THE FORMATIVE YEARS PIONEERING SOUND RECORDINGS FROM THE 1930s SIR THOMAS BEECHAM conductor LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
THE FORMATIVE YEARS PIONEERING SOUND RECORDINGS FROM THE 1930s Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961) was a lifelong champion of the music of Mozart: it is perhaps a strange thought that Mozart, so universally acclaimed today, ever needed championing, but the fact is that when Beecham began conducting in the early years of the last century, Mozart’s music was hardly known in the UK. With the single-mindedness for which he was renowned, the conductor set out to change this perspective, giving performances that bore out his claim that the two virtues necessary for a successful presentation of the music were ‘the maximum of virility, coupled with the maximum of delicacy’. Nowhere did he combine these two elements more effectively than in his approach to Mozart’s symphonies, where his bold, masculine phrasing, sense of line and fastidious attention to detail virtually created a new style. During the 1930s Beecham began to make his readings of the symphonies, already acclaimed in the concert hall, available to a wider audience on gramophone recordings. The conditions were right: from 1932 onwards he had a superb ensemble of his own creation, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with hand-picked players in all the key positions, and in Columbia Records’ Joe Batten and (later) Walter Legge, he had producers who
were thoroughly in sympathy with his aims and intentions. Between 1934 and 1940, nine of Mozart’s symphonies (Nos.29, 31, 34-36 and 38-41) recorded by Beecham with the Orchestra came to be regarded as touchstones of excellence. Their recording of Mozart’s Symphony No.41 was both the first to be recorded and among the last to leave the 78rpm catalogue when 78s were superseded by the 33rpm long-playing record. Newer versions by other conductors intended to replace it, opined ‘The Record Guide’ in 1950, ‘cannot altogether erase memories of the wonderful Beecham version which has held the field for some eighteen years’. When this Jupiter Symphony recording appeared in 1934 the London Philharmonic Orchestra was just over a year old and in the first flush of its immense success. As the work had been played at concerts beforehand the Orchestra was thoroughly familiar with Beecham’s conception, and its recording was achieved in one day. In addition to Joe Batten and his team, whose responsibility was to manage the recording for commercial issue, additional interest was added by the presence of a second group of technicians under the supervision of the brilliant young Alan Blumlein (1903-42), who simultaneously took down portions of the first two movements
experimentally in binaural (or stereophonic) sound. Blumlein, who had developed for EMI the moving-coil cutter and microphone that was in use right to the end of the 78rpm era, had long been fascinated by the possibilities of stereophonic sound. By 1933 he had registered a patent that contained all the principles still in use today and was already demonstrating on disc the sounds of people walking around a room (heard here on track 15). The London Philharmonic Orchestra sessions for the Jupiter Symphony gave him the chance to experiment with a full orchestra. This is the first time that the results of Blumlein’s work have been heard in full. A comparison with Batten’s commercial recording (tracks 7–10) reveals a quite different aural perspective, with woodwind and brass placed well back and the string sections prominent. There is occasional evidence of the sound spectrum being ‘spread’ to left and right but the main difference is in the internal balance of the string sections, which in some passages is quite marked. Aural variation is evident: clearly Blumlein and his men were experimenting throughout the session with different microphone placings. Beecham himself was mostly indifferent to technical advances: even in the 1950s when
stereophonic sound became a commercial reality he was still inclined to be dismissive of it, humorously mis-pronouncing it ‘stereocomic’ or ‘streptocophic’. Yet by a curious coincidence, it was Beecham’s conducting of another Mozart symphony, No.39, that became the focus of a second new technical development when, in 1936, portions of it were recorded on tape. This came about while he and the London Philharmonic Orchestra were undertaking an 8-concert tour of Germany that year. Besides the major cities visited, one concert was given at the headquarters of the BASF Chemical Company in Ludwigshafenam-Rhein, where Beecham was given a demonstration of a new tape process that the Company had developed for use with the ‘Magnetophon’ tape-recorder made by the AEG Company. Earlier attempts to record on tape had been, for one reason or another, unproductive, but when a process using paper tape coated with iron-oxide was devised, AEG invited BASF to develop it. BASF successfully produced an acetyl cellulose base with an ironoxide coating that had been unveiled for the first time at the 1935 Berlin Radio Show. Possibly out of politeness to his German hosts Beecham agreed to his concert being recorded by the new process, and the results can be heard on this disc. It was perhaps something
Cuckoo in Spring. A portion of the Symphony’s first movement from the concert has also been included. To make Beecham’s inimitable Delius performance viable, the original opening that was missing has been edited in from a recording he made of the piece a few years before: fortunately the unmistakable sound and artistry of the oboist Léon Goossens is common to both performances. Lyndon Jenkins 2009
Photo: Beecham and the London Philharmonic Orchestra perform at Ludwigshafen, 1936.
Photo courtesy of Friedrich Engel, lately of BASF.
of a hit-and-miss affair as far as the German engineers were concerned, and certainly the recording equipment was barely able to cope with the unfettered decibels that Sir Thomas unleashed at the concert (the occasion is captured on the CD’s cover); but they managed to take down complete the Andante con moto and Menuetto & Trio from Mozart’s Symphony No.39 and two excerpts from RimskyKorsakov’s The Golden Cockerel, as well as the greater part of Delius’s On Hearing the First
AEG equipment used to make the recordings on tracks 1-6.
Highlights from the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s label
London Philharmonic Orchestra
© Richard Cannon
The London Philharmonic Orchestra is known as one of the world’s great orchestras with a reputation secured by its performances in the concert hall and opera house, its many award-winning recordings, its trail-blazing international tours and its pioneering education work. Distinguished conductors who have held positions with the Orchestra since its foundation in 1932 by Sir Thomas Beecham include Sir Adrian Boult, Sir John Pritchard, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti, Klaus Tennstedt, Franz Welser-Möst and Kurt Masur. Vladimir Jurowski was appointed the Orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor in March 2003 and became Principal Conductor in September 2007, succeeding Kurt Masur. The London Philharmonic Orchestra has been resident symphony orchestra at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall since 1992 and there it presents its main series of concerts
between September and May each year. In summer, the Orchestra moves to Sussex where it has been Resident at Glyndebourne Festival Opera for over 40 years. The Orchestra also performs at venues around the UK and has made numerous tours to America, Europe and Japan, and visited India, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, Australia, South Africa and Abu Dhabi. The London Philharmonic Orchestra made its first recording on 10 October 1932, just three days after its first public performance. It has recorded and broadcast regularly ever since, and in 2005 established its own record label. These CDs are unique: amongst them are archive, studio and live concert recordings including world-première performances. These are also available as high quality downloads. Visit: www.lpo.org.uk
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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756–1791) Symphony No.39 in E flat major K.543 (incomplete)
01 03:00 02 08:33 03 04:28 04 06:43
I. Adagio–Allegro (excerpt) II. Andante con moto III. Menuetto (Allegretto) & Trio FREDERICK DELIUS (1862–1934) On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (1844–1908) Suite from ‘The Golden Cockerel’
05 06
I. Introduction IV. March
04:45 03:53
27:03
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756–1791) Symphony No.41 in C major K.551 (Jupiter)
07 08 09 10
I. Allegro vivace II. Andante cantabile III. Menuetto (Allegretto) & Trio IV. Finale (Molto allegro)
08:11 08:16 04:27 06:07
Matrix numbers CAX 7050-2, 7051-1, 7053-2, 7052-3, 7054-3, 7055-2 &7056-2. Issued on Columbia LX 282-285
Symphony No.41 in C major K.551 (Jupiter) – Alan Blumlein stereo tests
11 12 13 14
I. Bars 3–132 I. Bars 161–end II. Beginning to bar 38 II. Bars 48–87
03:23 03:58 03:20 03:16
15
02:56
Matrix numbers EMI Test 5771 subs 1, 2, 3 & 8
BINAURAL/STEREO TEST BY ALAN BLUMLEIN ‘Walking, Talking’
SIR THOMAS BEECHAM conductor LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA David McCallum leader (1-6) Paul Beard leader (7-14)
LPO – 0040