Antonin Dvorak

This 60-disc box set contains 60 original ‘Living Stereo’ recordings

This is the first time a comprehensive collection of these iconic recordings has been created.

Each album comes complete with its original LP artwork.

An extensive booklet is included with the liner notes from each original album.

Includes recordings by such great artists as Jascha Heifetz, Charles Munch, Fritz Reiner, Julian Bream, Leontyne Price and Arthur Rubinstein

LIVING STEREO – THE HISTORY

On October 6, 1953, RCA held experimental stereophonic sessions in New York's Manhattan Center with Leopold Stokowski conducting a group of New York musicians in performances of Enesco's Roumanian Rhapsody No. 1 and the waltz from Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin. There were additional stereo tests in December, again in the Manhattan Center, this time with Pierre Monteux conducting members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In February 1954, RCA made its first commercial stereophonic recordings, taping the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Charles Münch, in a performance of The Damnation of Faust by Hector Berlioz. This began a practice of simultaneously recording orchestras with both stereophonic and monaural equipment. Other early stereo recordings were made by Toscanini and Guido Cantelli respectively, with the NBC Symphony Orchestra; the Boston Pops Orchestra under Arthur Fiedler; and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner. Initially, RCA used RT-21 quarter-inch tape recorders (which ran at 30 inches per second), wired to mono mixers, with Neumann U-47 cardioid and M-49/50 omnidirectional microphones. Then they switched to an Ampex 300-3 one-half inch machine, running at 15 inches per second (which was later increased to 30 inches per second). These recordings were initially issued in 1955 on special stereophonic reel-to-reel tapes and then, beginning in 1958, on vinyl LPs with the logo ‘Living Stereo’. Sony Music and successor companies have continued to reissue these recordings on CD. Another 1953 project for RCA was converting the acoustically superior building Webster Hall into its East Coast recording studio. It operated this studio venue from 1953 to 1968.

István Kertész made one of the first stereo cycles of Dvorák’s symphonies on Decca with the London Symphony Orchestra. Earlier still, in 1961, he recorded just the Ninth (‘From the New World’), with the Vienna Philharmonic – one of the tautest, most thrilling performances ever committed to disc. It is coupled here with a recording made seven years later with the LSO, and long out of the catalogue, that of the Wind Serenade. This release forms part of a survey, on Eloquence, of Kertész’s treasured Decca discography.

Dvořák naturally gave a great deal of attention to the genre of the oratorio, and it was his work in this area that firmly established his reputation in the English-speaking world. Rossini very much admired Pergolesi’s fine setting of the Stabat Mater, but had not felt equal to attempting his own. The decision to try came as a result of a plea from a Spanish prelate, Fernández Varela, who wished to possess an original Rossini manuscript. However, Rossini succumbed to an attack of lumbago and had given the score to Giovanni Tadolini to complete. Rossini forbade any publication or performance of the score as it stood and eventually supplied another publisher (Troupenas) with a complete, all-Rossini score. Together with the Mozart Requiem and his Masonic music, these are the only sacred works recorded by Kertész for Decca. Both feature Pilar Lorengar singing the soprano parts and the Rossini also features Luciano Pavarotti, dazzling in his tenor solo.

Many of the titles on this 2CD set formed couplings to Kertész’s celebrated LSO Dvorak symphony cycle for Decca. Collected here, over two generously-filled CDs, are all of the Overtures and Tone Poems of Dvorak that Kertész recorded. The fantastical, sometimes gruesome fairy tales of Erben exercised a curious fascination over Dvořák and three of his series of four Erben-inspired symphonic poems are recorded here in interpretations that capture every nuance and thrill of the stories. Also included is Kertész’s celebrated recording of the Symphonic Variations, full of invention through the 27 variations, and the Scherzo capriccioso, with its unmistakable Bohemian flavour.

Recordings were made of Szymon Goldberg (1909-1993) over virtually a 60-year period. It must have been one of the longest studio careers of any violinist, it was certainly one of the most consistent in quality. The present set gathers up all the 78rpm material, which itself covers some two decades and presents the violinist in repertoire to which he did not return in later years, such as string quartets, string trios and string duos. An earlier volume (Music & Arts CD-1223, 8 CDs) presented Goldberg’s best live recordings.

A recording of two of Dvorak’s most loved works together on disc – the Symphony No.9 in E minor “From the New World” and his Cello Concerto in B minor.

These two works are not often paired together on recordings. They were recorded live during the 11/12 Santa Cecilia season.

Dvorak wrote the 9th symphony following a trip to America. It is imbued with the rhythms of native American immigrant folk music cast in the language of the 19th century romantic musical language. Antonio Pappano, born in America but working in the European tradition, sees this piece in new and fresh ways because of his own heritage. This is the first time Pappano has conducted the 9th symphony, although he has admired the work for years.

This will also be a rare recording of the first edition of the Dvorak Cello Concerto, completed in 1895 - before he accepted a few of the numerous changes suggested by his cellist friend Hanuš Wihan (to whom Dvorak dedicated the work), It is far less frequently heard and, according to Dmitry Markevitch (the respected Russian concert cellist, researcher, teacher and musicologist) “much more musical”.

Dvorak wrote the concerto towards the end of his highly productive stay in America – he was in New York for his third term as the Director of the National Conservatory. He was inspired after hearing the second cello concerto by Victor Herbert - a fellow teacher at the Conservatory – 1894. Up till then Dvorák had always refused, stating that the cello was a fine orchestral instrument but totally insufficient for a solo concerto.

The concerto smacks of the anticipatory pleasures that Dvorák felt at the prospect of returning home. It opens with a large-scale and dramatically powerful Allegro, before striking a more dreamy note in the Andante and culminating in a fast and furious finale with folk-like elements from Bohemia - a compositorial greeting from the New World to Dvorák's distant homeland.

It is performed by the renowned Italian cellist Mario Brunello. He won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1986 – the first Italian to ever do so, and has been catching the attention of musical authorities, including Maestro Pappano, ever since. He tours in Europe, America & Japan, appearing with leading orchestras and conductors (eg Semyon Bychkov, Myung-Whun Chung, Daniele Gatti and Valeri Gergiev).

On this disc, Christian Poltéra and Kathryn Stott chart the gradual development in Dvořák’s composition for cello.

The disc includes chamber works that Dvořák composed originally for cello and piano or arranged for the combination including Polonaise in A major, the Rondo in G minor and Silent Woods which was originally a piano duet.

Poltéra also presents his own transcriptions of several violin pieces and songs, including the Violin Sonatina, and Lasst mich allein, alongside the ever-popular Songs My Mother Taught Me and Song to the Moon from Rusalka.

Christian Poltéra and Kathryn Stott are regular chamber music partners and have previously recorded music by Honegger and Frank Martin.