IN THIS ISSUE NEWRELEASES RELEASES NEW
and Exploring Music: a few (choice) words about each of our new releases.
CAROLS FOR BRASS - OUR MAIN SELECTION...............................page 6 EXPLORING MUSIC: WHAT’S ALL THIS XMAS RUCKUS? by David White (4 MIN READ)
RITA FORD’S JOYOUS MUSIC BOX CHRISTMAS...........................page 8 EXPLORING MUSIC: MUSIC BOXES - TINKLING AND TWINKLING by David White (3 MIN READ)
AMERICA’S FAVORITE HYMNS - The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Ambrosian Singers..............................................page 12 EXPLORING MUSIC: THANKSGIVING IS NOT A MUSICAL HOLIDAY by David White (2 MIN READ)
SIBELIUS & TCHAIKOVSKY: VIOLIN CONCERTOS - Vadim Brodsky, Polish National Radio Symphony................................................page 16 EXPLORING MUSIC: THE FINNISH MASTER by Frank Cooper (3 MIN READ)
PETER SERKIN: A PORTRAIT.............................................................page 18 PLEASE REPEAT THAT. by David White (3 MIN READ)
BEETHOVEN: THE LATE STRING QUARTETS - The Yale String Quartet.................................................................................................page 28 EXPLORING MUSIC: MUST IT BE? by David White (4 MIN READ)
We get letters - well, we got letters. We go back into our vaults and find old letters to prove that even before the internet and social media, people still got upset about things. In this issue, we find someone who thinks technology might just take over (in 1987) and we have a recent letter from July 2023!......page 24 Look for this box on every page to return easily to the Table of Contents
IN THE streaming SPOTLIGHT
G IN AM RE ST
IN THIS ISSUE
Many Musical & Jazz Heritage Society recordings are available at your favorite streaming services. Here's a few worthwhile recent releases. We've got links to help you find it instantly! We’ve revived classic essays and interviews from our past issues of the Review to celebrate their release many of these releases are now available to our members for the first time since they were issued! ...stream our releases at these services and many more services around the world
We reprint Maurice Peress’s detailed essay about Paul Whiteman’s Aeloian Hall Concerto - where, he writes as a historian about the night that Rhapsody in Blue was born.
The sun is hazy, it’s humid, and the grass needs to be mowed. For the Review’s David M. Greene, that can mean only one thing: it’s time to think about Christmas music. We present his essay about “On Christmas Day” with the American Boychoir, and excerpts from some of his memorable Christmas essays.
The little Christmas jazz record that could. Created over 30 years ago, this collection of studio “afterthoughts” deserves some recognition. Chances are you wouldn’t be reading this, if it weren’t for 2 minutes of music.
IN THIS ISSUE NOW ON SALE In these sections, our vault doors are open and you'll find many long out of print recordings next to favorites. All titles are downloadable with sound samples and liner notes!
Lots of music for the holiday season! Ready for any holiday occasion whether sacred or secular - downloadable in minutes!
Linked with our feature on the historic performance of the Beethoven string quartets by the Yale String Quartet, we dig into our vaults and uncover hours of previously unavailable recordings!
Peter Serkin, Vadim Brodsky - we aren’t stopping there. Our “Virtuoso” series makes a return, and we mine the catalog for performances by great musicians from our Musical Heritage roster.
Oh, who doesn’t love an orchestra showing off - hundreds of performers, lots of pianissimos eventually rising to a maximum fortissimos. This collection features music from Beethoven to Debussy.
ESSAY Mozart And His Works
Belgian musicologist Harry Halbreich focuses on 1788, a key year in Mozart’s life. (4 MIN READ)
The Musical Heritage Review
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EXPLORING MUSIC
by David White
WHAT’S WITH ALL THIS XMAS RUCKUS? 3 MIN READ
In preparing The Review for this month, we inevitably have discussions about Christmas music when we’re wearing shorts, eating dinner outside, and complaining about the mosquitos. (For the inimitable David M. Greene’s thoughts about holiday music and writing about holiday music, we’ve included some of his more memorable complaints essays in this Review.)
The easy answer is to blame the secularization of Christmas. Christmas morning is now no longer associated with an early church service of your choosing, in fact, many articles appeared last Christmas season about how churches are having difficulty staffing for Christmas services, because, let’s face it, two words: Christmas pajamas…enough said, right?
Our Christmas selections are rather traditional, we offer choirs singing the entire range of Christmas vocal music, from the Renaissance to Rutter. We do lack a large pops orchestra recital of Christmas music in this year’s Review selections. There is one that qualifies, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, but we discovered it too late to include it in this year’s Review. The process of reviving the enormous catalog of MHS is painstaking and quite like looking for shells on the beach. If you’re looking for shells, you’re bound to find them. If you’re looking for something quite specific, that’s going to take some time.
My Christmas memories include my father’s memorization of a speech from the original TV animated version of “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” when the Grinch (who lived just north of Whoville) bleats out his own laundry list of the noisemakers involved with Christmas morning in Whoville. I don’t have it at the tip of my tongue any more, but it included such Suessisms as pantookas and wuzzles. Therein, noise and Christmas are intertwined, right? So unless you want to go back to a quieter time, you’ll just have to deal.
See – we did it again – while writing about Christmas music, we return to summer imagery…perhaps our readers in Australia or anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere can relate.
Perhaps a bit crabby, like summer grass can get (sorry, did it again, but this time on purpose) this writer undertook his assignment full on. And with the chance to write about the first complete reissue of the complete Carols for Brass, recorded for Musical Heritage Society over 30 years ago, my mind was ready and filled with questions and pithy comments, ready to entertain and educate you, our fine readers. Armed with caffeine, I set out to throw down the gauntlet: why the heck do we celebrate Christmas in a musical fashion with SO MUCH DARN BRASS MUSIC? To take a holiday about peace, joy, and an infant and somehow throw in a brass ensemble to establish a signature sound, it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. In the spirit of DM Greene, what about all of this Christmas celebration really makes sense if you probe one millimeter below the surface.
Well, about those quieter times…Richard Price’s fine notes for this collection (a combination of the two essays he wrote for each volume) inform us that the practice of loud music at Christmas goes back to the ramparts of the medieval castle. Musicians would trumpet (literally) the happy day with horns and other loud instrument-type things so there would be no mistaking this was a holiday and a celebration. And composers began to incorporate these happenings into their own church-based commemorations of the Nativity (post-Nativity, really), and thus, a musical tradition was born, and lots of tuba players have a reason to live. (Although in these fine notes, you’ll discover some very grumpy people in the time of Oliver Cromwell decided that Christmas was just something that was better off banned. I’ve had moments like that too.) And so, as you donated to the Salvation Army, or walk along a city street, with other celebrators, you can escape from the endless noise by participating in the holiday tradition of having your ears blown out by brass instruments. Better still – just say “Alexa, turn down the volume.”
The Musical Heritage Review MAIN SELECTION A beautiful collection of works for the Christmas season, arranged for brass ensemble. Carols, hymns, sacred works it covers 400 years of music written for Christmas. 37 carols and hymns arranged for brass ensemble, including:
CAROLS FOR BRASS Volumes 1 & 2 THE GALLIARD BRASS ENSEMBLE NON-MEMBERS PRICE: $29.99
MEMBERS PRICE:
$14.99
OUR REVIEW I’m tempted to recommend this collection simply for the exceptional liner notes. They are concise, highly informative and a real help to enjoying the music presented. But we give away the liner notes on our site. Match those liner notes with tastefully performed collection that will go quite a ways in changing your mind if you think there’s nothing new about Christmas music for brass ensemble. -DW
Angels We Have Heard On High Good King Wenceslas Greensleeves I Saw Three Ships/ O Tannenbaum Silent Night Sing We Now Of Christmas O Come, O Come, Emmanuel Carol Of The Bells We Three Kings Away In A Manger God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/ We Wish You A Merry Christmas Coventry Carol Gloucestershire Wassail Joy To The World and many more!
EXPLORING MUSIC by David White MUSIC BOXES: TINKLING AND TWINKLING 3 MIN READ
I’m torn as to what to explore in this Exploring Music. Certainly, the music included here is, at very least, a heavily hiked pathway. That is not to be held too much against this or any Christmas music compilation – familiarity is the pathway to success when offering Christmas music. The roads are littered, and warehouses used to be overly filled with CDs, cassettes and LPs of Christmas recordings believed to include “the next great Christmas song”, because we all can’t stand listening to the same old Christmas music every year, now, can we? And yet, when it gets to the Christmas music listening season (which seems to start in March), we grasp for the comfortable. We’d rather hear a bad Silent Night than a well-crafted original song. I once had the ability to peek at Amazon’s Best Selling/Streaming Songs for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day a few years ago (it was in this decade) and found that only one song in the Top 25 had been recorded in this millennium. Only two songs were less than 25 years old, and the vast majority were from a “sweet spot” between 1955 and 1970. (This also served to remind me that Bing Crosby’s recording of White Christmas is over eight decades old. And yes, it was on the list.)
So, Rita Ford…these recordings, when issued by MHS in the mid-1980s, became instant best-sellers, second only to Paillard’s recording of the Pachelbel Canon. Without fail, these recordings check off a few boxes required for Christmas listening. It’s nostalgic and sentimental, to be certain – there’s an instant reaction (see my essay in this collection about brass music at Christmas) – the tinkle and the twinkle that is unmistakably associated with a sugarcoated Christmas moment. These are musical Hallmark cards, like the ones that you got for Grandma with about a pound of glittery snow on the outside, with a Currier and Ives look on the front.
And it becomes part of our Christmas celebrations, based on the memories we make over the years. And I can’t help but find a metaphor in this music, and the memories it enforces, or possibly even creates, when you include Rita Ford’s own story. At first her hobby, then out of necessity, her love of music boxes became a commercial enterprise. She began to work out of her New York location, and became perhaps the world’s leading expert on the mechanical music box, creating them for dignitaries, restoring historic boxes and for theater and movies. As you listen to these Christmas favorites – heavy on the German Christmas tradition – you hear the familiar that we seek, of course. The music is distinctive, and memorable (some might say not always in a positive fashion). But you begin to envision the machine making the music, the mechanisms, the design, the workmanship. You don’t envision Perlman’s violin when you hear his recordings, but this is like listening to a vocalist. You find a picture in your mind’s eye, and you come away with a short movie, a holiday mental YouTube clip, of a highly crafted tiny machine, sending forth an indelible musical moment. Picture the metallic tines, honed by hand to the precise key, a small soundless motor, and the outer decoration, in ivory, or wood, with perhaps a jewel encased. (Our liner notes add details about the history of the music box, and its nearly five hundred year history, and it’s worth a read.) Sweet, sentimental, unmistakably “Christmassy”. (Rita Ford’s music box store is still open (online only), at www.ritafordmusicboxes.com. The boxes shown here are from her collection.
! W NE
The Musical Heritage Review NEW RELEASE
The first complete release of both volumes of one of Musical Heritage Society’s best selling recordings. Inimitable. A true essential Christmas sound.
RITA FORD’S JOYOUS MUSIC BOX CHRISTMAS NON-MEMBERS PRICE: $9.99
MEMBERS PRICE:
$4.99
OUR REVIEW Christmas time is a great time to indulge in something sweet, like this album. This release is a great additional to the soundtrack to any Christmas get together. And the boxes are masterpieces of craftsmanship, and fine orchestras unto themselves. --DW
1 Adeste, Fideles 2 Good King Wenceslas 3 Monastery Bells 4 Jesus Lover of My Soul 5 Song of the Virgin Mary 6 Parade of the Wooden Soldiers 7 Sweet Spirit Heavenly Prayer 8 Oh, Holy Night 9 See the Conquering Hero 10 On the Christmas Tree 11 Last Hour of the Year 12 Auld Lang Syne 13 The Lost Chord 14 Holy City 15 O Sanctissima 16 Verlassen, Verlassen (Forgiven, Forgiven) 17 Star of Bethlehem 18 Old Hundred 19 O Tannenbaum 20 Messiah, HWV 56: Hallelujah!
Musical Heritage Review
CHRISTMAS WITH THE HARVARD GLEE CLUB
AMERICAN COLONIAL CHRISTMAS MUSIC Berkeley Chamber Choir Alden Gilchrist, director
TCHAIKOVSKY: THE NUTCRACKER Utah Symphony Orchestra Maurice ABRAVANEL, conductor
THE HOLLY AND THE IVY Old English Christmas Carols Alfred DELLER, The Deller Consort
A PASTORAL CHRISTMAS The New York Harp Ensemble Astrid von Wurstler, director
CHRISTMAS EVE AT THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE
Musical Heritage Review
SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS, Volume 1
SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS, Volume 2
A collection of holiday favorites vocal, choral and instrumental
A collection of holiday favorites vocal, choral and instrumental
AN 18TH CENTURY CHRISTMAS Music for the Christmas season by Bach, Angerer, Torelli and Corelli I SOLISTI DI ZAGREB Antonio Janigro
A CHORAL CHRISTMAS VOL. 1
CHRISTMAS IN THE NEW WORLD Holiday music from North American traditions
The Western Wind
A CHORAL CHRISTMAS VOL. 2
Choral, organ and brass classics from around the world
Choral, organ and brass classics from around the world
COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY CHAMBER CHOIR, BRASS CHOIR & ORGAN
COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY CHAMBER CHOIR, BRASS CHOIR & ORGAN
EXPLORING MUSIC
by David White
THANKSGIVING IS NOT A MUSICAL HOLIDAY 3 MIN READ
Thanksgiving might be my favorite holiday season. It’s one day long. Thanksgiving. That’s it. No wild build up, no house decorating, no outdoor decorations, no shopping rush. Perfect. It’s what a holiday was meant to be – a single day, a day off, to remind of something. Like the saints days in times of old, you got the day off, you could celebrate almost however you like, and then it’s back to work again tomorrow. I have to gripe about something, so my Thanksgiving gripe is that I get dogmatic about holidays – not in terms of dogma, but I think most good holidays (I’ll explain my thoughts on good holidays in other columns) have a unbreakable heart at the center. You can pile on around it, you can chip away directly at it, but time has proven that a good holiday has a good heart, and despite attempts to gnaw away at it, or overwhelm it with manure of all kinds, you still like the holiday. And Thanksgiving is one great reason to have a holiday.
Oh dear…I’ve drifted off the path a bit. About America’s Favorite Hymns. We placed this recording in the Review thinking that the Review would come out just before Thanksgiving, and a few hymns would be a nice way to celebrate. We had some delays and we’re still offering America’s Favorite Hymns because it’s still a nice recording to listen to. But my original review was all about how Thanksgiving’s hijacking has made it a holiday where you can define it however you’d like and despite the idea that giving thanks and expressing gratitude is a great “heart” for a holiday, we’ve moved away from that.
OUS M A F VING I G S K THAN S SONG
The states of this great country used to designate certain days every year as days of Thanksgiving. You were given the day off to reflect on and place gratitude at the center of your life. What a concept! Abraham Lincoln was grateful for the successes of the Union Army and the progress of the war in 1864 (and possibly his own reelection) so he declared the first national day of Thanksgiving – the last Thursday in November.
FDR started the ball rolling in the wrong direction when he moved Thanksgiving up a week so that folks would start their Christmas shopping a week earlier…and he sent the signal that Thanksgiving’s real purpose was a day of rest before things got really crazy.
So I think we ought to start to help out Thanksgiving – it needs music. For all my years in retail (over 40) I’ve offered many recordings with Thanksgiving themes. And none ever budged. Thanksgiving, for all its good intentions is NOT a musical holiday. The stories/mythology about Pilgrims, well, that lot got out of England and didn’t exactly bring a happy celebratory music tradition with them. And we’ve taken just about everything else from the native Americans but we left them their music, and I don’t see that moving to the mainstream. Well, I’m giving up already. But, when I examine my Thanksgiving heart, I think some of these great old songs and hymns do a pretty good job of expressing some thoughts better than I can.
! W NE
The Musical Heritage Review NEW RELEASE AN
EXCLUSIVE
Paul Freeman and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, with the London Ambrosian Singers
NON-MEMBERS PRICE: $9.99
MEMBERS PRICE:
$4.99
OUR REVIEW This mainly orchestral collection of the “greatest hits” of the American hymnal is really a starter kit, and the Royal Philharmonic gives these stirring hymns a lush treatment. -DW
1 Praise God, From Whom All Blessings Flow (Doxology) 2 Amazing Grace 3 Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me 4 Onward Christian Soldiers 5 Messiah, HWV 56: Hallelujah! 6 A Mighty Fortress Is Our God 7 Abide with Me 8 America The Beautiful 9 Nearer My God To Thee 10 Battle Hymn of the Republic
MOZART AND HIS WORKS BY HARRY HALBREICH 4 MIN READ
Mozart's Paris stay in 1778 was not a happy time for him...
...not only did he lose his mother, but his efforts to set foot in the professional world were doomed to failure. He was 22 years old, no longer a child prodigy, and therefore of no further interest to the worldly and superficial Parisian public. Besides he was completely lacking in any sense of self advancement and intrigue, without which success was impossible in the French capital. He let himself be ruthlessly exploited, his commissions and even his lessons were often unpaid, and certain of his works written for Paris were not even performed. He let himself be beguiled into writing some ballet music for the greatest choreographer of the time, Noverre, who boasted of using his influence with the Director of the Opera in order to obtain for Mozart a commission for a stage work. Nothing came of the project of course, Mozart received no fee, and his name wasn't even mentioned during the performances! The ballet Les petits riens was given as an interlude in Piccinni's opera Le finte gemelle, and the premiere took place on June 11, 1778. Mozart did not breathe a word about it to his
father in his correspondence, probably in order to avoid having to confess that he had once again worked for no fee. The ballet was a success and was performed several times. The score (an Overture and 13 pieces) was discovered in the Paris Opera library only at the end of the last century. In it the composer has completely adapted himself to the French taste, but his personality remains easily recognizable, some details even heralding the future, like the premonition of Tamino's flute in no. 9. This graceful score is particularly popular in France.
After the triumph of Don Giovanni in Prague, Mozart returned to Vienna in the middle of November 1787, at the time of Gluck's death. Three weeks later, on December 7, Emperor Joseph II conferred upon him the title of "Imperial and Royal Chamber Composer," which Gluck had assumed, but with an annual salary of 800 florins instead of 2,000. "Too much for the services I give and too little for what I am capable of giving," he wrote bitterly on a receipt! For he was not asked for operas or religious music, even less for symphonies, concerti, or chamber music, but merely to supply dance music during Carnival time for the court balls given at the Hall of Redoubts. Thus over 100 dances were
written between January 1788 and March 1791: 36 Minuets, 43 German Dances, 20 Contredanses, and 6 Landler, (more than half of his output in that field). Just as with Haydn's slightly later similar pieces, these Dances are far above the usual level for such occasional works. The Six German Dances, K. 571 of February 21, 1789 are of great orchestral splendor. They form a small unified cycle of truly symphonic spirit, and do not end in a joyous Finale, but with a thoughtful epilogue, in which the composer, even in this restrictive framework, has achieved a personal touch. The most popular of all Mozart's works, Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525, was finished on August 10, 1787 in the middle of work on Don Giovanni, whose nocturnal magic is felt here in a sublimated, more intimate, and supremely concentrated form. It is the last work that Mozart wrote in the serenade genre. In its primitive version it had five movements, with a Minuet being the second. This must have been lost very early on, for nowadays the work presents itself rather like a short string symphony. Two months previously, Mozart finished a lesser known twin work, A Musical Joke, which was the last of his divertimenti. It almost seems as if he had felt the pressing need to make up for this biting, almost ferocious caricature of the fashionable minor composers of the day through an utterance of purest beauty. For Elne kleine Nachtmusik is really to A Musical Joke what Ariel is to Caliban! Note: this issue features a fine performance of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by Julius Rudel and the Virtuosi di Pragi.
EXPLORING MUSIC by Frank Cooper THE FINNISH MASTER 3 MIN READ
Sibelius! His name looms large among the world's composers chiefly for his role in the history of the tone poem, next for his place among Scandinavia's most respected symphonists, and finally as the man who wrote the fifth-most popular violin concerto of all time. Almost anyone asked to name the top contenders would list those by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky, hesitating only a second before concluding with the Finnish master's. It is the sort of work which, if you are not acquainted with it, tells its secrets gradually with repeated hearings. Like Grieg's imperishable Piano Concerto, the Sibelius Violin Concerto has the power to conjure Nordic images in the mind. You seem to see the rugged terrain, to feel the bite of wintry cold. "I love the mysterious sounds of the fields and forests, water and mountains," Sibelius said. "It pleases me greatly to be called an artist of nature, for nature has truly been the book of books for me." This rapport with nature has been experienced by many commentators on the work. There is an element of fantasy in such descriptions as "bardic songs heard against a background of torches or pagan fires in some wild Northern night" and "the settled melancholy of a Finland of Northern darkness, where the sea heaves heavily to the shore and human lives blossom only briefly and precariously to the joy of melody," but such is the music's power. The Concerto's melodies evoke the spirit of folksong without actually quoting any. Its harmonies and orchestration, similar to those of Sibelius' great Second Symphony, have a sound all their own, darkly rich but never thick. In staking his claim among the most original of romanticism's nationalistic composers, Sibelius clung to his roots among the red granite rocks which spring from the pale blue Baltic Sea and which were the cradle of the Vikings. "When we see those granite rocks we know why we we are able to treat the orchestra as we do," he told a student. Thus, his works sound only like himself and, despite their romantic fervor, not at all like those of anyone else.
The post-romantics--composers such as Sibelius in Finland, Dohnanyi in Hungary, Mahler in Austria, Strauss Germany, Respighi in Italy--worked against incredible odds: the combined legacies of the music of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, and Wagner. Their glory was to find a voice for themselves to set them apart from the many imitators whose works came and went during the latter years of the last century and the early years of this one. In the press, such men often have been (and are) dealt with rather harshly for writing the way they did. Today, we cherish their expressiveness. Purists among critics and professors often try to direct those over whom they hold sway away from music which has story content, either explicit or implicit, and towards that in which esthetic value is abstract and internal, based on form. For them, formal perfection is everything. They want less to listen "between the notes" to the landscape or soul of a given nationality than to savor the composer's genius in handling the expository, developmental, and recapitulatory(!) demands of sonata form. Whether we take their point of view or are content only to enjoy what we hear and let it spur our imaginations to flights of fancy, the music of Sibelius is at hand to tempt us. Handsomely performed, the Violin Concerto, premiered in 1905 when the composer was in his 40th year, and En saga, a haunting tone poem which was given its final form (after a decade-long gestation) in 1903, are examples of Sibelius' mastery. In a sense they stand as monuments to a great phase in history's musical impetus.
Originally published in the Musical Heritage Review Issue 392, 1987. This month we also feature a fine collection of Sibelius’ tone poems, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult.
! W NE
The Musical Heritage Review NEW RELEASE AN
EXCLUSIVE
Peter Ilytch Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto In D Major, Op. 35 Jean Sibelius Violin Concerto In D Minor, Op. 47 Vadim Brodsky, violin The Polish National Radio Orchestra Anton Wit & Jerzy Salwarowski, conductors
TCHAIKOVSKY & SIBELIUS: VIOLIN CONCERTOS Vadim BRODSKY, violin POLISH NATIONAL RADIO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA NON-MEMBERS PRICE: $9.99
MEMBERS PRICE:
$4.99
OUR REVIEW Vadim Brodsky plays with virtuosic power throughout this fine collection. The orchestra seems to have an attitude - they are excellent in the Tchaikovsky, less exciting in the Sibelius. --DW
Musical Heritage Review
DEBUSSY: Nocturnes FRANCK: Symphony in D
RAVEL: Daphnis et Chloe, Suite No. 2 / La Valse / Pavane pour une infante defunte
HOUSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
HOUSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
BRAHMS: The Four Symphonies
TCHAIKOVSKY: SWAN LAKE, Op. 20
UTAH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
UTAH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Maurice ABRAVANEL, conductor
Maurice ABRAVANEL, conductor
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 8 SIBELIUS: TONE POEMS Sir Adrian BOULT Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra of London
SCHUMANN: Symphony No. 4 ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Harold FARBERMAN, conductor
Musical Heritage Review
MENDELSSOHN: SYMPHONIES 1, 2 & 3 Fingal’s Cave Overture
RESPIGHI / DEBUSSY/ RAVEL
ORCHESTER DER BEETHOVENHALLE BONN
HOUSTON SYMPHONY BALTIMORE SYMPHONY
Dennis Russell DAVIES, conductor
Sergiu COMISSIONA, conductor
MOZART: SYMPHONIES NO. 25, 35 “Haffner” & 40
Orchestral Works
SCHUBERT: SYMPHONIES 5 & 6
MUNICH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA VIRTUOSI DI PRAGA
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S
Harold FARBERMAN & JULIUS RUDEL, conductors
Julius RUDEL, conductor
DVORAK: SYMPHONY NO. 9 “From the New World”
von WEBER: SIX CELEBRATED OVERTURES
VIENNA STATE OPERA ORCHESTRA
BAMBERG SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Vladimir GOLSCHMANN, conductor
Theodor GULSCHLBAUER, conductor
EXPLORING MUSIC
by David White
PLEASE REPEAT THAT. 3 MIN READ
I’ll immediately start by saying I’m entirely in the bag for Peter Serkin. A fan boy. This Exploring Music will not, however, be exploring any Oedipal issues, and I only bring up his father to say that if they were the only two pianists I ever heard, I might just be fine with that. Now, that would be a world I would not want to spend the rest of eternity in, but between the two of them, it’s hard to think of what I’d really miss. So I spend one life only listening to these pianist, and then suddenly I’m transported to a reasonable facsimile of this world and I’m chatting with someone and he says, well if you’ve only ever heard Peter or Rudolf Serkin play this, you haven’t heard “xxx”. Curiously, I’ll allow that perhaps the heart of the Romantic period is a bit dry in comparison (I’d miss Ashkenazy’s Rachmaninov, or Gieseking’s Debussy) but I think I’d still be able to hold up my end of the conversation.
(Frankly, I’ll probably need a good stiff drink because if that first world was missing all those pianists, I gotta believe a cultural near-wasteland would be playing with my mind a bit. Hello, second world, it’s a wonderful life.)
But, true to himself, and as repeated in the liner notes (possibly written by Serkin but they are uncredited) the concept of taking all the repeats is completely in line with Bach’s compositional intention. We offered Jorg Demus’s performances in the last catalog, and they serve as a good baseline – perhaps a truer baseline, if a baseline is a mean where there are equal numbers on either side. Serkin’s performance and conceptualization is completely unique. The Goldbergs and its splendorous celebration of the human imagination seem to inspire artists to do follow Bach’s lead – so you get all kinds of interpretations that play fast and loose with scholarship, and standard practice. So much the better for all of us! And I encourage you to read his notes, he groups the variations together in a manner which isn’t entirely endorsed by all. In fact, the original recording on LP and CD kept his groupings intact – this version separates all movements for consistency’s sake.
In our allotted time together in this space, we don’t try to give you a detailed description of the work, or a lengthy biography of the artist. In this case, it would be simple to do that, and be done. Neither of us would be the lesser for it. In this case, there’s some means of intertwining these two strands.
Both a warning and a note of interest – this recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations takes the repeats. All the repeats. The initial Aria, normally performed in under 2 minutes, takes almost 5 minutes in this version. It immediately acquired a bit of infamy when it was released, because, well, just… no one does that. I put that in italics because that was the cluck clucking that went around when the recording was issued. Commercially, sales suffered because it took 2 CDs to create a full release, when all others measure in at about 35-40 minutes. (It’s also possible that Serkin actually paid for the recording himself, knowing this wasn’t going to pay for a new house.) The CDs and LPs were filled out with Bach’s Italian Concerto, which is included on this collection.
Serkin’s Chopin and Mozart were also recorded for the defunct ProArte label, and alas, disappeared from shelves for a few decades. As with the Bach, he did record additional works in his major label forays. Here, while not veering to a strongly conceptual underpinning, he offers unique and performances that pass through your brain first, then your heart. You won’t be moved to tears, but you will appreciate Chopin as a composer more thoroughly than you might with other pianists. And, like the new MHS itself, it’s time to get these recordings out into the open, where they can be shared.
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EXCLUSIVE
BACH: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
PETER SERKIN A PORTRAIT NON-MEMBERS PRICE: $14.99
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OUR REVIEW It’s too easy. Just buy it. What’s not to like. You have solo recordings of one of the finest American pianists ever, performing a titanic work of Bach, and offering intelligent, sophisticated performances of Mozart and Chopin. Just buy it. --DW
CHOPIN: Mazurkas, Op. 63 No. 1: Vivace No. 2: Lento No. 3: Allegretto CHOPIN: Waltz No. 14 in E Minor: Vivace CHOPIN: Waltzes, Op. 34: No. 2: Allegretto CHOPIN: Grande valse brilliante: Vivo CHOPIN: Ballade No. 4, Op. 52: Andante con moto CHOPIN: Nocturnes, Op. 32 No. 1 in B Major: Andante sostenuto CHOPIN: Mazurkas, Op. 41 No. 1 in C-sharp Minor: Maestoso No. 2 in E Minor: Andantino No. 3 in B Major: Animato No. 4 in A-flat Major: Allegretto CHOPIN: Fantasy, Op. 49 MOZART: Piano Sonata No. 16 in B-flat Major, K. 570 I. Allegro II. Adagio III. Allegretto MOZART: Rondo in D Major, K. 485 MOZART: Rondo in A minor, K. 511 MOZART: Piano Sonata No 17 in D Major, K. 576 I. Allegro II. Adagio III. Allegretto BACH: Italian Concerto BWV 971 Movement One Adagio Presto
Musical Heritage Review
THE VIRTUOSO RECORDER Music by SCARLATTI TELEMANN - NAUDOT TELEMANN
THE VIRTUOSO CLARINET Music by KROMMER, von WEBER, BAERMANN DEBUSSY
Ferdinand CONRAD, recorder Wiener Solisten
Jack BRYMER, clarinet VIENNA STATE OPERA ORCHESTRA
THE VIRTUOSO HARP Music by SPOHR, SMETANA, DEBUSSY, SAINT-SAENS, C.P.E BACH Hubert JELLINEK, harpist
THE VIRTUOSO TRUMPET Music by CLARKE, VIVALDI, TORELLI, PURCELL, GABRIELI Helmuth WOBISCH, trumpet I SOLISTI DI ZAGREB Antonio JANIGRO, conductor
THE VIRTUOSO OBOE Music by HAYDN, HANDEL, ALBINONI, CIMAROSA Andre LARDROT, oboe Chamber Orchestra of the VIENNA STATE OPERA
THE BAROQUE BASSOON Music by FASCH, GABRIELI, TELEMANN Robert THOMPSON, bassoon
Musical Heritage Review
ROMANTIC MUSIC FOR VIOLA AND PIANO Music by SCHUBERT, BRAHMS & SCHUMANN Kazuhide ISAMURA, viola Jeffrey KAHANE, piano
MOZART: Oboe Quartet, K. 370
BRAHMS: PIANO SONATA NO. 3 SCHERZO, OP. 4 Yefim BRONFMAN, piano
MOZART: Clarinet Quintet, K. 581
VIVALDI: Concerto in D Major, RV 95 “La Pastorella”
von WEBER: Clarinet Quintet, Op. 34
Joshua BELL, Carter BREY Douglas BOYD, Kenneth COOPER David FINCKEL, Scott NICKRENZ Paula ROBISON
Charles NEIDICH, clarinet The MENDELSSOHN STRING QUARTET
CHOPIN: Ballade in G Minor Nocturne in F Major Etudes, Op. 10 Scherzo in B-Flat Minor Cecile LICAD, piano
THE VIRTUOSO GUITAR Music by Vivaldi - Dowland Torelli - Carulli Karl Scheit, guitar The Wiener Solisten
“What do we do if technology does us in?" A member since, oh I don't know, 1964, I have resisted commenting in letter form to the Society's Review, but the silliness over CD, analog, etc. is just too much. Unlike Prof. Greene, I can still listen to LPs. How not? I own over 2000 of them and have been collecting for over 30 years. I also listen to cassettes, and even EPs and 78s. I have some treasured Bessie Smith recordings that date from the 1920s and some thick, one-sided 78s of some lesswell-known classical/popular artists that date from before World War I, even though I do not. I don't own cylinders. At the same time, correspondent Pepmueller of Albuquerque suggests that we should "listen to" records with better equipment so that we may be "surprised ... just how good records are." It is unlikely that we will be surprised, since most of us plug our CD players into the best equipment we have available, that on which we play our LPs. The reality is that the CD technology is sonically superior. That's a fact. But what about the future, while commerce and technology rule the arts? I love my digital, analog, EP, and 78 records. What scares me is that all equipment wears out and the newest turntables don't play 78rpm. When do we phase out 45rpm? 33rpm? What do I do with a lifetime collection of music of all sorts (would you believe R & B, theater music, Tetrazinni, Caruso, Leadbelly, vaudeville songs, jazz, the St. Godric songs, baroque, French moderns, etc.)? Je n'aime pas Brahms. What do we do if technology does us in? Ronald V. Mershart Superior, WI from The Musical Heritage Review 393 (1987)
A Note About “The Birth of Rhapsody in Blue” I regret to say that the majority of famous musicians whom Whiteman announced as attending his concert simply weren't there, because they were busy performing in their own concerts and recitals. It is very easy to ascertain where they really were, by means of newspaper reports from all over the USA, and I shall be doing my best to edit the Wikipedia article for Rhapsody in Blue in due course, though I know in advance that I shan't be thanked for it. ...I knew Maurice Peress quite well, having played the solo Pianola part in Antheil's Ballet Mecanique at Carnegie Hall with Maurice conducting, back in 1989. He came and stayed with my wife and me in London about eight years ago, and we enjoyed his company very much. If he were still alive I probably wouldn't mention the false attendees at the Whiteman concert, not wanting to blow the stardust from Maurice's eyes, but now I think it is time to challenge the outright lies that Whiteman perpetrated. Rachmaninoff was in Kansas City, Sousa was in Pensacola, Florida, Kreisler was in Birmingham, Alabama, Stravinsky didn't even visit the USA until January 1925, but in February 1924 he was at home in Biarritz, France. Jascha Heifetz was at the University of Champagne-Urbana in Illinois, Moriz Rosenthal was in San Francisco, and John McCormack was in a train somewhere between Waco, Texas, and Los Angeles. And Leopold Stokowski was conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra in Washington. Mary Garden was singing in opera in Cleveland, and Marguerite d'Alvarez was giving recitals in Palm Beach. I'm working on the others, and I have exact newspaper reviews and advertisements to prove them all. It's a shabby use of publicity, in the days when it would not have been possible to check the facts without visiting the cities in question and reading through newspapers without the help of computer indexing. The reason for all this is that Whiteman compiled a list of famous people whom he described as patrons and/or judges, and probably the patrons didn't bother to read the newspaper reports, so not only did he get away with it, but when the press wrongly assumed that "patron" meant "attendee," he didn't bother to correct them.
By the way, my name is Rex Lawson, I write the website at www.pianola.org, and, for what it is worth, I enjoy Rhapsody in Blue, having helped George to play along with various orchetras by means of his piano rolls, and by editing the rolls and using them to accompany the late harmonica player, Larry Adler, who claimed to have played with George in the old days. Being an atheist, I would say that such fairy stories are also the basis of the world's religions, but that is another can of worms! Best wishes, Rex Lawson, London, England. EDITOR’S NOTE: This recording is one of our streaming spotlight features. We have republished Maurice Peress’ essay that ran in the 1987 Musical Heritage Review in this current issue.
Talk about Vivaldi Glut... NPR has just announced the 48th release of Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto. Add this to the tone of the heavy-handed pap of Wagner, the unrelieved, saccharine bombast of Liszt and Tchaikov sky. Of course I speak of the overall available recordings. The MHS catalog will not reflect the taste of the mass "classical music" audience. Thank my God. That's why I'm a member. To slight Vivaldi, Bach, and Handel as routine, formulaic, uninspired is un forgivable. MHS exists because the purveyors of commercial recordings so sorely neglected the tastes of the more intelligent, selective au dience. That's why you will find a preponderance of baroque recordings in the MHS catalog. Personally I find in the baroque (and particularly Vivaldi) a simple joy in making musical sounds versus the classic and romantic musical expres sions bemoaning man's tragic fates or extolling his more pompous virtues. The nose flute is a prehistoric instru ment and I shall never forgive Toni for missing that one, but the kazoo did not exist in his day. Had it, I rest satisfied that he would have composed well for it, too. C. Conrad Cowherd Memphis, TN Editor’s Note: if you agree with Mr. Cowherd, good news. Next month’s issue features a tribute to Vivaldi. If you don’t agree...consider yourself warned.
Classical Music: The Foundation I've neven a letter to the editor before. This is the first for me. My letter is in response to a letter published in Release 371. Ann m. White, West Falls, NY, states in her discussion of the MHS that " ... there are some changes that I deplore ... the flirtations with folk, ethnic, and jazz music--which I fear may become a flaming affair to the detriment of your classical wife" First of all, how does one define "classical" music? Bach, Beethoven, Symphonies, Tuxedos, and Violins? I suppose that's a good start. But maybe it's time to look a little deeper. Music is a reflection of the times and of human experience. Folk, ethnic, and jazz have their roots in the music of the past. Classical music is the foundation upon which edifice of musical style is built. Time moves forward. We have new "classical" music. New heroes are born everyday. Jazz, blues, even many facets of rock and fusion are thought, planned, felt, and in tended by those who present and compose it. I've often wondeared how much respect some the "greats" such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert got in their lifetimes? Some died paupers. Obviously not everyone was "in tune" (no pun intended) to the magnitude of their contributions. Oh yes. These "rude teenagers" that fre quent the record shops, with "unbearable noise" can be full of surprises, You see, I'm a classically trained musician, who teaches. And, Ms. White, you may be surprised to find many "rude teenagers" come into my house every day with Bach Inventions and Beethoven Sonatas, in their briefcases and hearts. Things aren't always as they seem. It's hard to keep an open mind. And everyone has the right to an opinion. I've been a member of MHS for almost a year now, and I consider it to be constant souce of input and an education every time I open the Review. Keep on embracing the present, MHS! I'm the bass player and composer in a local blues/rock band. And, you will let me stay on as a member, won't you? Susan K. Anderson Kansas City, KS Editor’s Note: Susan, if you’re still out there, you are a member for life.
EXPLORING MUSIC
by David White
MUST IT BE? 3 MIN READ
In those early days of my existence, between college and marriage, I became an avid reader – a ravenous one in the pre-marriage and pre-children chapters of my life – and at approximately the same time I started to have a serious career in the sales and marketing side of “the music business”, I also became quite enamored with the writings of Milan Kundera.
In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, he writes semiautobiographically about his musical bond between him and his father, an eminent Czech musicologist and highly respected scholar, particularly regarding the works of Leos Janacek. His father charmingly explained the relationship between the notes in a standard eight-note key – the tonic is the king, the fifth is the queen, the third is the prince (I believe I remember this correctly). The idea of motifs in music and in life is broadly explored throughout, and this is a sublime way of both explaining how a musical composition works (at least a tonal work), and I’ve stolen it to explain it to my son on numerous occasions. Beethoven’s music is a motif about motifs throughout the book, when it returns to the narrator’s relationship with his father. If this were a college theme (which it is starting to sound like), we would be required to discuss how Kundera expertly braids the concept of how our lives are similar to a composer’s work.
And this is where I’m headed – as we grow, we change. We listen to music differently – we discover motifs in our own life, as we suddenly hear in music something that we hadn’t heard before. Whatever your opinions are about Kundera’s work, I appreciate his writing for this very truth, and how he introduced me to a greater appreciation of music, and the Beethoven late string quartets.
In a discussion about adding this recording to the Review, I was asked which one of Beethoven’s late string quartets I preferred, by someone who had an answer, as if we were discussing some yes or no question. I stammered and said I was always fond of the quartet that had the “Heiliger Dankegesang”, not remembering which one that is…but I also realized I don’t really know them separately. My experience in learning these works came from extended listening, and listening to them as a unit – “binge-listening” to adopt a much used current phrase. I am familiar with each and can place them as an overall work “the Beethoven late string quartets” but I don’t really know which quartet has the Grosse Fuge, I just know when I expect to hear it.
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Thus, I suppose is the musical memory of someone who went from CDs to streaming, and skipped the inconvenience of turning over LPs, a process which defines a work in a much more direct fashion. End of Side 2, that’s usually the end of the work. But in my experience, I drift from the conclusion of Op. 130 into the first movement of Op. 131, and I’m not entirely the more knowledgeable for it. Being education through listening only with a bare minimum of scholarly guidance, I didn’t always learn music as a student learns music. I know that can lead me to look uneducated, but that’s fine. I have never stopped listening since Kundera’s words. And so when Kundera’s father, at the end of his life, can only point to “Es muss sein” vigorously, so as to make certain his son understands, we all must choose the music and life have. My musical experience is to swim in an ocean of music, with only a vague understanding of where I am, but only to know that water feels good and is bringing me great happiness.
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The Musical Heritage Review NEW RELEASE AN
EXCLUSIVE Ludwig van Beethoven: The Late String Quartets
Quartet No. 12 In E Flat Major, Op. 127 Quartet No. 13 In B Flat Major, Op. 130 Quartet No. 14 In C sharp minor, Op. 131 Quartet No. 15 In A Major, Op. 132 Quartet No. 16 In F Major, Op. 135
The Yale String Quartet
Ludwig van Beethoven: The Late String Quartets The Yale String Quartet NON-MEMBERS PRICE: $9.99
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$7.50
OUR REVIEW One of the great performances of these works. It gets ignored or barely mentioned in the English magazines, but this is a performance that can hold its own against any in the past 50 years. --DW
Aldo PARISOT, cello David SCHWARTZ, viola Walter TRAMPLER, viola Yoko MATSUDA, violin Broadus ERLE, violin
Musical Heritage Review
HAYDN: SIX STRING QUARTETS OP. 71 & 74 The GRILLER STRING QUARTET
BRAHMS: SONATAS FOR CELLO AND PIANO Aldo PARISOT, cello Elizabeth SAWYER, piano
BACH: CONCERTI, SUITES and SINFONIAS The AULOS ENSEMBLE
MOZART: THE STRING QUINTETS The GRILLER STRING QUARTET William PRIMROSE, viola
SCHUMANN: WORKS FOR CELLO & PIANO Jascha BERNSTEIN, cello Jorg DEMUS, piano
DEBUSSY & RAVEL STRING QUARTETS The GALIMIR STRING QUARTET
Musical Heritage Review
SCHUBERT: STRING QUINTET IN C, D. 956 Quartet Movement In C Minor, Op. Posth., D. 703 “Quartettsatz” CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER Ida & Ani KAVAFIAN, Fred SHERRY, Paul NEWBAUER, Leslie PARNAS
KREISLER: ANI KAVAFIAN PLAYS KREISLER with Charles WADSWORTH, piano
ANTON RUBINSTEIN: The FOUR VIOLIN SONATAS
LECLAIR: 6 SONATAS for 2 VIOLINS
Robert MURRAY, violin Daniel GRAHAM, piano
Andre HADGES, violin Vladimir WEISMAN, piano
TELEMANN: FLUTE QUARTETS HEIDELBERG BAROQUE ENSEMBLE
VIOLA AND VIOLA D’AMORE DUETS Music by GABRIELI, MORLEY W.F. BACH, BIBER Walter TRAMPLER, viola Karen PHILLIPS, viola
Paul Whiteman's Historic Aeolian Hall Concert of 1924: The Birth of Rhapsody in Blue
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The Birth of Rhapsody in Blue
One would be hard pressed to think of a musical event about which more has been written than Paul Whiteman's launching of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. It has been described as the concert that "made a lady out of jazz" and "made an honest woman out of jazz," and, because it took place on Lincoln's birthday, as "the emancipation proclamation of jazz." Whiteman's "experiment in modern music" was brilliantly planned and staged. Pre-concert promotion was designed to focus maximum attention on the event. Enlisted as patrons and patronesses were: American culture mavens Gilbert Scldcs and Carl Van Vechten; music critics and writers Deems Taylor, 0.0. McIntyre, and Fannie Hurst; prominent musicians Walter Damrosch, Leopold Godowsky, Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Moritz RosenthaII, and Leopold Stokowski; opera divas Amelita Galli Curci, Alma Gluck, and Mary Garden; and the president of the Metropolitan Opera, financier Otto Kahn. Whiteman invited them to luncheon rehearsals at the Palais Royal. Together they raised and contributed money, wrote program notes, spoke glowingly from the stage, and packed the house with glitterati. It was to become the highlight of the 1924-25 concert season. Paul Whiteman
Whiteman's "experiment in modern music" was brilliantly planned and staged.
The follow-up was equally brilliant. The concert, with a few changes, was repeated at Carnegie Hall and Philadelphia's Music Academy. A spring tour was booked by no less an impresario than Coppicus, who ran the Metropolitan Opera Musical Bureau. Whiteman, Gershwin, and the band, now 24 strong (an extra sax was added), rode in a pair of especially outfitted railroad cars. Aboard were three Chickering grand pianos-two white ones for the band and an ebony concert grand for Gershwin-all carefully husbanded by Emil Neugebauer, the tuner and technician for the celebrated concert pianist Joseph Levine. Touring and recording were how Whiteman brought his successful musical experiment to concert audiences and dance band fans in those pre-radio days. It was a whirlwind tour-20 concerts in 18 days-in the major concert halls of cities such as Rochester, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, Milton Rettenberg, recently graduated
Aeolian Hall, New York City approx. 1924
from Columbia Law School, took over playing the Rhapsody for the rest of the tour while Gershwin returned to New York to prepare for the new 1924 George White Scandals. Whiteman brought his band triumphantly back to New York to record for Victor the two big new pieces on the concert-Rhapsody in Blue, with Gershwin, and Victor Herbert's Suite of Serenades. Whiteman's Aeolian Hall Concert was clearly the high point of his career, one he would try to repeat in vain as he sought out other Gershwins and staged other "experiments." Inevitably, the slow theme of the Rhapsody in Blue became his musical signature, just as his bald, round, mustachioed caricature had become his logo, his visual signature. The notion of creating an indigenous American art music had been expressed even before the turn of the century, notably by Dvorak: "In the Negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed fop a great and noble school of music.'' From 1901-15, a group of composers led by Arthur Farwell began its own music publishing company, The WaWan Press, "to launch a progressive movement for American music, including the acceptance of Dvorak's challenge to go after our own folk music." One of the works played by Whiteman at the Aeolian Hall concert, Logan's Pale Moon, was undoubtably a Wa-Wan Press-American Indian-inspired piece. Scott Joplin's Treemonisha (1911) was certainly a pioneer American folk opera that pointed in the same direction. But it was not until Whiteman's landmark concert that the idea became a reality. Gershwin's Rhapsody emerged indisputably as the first successful crossing of America's to go after our own folk music."
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The Birth of Rhapsody in Blue
extended run at the Alexandria Hotel in Los Angeles. For five summer months in 192 3 he delighted London audiences and the British aristocracy with his natural manner as well as his music. The following winter he was again in New York, appearing nightly at the posh Palais Royal Restaurant, where Vincent Sardi, Sr. was captain of the staff. Despite Prohibition, high society came in droves to eat and to listen and especially to dance-to the music of the hottest-dance band of the moment. With all his success, Whiteman still had an insatiable curiosity about jazz music and was constantly on the lookout for fresh ideas or new hot players and arrangers. He stayed -abreast of its stylistic changes, always translating the newest trends into his kind of music. Seeing Whiteman on film, fiddle in hand, fronting his band, has given me an even more telling insight into the reasons for his success. From his earliest Hollywood film in 1920 to his last appearances on television in the 1950s, Whiteman performs with his violin as if he were bouncing a baby boy on his shoulder. They are totally connected, innocently and infectiously at ease-the fiddle and Paul. Well over six feet tall, this 300pound man was described in the New York Times review of the Aeolian Hall Concert: "He trembles, wobbles, quivers-a piece of jazz jelly." (Olin Downes, February 13, 1924) This then was the man who convinced the rich and famous to support his timely idea, "An Experiment in Modern Music." In a subsequent radio interview, Whiteman called it "the first jazz concert that was ever given m the sacred halls of a symphonic hall." And, about the longhairs who were present, "There was Damrosch, Rachmaninoff, Heifetz, and Kreisler, and several others. (Pause) We probably gave them a light haircut." The program was carefully designed. After opening with Livery Stable Blues, played in the raucous style of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Whiteman offered his most favored Palais Royal arrangements, including two showpieces, one each for virtuoso banjo player Pingatore and multiple-reed wizard Ross Gorman; exact renderings (he was very proud of this) of his hit records Limehouse Blues and Whispering, and some guaranteed crowd pleasers, including "knuckle busters" by the dashing novelty piano virtuoso Zez Confrey.
Whiteman was no exotic foreigner. He was a Denver-born, corn-fed, cheery bear of a man, mild mannered and well- For all those, Whiteman played his violin while directing the spoken. He had won over the movie colony during an band. Then came symphonic arrangements, including the
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The Birth of Rhapsody in Blue
Victor Herbert and George Gershwin works commissioned With the commissioning of Victor Herbert to write An by Whiteman especially for this program. At for this American Suite, Whiteman took out another insurance program. ly for this program. At this point in the concert, policy to go with the drawing power provided by the the band was augmented with seven violins, two French popular Zez Confrey. Herbert, despite his Irish birth and horns, and an extra bass. Whiteman led this 23-piece European training, had by 1924, become a highly ensemble as a proper stand-up conductor, dressed, as was respected, beloved, and successful "American" composer. the orchestra, in the customary daytime formal cutaway Among his compositions are more than 50 operettas, suit, with striped pants and ascot tie. including Babes in Toyland, Naughty Marietta, and The Red Mill. In several respects, the 1911 Metropolitan Opera For the first time in his career he put down his violin and production of his opera Natoma, the story of an Indian took up a baton. Including Zez Confrey on the program not princess, with Mary Garden in the title role, was a precursor only showed off a famous piano virtuoso and composer, to Whiteman's Aeolian Hall Concert. Natoma was heralded America's answer to Liszt, but also ensured a crowd. Sheet as the first time an American composer, an American music for his Kitten on the Keys had already outsold the librettist, American subject matter, and the English classic Maple Leaf Rag, and his player-pianotype novelties language were deemed appropriate for that most European were at the peak of their popularity. Confrey naturally had of all art forms, grand opera. equal billing with Gershwin. Clearly, Herbert was the fitting choice to write a work for Whiteman was familiar with Gershwin's huge talent but Whiteman's historic occasion. By accepting the there was no way of predicting if Gershwin could produce a commission, Herbert gave the concert the vote of winner. While his better Broadway songs had been well confidence it needed to cross over into, and receive the received in a formal concert setting-an Aeolian Hall recital awareness and approval of, the serious music by the eminent soprano Eva Gautier in November 1923, his establishment. Knowing the political realities of the music operatic scene for three black singers, Blue Monday Blues, business, it is my guess that the novelty of a Herbert presented as part of George White's Scandals of 1922, was premiere-written for a jazz band-brought out ]ohn Philip withdrawn after one performance. Perhaps it was fate that Sousa, Rachmaninoff, and possibly Stokowski on that the Whiteman band was featured in Scandals of 1922. Did snowy Sunday afternoon, Lincoln's birthday, 1924. Whiteman's witnessing of that ambitious failure prompt him to recognize in Gershwin a kindred spirit-a shared dream to The program worked a magic back then and, from my bring their music out of the dance palaces and musical personal experience, still does. The charm and setting of theaters and into the concert hall? the jazz-band sounds, the spiky rhythms, the good-natured and the often-touching gestures toward the classics-To a Gershwin was by all accounts an especially winning pianist, Wild Rose on a haunting soprano saxophone-create a and Whiteman's request for Gershwin to compose "a jazz receptive mood, a perfect climate for Gershwin's piece for solo piano and orchestra" turned out to be an in- masterpiece. And deep down, audiences and musicians spired one. Virgil Thomson, one of the special few who was alike sense that they are re-witnessing the birth of at both the 1924 Aeolian Hall Concert and the 60th something wondrous. anniversary re-creation at New York's Town Hall (February 1 1984), wrote me of his recollections: "My chief memories of that premiere are the clarinet lick, an upward glissando which starts the whole thing off, and the composer's beautiful hands with their lightly fleet fingers., also his singing piano tone."
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EXPLORING MUSIC by David M. Greene
Half the program is made up of the half-score departmentstore evergreens (or unforgettable heartwarming old favorites, depending on how you view such things). Most of them came into being or became popular in the last century when Christmas became very Dickensian and an enormous boost to the economy, and Clement Clark Moore invented Santa Claus, and some nameless genius thought up the Christmas card so that we might have one more reason to feel guilty. (The Making of the Modern Christmas, by J.M. Golby and A.W. Purdue [Athens, GA, 1986] says he wasn't nameless: the idea was Henry Cole's, who published a card designed by H.C. Horsley, RA, in 1843.)
STREAM THIS ALBUM Ah, yes! I see by the old (actually current) calendar on the wall that it's time for the annual weather report. Less than a month ago we had a week that delivered nearly six inches of rain. Then it turned beastly hot. My lawn dried up. My vegetable garden became concrete that turned to powder and blew away when one tried to cultivate it. It is now the eve of the Fourth of July holiday. Last night I had to sleep under three blankets. Today there is brilliant sunshine and a howling north wind that is finishing up the damage begun by the heat. So naturally they want me to talk about Christmas carols. Bah! Junebug! This time we have a record featuring the American Boychoir. In case you are wondering whether you have it in some other avatar, it was originally published by Ocaso Record , a division of Headstrong Records, Inc. Headstrong is located in Princeton, NJ, the seat of the American Boychoir School. The school takes in around 60 carefully selected boarders, educates them through grade eight, and drives them about the nation at times to do concerts. Here they are joined by a dozen adult gents, identified as the New York Vocal Consort. And they are accompanied by the Cathedral Symphony Orchestra, which is the musical limb of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Newark, and by an organ and two pianos.
There is not much I could say about these "standards" that I haven't said here a dozen times before. We are told that "The First Nowell" is "French traditional" but there's no hard evidence; the version we all know shows, in any case, 19th-century monkeying with the traditional tune. "Personent Hodie" is northern European and possibly goes back to Chaucer's time. One book claims that Mozart used "Deck the Hall," a Welsh number, in a "duet for violin and piano." Another notes that "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is the only traditional Christmas song known to the author that speaks of giftgiving. No one is yet sure who wrote "O come, all ye faithful." Mendelssohn's familiar tune to "Hark, the herald angels" comes from a cantata Festgesang, where its words are "God is light." And so on. The arrangements are by Sir David Willcocks (six) and John Rutter (three). Both lean to grandiose sound and Sir David is very big on treble descants--better than those available at your local descant store. Rutter's treatment of "The Twelve Days," following its text, is musically cumulative. There is lots of pedalboard from the organ throughout. In short, the treatment of the old favorites should please those looking for that sort of thing. But there is also some "new" stuff to satisfy novelty-seekers. I don't suppose "Jesus Christ, the Apple Tree" by Elizabeth Poston (19051987) counts, since it turns up regularly these days, but you might take note of "I sing of a Maiden" by Patrick Hadley (1899-1973 ), a charming composer whose music is beginning to get some attention. The big work, however, is the 19-minute "Salvator mundi" by the important Welsh composer William Mathias (b. 1934). Written only six years ago, this is a cycle of medieval carol settings for boys' voices, strings, two pianos, and percussion that has some things in common with Britten's Ceremony of Carols.
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EXPLORING MUSIC by David White
Christmas with David M. Greene
a few pithy lines about holiday music from our resident curmudeon
STREAM THIS ALBUM Just a quick few words about this fine recording. Those of you who were long time members of Jazz Heritage Society and Musical Heritage Society will probably remember this recording as a standard offer through JHS and MHS’s catalogs from the early 1990s until the catalog ceased in the early 2010s. The musicians on this recording - now, a jazz hall of fame roster, but at that moment in the music business, a few were actually cast off larger labels like Columbia, Blue Note and Verve - improvised most of these fun arrangements, nearly as an afterthough. The recordings were made in dark recording studios in the mid-summer, and probably devoid of any holiday trappings (apart from a possible drink or two). Yet in the world of music today, this recording has become the most streamed recording in the Musical Heritage/Jazz Heritage catalog - by the proverbial country mile, or any mile you want. Since 2007, the music on this recording has been streamed and downloaded over 30 million times. ALSO AVAILABLE AS A YULE LOG VIDEO!
CLICK HERE!
There is a flourishing cottage-industry in the English universities making recordings of Christmas music, for which there appears to be an insatiable market.
What is different about this recording is that the songs used are almost without exception not from the usual Muzak-cursed repertoire...
As often noted in these pages I live in a former steel-town in Pennsylvania. It calls itself the Christmas City, ostensibly because it was founded on Christmas Eve (1741), though more probably because that appellation is to its economic advantage, as testified to by the busloads of pilgrims who seek its shrines and souvenir shops every December. To make sure that the visitors get their money's worth and that the Pennsylvania Power and Light Company is rewarded for raising its rates, the citizens one and all vie in a display of appropriate illumination that includes batallions of life-size plastic carollers, Santas, snowmen, elves, and reindeer.
NOW STREAMING ONE MORE FROM THE BOYCHOIR Our 2nd Christmas collection from American Boychoir, with the Atlantic Brass Quintet. Exceptional traditional performances.
CHRISTMAS FROM THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
PERESS AGAIN... THIS TIME at CARNEGIE HALL A superb effort all the way around, highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the 1920s American scene. -James Manheim, All Music Guide
WATCH THE MHS YULE LOG THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON!
featuring the Aulos Ensemble, with soprano soloiist Juiianne Baird. The most lovely music for the Christmas season written in the Baroque period.
BENNY CARTER’S COMPLETE JAZZ HERITAGE RECORDINGS on four themed streaming collections
VOLUME 1: SMALL GROUP STUDIO SESSIONS
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Musical Heritage Review
one hour of Christmas music favorites from our classical music collection!
VOLUME 2: BIG BANDS & ORCHESTRAS
VOLUME 3: LIVE RECORDINGS
VOLUME 4: GREAT SINGERS SING THE BENNY CARTER SONGBOOK
NOW STREAMING COPLAND - THE COMPLETE MHS RECORDINGS WITH DENNIS RUSSELL DAVIES featuring the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, with Appalachian Spring, Music for the Theater, Quite City and more. Orchestral and chamber works.
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Musical Heritage Review
STEPHEN HOUGH THE COMPLETE MHS RECORDINGS Stephen, we knew you when. Hough started his great career with MHS. This new collection features all his recordings with Beethoven, Brahms, Richard Strauss and more.
DJANGO REINHARDT: LIVE AND ELECTRIC
BROWNING PLAYS BARBER: CLASSICAL GRAMMY WINNER Samuel Barber: The Complete Solo Piano Music is a superlative effort overall and is a milestone recording of a cycle now considered central to twentieth century American piano literature. -All Music Guide
A collector’s treasure: Django, on his only major US tour, and playing electric guitar. 4 live tracks, with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
FROM KEITH JARRETT & DENNIS RUSSELL DAVIES Musical Heritage Society was the home for these two collaborators in the early 1990s. Jarrett had made “traditional classical” recordings for RCA and ECM, but in MHS recordings, he and Davies probed two very different contemporary works. MusicWeb international called Jarrett’s recording of Hovhannes’ Lousadzak “a truly scintillating performance”. Australian composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks’s rarely recorded Etruscan Concerto is featured on the Lou Harrison Seven Pastorales recording.
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COMING in THE NEXT The Musical Heritage Review
A TRIBUTE TO ANTONIO VIVALDI featuring the reissue of selections from Max Goberman’s historic Vivaldi recordings with the New York Sinfonietta
Music of the Baroque and Renaissance Our Violin Tradition New Releases from Artur Balsam, Oscar Shumsky and more
Musical Heritage Society, Jazz Heritage Society & The Musical Heritage Review © 1962-2023 Heritage Music Royalties. All Musical Heritage Review written contents © 1975-2023 Heritage Music Royalties. All Musical Heritage Society sound recordings © 1962-2023 Heritage Music Royalties.