Felix Mendelssohn

Constantin Silvestri was born in Bucharest, Romania on 31st May 1913. His mother had to bring him up as both his father and stepfather had died whilst he was still a teenager. By the age of six he was playing both piano and organ and showed skill as an improviser. Although not in conducting classes at the Conservatoire in Bucharest he was already appearing as a conductor in his teens, making his debut with the Bucharest Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1930 in a concert which included The Rite of Spring and one of his own compositions.

After further success with the National Radio Orchestra of Romania he decided to make conducting his career. In 1935 he started his association with the Romanian National Opera and directed the Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra for six years. In 1948 he started teaching at the Conservatoire and founded its Conducting Department. Whilst conducting all the main orchestras in Romania he was also able to accept guest appearances in the USSR, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

In 1957 he also made his debut in the U.K. conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the Royal Albert Hall and started making recordings for EMI in London, Paris and Vienna. Before leaving his home country he had his greatest success there – the premiere of Enesco’s opera Oedipe in 1958.

Settling first in Paris in 1959 and then in England when offered the post of Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. With his meticulous and lengthy preparation in rehearsals he raised the standard and prestige of the orchestra to one of international standing.

He became a British citizen in 1967 but his growing reputation was cut short by increasing ill-health and he died of cancer in London on 23rd February 1968 at the age of 55.

This set presents the Complete Recordings made by Constantin Silvestri for EMI. The microphones did offer to this “fanatical idealist” the most favourable circumstances to let his particular talent blossom.

Filled with Mendelssohn’s signature freshness and lightness of touch, the Violin Concerto in D minor and the Sonata, Op. 4 are youthful products but written with an assurance which is startling in its maturity. The substantial earlier concerto gives a foretaste of the originality and soaring inspiration which has made the Violin Concerto, Op. 64 one of the most enduring works of its age.

Acclaimed as “an unquestioned master of the violin” (American Record Guide), Tianwa Yang has quickly established herself as a leading international performer and recording artist, with highly acclaimed discs of works by Sarasate and Piazzolla amongst others.

Almost invariably coupled with one romantic violin concerto or another, this substantial all-Mendelssohn program sees the Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 strikingly placed next to the much less familiar Concerto in D minor. Together with the Violin Sonata, Op. 4, this trilogy of perfectly formed and superbly performed Mendelssohn masterpieces is irresistible.

Tianwa Yang’s playing has been admired by Gramophone, stating that “one simply marvels and enjoys” her performances of Sarasate (Music for Violin and Piano Vol. 3, 8570893).

Yang’s profi le has also been enhanced with a significant recent recording of Wolfgang Rihm’s Complete Works for Violin and Piano (8572730).

Just prior to the Second World War, Sir Adrian Boult (1889–1983) single-handedly built the BBC Symphony Orchestra into a world-renowned ensemble that attracted such artists as Arturo Toscanini, Serge Koussevitzky and Bruno Walter to conduct it. After retiring from the BBCSO in 1950, Boult became chief conductor of the London Philharmonic until 1957. He continued to guest conduct and record prolifically until 1978 and enjoyed an ‘Indian summer’ in the studio with both English music (Vaughan Williams and Elgar) and nineteenth-century German repertoire (Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Schubert and Wagner). His early studies at the Leipzig Conservatory with Max Reger and with the charismatic conductor Arthur Nikisch, who knew Brahms, gave Boult a unique understanding of this composer.

Boult’s period in Leipzig also brought him in touch with the music of Mendelssohn, who had founded the Conservatory as well as being appointed as conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

The live 1975 Proms performance of Brahms’s Symphony No.4 has never been issued before. The live account is more electrifying than the studio recording made in 1972. It has been recorded in stereo and fully captures the ‘Indian summer’ that Boult enjoyed at the Proms and in the studio with EMI at the time.

The Mendelssohn Symphony No.4 was recorded live in stereo and has never been issued before. It is a comparative rarity in that Boult’s only other recorded performances were in 1966 (unissued on CD) and in 1954 in mono.

The Quatuor Ebène turns to Mendelssohn: two quartets by Felix and one by his elder sister Fanny, who composed over 400 works and who, like her brother, died in 1847. “Felix’s quartets speak with intimacy, but are not devoid of violent, stormy emotion,” says Raphaël Merlin of the Quatuor Ebène. He praises Fanny for composing “with surprising freedom”, saying “we fell in love with her string quartet”.

In a characteristically imaginative stroke of programming, the Quatuor Ebène presents a total of three quartets by two Mendelssohns – Felix and his older sister, Fanny.

Like Felix, Fanny was a highly gifted child, but, as a woman, her life took a different path from his. Felix remained close to her and solicited and respected her opinions on his music. She, meanwhile, produced a canon of well over 400 pieces – although only one string quartet; by contrast, Felix composed seven works in the genre, one of them a youthful work that carries no opus number. This disc features the A minor quartet he composed in 1827, very much under the influence of Beethoven, and the F minor quartet of 20 years later, a highly emotional piece, expressive of the grief he felt at Fanny’s death, aged 41, in May 1847. As it turned out, the quartet was to be the last major work he composed: he himself died in November of that year, at the age of just 38.

Ronald Brautigam here performs the first four books of Felix Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words (Lieder ohne Worte).

If claims could be made for a composer to have invented a genre single-handedly, Mendelssohn would be a strong candidate with his ‘Songs Without Words’ - short lyrical pieces for the piano using a song-like structure. They were immediately popular across Europe, and were imitated by several composers, including Robert Schumann.

One of today’s leading fortepiano players, Ronald Brautigam has released complete sets of piano music by Mozart and Haydn, and is currently recording a highly regarded series of the solo piano works by Beethoven.

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.