|
1PD32 Historic Schubert
Historic performances from the 78rpm era:
- Symphony No 9 "The Great"
BBC Symphony Orchestra conductor Sir Adrian Boult [Listen]
|
"Boult's orchestra was in the virtuoso league...The precision is wondrous to hear...You will find yourself noticing things you have never heard before..." Rob Barnett at Classical Music on the Web
|
- Symphony No 8 Unfinished
National Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Anatole Fistoulari [Listen]
- Rosamunde - Entr'acte Act II,
Basle Symphony Orchestra, conductor Felix Weingartner
Robert Cowen writes in Gramophone for December 2008:
I was happy to encounter Beulah's expert transfer/remastering of Sir Adrian Boult's first recording of Schubert's Ninth, a brilliantly executed performance (BBCSO), swift and breezy, and, as almost always with Boult, acutely structure-conscious. I was grateful to discover Anatole Fistoulari's 1944 Unfinished with the National Philharmonic, a fresh and dramatic reading, though not quite as well recorded at the Boult.
Bob Briggs at Music Web International writes of 1PD32 Historic Schubert:
This is a splendid disc! Boult's 1934 Great C major has long been a favourite of mine and it's good to see it available once again and in very good sound. Although Boult recorded this work towards the end of his life, with the London Philharmonic, this performance has a freshness and sparkle - these things are not missing from his later performance, rather this is a younger man's view of a towering masterpiece.
Fistoulari's performance of the Unfinished is almost as fine. With excellent playing from the National Symphony Orchestra (led at this time by the great David McCallum) this performance is dramatic - this is a dramatic Symphony but too often we hear the two movements played at almost identical tempi which takes all sense of tension and excitement from it.
The Entr'acte from Rosamunde is a pleasant make-weight. There's a bit of "scooping up" in the violins but that's period performance for you. A delicate end to a disk full of wonderful things.
The notes in the booklet are good and the transfers have been achieved with care, cleaned up, and are full of bloom and presence. This is well worth having not just as an historical document but as an example of performances of works which we might just be taking for granted and which are freshly minted for us here.
Robert Matthew Walker writes in International Record Review for February 2009
On Sir Adrian Boult's recording of Symphony No.9 - The first thing that strikes the listener is the fine quality of the sound and the silent surfaces for a 75 year old recording. In addition the orchestral balance is excellent, as is the "spread" of the orchestral layout - it sounds as though it could almost come from twenty years later. Boult delivers a truly supurb performance: if this does not convince those who never heard him as to his greatness as a conductor, then nothing will. His control of long paragraphs is faultess and pefectly paced; his lead into the faster first movement coda is magnificently timed and controlled. This is marvellous conducting, and no mistake.
On Fistoulari's Symphony No 8 - Fisty was a throughly dependable musician who possessed a fabulous technique. He never gave a bad performance and this is a good one - especially the climax to the first movement, which is very poweful. His tempos in the secoond movement are a little swift, and while there is nothing exceptional in his performance, it is a fine example of the work of a greatly admired conductor.
|
or phone Priory Records 01525 377566
Also available as high quality 320KB/s Mp3 downloads at Beulah Extra
The items below are adverts that will take you away from this site
|
|
We're backing Britain
