A solid chunk of Mackerras, spanning half a century of recordings for the Warner group [JW]
Sir Charles Mackerras (conductor)
The Complete Warner Classics Edition
Recordings on HMV, Pye, Columbia Graphophone, Classics for Pleasure, EMI Classics, Virgin Classics, Erato
rec. 1951-2001
Warner Classics 2173262356 [63 CDs]
Warner’s box sets are arriving thick and fast. No sooner had I dealt with Boult’s monos, then Beecham’s turned up, and now the next box on the reviewing conveyer belt is Charles Mackerras’s legacy for those labels now subsumed into the behemoth’s capacious jaws – HMV, Pye, Columbia Graphophone, Classics for Pleasure, EMI Classics, Virgin Classics and Erato – though I doubt anyone has referred to ‘Columbia Graphophone’ since about 1932. It comes in time to mark the centenary of his birth.
The discs aren’t presented chronologically but they are sometimes in helpful groups by composer. In any case, the booklet provides a checklist that signposts you to the CD number of the work you’re interested in, so navigation is quite simple. I can’t possibly deal with everything, nor would that make for an enjoyable read – you’d have given up by CD 10 or fallen into narcolepsy – so I’ll just focus on the salient features of this 63-CD box.
Appropriately, though it was a long way from being his first recording, the set begins with his famous 1959 Pye recording of Handel’s Fireworks Music coupled with Mackerras’s composite version of Handel’s Concerto a due cori. Additions to the original LP are the Handel-Harty Water Music suite and overture to Berenice, Jeremiah Clarke’s March played by the veteran trumpeter George Eskdale, and two pieces receiving their first ever publication, Gordon Jacob’s Fanfare for ‘God Save the King’ and then the anthem itself. Needless to say, that nighttime Fireworks recording, to ensure the appearance of 26 off-duty oboists and 14 bassoonists and all the rest, sounds simply resplendent. The HMV remake in 1976 with the LSO is on CD 4 and whilst splendid in itself, doesn’t have the elemental frisson of the 1959 recording.
Messiah: Mackerras or Colin Davis? That was the dilemma for many collectors, as it was for me even in the late 1970s. Both were recorded in 1966 and enjoyed great popularity and critical esteem. But in those days, unless you were well-heeled, you could buy just one, and I was swayed to buy Davis. Despite Heather Harper, Janet Baker, Paul Esswood (a splendid countertenor – I was at his final Wigmore Hall recital), Robert Tear and the bluffer-than-bluff Raimund Herincx, I think I made the right call. The choral and solo da capo embellishments are not always apt, the harpsichord is too busy, and the normally excellent trumpeter Philip Jones is fixated on on-the-beat dotting in his famous solo – or maybe Mackerras instructed him to play it that way.
The three Water Music suites were recorded with the Prague Chamber Orchestra in 1978 and despite the eloquence of the solo playing and the warmth of the orchestra’s corporate sonority, they make rather heavy weather of it. At a time when there were recordings by such as Harnoncourt, Marriner, Hogwood, Leppard and Paillard, you could pretty much take your stylistic pick. The Prague-recorded Concerti grossi, Op.3 are much better and the collaborations with the iron-lipped Maurice André typically pristine and brilliant.
A slew of Mozart discs then follow – CDs 8 to 16. A rather overlooked disc is CD 9 which features two Piano Concertos played by Allan Schiller, who was known for his persuasive Mozart performances, with the LPO, a Classics for Pleasure disc made in 1975. This was the cheap-line alternative to other, bigger names such as Perahia, Brendel, Ashkenazy, Anda and Bishop-Kovacevich. Schiller is happily still with us at the time of writing and he plays well, encouraged – I assume by Mackerras – to decorate the slow movement of No.23 very aptly. The LPO recordings of Symphonies 36, 38, 40 and 41 were made at around the same time. You can contrast these earlier readings with the later Scottish Chamber Orchestra cycle, where one finds the LPO recordings buoyant but robust but there is a more defined bass in the the Scottish readings and a greater sense of delicacy in the slow movements. Against that, you’ll have to deal with the Mackerras repeat fetish in Glasgow which reaches its apotheosis in No. 41 where he takes 8 minutes more with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra than he had in London. I’m afraid I can’t take the repeats and am perfectly happy with these LPO recordings.
He was on accompanying duties for the spitfire soprano Barbara Frittoli for Erato with his Scottish Chamber forces in 2000. This is one of the most recent of the discs under discussion and was recorded in Usher Hall. Mackerras introduces ornamentations, as was his wont, based on eighteenth century source material. Frittoli has a hard edge to her tone and her legato is imperfect but she’s certainly communicative. She reappears in the complete Idomeneo, a recording that my esteemed colleague Ralph Moore refuses even to discuss in his survey of the opera on this site, due to the presence in the cast of Ian Bostridge as Idomeneo. Well, yes, Bostridge is nobody’s idea of the central character and Frittoli is her usual gritty combative self but it would be a shame to pass over this Scottish recording without noting that Lorraine Hunt Lieberson is Idamante and Anthony Rolfe Johnson is Arbace, who, a decade earlier, had actually sung the title role in John Eliot Gardiner’s recording.
CDs 17 to 21 are devoted to the Beethoven Symphony cycle that Mackerras made in Liverpool in the period from 1991-97, using Jonathan Del Mar’s editions. He enjoyed rapport with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and this remains an attractive, buoyant and expressive cycle which has received an extensive review on this site. There are also examples of his working relationship with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Their Mendelssohn Fourth Symphony is energetic yet subtle and Schubert is good with all repeats taken. No.8 is in the Brian Newbould ‘completion’ of the last two movements, if that appeals. I’m not taken by their coupling of the Beethoven and Mendelssohn Violin Concertos with soloist Monica Huggett – pallid, underpowered, boring.
In the 1960s he recorded Ballet suites, some of which sailed close to the kind of repertoire Thomas Beecham used to essay. An example is on CD 25 where he and the New Philharmonia perform Gounod’s Faust Ballet Music from Act V, as well as Delibes’ Sylvia and Coppélia ballet suites. There are also Russian trifles on the following disc, with lots of tumblers, bumblebees and Sailors’ Dances, followed by Chopin’s Les Sylphides in Gordon Jacob’s arrangement and Meyerbeer’s Les Patineurs in Constant Lambert’s – both with the highly accomplished support of the Philharmonia in the late 50s. He was well versed in ballet performances by now and was rewarded with Verdi albums either with the Philharmonia performing his arrangement of the ballet The Lady and the Fool and then with the Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra (ie the LPO). He added ballet music from Il trovatore and I vespri siciliani, adding five Verdi overtures and the very Beechamesque Delibes Lakmé ballet music from Act II with the Royal Opera House Orchestra, Covent Garden.
In 1970 he accompanied Montserrat Caballé and Bernabé Martí in a sequence of duets from Verdi, Meyerbeer, Giordano, Puccini and Donizetti and he can also be heard doing the same for Rita Hunter and Alberto Remedios in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. On CD 33 there is the first release of previously unpublished material; three very popular pieces by Johann Strauss II with the Philharmonia from 1961 – Perpetuum Mobile, Unter Donner und Blitz and Tritsch-Tratsch Polka. He was idiomatic with French ballet scores as we’ve seen and there are further examples on CDs 33 and 34 – Delibes, Messager, Gounod, and Offenbach’s La Gaîté parisienne among them. His Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition in Liverpool is only adequate. It’s in clear, close-up sound but is a little tepid.
British viewers might recall Joseph Cooper, who presented a TV show called ‘Face the Music’, which is actually being shown again on terrestrial television. He was a genial presence and a fine pianist though he was forever being told he was Imogen Cooper’s father, which he wasn’t (the music critic Martin Cooper was her father). In 1958 he, the Pro Arte Orchestra and Mackerras dished up a rather fruity LP, full of frivolous-but-fun things that played to Cooper’s strengths – Litolff, Tchaikovsky’s strange Concerto No.3, Weber, Saint-Saëns, and things of that kind though I remember Erich Leinsdorf on the show praising Cooper, with genuine admiration, for his playing. This is a niche-but-nice reclamation and I’m glad to have auditioned it.
There was the occasional popular blockbuster such as CD 37 with its all-Russian selection, including the 1812 with the Band of the Welsh Guards and the Guns of the King’s Troop, and a Wagnerian interloper in the shape of the Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin. Mackerras was a fine Straussian and this space-saving disc also includes a separate LP from a decade later with Till Eulenspiegel and Don Juan. Full marks, incidentally, to Warner for not following the money-skimming route and presenting mere clones of LPs, with 35-minute timings. There are the odd straight LP-to-CD transfers, such as CD 42 with its Eastern European theme but it makes sense to keep it intact, and it does last 49-minutes.
Of course there are Dvořák recordings here, discs 38-41. They include his Symphonies 7, 8 and 9 to which I listened again during the preparation of this review. It was the nuance and poetry, the eruptive folkloric vigour and sheer charm of No.8 that drew me the deepest. All these recordings were made with the LPO on top form, and they added a sprightly Symphonic Variations. The rhythmically athletic and nuanced Legends cycle is with the English Chamber Orchestra with whom leader Stephanie Gonley plays the Romance in F minor. Their recording of the String Serenade is sandwiched with Mikhail Rudy’s Janáček recordings made in Paris in 1995 – the Capriccio and Concertino.
I suppose we do need to confront the question of how many different versions of Pineapple Poll one needs. Personally, I’m not sure I need any, but if you do there’s the Sadler’s Wells ballet score, recorded on 78s in 1951, and heard in mono on CD 43 with four Savoy Opera overtures added from 1956 in stereo. On the following disc there’s the stereo remake of Poll with the RPO from 1960 and then on CD 45 there’s the Poll ballet suite with the LPO in 1977, coupled with the remake of The Lady and the Fool ballet suite.
At around the same time that Mackerras was making a splash with his Handel Fireworks Music disc for Pye he was doing almost the same with his ground-breaking Janáček LP, which was, I suspect, how many British listeners first came across the composer. It was certainly my introduction. The Pro Arte did the honours and the incisive, lean sonorities Mackerras drew from them accustomed our ears to the Moravian Sound – not least in the Sinfonietta which has since been done more tidily but not necessarily more vigorously.
He was a rewarding Elgar conductor, too, as the coupling of Falstaff – with 20 separate track points (brilliant stuff – that’s why the CD was invented) – and the Enigma Variations shows. After a disastrous fire, he had to reconstruct the score of Sullivan’s Cello Concerto which Julian Lloyd Webber plays finely, as indeed he does Victor Herbert’s Concerto No.2.
Montserrat Caballé’s Puccini Arias album, from 1970, the same year she recorded the duets on CD 31, can be found in CD 49, though I’m not really sure why it isn’t placed adjacent to the earlier disc. The next three discs are Mahler-focused. He was a sensible – this is not code for boring by the way – and pragmatic Mahler conductor though it would have helped had he had a bigger and frankly better orchestra than the Royal Liverpool. The LPO would have served very well but Tennstedt was recording Mahler with them at the time. Anyway, the First, and Fifth are finely done and recommendable at ‘budget price’ if we’re playing that game. The Lieder aus ‘Des Knaben Wunderhorn’ is with Ann Murray and Thomas Allen, this time with the LPO in 1990. Christa Ludwig sings Reger and Berg with the New Philharmonia in 1966-68.
Mackerras knew what he wanted in Delius and wasn’t afraid to ruffle feathers to get it. He and Tasmin Little had a decided difference of opinion when they started working together on Delius but Mackerras compromised and they then worked amicably together, as the Double Concerto here, with Raphael Wallfisch, shows. The Cello Concerto is beautifully done, as is Paris. There’s nothing definably wrong with his Rachmaninov Third Symphony but it doesn’t sound big enough and nor do the Symphonic Dances. Holst’s The Planets, on the other hand, sounds big enough and biting too. It was recorded for Virgin Classics in 1988. He also recorded a fine Havergal Brian disc coupling Symphonies 7 and 31 and adding The Tinker’s Wedding overture.
On CD 56 there’s an Italian LP, with Wolf-Ferrari and Donizetti, to which extras have been added – the Pro Arte recordings of music by Donizetti, Falla, Smetana and Weinberger. The stereo tapes of the two Donizetti overtures, La Fille du régiment and Don Pasquale, have been lost and remastering was via mono tapes. Stravinsky is on CD 58, lithe and rhythmically vital. The next disc is devoted to the ‘Favourite Music’ of Eric Coates, stylishly played by the LSO in 1956. Added to it are overtures by Reznicek and Paul Burkhard and, importantly, previously unreleased pieces by Aaron Copland, The Quiet City and the Hoe Down from Rodeo and two movements from Dag Wirén’s Serenade for Strings – the Scherzo and March. Both the Wirén movements are in stereo and the two Copland pieces are in mono, as is El salón México which has been issued before.
Moving forward over two decades we arrive at the EMI Classics for Pleasure release of Walton’s two symphonies, the First with the LPO, and the Second with the LSO. Does he quite have their measure? Is tension a little weak in the First? That’s my feeling, but the Second is better. The final three discs find Mackerras on old fashioned accompanying duties and rather un-serious ones at that. CD 61 is called ‘The Elizabeth Schwarzkopf Christmas Album’ in which she overdubs both voices in Stille Nacht, and unleashes a rather fearsome O Come, All Ye Faithful, and other yuletide favourites, mostly, thankfully, German. Apart from Stille Nacht, all the arrangements are by Mackerras. You’ll also find guest appearances from Julian Bream and organist Denis Vaughan, the Ambrosian Singers and the Philharmonia. Richard Lewis is the star of ‘Folksongs of the British Isles’. The arrangements for this album, incidentally, were written by Arne Dørumsgaard. There are also two recordings from the veteran Peter Dawson, his last ever. He sings ‘Clancy of the Overflow’ and ‘Mandalay Scena’ and though the recording details seem to indicate they’re in mono, they sound stereo to me (they were certainly issued at the time in stereo). The final disc brings together two LPs, the first ‘A Little Nonsense’ and the second ‘Sings the Songs of Britain’. Most of the arrangements were from the pens of Mackerras and Ernest Tomlinson. Baritone Owen Brannigan sings throughout, helped in the second LP by Elizabeth Harwood. There were many Handelian parodies and Brannigan is great fun, not least when he sings in his native Tyneside accent.
A number of the discs have been remastered by Art & Son Studio. They sound unproblematic and fine. Many however carry the original mastering date when they were first released. Pedantically and probably unnecessarily, I’ll list which discs have been newly remastered by Art & Son; 1, 4, 8, most of 26, most of 28 but not the Meyerbeer which was transferred back in 2005, the Delibes on 30 (the rest was transferred by Testament in 2004), the unpublished Strauss on 33, some of 34, 36, 42, some of 56 – the rest was transferred by Testament in 2004 – 62 and one of the LPs in 63, as HMV transferred ‘A Little Nonsense’ back in 1989. Some others do bear a Parlophone copyright 2025 indication but everything else was transferred in the 1980s, 90s or beyond. The sound quality is perfectly fine.
The discs I most enjoyed listening to were those numerous ones that come from the 1950s and 60s with which I was unfamiliar. That’s not because the more recent recordings are inferior – far from it – it’s because I knew them or had heard them. Nigel Simeone has written a fine booklet note. Mackerras maintained a very focused and high level of consistency in the recording studio and there are only a few discs that fail to impress. Of course, his many discs for other recording companies will probably involve you in further pre- and post-Christmas expenditure.
Jonathan Woolf
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Contents
CD 1 HANDEL Music for the Royal Fireworks [1959] Concerto a due cori HANDEL/HARTY Water Music Suite [1956] Berenice; overture CLARKE Prince of Denmark’s March JACOB Fanfare for “God Save the King” and Anthem
CD 2-3 HANDEL Messiah Elizabeth Harwood. Janet Baker. Paul Esswood. Robert Tear. Raimund Herincx
CD 4 HANDEL Music for the Royal Fireworks [1976] Concerto a due cori. Concerto grosso in F major. Concerto grosso in D major
CD 5-6 HANDEL Water Music [1978] Suite Nos. 2 and 4. Concerti grossi Op.3
CD 7 HANDEL ALBINONI TELEMANN HERTEL Trumpet Concertos. Maurice André
CD 8 MOZART Les Petits Riens, Dances, Marches
CD 9 MOZART Piano Concertos 20 & 23. Allan Schiller
CD 10-12 MOZART Flute Concerto K.313. Jonathan Snowden. Sinfonia Concertante K.297b Symphonies 36, 38, 40 & 41
CD 13 MOZART Arias. Barbara Frittoli
CD 14-16 MOZART Idomeneo lan Bostridge. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Lisa Milne. Barbara Frittoli. Anthony Rolfe Johnson
CD 17-21 BEETHOVEN Symphonies. Joan Rodgers · Della Jones · Peter Bronder. Bryn Terfel CD 22 BEETHOVEN MENDELSSOHN Violin Concertos. Monica Huggett
CD 23-24 SCHUBERT Symphonies 5, 8 & 9
CD 25 Favourite Ballet Music (William Tell Sylvia Faust Coppélia)
CD 26 BERLIOZ Overtures & Orchestral Excerpts GLINKA Russlan and Ludmilla overture MUSSORGSKY Sorochinsky Fair; Gopak GLAZUNOV Concert Waltz No.1 RIMSKY-KORSAKOV The Snow Maiden suite – Dance of the Tumblers, Tsar Saltan – Flight of the Bumblebee GLIÈRE The Red Poppy – Russian Sailors’ Dance IPPOLITOV-IVANANOV Caucasian Sketches – Procession of the Sardar
CD 27 MENDELSSOHN Symphony No.4. Midsummer Night’s Dream, incidental music
CD 28 CHOPIN Les Sylphides PONCHIELLI Dance of the Hours MEYERBEER Les Patineurs TCHAIKOVSKY Waltzes
CD 29 VERDI/MACKERRAS Lady and the Fool, ballet
CD 30 VERDI Opera Overtures & Ballet Music. DELIBES Lakmé Ballet Music
CD 31 Great Opera Duets Montserrat Caballé. Bernabé Martí
CD 32 WAGNER Götterdämmerung: Highlights Rita Hunter. Alberto Remedios
CD 33 OFFENBACH Gaîté parisienne J. STRAUSS II Graduation Ball · Perpetuum mobile Unter Donner und Blitz Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka
CD 34 CHABRIER España · Fête polonaise · DELIBES La Source MESSAGER Les Deux pigeons, ballet suite GOUNOD Faust, ballet music from Act V
CD 35 MUSSORGSKY Pictures at an Exhibition. A Night on the Bare Mountain [1970] BORODIN Prince Igor Overture & Polovtsian Dances
CD 36 TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 3 LITOLFF Concerto Symphonique: Scherzo WEBER Konzertstück in F minor SAINT-SAËNS Caprice Valse TURINA Rapsodia sinfónica. Joseph Cooper
CD 37 TCHAIKOVSKY 1812 Overture GLINKA Russlan and Ludmilla overture WAGNER Lohengrin, Prelude to Act 3 MUSSORGSKY A Night on the Bare Mountain STRAUSS Till Eulenspiegel · Don Juan
CD 38-39 DVOŘÁK Symphonies 7, 8 & 9. Symphonic Variations
CD 40-41 DVOŘÁK Romance. Stephanie Gonley. Legends, Op.59. Nocturne. String Serenade JANÁČEK Capriccio Concertino Mikhail Rudy
CD 42 DVOŘÁK Slavonic Dances, selection SMETANA The Bartered Bride Polka & Furiant BRAHMS Hungarian Dances 5 & 6 BARTÓK Romanian Folk Dances ENESCU Romanian Rhapsody 1
CD 43 SULLIVAN Pineapple Poll [1951] ·Savoy Opera Overtures
CD 44 SULLIVAN Pineapple Poll, ballet
CD 45 SULLIVAN Pineapple Poll Suite [1977] VERDI/MACKERRAS Lady and the Fool Suite
CD 46 JANÁČEK Sinfonietta 4 Opera Overtures
CD 47 ELGAR Falstaff. Enigma Variations
CD 48 SULLIVAN Cello Concerto HERBERT Cello Concerto No. 2 ELGAR Romance Op.62. Julian Lloyd Weber
CD 49 PUCCINI Arias. Montserrat Caballé
CD 50-51 MAHLER Symphonies 1 & 5
CD 52 MAHLER Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Ann Murray. Thomas Allen REGER An die Hoffnung BERG 3 Frühe Lieder. Christa Ludwig
CD 53 DELIUS Double Concerto Cello Concerto. Tasmin Little. Raphael Wallfisch
CD 54 RACHMANINOV Symphony No. 3. Symphonic Dances
CD 55 HOLST The Planets. The Perfect Fool
CD 56 WOLF-FERRARI Il segretto di Susanna, overture. I quattro rusteghi, excerpts. I gioielli della Madonna, suite DONIZETTI Overtures FALLA three-Cornered Hat, ballet music SMETANA The Bartered Bride, overture WEINBERGER Schwanda the Bagpiper
CD 57 BRIAN Symphonies 7 & 31 The Tinker’s Wedding
CD 58 STRAVINSKY Rite of Spring. Feu d’artifice. Circus Polka. Greeting prelude
CD 59 Favourite Music of Eric Coates. BURKHARD Der Schuss von der Kanzel, overture REZNICEK Donna Diana, overture COPLAND El Salón México The Quiet City Rodeo Hoe Down WIREN Serenade for Strings Scherzo & March
CD 60 WALTON Symphonies 1 and 2. Siesta
CD 61 Elizabeth Schwarzkopf Christmas Album
CD 62 Folksongs of the British Isles. Peter Dawson Sings. Richard Lewis. Peter Dawson
CD 63 A Little Nonsense. Sing the Songs of Britain. Owen Brannigan. Elizabeth Harwood
Artists
Montserrat Caballé (soprano)
Barbara Frittoli (soprano)
Elizabeth Harwood (soprano)
Rita Hunter (soprano)
Lisa Milne (soprano)
Joan Rodgers (soprano)
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (soprano)
Janet Baker (mezzo-soprano)
Della Jones (mezzo-soprano)
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (mezzo-soprano)
Christa Ludwig (mezzo-soprano)
Ann Murray (mezzo-soprano)
Paul Esswood (countertenor)
Ian Bostridge (tenor)
Peter Bronder (tenor)
Bernabé Martí (tenor)
Anthony Rolfe Johnson (tenor)
Richard Lewis (tenor)
Alberto Remedios (tenor)
Robert Tear (tenor)
Thomas Allen (baritone)
Peter Dawson (bass-baritone)
Raimund Herincx (bass-baritone)
Bryn Terfel (bass-baritone)
Owen Brannigan (bass)
Mikhail Rudy (piano)
Allan Schiller (piano)
Stephanie Gonley (violin)
Monica Huggett (violin)
Tasmin Little (violin)
Julian Lloyd Webber (cello)
Raphael Wallfisch (cello)
Jonathan Snowden (flute)
Maurice André (trumpet)
English Chamber Orchestra
London Philharmonic Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Orchestre de l’Opera National de Paris
Philharmonia Orchestra
Prague Chamber Orchestra
Pro Arte Orchestra
Robert Masters Chamber Orchestra
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Sadler’s Wells Orchestra
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
