What's the link to this list? I can't find it.

UD

On Sat, Nov 20, 2021 at 7:17 PM Alex McGehee <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Nice comments Gary. Maybe others have mentioned that the Brahms Hungarian
> Dance No. 5 wasn’t even by Brahms. It was the work of the Hungarian
> composer Béla Kéler. I think Brahms thought he had a traditional folksong
> on his hands. The Brahms version was written for piano four hands, and god
> knows how much of his own orchestral thinking Stokowski put into the Victor
> version.
>
> My main objection to its inclusion is that this work was endlessly
> programmed for concerts from its publication to the date of this Victor
> recording. An old chestnut if ever there was one. It represents lazy
> thinking in the classical music repertoire to choose it, if I might say so.
>
> Far worthier would be the near complete version of Haydn’s Symphony No.
> 94, recorded in Victor’s Camden, New Jersey studio on the 11th and 12th of
> Nov. 1912. Yeah, I know it’s a chestnut now too, but a century ago Haydn
> was finally emerging from more than a century’s worth of neglect. He’s
> certainly a greater composer than Brahms and before someone gets angry,,
> consider that appraisal was by Brahms himself.
>
> An even more noteworthy recording would be Victor’s release of Haydn’s
> Symphony No. 100, Walter B. Rogers (Victor’s house conductor) and the
> Victor Concert Orchestra. UCSB gives the dates as June 5, 1913 and Oct. 28,
> 1915. Both symphonies suffer abridgments and are the arrangements of
> Theodore Moses Tobani, done primarily for purposes related to the technical
> limitations of the acoustical recording process with full orchestral
> forces. So with Symphony 100, the slow introduction is jettisoned, but the
> rest of the first movement is complete. Twenty bars from the second
> movement are cut, but they are somewhat a repetition of the movement's
> first 20 bars, so the movement seems as if it is complete to most
> listeners. The third and fourth movements are both complete.
>
> Back to the Brahms. I know it sounds really great, but so do these Haydn
> recordings and they were done years earlier than the Brahms. They are also
> of far greater significance in the early recordings of concert repertoire.
> I haven’t found sound files for No. 94, except for its second movement,
> which UCSB has. Neither UCSB or the National Jukebox has anything from No.
> 100, but the British Library has all of it and it sounds wonderful.
>
> And if I may land one more punch for Haydn, Pol Plançon sounds a lot
> better in Air du laboureur ( trans. French) from Haydn’s Jahreszeiten:
> Schon eilet froh der Ackermann than he does on the ARSC acoustic list with
> Couplets du tambour-major. That’s just my opinion, but you can hear it for
> yourself on UCSB’s website <
> https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/200003696/C-2321-Air_du_laboureur
> >
>
> Pre-holiday cheers to all,
> Alex
>
> Alex McGehee
> ARSC Membership Committee, chair
>
>
>
> > On Nov 9, 2021, at 1:31 PM, Gary A. Galo <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > I have a couple of comments about this compilation, and I'm sure other
> members will have some of their own.
> >
> > Stokowski's Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5 was not the first recording of
> a full symphony orchestra, not even on Victor, and not even in the United
> States. Karl Muck and the Boston Symphony Orchestra made their first
> records for Victor 3 weeks before Stokowski, because Stokowski initially
> rejected Victor's offer to make records. The first was the 4th movement of
> Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony, and utilized the entire Boston Symphony
> Orchestra. The dates can be confirmed on DAHR. And, Charles Prince
> conducted an orchestra of 90 players for Columbia performing Wagner's
> Rienzi Overture in February of 1917. Again, DAHR can confirm the date and
> the number of musicians involved (the number is also given on the record
> label).
> >
> > Also, though some might view it as a technicality, Vesti la Giubba is
> not a song, it's an opera aria.
> >
> > Best,
> > Gar
> >
> >
> > Gary Galo
> > Audio Engineer Emeritus
> > The Crane School of Music
> > SUNY at Potsdam, NY 13676
> >
> > "Great art presupposes the alert mind of the educated listener."
> > Arnold Schoenberg
> >
> > "A true artist doesn't want to be admired, he wants to be believed."
> > Igor Markevitch
>