Jonel Perlea conducts delights from Central Europe

I miss the Vox label. When I was growing up, Vox and Nonesuch offered me many points of discovery at an unbeatable bargain price. Typically these Vox issues could be found at a local bookstore with a big sticker advertising $1.98. Great price for a kid on a budget though I must admit that the productions were at times variable, as you all know.

One great, and consistent find, was the large body of work recorded by the underrated Romanian conductor Jonel Perlea. Advertised by Vox as an "exclusive Vox artist," Perlea recorded just about all the heavy hitters of the repertoire, most records made with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra originally called the German Philharmonic of Prague and staffed by a majority of Central Europeans. To Be honest, I cannot recall a bad Perlea performance, though engineering, and often preparation were less then first rate due to money and time constraints.

I offer here the contents of two Perlea records, focusing on the music of Central Europe. PL 9500, from 1955, features Smetana's Moldau, Dvorak's Scherzo Capriccioso, Kodaly's Dances of Galanta and Enescu's Romanian Rhapsody No. 1. STPL 511.240, from 1963, contains the contents of Side 1: Brahms' Hungarian Dances 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 17, 19, and 21. This all adds up to a nicely filled cd of lively, well played and idiomatic music making. I especially want to point out the outstanding account of the Romanian Rhapsody. Perlea's got this in his blood for sure and the orchestra sound like they are enjoying it immensely!

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Another "Boston Trio" performs Beethoven!

I promised Larry Austin of Vinyl Fatigue that I'd get this one up asap. I actually picked it up the other day at lunch. The performers are another "Boston Trio":  Joseph Silverstein, violin; Joseph dePasquale, viola; and Samuel Mayes, cello. All were longtime members of the BSO and while the latter two ended up in Philadelphia, Silverstein would eventually turn to conducting full time, serving a distinguished tenure in Utah as a successor to Maurice Abravanel.  The three collaborate here in numbers 1 and 2 of the Op. 9 trios of Beethoven.

This is an interesting record. Pressed by RCA Special Products, it was issued by Pfizer in a series sponsored by its Sinequan medication. I'm sure many of you remember the days when companies like Firestone, Fanny Farmer Candies, Avon etc. issued LPs of all sorts of various works, most under license from the "majors." This record was released in 1971 so it was probably one of the last efforts by RCA in Boston before the BSO signed a deal with Deutsche Grammophon. Needless to day, the musicianship is very fine, especially appealing is Silverstein's work. He was undoubtedly one of the greatest concertmaster's of the 20th century, a superb artist!

As a filler, I've included Beethoven's rare Oboe Trio, Op. 87 performed by wind soloists from the Vienna Philharmonic. This was issued on a Westminster Collector's (the Orange Records) Series LP's along with the String Quintet Op. 29 performed by the Barylli Quartet.

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The Boston Trio performs Beethoven's "Ghost" Trio

I happened upon this one several weeks ago and I HAD to make it a priority. Another example of the longstanding reputation of Boston as a mecca of fine musicians and ensembles. The Boston Trio (Ruth Posselt - violin, Samuel Mayes - cello and Abba Bogin - piano made a number of recordings during the 50's for Allegro. This one features Beehoven's "Ghost" Trio and his Op. 1, No. 2.

The musicians here all had solid reputations. Ruth Posselt, wife of longtime concertmaster/assistant conductor of the BSO Richard Burgin, was a noted violinist and teacher, Samuel Mayes, was a fixture in the BSO cello section and Abba Bogin, a fine piano acccompanist who was preferred by Janos Starker as a partner in chamber music. The three here display virtuosity, understanding, and superb musicianship as they clearly labor in love over these masterpieces.

Of the the two trios, I have long loved Op. 1, No. 2 the most of the entire ouevre. My benchmark has been the great Schneider-Casals-Istomin issue. The music is so beautiful and Casals provides strong, individual, even forceful leadership which his "son" and "grandson" defer to with great love and respect. It is fascinating to juxtipose that recording with this one, where pianist Bogin clearly carries the day and displays such mature musical insight inspite of being under 30 at the time of these recordings.

As mentioned earlier, I've been playing with Audacity and I think the overall results here are good. My ongoing complaint with these Allegro issues is the quality of the engineering at the time of recording. These three artists deserved better however, Allegro was a true budget organization....need I say more?

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Peter Maag conducts Mozart with the Japan Philharmonic

I picked this Crossroads recording up this week while fritting away my lunch hour. This got me excited since I've never heard of this Nippon Columbia issue and it was another Mozart recording by one of the greatest Mozartians of the 20th century (well at least I think so).


The Swiss conductor Peter Maag was indeed a unique fellow. During the 50's he was very much up and coming, recording acclaimed issues with both the Suisse Romande Orchestra and the LSO. Then, at a crucial time, he up and skipped town - literally...retiring for a two year stint in a Buddhist monastery. Well, that little sabbatical  pretty much nixed a "major" career and Maag spent the remainder of his life conducting and recording with very much second, and third tier ensembles.

Now...this does not mean that the man was a lightweight...his interpretations, especially those centered around Mozart are powerful, insightful and very different! Listen to symphony 39, the "slow" movement and you WILL hear the clear link with Schubert...yes, Mozart was the first Romantic! In fact, Maag's Mozart gets you thinking, "what if he lived a long life and continued his miraculous development?" Might Beethoven have been rendered less potent? Really fascinating listening here!

My qualm with this recording is that the bass is very muffled and spread out. It loses focus and its probably the combination of hall and engineering. This recording was released in the US in 1967 so I think it was probably recorded in the mid 60's. The orchestra is good though hardly exceptional. There is skip in the final movement of 39 that I tried my best to fix. I do not have the skills of Buster, Frank at Music Parlour, Bill Anderson, Neal or my new friend Larry at Vinyl Fatigue. These guys are great, I'm a hopeless hack!

Anyway, enough of my blather..enjoy Peter Maag!
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If you are going to have one cup of coffee, then why not two!

The same goes for Bach's wonderful Coffee Cantata. It's such a tuneful, lighthearted, magical piece, that one cannot but listen to it twice in one sitting. So....in order to accommodate that desire for good coffee, here are two rather interesting, and possibly pathbreaking performances.

The first rendition comes from an Allegro release c. 1952 or so and it is unique for it is quite minimalistic for its day. The Allegro Chamber Ensemble is a 1/2 dozen of New York's finest and the soloists are Met house singers. I've never heard the coffee cantata performed with such a sense of intimacy, almost like parlor music. The down, admittedly, is that the recording sounds like it was recorded in my kitchen and there are some pitch problems, I believe on the engineering side. I've been playing with Audacity in order to improve postings but this vinyl had many challenges as you will hear from time to time. My friend Buster of the Big 10 Inch blog commented once on Remington vinyl (hoo boy!) but these Allegro pressings that I've seen may be more of an "oi veh!"

The second recording comes from Vox and is conducted by Rolf Reinhardt. Maestro Reinhardt was kind of a house conductor for Vox during the 50's and 60's and he recorded a lot of music from Baroque to Bartok. He is quite convincing in Bach and his Sturttgart orchestra is more of what we are accustomed to hearing as accompaniment in the Coffee Cantata. The singers are unknown to me. Vox would replace this performance with one from Wurttemberg sometime in the late 60's I believe.

I've included notes in the files. Brew up a fresh pot of Joe and enjoy the light side of old J S!

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If you have never checked out John Berky's abruckner.com site, you are really cheating yourself of great music and fine scholarship, all on behalf of one of the greatest symphonists ever to grace our troubled planet. I recommend a visit highly!

On his site, Mr Berky posts, on a monthly basis, LP transfers that somehow have never made it to cd format. For his last three postings, Mr Berky has highlighted the conducting of the fine German conductor Heinz Wallberg. Maestro Wallberg is featured leading the Tonkuenstler Orchestra of Vienna in the symphonies 4, 5, and 8, along with the Te Deum. These recordings originally appeared on the Concert Hall label some 45+ years ago.

Let me say that Wallberg's conducting is a revelation, his attention to detail and keen sense of phrasing make these performances exhilarating and a must have. Rarely is Bruckner presented with such insight coupled with edge of chair playing. All I can say is that each performance left me wanting to play the whole thing over again post haste, they are THAT good. How these gems got lost, it totally baffles me. If you love Bruckner, you will want to hear these performances!

Dvorak's Complete Slavonic Dances played by Grete and Josef Dichler, piano four hands

Dvorak's two sets of Slavonic Dances are, quite simply, wonderful musical miniatures. Admiring Brahms' Hungarian Dances, Dvorak set out to do the same, albeit with a decidedly Slavic twist. So successful was Dvorak with the first set, op. 46, that publishers, and music lovers, were able to coax op. 72 from him without loss of inspiration or gift for melody. Absolutely delightful stuff!

Most of us know these dances in their usual presentation for full orchestra. Curiously, few recordings have been made in their original piano four hand renditions. So, imagine how excited I was when I happened upon this rather forgotten Vanguard LP featuring the four hand duo of Grete and Josef Dichler.

The Dichlers were, in their day, the foremost four hand piano duo in the German speaking lands. Well regarded teachers in Vienna, they recorded rather extensively and I'm told that one of their most prized recordings was the first piano four hand account of Bach's The Art of Fugue. I'd like to emphasize that this husband and wife team played four hand piano music exclusively on one piano. Today, most often piano four hand is presented on two pianos rather then one, a pity since that intimacy and timbre of one instrument alone is lost amid a reworking of the composer's intentions.

Turn the lights down, grab your favorite beveridge, close your eyes, and allow Dvorak, through the Dichler's 20 magical fingers,  paint a splendid musical picture of the beautiful Czech countryside through these vivid and fresh sounding musical gems.

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Newell Jenkins and the Orchestra Academia dell'Orso in Boccherini and Cambini

Here's another fine Dover offering: Newell Jenkins conducting the Orchestra Academia dell' Orso in the Symphony in C major and Cello Concerto in D major, Op 34 of Boccherini and the Sinfonia Concertante No 1 in C major for Oboe, Bassoon and Orchestra of Giuseppe Cambini. I must say that Cambini is new to me and I'd characterize his music as Salieri light, enjoyable but hardly memorable.

Newell Jenkins was for many years the director and inspiration for New York's Clarion Concerts. Dr Jenkins introduced many late baroque and classical works to the US and also performed valuable scholarship on the music of the 18th century. I don't believe that the orchestra here is Italian based as the soloists do not have Italian surnames. My guess is that this orchestra is a New York pickup group of some sort, maybe even the Clarion Concerts orchestra using another name for contractural purposes. Perhaps someone can enlighten me further on this? Anyhow, enjoy!

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The Haydn and Hummel Trumpet Concertos: a doubletake!

You know, I've been playing the trumpet for a good thirty five years, though I do not consider myself a professional musician. I've played all sorts of stuff, shows, orchestral concerts, quintets, parades, you name it! Today, I focus my autumn season on Oktoberfests - where else can you actually go to play and drink great beer and, get paid for it!?

Ok..enough of me. When I was growing up, there were two trumpeters who I greatly admired because, well they just had unbelievable technique and personality; the two are none other then Maurice Andre and Timofey Dokschitser. In his day, Andre was the most celebrated "classical" trumpeter in the west as was Dokschitser behind the Iron Curtain. Both men possessed breathtaking technical abilities and very, VERY, personal, instantly recognizable styles. Interestingly, their type of playing and musicianship has gone out of fashion to be replaced by the rather generic sounding, yet brilliant technical abilities of today's young trumpeters. Oh well.

Here we have both Maurice and Timofey playing those two well worn masterpieces, the Haydn and Hummel concertos. I think you will enjoy the comparisons here. I believe that Andre plays both concertos on a C trumpet while Dokschitser opts for the big, robust sound of the Bb trumpet. Andre's brilliance contrasts well with Dokschitser's big sound and ever present, Russian style vibrato. Both play a tour de force!

As for the recordings, I find Andre's RCA-Erato pressings rather tinny, the Hummel is harsh in places possibly due to worn vinyl??, while the Dokschitser fares better, although there is a "hiccup" in the slow movement of the Haydn. Not sure of the recording dates but probably late 60's, early 70's. Anyway, have a listen and recall a time when trumpeters were allowed to possess the all too important quality of individualism. What a concept!

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