Feature Articles

: Written by: Richard Freed; Category: Richard Freed's Keepers; Created: 01 May 2011

Back in the glory days of RCA Victor’s "Living Stereo" LPs, Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra shared with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago SO that label’s top honors, recording big chunks of the basic orchestral repertory along with valuable examples of their respective personal specialties. Reiner (1888-1963) was in Chicago only ten years (1953-1963), and toward the end of his first season there began his celebrated series of stereophonic recordings. Toward the end of his tenure, however, illness caused him to cancel plans for the orchestra’s first European tour, and also kept him from fulfilling his commitments on several of the concert and recording dates scheduled for him in Chicago. His former pupil Walter Hendl, whom he brought with him as associate conductor (and who served as director of the orchestra’s summer activities at Ravinia) took over many of Reiner’s concerts and also wound up recording in his place with such soloists as Jascha Heifetz, Henryk Szeryng, Gary Graffman and Van Cliburn. Munch (1891-1968), though less than three years Reiner’s junior, enjoyed better health and had a longer tenure in Boston, succeeding Serge Koussevitzky there in 1949 and stepping down in 1962, not because of illness but simply in order to base himself once again in Paris and pursue other objectives.

Munch had not been known in America, except for a few concerto recordings, until the end of World War II, when he began recording with the Paris Conservatory Orchestra for Decca/London. Although born in Alsace when it was German territory, and actually drafted into the German army during the previous war, he emerged at the end of WWII as not only the most admired of French conductors, but also as a respected figure of the Resistance, who presided over celebratory concerts following the liberation of Paris. He made his US debut with the Boston SO at the end of 1946 and appeared frequently with the New York Philharmonic, with which he made some recordings for Columbia (among them an exciting account of the Saint-Saëns "Organ Symphony"). He also brought the French Radio SO to the US in 1948. Koussevitzky was still active when Munch succeeded him the following year, and in fact made some memorable recordings with the BSO after that succession, but one of Munch’s notable gestures in Boston was his inviting the legendary Pierre Monteux to conduct, record and tour with the orchestra. Monteux had been the BSO’s conductor immediately before Koussevitzky, and had reorganized and sustained it through some difficult years, but he was never invited back during Koussevitzky’s 25 years there.

: Written by: Richard Freed; Category: Richard Freed's Keepers; Created: 01 February 2011

By now the entire world is familiar with the Vienna Philharmonic New Year concerts, which are televised live and are made up mostly of waltzes, overtures, polkas and marches by the Strauss family: Johann II (the Waltz King, 1825-1899), his brothers Josef and Eduard, and their father Johann I. It goes without saying that the Vienna Philharmonic has a unique authority in, and abiding affection for, this music, which until about 50 years ago had a firm place in the general orchestral repertory.

Until the second half of the last century, in fact, "light music" of all sorts was part of that repertory. It was not unusual for the greatest conductors to begin a concert with a Beethoven, Brahms or Bruckner symphony, and in the second half give the audience some elegant bonbons by Chabrier, descriptive suites by Massenet, ballet music by Delibes or Glazunov, overtures to Offenbach operettes -- or the magnificent waltz poems of Johann Strauss.

Nowadays a typical concert program is built with the "big piece" at the end; there must always be a soloist in a concerto or similar showcase; the only ballet music deemed worthy of subscription concerts is Ravel’s or Stravinsky’s, and, since the nature of the pop concert has changed utterly since the glory days of Arthur Fiedler, the entire genre of "light music" has all but disappeared. When it is given a nod, it is all too often based on the grotesquely mistaken notion that it can simply be sight-read. (As actors and stage directors will tell you, effective comedy generally requires more intense preparation than straight drama; the same rule applies to the preparation of light music, for whose success the warmth and brilliance of the performance may amount to more than the substance of the music itself.)

: Written by: Richard Freed; Category: Richard Freed's Keepers; Created: 01 December 2010

201012_keepers_arta Last summer the mail-order Musical Heritage Society added to its catalog the Chilingirian Quartet’s recording, originally issued on LP by ASV in 1975, of the three string quartets of Juan Crisóstomo Antonio de Arriaga y Balzola, who will never be among the top 100 composers of all time, perhaps, but whose music is nonetheless very much worth getting to know. When you do get to know it, and get to know a bit about Arriaga himself, you will find some of those little coincidences which actually mean little but are nevertheless intriguing and can hardly fail to be noticed, mentioned, and remembered.

Arriaga, who came to be known as "the Spanish Mozart," was born in Bilbao on January 27, 1806, the 50th anniversary of the actual Mozart’s birth. As in Mozart’s case, Arriaga’s father was a respected musician. Leopold Mozart was a respected violinist and composer, whose violin method is still in circulation today. Arriaga’s father, an organist, was not unmindful of the significance of his son’s birthdate: the name he gave the boy begins with the Spanish equivalent -- Juan Crisóstomo -- of the beginning of Mozart’s full baptismal name, Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. Both composers had short lives: Mozart died seven and a half weeks shy of his 36th birthday; Arriaga died ten days before his 20th. But the reason Arriaga became known as "the Spanish Mozart" has less to do with names and dates, and rather more with both composers’ having demonstrated their remarkable gifts before getting into their teens, and consistently producing music of both charm and substance.

: Written by: Richard Freed; Category: Richard Freed's Keepers; Created: 01 September 2010

201009_keepers_a4 Do centenaries and other round-numbered anniversaries of composers have any real significance? They are of course seized upon as marketing tools by concert promoters and recording companies, but have they any useful purpose beyond that? To be sure, we hardly need an anniversary to remind us of Beethoven or Bach or Mozart, but, despite our not unjustified skepticism, we do enjoy honoring the memory of the creative wonders who gave us such amazing, self-renewing intellectual and sensory stimulation and pleasure. (I don’t recall the phenomenal Johann Strauss’s being so honored, but then he does have the New Year concerts.) Last year we had the bicentenaries of the death of Joseph Haydn and the birth of Felix Mendelssohn, this year the bicentenaries of the births of both Robert Schumann and Fryderyk Chopin (and the centenary of our own Samuel Barber and William Schuman), and next year the bicentenary of the formidable Franz Liszt. The season just ended and the one beginning now are marked with festivals of various proportions and other activities (specifically including recordings) marking the sesquicentenary of the birth of Gustav Mahler (July 7, 1860) and the centenary of his death (May 18, 1911).

In this context, the 150 years since Mahler’s birth break down neatly into three 50-year periods: (a) his life and the recognition he enjoyed, primarily as a conductor; (b) his death, at which time he confidently predicted, “My time will yet come,” and the years of artistic and political upheaval, including two horrendous World Wars, during which various disciples and enthusiasts worked to bring his music into the mainstream; (c) the 50 years since the Mahler centennial, which have confirmed and reconfirmed the ever more secure place of his music in the so-called standard repertory. One of the conspicuous validations, in honor of the double anniversary, is the “free streaming experience of all of Gustav Mahler’s symphonies,” performed by the Orchestre de Paris under Christoph Eschenbach, offered as a collaborative undertaking by the websites of that orchestra and of Medici TV.

In his own lifetime Mahler was vastly respected as a conductor, but far less accepted as a composer. He did have his enthusiasts, and several were powerful figures. When he conducted the premiere of his vast, six-movement Third Symphony, on June 9, 1902, in Krefeld, Richard Strauss, whose tall, slim figure made him recognizable to everyone present, strode down an aisle to the stage at the end of the performance to congratulate him. Also in the audience was the 31-year-old Willem Mengelberg, who had seven years earlier taken up the post of conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, and who determined at that concert in Krefeld to champion Mahler’s music.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 15 May 2024

Contemporary Records / Craft Recordings / Acoustic Sounds CR00601
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****½
Sound Quality: ****½
Overall Enjoyment: ****½

I’ve reviewed quite a few of the Contemporary Records / Acoustic Sounds vinyl reissues by Craft Recordings. It would be easy to just say, “Buy them. They sound great.” That would be true, but Craft has made it a point to reissue Contemporary Records LPs that deserve more recognition. Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section is well known, but André Previn’s take on West Side Story is perhaps less so. Craft has done jazz lovers a service by casting a wide net.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 April 2024

Rhino Records R1 516251 / 603497830824
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ***½
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****

The consensus among fans and critics is that Grateful Dead was primarily a live band, and its studio recordings were rarely good examples of its art. There are exceptions, of course. Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, both from 1970, have long been considered outstanding and are among the best albums in rock music.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 December 2023

Golden Wolf Records GW009LP
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****

Drummer and producer Adam Deitch has worked on a lot of records since 1994, with musicians as diverse as John Scofield and DJ Quik. He is a member of three bands, which gives him the opportunity to show his grasp of different musical styles: electronica with Break Science, psychedelic funk with Lettuce, and 1960s-style soul jazz with the Adam Deitch Quartet.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 November 2023

Craft Recordings / Contemporary Records / Stereo Records CR00391
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ***½
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****

In the 1950s, Contemporary Records released a number of Broadway-themed LPs by trios led by pianist André Previn or drummer Shelly Manne. The sessions fronted by Previn featured Manne on drums and Red Mitchell on bass; Manne’s featured Previn and bassist Leroy Vinnegar. In my June 2023 review of the Craft Recordings / Contemporary Records reissue of West Side Story, the 1959 album by André Previn and His Pals, I wrote: “I’m already anticipating the Craft Recordings reissue of Manne’s My Fair Lady this fall.” Modern Jazz Performances of Songs from My Fair Lady was a 1956 mono release by Shelly Manne & His Friends, and its popularity led Contemporary to ask Previn and Manne to record more albums in the same vein.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 October 2023

Craft Recordings / Contemporary Records / Acoustic Sounds CR00595
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ***½
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****

Jazz composer and saxophonist Ornette Coleman was so revolutionary that even now, 65 years after he recorded his first album, his music remains challenging. His recording debut, Something Else!!!! (1958), and its follow-up, Tomorrow Is the Question! (1959), both appeared on Contemporary Records, whose owner, Lester Koenig, signed Coleman after bassist Red Mitchell brought his work to Koenig’s attention.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 September 2023

Universal Music Recordings 4868197
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****½
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****

Empty Glass (1980) was Pete Townshend’s second solo album, but his first to consist of songs he recorded with an eye toward official release under his own name. The album that preceded it, Who Came First (1972), included demos of songs recorded with The Who, tracks Townshend wrote in tribute to his spiritual advisor, Meher Baba, and one tune each by Billy Nicholls and Ronnie Lane, who were also followers of the Baba. The tribute songs originally appeared on limited-edition releases.