Beecham – The Complete Acoustics (1910-1918)
Caroline Hatchard (soprano): Walter Hyde (tenor): Clara Butt (contralto): Beecham Opera Chorus/Beecham Symphony Orchestra
Download Only – Verdi Nabucco – Selections
Pristine Audio PASC755 [78 + 73]

I’ve come hot foot from scolding Warner – fat good it will do me – for refusing to transfer Thomas Beecham’s acoustic recordings in their ‘Mono Era’ 53-CD box, which therefore began not in 1910 (as it should) but in 1926 with his early electrics. Their excuse was flimsy to fatuous but what hope does one have arguing the case for an in-the-round look at a musician’s career when some labels refuse to play ball. This is especially odd with Warner because when it came to Adrian Boult’s legacy, they did transfer his acoustics. Bizarre.

Therefore, it’s good news that Pristine Audio has released its transfers of Beecham’s acoustics just at the same time as Warner’s big box so that you can add this body of recordings, which includes sixteen works that he never re-recorded, to that large box. The acoustics were made for three different companies. Firstly, the Gramophone Company discs of 1910, then the Odeons of 1912 and finally the Columbias of 1915-18. He continued recording for Columbia after 1918 but none of these recordings was issued.

Four of the Gramophone Company sides were devoted to Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann during the period when the conductor was busy at His Majesty’s Theatre with his Beecham Opera Company. The Offenbach was performed during that season as was Die Fledermaus, the overture to which he also recorded at the same time. For the Doll’s Song he had Caroline Hatchard, Sophie in the first British performance of Der Rosenkavalier, conducted by none other than Beecham. Hatchard was only 27 in 1910 and makes a fine youthful impression.  With her is Walter Hyde, aged 35, and a noted Wagnerian who had sung in the premiere of Stanford’s Much Ado About Nothing. His clarion voice, with a ringing top, can be admired almost unreservedly as well as true dramatic flair which proved a splendid vehicle for recording. That certainly couldn’t be said of every British tenor of the time. The overture to Die Fledermaus is a piece Beecham never re-recorded and is a bit of a scramble.The company chose to record the excerpts from d’Albert’s Tiefland over two sides.

By the time he re-entered the studios his orchestra had become something of a virtuoso body. Odeon’s recordings, however, left quite a lot to be desired and copies are notoriously tough to transfer. Mark Obert-Thorn has had access to some of the better-sounding copies to be encountered today and has transferred them as well as anyone could expect. This is valuable as you can hear in the six sides just how zestful are the performances. The Odeon studio wasn’t big so it’s questionable how many of the Beecham Symphony Orchestra’s strings could be gathered together but this is the so-called ‘Fireworks Orchestra’ – the name relates to its youthfully raucous behaviour during its railway journeys up and down the country – playing with remarkable flair and drive. In the William Tell overture you can hear individual string players in the ensemble and one must be the leader, Albert Sammons, fiddling away like the devil. Another work to which he didn’t return is Edmond Missa’s lovely entra’acte from Muguette, its torrid surface never obscuring the fine amount of detail that can be extracted from its grooves. They also play Mascagni’s Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana and whilst the bass overbalances things for us now in this fine transfer, that would not have been the case when listening on a contemporary gramophone in 1912. The overture to Le Nozze di Figaro is full of incision and fizz and though it’s truncated Weber’s Oberon overture features the commendably tight, taut playing of the orchestra, with a lavish number of portamentos.

The Columbias offer the most sustained and best-recorded examples of Beecham’s acoustics. Sammons had departed for a solo career, Columbia didn’t indulge brass reinforcements of the bass in these sessions, and the results are well-balanced, lively, and consistently fine examples of high-class playing of the time. In these sessions Beecham chose to add another Mozart opera overture, from The Magic Flute – over two sides – and Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances, a favourite of his to the end. The charm of his performance, and its elegance of phrasing, can be savoured in Massenet’s Manon minuet (never re-recorded commercially) whilst his promotion of Strauss is evident in the Waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier, which he’d premiered in London two years earlier. These are not the familiar Waltz arrangements but the recording is nevertheless of some historical-documentary significance. 

Beecham never recorded Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony in full which makes the two snippets from the second and third movements valuable if not exactly satisfying. Pristine Audio has reissued these snippets before as indeed they have the three excerpts from Stravinsky’s The Firebird (on Stravinsky Rarities, PASC496), the first Stravinsky to have been recorded, so far as is known. These examples from the 1911 suite were effectively hot-off-the-press when Beecham recorded them in May 1916, his only Stravinsky recordings. He re-recorded the William Tell overture with familiar rhythmic zest, the Le Nozze di Figaro overture, as well as the Oberon overture, this time in full, over two sides.  Though the copy used for Berlioz’s Roman Carnival overture is rather noisy, it presents his familiar authority in the French repertoire, something that runs throughout these early recordings.  

Other familiar repertorial selections are evident. There’s Sibelius – the Valse triste from Kuolema, in what is an early example of Sibelius on disc, though preserved here via a rather steely surface. Grieg too is represented as is Bizet and – a rare example, indeed unique in his discography – Lully, in the shape of the Minuet from Les Amants Magnifiques. There is also the stentorian six-foot-plus Clara Butt singing Edward German’s rather moving setting of Kipling’s Have you news of my boy Jack? The twofer ends with two movements from Debussy’s Petite Suite in the Büsser orchestrations, played rather beautifully.

Available via download only are selections from Verdi’s Nabucco which come from those 1910 sessions and are either played by the Black Diamonds Band or just possibly by the Beecham Symphony Orchestra.

If you have any curiosity in early Beecham you’ll need these acoustics. Some were transferred by Symposium in years gone by but the Odeons defeated their technology and the Columbias were variable. Keith Hardwick transferred some on a Beecham LP, including one of the dreaded Odeons, back in 1979. This, however, is the first time Beecham’s acoustics have been transferred in full. It shows that it’s quite possible to do what Mark Obert-Thorn has done and that acoustics aren’t the equivalent of asbestos, only to be handled in a hazmat suit with suitable breathing apparatus.  Terrific work all round and a poke in the eye to Warner.

Jonathan Woolf

Availability: Pristine Classical

Contents

CD 1 (78:46)

GRAMOPHONE COMPANY RECORDINGS (1910)

OFFENBACH Tales of Hoffmann

1. The Doll’s Song
Caroline Hatchard (soprano) and Beecham Opera Chorus
Recorded 27 July 1910 ∙ Matrix: 4340f ∙ First issued on Gramophone Concert Record 03193

2. Legend of Kleinsack
Walter Hyde (tenor)
Recorded 27 July 1910 ∙ Matrix: 4341f ∙ First issued on Gramophone Concert Record 02256

3. Drig, drig, drig
Beecham Opera Chorus
Recorded 27 July 1910 ∙ Matrix: 4347f ∙ First issued on Gramophone Concert Record 04505

4. When love is but tender and sweet
Walter Hyde (tenor) and Beecham Opera Chorus
Recorded 28 July 1910 ∙ Matrix: 4353f ∙ First issued on Gramophone Concert Record 02257

5. J. STRAUSS II Die Fledermaus – Overture*
Recorded 28 July 1910 ∙ Matrix: 4360f (later 381 ac) ∙ First issued on Gramophone Concert Record 0627

6. D’ALBERT Tiefland – Selections**

Recorded 31 August 1910 ∙ Matrices: 4423/4f ∙ First issued on Gramophone Concert Record 0629/30

ODEON RECORDINGS (c.1912)

7. ROSSINI William Tell Overture – March
Recorded c.1912 ∙ Matrix: Lxg 30 ∙ First issued on Odeon 0795

8. MISSA Muguette – Entr’acte**
Recorded c.1912 ∙ Matrix: Lxg 39 ∙ First issued on Odeon 0795

9. MASCAGNI Cavalleria Rusticana – Intermezzo*
Recorded c.1912 ∙ Matrix: Lxg 40 ∙ First issued on Odeon 0772

10.   MENDELSSOHN The Bees’ Wedding (Songs Without Words, No. 34)* 
Recorded c.1912 ∙ Matrix: Lxg 41 ∙ First issued on Odeon 0772

11. MOZART Le Nozze di Figaro, K.492-Overture 
Recorded c.1912 ∙ Matrix: Lxx 3677 ∙ First issued on Odeon X-84

12. WEBER Oberon Overture
Recorded c.1912 ∙ Matrix: Lxx 3678 ∙ First issued on Odeon X-84

COLUMBIA GRAPHOPHONE RECORDINGS (1915 – 1918)

13. MOZART Die Zauberflöte, K.620-Overture
Recorded 1915 ∙ Matrices: 6559-2 & 6560-2 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1001

14. BORODIN Prince Igor – Polovtsian Dances
Recorded 1915 ∙ Matrices: 6561-2 & 6562-1 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1002

15. MASSENET Manon – Minuet*
Recorded 1915 ∙ Matrix: 6563-1 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1020

16. R. STRAUSS Der Rosenkavalier – Waltzes*
Recorded 1915 ∙ Matrix: 6564-2 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1020

17. BORODIN Prince Igor – Polovtsian March
Recorded 1915 ∙ Matrix: 6601-1 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1011

TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, “Pathétique”*
18. 2nd Mvt.: Allegro con grazia
19. 3rd Mvt.: Allegro molto vivace
Recorded 1915 ∙ Matrices: 6602-1 & 6603-1 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1016

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Antar – Symphonic Suite, Op. 9
20. 3rd Mvt.: Allegro risoluto alla marcia
Recorded 1915 ∙ Matrix: 6604-1 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1011

CD 2 (73:49)

STRAVINSKY The Firebird -Suite (1911 Version) – excerpts**
1. Dance of the Firebird
2. The Princess’ Game with Golden Apples
3. Infernal Dance of All of Koschei’s Subjects
Recorded c.May 1916 ∙ Matrices: 6797-1 & 6799-1 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1040

4. MENDELSSOHN A Midsummer Night’s Dream,Op. 61 – Scherzo

Recorded c.May 1916 ∙ Matrix: 6800-2 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1075

5. MOZART Divertimento in D major, K.131 – Minuet
Recorded 1916 ∙ Matrix: 6904-1 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1132

6. ROSSINI The Barber of Seville – Overture*
Recorded 1916 ∙ Matrix: 6905-1 or -2 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1075

7. BERLIOZ Roman Carnival Overture, Op. 9
Recorded 1916 ∙ Matrix: 6907-1 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1105

8. MOZART Le Nozze di Figaro, K.492-Overture
Recorded 1916 ∙ Matrix: 6908-2 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1115

9. SIBELIUS Kuolema, Op. 44-Valse triste
Recorded 1916 ∙ Matrix: 6918-1 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1162

10. SMETANA The Bartered Bride – Overture
Recorded 1916 ∙ Matrix: 6919-2 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1115

11. GRIEG Symphonic Dance No. 2, Op. 64
Recorded 1916 ∙ Matrix: 6920-2 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1132

12. GOUNOD Romeo and Juliet – Processional March*
Recorded 1916 ∙ Matrix: 6921-2 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1162

13. WEBER Oberon – Overture
Recorded 1916 ∙ Matrices: 6922-1 and 6923-1 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1104

14. BERLIOZ Damnation of Faust – Hungarian March
Recorded 1916 ∙ Matrix: 6924-1 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1105

15. GERMAN (text: Kipling) Have you news of my boy Jack?*
Clara Butt (contralto)
Recorded c. February/March 1917 ∙ Matrix: 75414-2 ∙ First issued on Columbia 7145

16. BIZET La Jolie Fille de Perth – Minuet*
Recorded 1917 ∙ Matrix: 76036-1 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1227

17. MOZART Le Nozze di Figaro, K.492 – Fandango*
18. LULLY Les Amants Magnifiques – Minuet**
Recorded 1917 ∙ Matrix: 76037-2 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1227

DEBUSSY (orch. Büsser) Petite Suite*
19. 1st Mvt. – En bateau
20. 4th Mvt. – Ballet
Recorded 15 August and 10 or 23 October 1918 ∙ Matrices: 76225-1 and 76226-2 ∙ First issued on Columbia L 1248

Download Only

21.VERDI Nabucco – Selections* (6:45)
Grammophon-Orchester (Black Diamonds Band or Beecham Symphony Orchestra)
Recorded 31 August 1910 ∙ Matrices: 4426/7f ∙ First issued on Gramophone Concert Record 040653/4

* = Only Beecham recording of the work
** = Only Beecham recording of any work by that composer