Ludwig van Beethoven

One of Eloquence’s chief credos is to bring back into circulation forgotten recordings or artists who’ve slipped from memory. ‘Hans Richter-Who?’ you might say. Born in 1912 in Dresden and taught there both by Hans Schneider and in the famous class of Robert Teichmüller, around the age of 30 Richter-Haaser moved to Detmold. At first Richter-Haaser took over the artistic direction of the city orchestra. But by 1947 he had already been entrusted with a piano masterclass. This must be seen as a substantial foundation for the rank and renown of the Detmold Music Academy, which in recent years has become a sort of forge for pianists. His recordings are, sadly, few and far between. He recorded Beethoven sonatas for both Philips and EMI. Issued several years ago on its ‘The Early Years’ imprint, these Beethoven recordings from the 1950s are long out of print and a much sought-after collector’s item. The sonatas are coupled here with Richter-Haaser as soloist in the Choral Fantasy, with Karl Böhm conducting.

The internationally celebrated cellist Jacqueline du Pré died a tragically early death. Among her best chamber music recordings is this reading of Beethoven's Clarinet Trio made together with Daniel Barenboim and clarinettist Gervase de Peyer, who also presents great Romantic repertoire in the shape of the two clarinet sonatas by Brahms.

The third release in Daniel Barenboim’s Beethoven For All project is the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos featuring Barenboim as soloist and conductor with the Staatskapelle Berlin.

An immensely satisfying traversal of modern piano music as performed by arguably the greatest contemporary exponent of the repertoire.

It is 30 years since legendary British pianist Clifford Curzon died (1 September 1982). Over the course of his career, during a long and almost exclusive association with Decca, Clifford Curzon established a pre-eminence unrivalled by any other British pianist of his generation.

For the first time this collection brings together absolutely every recording he ever made for Decca which has survived [in the days of fragile 78rpm shellac discs one or two items were given to the artist as unique-copy test-pressings and these have not survived], including several which have never been published on CD ( or even LP) by Decca [Falla: Noches en los jardines de España (recorded in September 1945); Liszt: Mephisto Waltz No.1 and Liebestraum No.3 – recorded in September 1947, Liszt: Sonetto 104 del Petrarca recorded in1942].

Published for the first-time ever in any format are 8 pieces including a Medtner Fairy Tale, Chopin C sharp minor nocturne, Beethoven’s “Rage over a lost penny”, and 5 pieces by Brahms. These recordings survived as 78rpm test-pressings in Clifford Curzon’s private collection and have been made available for publication through his family.

Also herewith alongside 23 CDs is a famous DVD programme made by the BBC. It includes Curzon performing solo works by Schumann and Brahms [filmed in 1959, black & white] and Schubert – including a complete performance of the Piano Sonata in B flat, D960, filmed in 1968 [colour].

Sir Adrian Boult was born on 8th April, 1889 in Chester and died on 22nd February 1983 in London and hence next year we mark 30 years since his passing. From an early age he was attending concerts, firstly in Liverpool, primarily with Hans Richter, and then in London, whilst a pupil at Westminster School, by Sir Henry Wood, Claude Debussy, Arthur Nikisch and Richard Strauss; he also met Elgar for whose music he was to do so much during his life. He started studying History at Christ Church, Oxford but changed to music graduating in 1912. Among musical friends at Oxford was Ralph Vaughan Williams with whose compositions he is much associated.

He spent a year studying in Leipzig where Arthur Nikisch had the greatest influence on him. He gained experience conducting for both the Royal Opera House, where he assisted in the first production there of Wagner’s Parsifal , and Serge Diaghilev’s ballet company. He was appointed conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1924 and six years later the BBC made him director of music where he established the BBC Symphony Orchestra and became its chief conductor. During these years he introduced works by Bartók, Stravinsky and the Second Viennese School composers – Schönberg, Webern and Berg including his opera Wozzeck.

Forced to leave the BBC when he reached their retirement age, he became chief conductor of the LPO retiring in 1957. Although he worked with the other London Orchestras he was generally associated with them and this set of recordings bears this out. He became a champion of British music, giving numerous performances of Bliss, Britten, Delius, Tippett, Walton and Holst, whose Planets he had premiered, and the aforementioned Elgar and Vaughan Williams that he was primarily associated. His repertoire was wide from Baroque through to modern but it was the main period of Mozart to Brahms where he was pre-eminent. He continued conducting concerts and recordings until 1978.

In 1960, CBS recorded two LPs as souvenirs of Leopold Stokowski’s return to the Philadelphia Orchestra after an absence of nearly two decades. This included Falla’s El amor brujo, which he had introduced to America in 1922, and one of his celebrated “Symphonic Syntheses” of music from Wagner’s operas. In the original Gramophone review Edward Greenfield wrote: “Never before on disc have I heard a performance of the vividly atmospheric Falla ballet anything like as involving as this …” In the second of his “Philadelphia return” concerts of 1960, Stokowski played three of his famous Bach Transcriptions. He began orchestrating Bach’s organ works in the 1920s, bringing his keyboard music to a wider concert hall audience. His early Philadelphia Orchestra 78s of these arrangements were best-sellers in their day.

Glenn Gould was a great admirer of Stokowski, citing him as a significant influence in his teenage years. He wrote articles about the Maestro and interviewed him for Canadian radio, so it was not surprising that they should get together for a concerto recording. Biographies of Glenn Gould invariably refer to his “eccentricities” as well as his talent, so his collaboration with Stokowski, whose own musical career also had its controversial aspects, inevitably provided posterity with one of the more idiosyncratic readings of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto.

When Stokowski gave the World Premiere of Ives’s Fourth Symphony in 1965, he pronounced it one of the most difficult works he had ever conducted. In the New York Times, Harold C. Schonberg wrote that the music “throws up spiky walls of sound, the simplest of songs, wild poly-rhythms, clumps of tonalities, and suddenly the quiet of a New England church.”.

The remaining recordings in this set were made during Stokowski’s final years in England. His last public concert in the UK took place in 1974 when he was 92 but he then decided to take a respite from the rigours of live concerts and concentrate on recordings instead. These were made with specially selected musicians who came together for Stokowski’s sessions as the National Philharmonic.

The Maestro’s final recording sessions were devoted to two of the most youthful symphonies ever written, Mendelssohn’s Fourth and Bizet’s Symphony in C. On the final day of the recording, 4 June 1977 the Bizet finale was taped in one complete take which needed no editing. It is that complete take which went onto the finished recording and – since it was the very last time Stokowski conducted – it has considerable historic significance.