Sunday Classics flashback: A complete "Gurre-Lieder" from (gasp!) 1932
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No, this isn't the 1932 Stoky-Philadelphia Gurre-Lieder. This is Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra giving the U.S. premiere of Mahler's monumental Eighth Symphony, the so-called Symphony of a Thousand, in 1916!by Ken
There was so much to try to squeeze in, even while leaving so much out, last week in connection with Arnold Schoenberg's peerless dramatic cantata Gurre-Lieder that I dropped the ball on a subject I meant to cover: RCA Victor's audacious first recording of the piece, made -- astonishingly -- in 1932, during Leopold Stokowski's live performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
There were performances on March 8, 9, and 11, 1932, and Victor apparently intended to record all three, but the last eight minutes of the March 8 performance went unrecorded. Sound-restoration guru Ward Marston, who has heard the 18 surviving sides (out of 25 recorded) speculates that the recording wasn't completed because of technical problems with the performance itself. Ward Marston mastered the exceedingly March 9 recording, done at 33 rpm to take advantage of the significantly longer per-side playing time, for release by Pearl. Mostly what we've heard is the March 11 performance, recorded at the standard 78-rpm speed.
To fill out the odd side in both formats, Maestro Stokowski recorded an introduction to Gurre-Lieder, with musical examples provided on the piano by his then-assistant, Artur Rodzinski (soon to be one of the world's leading conductors). For the 33-rpm edition, logically enough, a single side's worth enabled him to do a 12-minute version (as against the four minutes and change possible on a 78).
Now I thought I was going to tickle you by offering that Stokowski lecture-demonstration, in the full-length 33-rpm version. As far as I know, I've never actually listened to either the longer or the shorter version, so I thought we could listen to it together. Alas, the sound file I produced is a technical disaster, and cuts off, no doubt mercifully after abour four minutes! And you know what? Those four minutes really aren't that interesting.
Meanwhile, I discovered that you can actually download the Stokowski-Philadelphia Gurre-Lieder for a grand total of $1.98 -- no, joke, it's in two files (one for Part I, and one for Parts II and III), and you can download each for 99 cents! So I thought we would listen to Part I in that form, complete! (I confess that I have yet to do any comparative listening to the March 9 [33 rpm] and March 11 [78 rpm] performances. In theory, the faster-speed recording should sound noticeably better, but again, you have to have something to compare. What I'm getting at is that I can't tell you which this is. The only date on the Amazon website is provided by the commenter: March 8, which we know is wrong.)
SCHOENBERG: Gurre-Lieder: Part I (complete)
Paul Althouse (t), Waldemar; Jeanette Vreeland (s), Tove; Rose Bampton (ms), Voice of the Wood Dove; Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, cond. RCA, recorded live, March 9 or 11, 1932
[Note: There's a four-CD Andante set of Stokowski-Philadelphia recordings, including the Gurre-Lieder, in transfers by Ward Marston, which makes you suspect that this is the 33-rpm performance (March 9), which Marston transferred for Pearl. On the other hand, the other Marston-transferred Stokowski-Philadelphia recordings included in the Pearl set, Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy and Prometheus: Poem of Fire, are not included in the Andante set.]
Meanwhile, for the benefit of those expecting some "quick hit"-type listening in this Friday-night slot, I thought it might be worth bringing back the Schoenberg selection from the Guess the Composer quiz that unleashed these last couple of weeks of whatever it is that we've been doing, the awesome Iron Brigade. Not the strange version with the animal noises, but the one that won my heart, from the London Sinfonietta's set of Schoenberg's Complete Works for Chamber Ensemble.
Now I thought I was going to tickle you by offering that Stokowski lecture-demonstration, in the full-length 33-rpm version. As far as I know, I've never actually listened to either the longer or the shorter version, so I thought we could listen to it together. Alas, the sound file I produced is a technical disaster, and cuts off, no doubt mercifully after abour four minutes! And you know what? Those four minutes really aren't that interesting.
Meanwhile, I discovered that you can actually download the Stokowski-Philadelphia Gurre-Lieder for a grand total of $1.98 -- no, joke, it's in two files (one for Part I, and one for Parts II and III), and you can download each for 99 cents! So I thought we would listen to Part I in that form, complete! (I confess that I have yet to do any comparative listening to the March 9 [33 rpm] and March 11 [78 rpm] performances. In theory, the faster-speed recording should sound noticeably better, but again, you have to have something to compare. What I'm getting at is that I can't tell you which this is. The only date on the Amazon website is provided by the commenter: March 8, which we know is wrong.)
SCHOENBERG: Gurre-Lieder: Part I (complete)
THE VOCAL TEXTS
Once again, you can find German and English texts for Gurre-Lieder at http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=24028.
Paul Althouse (t), Waldemar; Jeanette Vreeland (s), Tove; Rose Bampton (ms), Voice of the Wood Dove; Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, cond. RCA, recorded live, March 9 or 11, 1932
[Note: There's a four-CD Andante set of Stokowski-Philadelphia recordings, including the Gurre-Lieder, in transfers by Ward Marston, which makes you suspect that this is the 33-rpm performance (March 9), which Marston transferred for Pearl. On the other hand, the other Marston-transferred Stokowski-Philadelphia recordings included in the Pearl set, Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy and Prometheus: Poem of Fire, are not included in the Andante set.]
Meanwhile, for the benefit of those expecting some "quick hit"-type listening in this Friday-night slot, I thought it might be worth bringing back the Schoenberg selection from the Guess the Composer quiz that unleashed these last couple of weeks of whatever it is that we've been doing, the awesome Iron Brigade. Not the strange version with the animal noises, but the one that won my heart, from the London Sinfonietta's set of Schoenberg's Complete Works for Chamber Ensemble.
ENCORE PERFORMANCE (BY POPULAR DEMAND!!!)
SCHOENBERG: Die eiserne Brigade
(The Iron Brigade)
London Sinfoniettta: Nona Liddell and Joan Atherton, violins; Donald McVay, viola; Jennifer Ward Clarke, cello; John Constable, piano. Decca, recorded Oct. 1973-May 1974
Labels: Gurre-Lieder, Schoenberg, Sunday Classics
posted by KenInNY @ 9:00 PM
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