Sir Thomas Beecham (conductor)
The Mono Era on HMV and Columbia Graphophone 1926-1959
Orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de la Radio-Television Française
Warner Classics 2173262995 [53 CDs]
First came Beecham’s stereo legacy and now comes the mono, a 53-CD box from Warner that covers the years 1926-59. As for the latter date, which may seem late for mono recordings, EMI was still recording in mono in Paris during the 1957-58 sessions and there is the live mono 1959 Dvořák 8 from the Royal Festival Hall and the Maida Vale Mastersingers Prelude, also in mono.
Whilst in introductory mode I think we need to address – at some length, I’m afraid – two things, one of which is Warner’s responsibility. This concerns Beecham’s legacy on acoustic discs, which began with sessions in 1910 and continued until 1918 though he did record acoustically until early 1925, but all these later recordings were rejected for publication. Warner notes that the ‘acoustic discs have been deliberately excluded due to their very precarious sound quality.’ Now I know that most of you would rather boil your heads than listen to an acoustic (pre-electric, pre-microphone) recording, but they are part of Beecham’s pioneering place in the recording studios. The repertoire reflects his contemporaneous prowess on the stage and also the first recording ever made of Stravinsky’s music in the shape of excerpts from The Firebird. It also includes numerous recordings of works Beecham never re-recorded. The Columbias and the earlier Odeons of 1912 (if Warner have the rights to those) also preserve the recordings of the Beecham Symphony Orchestra, a famous, barnstorming ensemble composed of brilliant young musicians. I note that Pristine Audio is bringing out Mark Obert-Thorn’s remasterings of this body of music. So, if he can do it – and he is thanked at the back of Warner’s booklet, so clearly he contributed his expertise to something in this box – then he could have been asked to do it for Warner. Or Andrew Hallifax, similarly thanked by Warner, could have done it. But someone should have done it. If Symposium could transfer all these discs years ago, albeit some were rather dodgy, and Anthony Griffith could transfer six of these acoustics (including the Stravinsky and one of the troublesome Odeons) back in 1979 on LP, then Warner should have done it and not shirked their duty. It’s their legacy, as well as Beecham’s, and their responsibility. It would only have taken two CDs.
The other problem concerns what else is missing. Between 1944 and 1955 Beecham made a number of important recordings for which Warner does not hold the rights, notwithstanding the fact that some were issued on English Columbia. Other rights over major Beecham recordings made at this time are held by Sony. So, you won’t find such things as the Goldmark Rustic Wedding, the Haydn symphonies for which Warner don’t hold the rights, Schubert’s Sixth, Beethoven’s Fourth, Mendelssohn’s Fifth, Sibelius’ First and other major things such as Berlioz, Delius and the two concertos Beecham made with Isaac Stern. I applaud Warner for addressing this vexed issue in some considerable detail in the booklet.
Those previously unissued studio recordings issued by Somm in their ‘The Beecham Collection’ released with the permission of Shirley, Lady Beecham have also not been included. They include Sea Drift, with Dennis Noble in 1928, and Betty Humby Beecham’s performance of the Handel-Beecham Piano Concerto.
I’ve written 500 words and haven’t mentioned anything about what is actually in the box, so with apologies for this extensive preamble, it’s time to move on.
Disc 1 includes his first electrically recorded sides, the most significant being Beethoven’s Second Symphony recorded in 1926 in the Scala Theatre, not an ideal location, with the Orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society – here called by Warner the ‘Old’ Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, to distinguish it from Beecham’s post-war orchestra. I think the former is more accurate. This orchestra was used by Ernest Ansermet in his very first recording, of the Schumann Piano Concerto with Fanny Davies in 1928, when it sported the same vibrato-less, ear-scraping wind section as here. Somm transferred the 1928 Brigg Fair on CD 2 which has more presence and richness than this Warner transfer. The second disc ends with Atterberg’s fine Sixth Symphony in its première recording and indeed performance. It was given its public première later by Hamilton Harty. Messiah occupies CDs 3 and 4 in a transfer utterly superior to Pearl’s scratchy and rather ramshackle one. Beecham was one of those at the time – others included Anthony Bernard and, incidentally, Henry Wood, often dismissed wrongly in this respect – who were to alter the conception of performances of baroque music, paving the way in Britain for Boyd Neel and post-war exponents. It’s a stirring reading with the singers being Beecham’s lady-friend Dora Labbette, and Muriel Brunskill who, along with stentorian Harold Williams, help to blot out the geriatric-sounding Hubert Eisdell who had been a good old wagon but had done broke down.
The tenor Beecham should have employed crops up in CD 5 – Heddle Nash, singing Rodolfo in Act IV of La bohème, along with Labbette, John Brownlee, Robert Alva, Robert Easton and Stella Andreva. Beecham plays piano for Labbette on a number of Delius songs in this disc – Le Ciel est par-dessus le toit sounds rather crackly in this transfer and must come from an imperfect commercial 78 – and accompanies her orchestrally in two Grieg songs which only stayed in the catalogue for two years. Eva Turner’s famous sides are also in this disc. The English-language Gounod Faust occupies the next two discs – Nash, Easton, Miriam Licette, Harold Williams etc, full of personable singing and direction. Handel and Strauss make up CD 8 with recordings (they’re scattered throughout the box) drawn from the experimental recordings, soon after made into commercial dubbings, made at the Leeds Festival of 1934. The Strauss is Don Quixote with the New York Philharmonic. It’s very well known as are the recordings, multiply reissued, of three Violin Concertos on the next disc, performed by Joseph Szigeti.
CD 11 gives us the first of several pre-war Delius recordings, famous examples of Beecham’s imperishable art, his gift for phrasing, colour and atmosphere. Sea Drift and Appalachia are in this disc, and Songs of Sunset, with Labbette, on CD 13. Beecham didn’t record much Dvořák but whenever he did it was wonderful. The Slavonic Rhapsody and two of the Legends, Op.59 are also on this disc. Readers might know that a live, pre-war recording of Symphony No.5 has survived. CD 14 is all-Wagner, mostly studio recordings but also live performances from Covent Garden with Torsten Ralf, Rudolf Bockelman and Tiana Lemnitz heading the cast in brief extracts from Die Meistersinger and Götterdämmerung. Tristan and Isolde, with Flagstad and Melchior, as well as Karin Branzell, Paul Schöffler, Margarete Klose, Herbert Janssen and Sven Nilsson occupies the next two discs, recorded live at Covent Garden on 18 and 22 July 1937, and not to be confused with EMI’s Beecham-Reiner mix-up. The transfer is taken from EMI’s 1991 CD release ‘which corrects errors made’ – which means that Reiner’s contributions from 1936, mistakenly included as if by Beecham, have been removed and we are assured that everything here is directed by the latter.
French music dominates CD 18, with a sequence of orchestral suites drawn from Bizet and Offenbach, full of rhythm, point and charm, as well as some Berlioz and Debussy – that exquisite 1939 Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. Beecham re-recorded Beethoven’s Symphony No.2 in 1936 – he did it again in 1956 when the Largo had slowed – almost at the same time that he recorded his favourite Brahms symphony, No.2, and admirably so in both cases. By now the London Philharmonic, his creation, was purring nicely and the pre-war Haydn Symphonies he recorded, old editions or not, attest to his affection and joy in them. Few could draw out their vitality and wit as he did and the advantage of these earlier recordings is that they’re a touch wittier and more incisive. The same is true of Mozart and these earlier recordings are generally preferable to the post-war inscriptions which for all their eloquence could occasionally be a touch finnicky. Some of these transfers are from 2011, others 2025. Die Zauberflöte has been newly mastered by Art & Son, who have done the majority of the remasterings in this box and it’s appropriate to note here that they’ve done a generally fine job.
Schubert’s Fifth Symphony from 1939 sports a slow movement more languorous than his stereo remake and it’s coupled with the Unfinished. Sibelius occupies Disc 27. I vaguely remember reading that Sibelius once called Beecham a ‘first fiddle conductor’, which doesn’t sound much like a compliment, but he invariably turned in authoritative performances and those in this disc are really good – the Violin Concerto, most obviously, with an incendiary Heifetz, as well as incidental music from The Tempest in two performances, the shorter selection live from the Leeds Festival in 1934, the longer from 1937-38. The Fourth Symphony follows in the next disc along with shorter orchestral pieces, like In Memoriam, En Saga (superb), and Finlandia. Beecham recorded Franck’s Symphony in 1940 so if you only know the later recordings from 1957 (in mono, in this box) or 1959 – there are several instances of late re-recordings so as to record, finally, in stereo – you might like to compare and contrast. If so, you’ll find Beecham is tighter in the first movement in 1940 than he was later.
I’ve always been very fond of some of the material in CD 30, which contains Lord Berners’ jokey The Triumph of Neptune in seven scenes – which Beecham was to re-record in Philadelphia with two further scenes included – along with the Beecham-Handel The Faithful Shepherd suite, with music from Il Pastor fido, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.12, K.414 with Louis Kentner. CD 31 brings together two unequal entities. First, there’s Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony in his only recording of it and Francesca da Rimini (ditto) coupled with three songs by Beecham’s son Adrian, sung by Nancy Evans with Beecham accompanying at the piano. More Tchaikovsky is programmed next – a splendid Polish Symphony and Romeo and Juliet perhaps incongruously, but space-savingly, sitting next to three scenes from Verdi’s Macbeth with Margherita Grandi (yes, and Shakespeare is a link, I realise).
We are now in the immediate post-war years when Beecham formed yet another orchestra, one that was to be with him for the rest of his performing life, the Royal Philharmonic. It had trouble with personnel. The intended leader was the suave John Pennington, who returned from America after his years with the London String Quartet and in Hollywood studios, only to find an intransigent Musicians’ Union refusing to sanction his appointment. Off went Pennington and in came the tough-talking Oscar Lampe. The Sibelius Second they recorded in 1947 is good but no match for the incendiary (in every way and in every movement) live one from the Royal Festival Hall contained in CD 53. There’s a mixed salad in CD 34 with Chabrier jostling with Debussy who jostles with Arnold Bax – The Garden of Fand – Liszt’s Orpheus and a Beecham lollipop classic, Massenet’s Le Dernier Sommeil de la Vierge. Some Mendelssohn can be found in the next disc – with a couple of orchestrations from the young Norman Del Mar – more evidence of Beecham’s excellence in Dvořák in The Golden Spinning Wheel (why isn’t this played more often? It’s much better than The Noon Witch) and Arthur Rubinstein appears in a finely conceived Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto, in which he plays Saint-Saëns’ ludicrous first movement cadenza.
When Richard Strauss visited Britain for a series of prestigious concerts with the Philharmonia and to attend performances of Elektra, Beecham conceived a series of recordings that included a delightful reading of Der Bürger als Edelmann as well as Paul Tortelier’s breakthrough recording of Don Quixote – with leader Oscar Lampe and violist Leonard Rubens – Ein Heldenleben with Lampe, a recording I prefer to his stereo remake with Steven Staryk, and smaller pieces. On CD 37 you’ll find Jean Pougnet’s attractive fiddling in Delius’ Violin Concerto. I recently spent a pleasant half an hour watching film of Pougnet leading the wartime LPO for Malcolm Sargent. On this disc you’ll find one of the very few previously unpublished examples here – one of three attempts at the Dance Rhapsody No.1 from 1948. The next unsuccessful attempt is also included and so is the third, made in 1952. A surfeit of Dance Rhapsodies.
Neither of Beecham’s two mono recordings of Delius’ Songs of Sunset is complete. The one from 1946, with Nancy Evans and Redvers Llewellyn is missing the second scene (Cease smiling, dear) whilst the earlier 1934 Leeds version (on CD 13) is missing the final panel, They are not long, the weeping and the laughter. Strange. These are Beecham’s early post-war Delius recordings, and they continue with the Piano Concerto, played by Beecham’s wife, Betty Humby Beecham and by the second mono Brigg Fair and the complete 1949 A Village Romeo and Juliet with a cast headed by Dennis Dowling. A Third Programme broadcast from around the same time, but with a different cast, has survived and can be found on Somm, an invaluable label, as we’ve seen, for rare Beecham material.
Beecham and Heifetz teamed up in 1947 for Mozart’s D major Concerto which the conductor had made, better, pre-war with Szigeti and in 1949 for a dispiriting Mendelssohn Concerto. There are more Mozart trinkets on CD 43 as well as two more Haydn Symphonies – No.102 and the only non-London Symphony in his commercial discography, a spirited take on No.40. The famous La bohème is here, of course, with de los Ángeles, Björling and Merrill (2002 remasterings so no change there) and Beecham’s ineffable Ballet album is in the next disc, with some wonderful Grétry Zémire et Azor extracts, Bizet’s rousing Patrie, the ballet music from Act V of Gounod’s Faust and that charming bonbon Paul Vidal’s Zino-Zina, which I wondered last time was mono or stereo – as I’d never heard it before. In the same year he recorded Mendelssohn with Heifetz he also recorded Mozart’s G major Concerto with Giaconda De Vito, complete with Donald Tovey’s cadenza and featuring Beecham’s errant cough. I’ve reviewed this before, when it appeared on Naxos, and it’s not really very good, the soloist being mediocre. Bantock’s Fifine at the Fair is here, and so are snippets of Beecham rehearsing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. It makes a change from the Haydn rehearsal excerpts which are endlessly reissued. Then there’s another previously unissued recording, of parts (only) of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.16, K. 451 with Betty Humby Beecham. As is well-known, Beecham would very often leave a recording, coming back to it months or even a couple of years later, work on it more and then release it (or not). Haydn’s Symphonies 93-98 less 97 are in CDs 48 and 49 along with Beethoven’s Seventh – the one where he complained about the yaks in the Allegretto. Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony is coupled with Edward German’s immeasurably superior Gipsy Suite – only kidding, it’s just that in my dotage I enjoy German more than Tchaikovsky. These are old remasters, the former from 2007, the latter 2011. Franck’s Symphony and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique are coupled in the penultimate disc, recordings made in Paris in 1957 and ’58 respectively. The Berlioz shouldn’t be confused with the 1959 recording which is completely differently proportioned. The 1958 Paris recordings of the Bizet and Lalo symphonies didn’t suffer such radical overhauls when he remade them in stereo the following year. The last disc is devoted to the live Festival Hall concerts which produced Sibelius 2 and Dvořák 8 to which I have already referred.
A number of the remasterings have used vinyl pressings from the 1970s which were pressed from original metal masters. This applies to Brahms’ Second Symphony and many of the Delius recordings originally recorded on 78. Pitch has been stabilised at A= 440 to 442 Hz. Most, but not all, the remasterings come from Art & Son.
I’ve had tough words to say earlier about the folly of not including the acoustic recordings. It’s hardly Warner’s fault, though, that multinational fiefdoms act in such a way as to permanently disappoint collectors. Think how much easier things would be if those labels that now ‘own’ Beecham’s post-war symphonic legacy, simply relinquished ownership to Warner. Flying pigs? Maybe. Frustrating, certainly. In the end, I have to compliment this set and the series as a whole. It sports an attractive booklet and has been well put together. Beecham knew how to produce the goods, and the goods are here for all to hear in these well-packed 53 CDs.
Jonathan Woolf
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Contents
CD 1 MOZART Die Zauberflöte: Overture · Symphony No. 34 · Divertimento No. 2:
Minuet No. 2 | BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 2
CD 2 MENDELSSOHN A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Scherzo | BORODIN Prince Igor
(exc.) | RIMSKY-KORSAKOV March | DELIUS The Walk to the Paradise Garden · Two
Pieces for small orchestra · Brigg Fair | ATTERBERG Symphony No. 6
CD 3-4 HANDEL Messiah (Labbette, Brunskill, Eisdell, Williams)
CD 5 Songs & Opera Arias by GRIEG, PONCHIELLI, PUCCINI, MASCAGNI, VERDI,
DELIUS (Labbette, Turner) | PUCCINI La Bohème (exc.)
CD 6-7 GOUNOD Faust (Nash, Licette, Easton)
CD 8 HANDEL Concerto grosso Op. 6 No. 3 (exc.) · The Origin of Design · The Gods
Go a’Begging (exc.) · Arrival of the Queen of Sheba · Israel in Egypt (exc.) | STRAUSS
Don Quixote (Wallenstein, Piastro, Pollain)
CD 9 MOZART Violin Concerto No. 4 | MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E minor |
PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 1 (Szigeti)
CD 10 ROSSINI Overtures from La scala di seta, Guillaume Tell & La gazza ladra |
RESPIGHI Rossiniana | BORODIN Prince Igor (exc.) | MENDELSSOHN A Midsummer
Night’s Dream (exc.) · The Hebrides | NICOLAI Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor:
Overture
CD 11 DELIUS Paris, The Song of a Great City · Eventyr · Koanga: Closing Scene ·
Summer Night on the River · Intermezzo · Over the Hills and Far Away · In a Summer
Garden
CD 12 DELIUS Hassan · Sea Drift (Brownlee) · Appalachia · La Calinda
CD 13 DELIUS A Mass of Life: Prelude · La Calinda · Irmelin Prelude · 4 Songs · Songs
of Sunset · An Arabesque |DVOŘÁK Slavonic Rhapsody No. 3 · Legends Nos. 2 & 3
CD 14 WAGNER Preludes & Overtures, Arias (Ralf, Bockelmann, Lemnitz, Weber, Janssen)
CD 15-17 WAGNER Tristan und Isolde (Flagstad, Melchior, Klose, Nilsson)
CD 18 BIZET Orchestral suites from La Jolie fille de Perth & L’Arlésienne | BERLIOZ Le
Carnaval romain · La Damnation de Faust (exc.) | OFFENBACH Les Contes
d’Hoffmann, orchestral suite | DEBUSSY Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
CD 19 BRAHMS Symphony No. 2 · Tragic Overture | BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 2
CD 20 HAYDN Symphonies Nos. 93, 99 & 104 | HANDEL The Gods Go a’Begging (exc.)
CD 21 MOZART Symphonies Nos. 29, 31 & 34 · Overtures from Le nozze di Figaro &
Don Giovanni
CD 22 MOZART Symphonies Nos. 35, 36 & 38
CD 23 MOZART Symphonies Nos. 39-41
CD 24-25 MOZART Die Zauberflöte (Rosvaenge, Lemnitz, Berger) · Mass in C
minor, KV. 427 (exc.)
CD 26 SCHUBERT Symphonies Nos. 5 & 8 | SUPPÉ Ein Morgen, ein Mittag und ein
Abend in Wien: Overture | MENDELSSOHN Ruy Blas | ROSSINI Semiramide: Overture
| J. STRAUSS II Frühlingsstimmen
CD 27 SIBELIUS Violin Concerto (Heifetz) · The Tempest (exc.) · Festivo ·
Lemminkäinen’s Return · The Bard
CD 28 SIBELIUS Symphony No. 4 · Finlandia · In Memoriam · Kuolema · En Saga ·
Pelléas et Mélisande (exc.)
CD 29 BIZET Carmen, orchestral suite | GRIEG Peer Gynt, Suite No. 1 | CHABRIER
España | FRANCK Symphony in D minor | GRÉTRY Zémire et Azo: Pantomime
CD 30 WEBER Overtures from Der Freischütz & Oberon | BERNERS The Triumph of
Neptune (exc.) | MOZART Piano Concerto No. 12 (Kentner) | HANDEL The Faithful
Shepherd
CD 31 TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5 · Francesca da Rimini | A. BEECHAM 3 Songs
CD 32 TCHAIKOVSKY Romeo and Juliet · Symphony No. 3 | VERDI Macbeth (exc.)
CD 33 SIBELIUS Symphony No. 2 · Karelia (exc.) · Tapiola
CD 34 CHABRIER Joyeuse marche | DEBUSSY Printemps | BAX The Garden of Fand |
SAINT-SAËNS Le Rouet d’Omphale | MASSENET Le Dernier sommeil de la Vierge |
BERLIOZ Le Roi Lear | LISZT Orpheus
CD 35 BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 4 | MENDELSSOHN Octet: Scherzo · Die
schöne Melusine · A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Overture · 2 Songs Without Words |
DVOŘÁK The Golden Spinning Wheel
CD 36 R. STRAUSS Der Bürger als Edelmann · Don Quixote (Lampe, Tortelier,
Rubens) · Feuersnot: Liebesszene · Dance of the Seven Veils
CD 37 R. STRAUSS Träumerei am Kamin · Ein Heldenleben | DELIUS Violin Concerto
(Pougnet) · Dance Rhapsody No. 1
CD 38 DELIUS Dance Rhapsodies Nos. 1 & 2 · The Song of the High Hills (Hart,
Jones) · Songs of Sunset (Evans, Llewellyn) · Marche-caprice · Irmelin Prelude · “On
the mountains” · 2 Songs (Suddaby)
CD 39 DELIUS Piano Concerto (Humby Beecham) · Brigg Fair · On the Mountains ·
Two Pieces for small orchestra · Summer Evening · A Song before Sunrise · 2 Songs
CD 40-41 DELIUS A Village Romeo and Juliet (Soames, Dyer) · Sea Drift (Clinton)
· Dance Rhapsody No. 1
CD 42 MOZART Concerto for flute and harp (Le Roy, Laskine) · Violin Concerto No. 4
| MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E minor (Heifetz)
CD 43 MOZART Divertimento No. 2 · Divertimento No. 15 (exc.) · Die Zauberflöte,
Overture | HAYDN Symphonies No. 40 & No. 102
CD 44 MOZART Violin Concerto No. 3 (de Vito) · Piano Concerto No. 16 (exc.)
(Humby Beecham) | HANDEL Amaryllis Suite: Sarabande | BANTOCK Fifine at the
Fair | BEETHOVEN Rehearsal of Symphony No. 5
CD 45-46 PUCCINI La bohème (Los Ángeles, Björling, Merrill)
CD 47 BIZET Patrie · Roma: Carnaval | Ballet Music from GRÉTRY Zémire et Azor &
GOUNOD Faust | MASSENET Cendrillon: Waltz | VIDAL Zino-Zina: Gavotte
CD 48 HAYDN Symphonies Nos. 93-95 · Rehearsal of No. 101
CD 49 HAYDN Symphonies Nos. 96 & 98 | BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 7
CD 50 TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 4 | GERMAN Gipsy Suite
CD 51 FRANCK Symphony | BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique
CD 52 BIZET Symphony | LALO Symphony | CHABRIER Gwendoline: Overture
CD 53 SIBELIUS Symphony No. 2 | DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 8 | WAGNER Die
Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Prelude
