays solo, are so well recorded and present, and the relation of voice with the small instrumental ensemble is so natural, that I didn't notice that it wasn't in stereo. In Vanguard's remaster, the sonics are also practically devoid of tape hiss, and with all that, I simply couldn't believe that the recording was really from 1954 - although the date is confirmed by the medieval dot org discography. But, no, the British release was reviewed in the Gramophone issue of October 1957, and it mentioned that the disc had been available in America for over two years.

Six airs of Purcell are sung (track 1 contains two from "The Fairie Queen"), interspersed with a few instrumental pieces, two harpsichord pieces of Purcell (tracks 4 and 8) and pieces for viols of Purcell (Fantasia for 4 viols), Matthew Locke (track 5) and John Jenkins (track 10). As interesting and well played as they are, it is the six airs sung by Deller that are the main interest of the recital. And what makes it a blueprint of Harmonia Mundi's Music for a While of a quarter-century later, is that two songs are shared, the plangent "The Plaint" ("O let me weep", which opens the Harmonia Mundi recital, and is here on track 9) and the air from the opera Dioclesian "Since from my dear Astrea's Sight" (Harmonia Mundi's track 13, Vanguard's 7). It is fascinating to compare the two recordings a quarter-century apart.

The voice is resplendent in 1954, but it remains incredibly full and firm in 1979. The main difference in timbre and color derives from the fact that in 1954 the pitch is higher - a full minor third in The Plaint and a semi-tone in Astrea, making Deller's voice sound more brilliant. There is more simplicity of delivery and characterization also in 1954 - 25 years later, Deller fills the vocal line with more nuances and dynamic shadings, in a way that could be construed almost (but not quite) as fussing: comparing the two made me think of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau vs Hermann Prey. But before as after, Deller's art of English diction is incomparable.

What makes this recital sound much more recent thai it actually is is also the sense of period style and sound. 1954!!! I mean, these guys, the Harnoncourts, Leonhardts, Melkus, were meeting privately at the home of Harnoncourt in Vienna and experimenting with period instruments and style in their off-hours (Harnoncourt was cellist at the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, then led by Karajan), Harnoncourt's Concentus Musicus would give its first public concert only four years later, and it was already all there. Not so much stylistic progress was made in the ensuing 30 or 40 years in fact, and William Christie, Wieland Kuijken and Roderick Skeaping in 1979 don't add much essential to what was already expressed in 1954. When you hear the Purcell pieces that Deller conducted himself, for Vanguard or Harmonia Mundi, between the late 1950s and the early 1980s, they sound stylistically decades behind this. You just need to compare track 6, "Here the Deities approve", from the Ode for St. Cecilia's Day in 1683, "Welcome to All the Pleasures", which Deller recorded complete five years after this, [[ASIN:B0000023EW Come Ye Sons of Art]]. The aria itself is very similar, in tempo (even slightly more flowing in 1959), basso continuo and vocal quality. But then comes the concluding instrumental ritornello, at 2:22 in 1954, 2:05 in 1959, now played by a chamber orchestra, and it sounds thick and sentimental, entirely out-of-style.

Ultimately, the only frustration with this CD - but a big one - is not to have more Purcell airs by Delller: they add up to no more than 22 minutes, not even half of the recital. The Bach Guild had originally issued a companion LP, BG-539, titled "Elizabethan and Jacobean Music", recorded at the same time and place by the same people, with airs of Dowland, John Bartlett, Thomas Campian and Robert Parsons and instrumental pieces of Farnaby, Dowland, Morley, Robert Johnson and John Jenkins. It was CD-released by Solomon on OVC 8102, [[ASIN:B0000023G2 Elizabethan & Jacobean Music]], and in Europe by Arcade both on the Bach Guild series, 08 2027 71 (which is how I have it), not listed here, EAN 3351472027710, and on their Alfred Deller series, 08 5094 71, EAN 3351475094719, not listed here either. That too was reissued by Artemis, on [[ASIN:B0000E1WJV Elizabethan and Jacobean Music: Airs & Instrumental Music of England]]. But that LP and its CD reissues were also frustratingly short, even shorter than this one, 45:55, and including only 25 minutes of Deller.

So really, Solomon, Arcade and Artemis could and should have combined the two recitals, ditching only enough of the instrumental pieces to come as close as possible to the 80-minute barrier. And that would still have left 30+ minutes of instrumental music. Note also that there is a similar and equally outstanding recital of Deller and Dupré: their [[ASIN:B0000254L3 English Lute Songs]], with a collection of unbelievably beautiful airs - in their music AND poetry -, and with more of them. It doesn't sell cheap right now on the marketplace, but with patience and determination one can find bargains. It was issued both in the Bach Guild series, 08 2038 71, EAN 3351472038716 (the one listed on this website), and in the Alfred Deller series (not listed here), 08 5095 71, EAN 3351475095716. There is also a French edition, 682 425, EAN 3483906824258.

Nonetheless, as they are, these testimonies of the singer in his vocal prime and splendor, backed by up-and-coming and enthusiastic young musicians who had recaptured in no time a stylistic universe that had been completely erased from the memory of the past two centuries, are invaluable.


title: It would have been a marvelous recital if half of it hadn't been so poorly recorded

text:
The recital first came out on Vanguard's subsidiary label The Bach Guild BG 691 (mono) / BGS 7091 (stereo) and is said to have been recorded in 1966, but it certainly wasn't all at one setting: starting track 9, the sonic perspective suddenly and jarringly jumps and now sounds  like a mono recording made from a far distance in a Church (with Mark standing further away than Alfred, and the violin closer than the singers)  - obviously, not the same recording venue and circumstances as the 8 first tracks of the recital.

The instrumental accompaniments also vary from track to track, from a capella duets (the Morley Canzonets, track 1, 7 and 8), organ (the two Schütz duets, track 3 and 9, Monteverdi's Currite populi, track 6 - not a duet, incidentally), harpsichord (Robert Jones' Sweet Kate, track 4, Blow's If I my Celia could persuade track 13), cello (the anonymous "Ah, my dear", track 5, Monteverdi's Angelus ad pastorals, track 10), harpsichord and cello (Blow's Ah Heav'nt What is't I hear, track 14), organ and cello (Monteverdi's Salve Regina, track 12 - incidentally, not a duet - and Richard Deering's two Canticae Sacrae, track 15 and 16), organ, violin and, I think, cello doubling the organ's bass line (Monteverdi's Fugue fugge anima mia, track 11), to strings and continuo (Purcell's Sweetness of nature, track 2), The accompanying instrumentists are credited no better and no more precisely than "Ensemble of Baroque Instruments" - not very kind to them!

This dipping of sonic quality is all the more frustrating as this is - or would have been - a wonderful recital. The timbres of the two Dellers marry ideally, with Deller-the-father more contralto sounding and Deller-the-son more soprano. The English songs have the lift and lilt of folk-songs - the gem must be the wistful "Ah, my dear" with its cello accompaniment, and running 6 minutes it is also the longest piece. The string accompaniment in Purcell's Sweetness of nature sounds sentimental and stylistically passé, but that's a small matter. TT is a short, LP-tailored 48:30. It would have been even more frustrating if the sonic quality of half of it hadn't been so poor.

When, in the early 1990s, the Vanguard catalog came back under the control of the label's original founder, Seymour Solomon (after having been sold to the Welk music group in the mid 1980s), he reissued to CD the heritage of Vanguard's Deller recordings, which had barely been tapped by the previous copyright owner. They were marketed on the North-American market by his company, Omega Records, with catalog numbers OVC XXXX (the Xs being digits). The distribution rights for Europe were granted to a Dutch company, Arcade, who issued them there under the label numbers 08 XXXX 7X (the last X according to number of CDs). The American and Dutch XXXX digits corresponded... sometimes, not always. Most were released on both sides of the Atlantic - but not always, and as strange as it may seem for a US-originated catalog, some highly valuable ones were issued only in Europe. For some reason unknown to me (Solomon's doubts about the sonic quality?), this one was never issued as an OVC release.


title: colorful and enjoyable, if not quite equal to the great stars of early 18th Century music, Bach, Haendel, Telemann, Vivaldi

text:
Maybe not among the greats, but very enjoyable. Christoph Graupner (1683-1760), born in Saxony and a pupil of Johann Kuhnau, master of music at the the court of Darmstadt for more than fifty years, is not quite in the same league as his contemporaries and stars of early 18th Century music, Bach, Telemann, Haendel and Vivaldi, and, sure, you can hear why. There is a Haendelian robustness to the Concerto for two horns and timpani, and great excitement in the Concerto for 2 "clarini" (baroque trumpets) and timpani, and the Antichi Stumenti ensemble (it simply means "Period Instruments", and contrary to what its name seems to imply, it is a German group, based in Frankfurt on the Main) plays with pungent colors - but there isn't quite the explosiveness and glee of Haendel. There is also a stateliness in the Bassoon Concerto and Clarino Concerto that likens them to the courtly music composed for the kings of France rather than to the exuberance of Vivaldi or Heinichen - whether it is due to the composition itself or the interpretation, I don't know, but the first movement of the Bassoon Concerto is a "moderato" rather than the typical allegro, and at 9:40 it does seem a little too long. The flute Concerto is sweet and pastoral, as befits the instrument, without the voluble virtuosity that Vivaldi brought to his own Concertos for the instrument. But the music is always colorful and enjoyable, the finales lively and exciting.

Very informative liner notes, TT 54 minutes. There is another entry for the same disc, [[ASIN:B00006HCTG Wind Concertos]], and for a later reissue, [[ASIN:B000F0H4QI Christopher Graupner: Ritratti a Colori / Bläzerkonzerte]]. I've also reviewed another fine CD of music of Graupner, [[ASIN:B00000IXJ6 Two Overtures / Cantata]].


title: in memoriam Adda

text:
I'm not a cognoscento of Italian Renaissance music in general and Gabrieli in particular, and thus can't give an informed opinion on the value of ths interpretation by the French vocal ensemble A Sei Voci and the Sacqueboutiers de Toulouse, and am happy to rely on the favorable notices it got from various French magazines upon its original release here, on the label Adda, in 1991 (the recital was recorded in July 1990 at the Abbey of Saint-Michel en Thiérarche in France, see the uploaded photos for the track listing).

In fact, it is an interest for the label that led me to buy the original CD, for which I found a cheap offer. Adda was one of those entreprising independant labels (it was also a distributor) that rose carried by the wave of and craze for the nascent CD, but it probably grew too fast and didn't survive. It operated from 1988 to 1993, and in the course of those five years it released a huge catalog, with no great coherence or strong identity that I can perceive, but with lots of gems, too numerous to list here. A number have been reissued by other labels, but far from all. This one can be found (grotesquely expensive at the time of writing) on Musidisc, [[ASIN:B000065VYF Gabrieli: Sacrae Symphoniae]]

I don't know how much of the original liner notes the Musidisc reissue reproduces, and for amateurs of Gabrieli, and/or of A Sei Voci, and/or of Sacqueboutiers de Toulouse, it may be worth hunting down the original issue: label number 242292, barcode 3229262422925. The liner notes were informative enough (and came with an English translation), the texts of the choral pieces were provided (with French translation only), the complete personel of A Sei Voci (six voices, but ten singers) and Sacquboutiers de Toulouse was listed. The recital alternates between choral pieces (some a cappella, like track 6 "Sancta Maria succurre miseria" and 7 "O quam suavis", most with brass accompaniment, sometimes organ and brass, and even brass, organ and two viols in track 15), canzons played by brass (track 4, 10, 12, 17) or organ (tracks 9, 14, 16), and a mighty toccata for organ (track 5). Yasuko Uyama Bouvard is the organ player, and the instrument is the historical organ of Jean Boizard (1714) from the Abbey of Saint-Michel en Thiérache. Last thing you need to know: TT 66:35.


title: For Mankell, go directly to the end of the review; the rest is about the Vanguard classical catalog

text:
I had no idea who was this "Mankell" (as he appears on the disc's cover) when I bought this disc, or Henning Mankel as the entry's listing calls him. I was in fact researching the label, Vanguard, one dear to the hearts of music lovers and audiophiles, set up in 1950s by brothers Seymour and Maynard Solomon in New York (they were aged then 26 and 19), with The Bach Guild as a subsidiary label for music before 1750 and later Everyman a pioneer in budget series (in fact the Bach Guild was established first, but the Solomons soon realized they couldn't limit themselves to the baroque repertoire and thus founded Vanguard). The company produced countless recordings that became much prized by the collectors, even more perhaps in the CD era than the LP days, when the wonderful remastering job made with loving care by Seymour Solomon revealed how stupendous their stereo sonics were. With recording studios in New York and Vienna (and many recordings with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra), they staffed a great roster of performers including Alfred Deller, Gustav Leonhardt, Johannes Somary in Haendel and Charles Mackerras in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice with Maureen Forrester and Teresa Stich-Randall, Newell Jenkins in rare early 19th Century choral music or operas (Cherubini, Mayr, Rosssini, Kraus), Alfred Brendel (in Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt), Earl Wild (and not just in virtuoso showpieces, but also in Brahms and in the Piano Concertos of Copland and Menotti), Jeanne-Marie Darré (in Chopin and Liszt), Bruce Hungerford (in Beethoven), Lilly Kraus (in Schubert and Bartok), Leon Fleisher in Ravel's Left-hand Concerto, Sergiu Comissiona, Maurice Abravanel and his Utah Symphony Orchestra (fondly remembered not just for their cycles of Mahler, Sibelius and Brahms, but also rarer and daring repertoire including Milhaud's L'Homme et son désir and his great cantata Pacem in Terris, Varèse's Amériques, Nocturnal and Ecuatorial, Honegger's Judith, King David and Pacific 231, music of Ernest Bloch), Stokowski in a few recordings including Bloch's America and an invaluable Soldier's Tale of Stravinsky narrated both in French AND English by the team gathered around Madeleine Milhaud (Darius' wife), Vladimir Golschmann untipically featured in the music of Roy Harris, Samuel Barber and Ernest Bloch again as well as in repertoire Symphonies and Concertos with Mischa Elman and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Adrian Boult in the symphonies of Beethoven, Felix Prohashka's incomparable Des Knaben Wunderhorn of Mahler with Heinz Rehfuss and Maureen Forrester, Antonio Janigro in both his capacities as cellist and conductor of his Solisti di Zagreb, Willi Boskovsky, Alexander Schneider in a famed chamber music series, often partnered by a very young pianist called Peter Serkin, Netania Davrath with her legendary Canteloube, the also-legendary Bartok-Szigeti Library of Congress 1940 recital and Szigeti's late Bach, Beethoven Sonatas with Arrau and Mozart Sonatas with Horszowski and Szell, Horszowski's Well-Tempered Clavier, not to forget one of Vanguard's best sellers, the Queen's Birthday Salute with the Royal Artillery recorded in Hyde Park.

And Joan Baez in folk music.

Lots of name-dropping here, only meant as a primer (or reminder) for those interested in the Vanguard catalog, a label that was as important as Westminster, Vox and Everest in their best days (the early ones), and as Mercury. But what goes up must come down. In 1985 the Vanguard catalog was sold to the Welk Music Group, which was interested only in the pop and folk music part of it, and in 1990 Seymour Solomon, through his company Omega Classics (also responsible for the prized CD reissues of the Everest catalog) was able to repurchase the Vanguard classical catalog and continue his CD reissues, in cooperation with a Dutch company called Arcade Entertainment Holdings and later Arcade Music Company, which was assigned the distribution rights in Europe.

But Arcade didn't only distribute in Europe the CD reissues of the original Vanguard catalog, they also produced their own, marketed under the Vanguard Classics label. It seemed very dubious to me, to let an independent company freely use and possibly squander the great reputation of a brand name like Vanguard. That was before chancing online on the Billboard magazine of 7 December 1996 (which also helped me reconstruct the obscure points of the Solomon-Arcade arrangements) : "Dispute. The Omega Record Group, which is remastering the Vanguard Classics catalog for CD, has charged its European affiliate, Arcade Music Group, with breaching the terms of its contract. In 1990, Arcade, a Netherlands-based company, purchased the rights in a portion of the Vanguard catalog for remastering on CD and distributing in Europe under the name Vanguard Classics. In an Oct. 21 complaint filed with the American Arbitration Assn, Omega charges that Arcade is marketing its own recordings of inferior new material under the name Vanguard Classics and that Arcade has been incorporating Vanguard material in new compilations without permission. Omega also charges that when Arcade and Omega (formerly Seymour Solomon Productions) jointly purchased the rights to the Vanguard catalog from its owner the Welk Group, each party agreed to give the other right of first refusal should it decide to sell. However, Arcade, with the Vanguard assets, was sold to the Dutch publishing company Wegener without offering Omega right of first refusal."

So I wasn't the only one to think it dubious. I haven't found info about the results of the arbitration. In the summer of 2002 Seymour Solomon died at age 80, and a year later the Vanguard catalog was sold to Artemis Records, "which [re:Wikipedia] reactivated the company with new releases by Leon Fleisher and Gil Shaham. When Artemis folded in 2004, the Vanguard Classics catalogue was sold to Sheridan Square Entertainment, which is licensing the Vanguard Classics material with no apparent plans to relaunch or reactivate the label". My sources in reconstructing the history of Vanguard have been the Billboard magazine of 19 Nov. 1966, which can be consulted online and has a large section devoted to Vanguard Records, various obituaries of Seymour Solomon archived online, and the above-mentioned short note in the December 1996 Billboard.

But to be honest, not all the "Vanguard" productions of Arcade-Netherlands (which come under the label number 99xxx) were of "inferior material". Before I cared or even was aware of the difference between the original Vanguard and the usurping Dutch-Vanguard I had some of their releases in my collection, some of the earliest recordings of Nicolai Lugansky in Rachmaninoff and Schumann, fine collections of baroque music by Paul Dombrecht and his period-instrument ensemble Il Fondamento, Zemlinsky's Seejungfrau by Stephan Kaszpryk, and, among a lot that seems to me indeed of very limited interest, "from the Dutch for the Dutch" (but hey, period flautist Jed Wentz, a mainstay of Dutch Vanguard, who you'd thought was the new Frans Brüggen produced by the Netherlands, is in fact American), there are some more that seem very attractive, like the Bach Saint John, Saint Matthew and Christmas Oratorio conducted by the great Swedish choral director Eric Ericson and a few others. For three cases of Dutch-Vanguard releases that were definitely NOT of "inferior material", see my glowing reviews of [[ASIN:B00002513J Kagel: Piano Trio / Widmer: The Last Flower Op. 60]] and [[ASIN:B00005Q6FY French Baroque Music]] (played on the accordion by Mie Miki). Still, arguably, even the attractive stuff had little in common with the kind of repertoire and artists that shaped the identity of American Vanguard.

And now I can complete the circle of my long Vanguard story. This CD of "Mankell" is one of those Dutch-Vanguard releases, 99046, I found it cheap (along with the Kagel/Widmer CD just referred to, and the wind music of Richard Strauss, [[ASIN:B00002546P Richard Strauss - Music for Wind Instruments - Octophoros]]), I thought I'd give it a try, without even knowing what to expect. My guess was that it was a 19th century composer, something like a Niels Gade of unspecified citizenship.

Turns out Hening Mankell was Swedish, and though the booklet and liner notes by pianist Olov Olofsson turn out the remarkable feat of never once giving his dates (and this is not Bach or Beethoven after all), just mentioning that he graduated in 1889 and 1891, that he was in his early forties when he stared composing seriously and that the Suite op. 16 dates from 1912, a check on Wikipedia, unlimited source of universal knowledge, indicates that he lived between 1860 and 1930, which makes him a near-contemporary of the Dane Carl Nielsen (1865-1931), and that he was mainly a composer of piano music. For those interested in these things, Mankell is also the grand father of his namesake, the Henning Mankell who is the author of noted mystery novels starring inspector Kurt Wallander, portrayed on the BBC by Kenneth Branagh.

How does the music sound, then? A little bit of Rachmaninoff (very much so in the first movement of the early Suite op. 16 from 1912), a mixture of Rachmaninoff and Fauré in the Fantasy-Sonata No. 6 (track 12), a bit of Satie (the bittersweet terseness of textures in some of the pieces, like the Suite's second, third and fourth movements, "Air", "Menuet" and "Saraband", or Valse-mesto, track 7, which often sounds like a Gymnopédie) and the impressionism of Debussy (as in moments of track 9, Evening mood, or 11 "Gentle Swell"). The Finale of the Suite, "Bourrée", track 5, recalled the perly clarity of Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin. There is something neo-classical in the whimsicality and bittersweet harmonies of Impromptu fantastico (track 6), maybe it is Dukas or Florent Schmitt that come to mind here. Barkarole, track 8, sounds to my ears like something of a mixture of Gershwin and Rachmaninoff. The mixture of whimsicality and bitter-sweetness also brings to mind the late Piano Sonatas of Prokofiev (track 10, "Storm Picture").

All those comparisons are meant to give an idea to the potential purchaser of what the music sounds like, but they also leave something aside, that is neither of Rachmaninoff, Satie, Debussy, Ravel or Gerswhin, and so must be proper to Henning, the bittersweet bent in the harmonies that makes the music sound like it would have been improvised in the middle of an insomniac night. Well, I am now going to brace for the flak from the Mankell afficionados (there must be a few, since there is a few of everything and anything in this vast online world). The music is pleasant and not disturbing, but I don't find that Mankell, as featured here, has a very interesting and personal voice. Hard to tell for sure without score or discographic comparisons, but Olov Olofsson didn't give me either the impression of being a very proficient and digitally fluid pianist. Now I'll forget Mankell and return to the very personal and always interesting voice of Nielsen.

TT 73, no compaint here against Arcade Music.