Firstly let’s address some technical matters. In a previous
review
of the Slatkin recordings reissued by Pristine Audio (Delius,
Ibert, Saint-Saëns) I commented on the dry studio acoustic
accorded the performances. For this splendidly exciting twofer
Andrew Rose has clearly taken pains to get to grips with this
concern and has employed a ‘relocation’ technique
called ‘convolution reverberation’. The last time
I encountered this - to my knowledge, at any rate, as doubtless
it goes on ‘under the radar’ more than one might
think - was a few weeks ago when reviewing
a recording in which Lars Hannibal had relocated a violin and
guitar recording made in a church by adding to the mix, inter
alia, the acoustic of Symphony Hall, Boston. For this 1950s
compilation made in the Hollywood studios - dead and dry - Rose
has ingeniously relocated the original source material to the
acoustics of Sala Santa Cecilia and Sala Sinopoli, dependent
on the original recording and reverberation matters. I have
read his notes regarding this with interest and have noted his
initial concerns about this technique and those too of one of
Slatkin’s sons, Frederick Zlotkin. Rose has stated his
case clearly, concisely and honestly. For optimum analysis one
should line up the original commercial LPs with his restorative
work, but as I don’t have the originals I’m going
to extrapolate from my experience of that previous Delius-Ibert-Saint-Saëns
release.
Does one preserve the integrity of the original or does one
take steps to present it in as attractive and as sensitively
applied a form as one can, given current technological advances?
This is the age-old question. But for now let me say that I
think Rose has done a fine job. There will doubtless be those
who recoil at thoughts of - dread memory - ‘artificial
reverb’, but though this is early days for Rose in this
kind of wholly different and advanced mechanism, I think he
has applied the technique with due sympathy. Other transfer
engineers can have their own take on this. If they reissue this
material we can experience another aesthetic.
That’s the background. It wouldn’t be so important
if the performances were duff, but they’re not. Victor
Aller, best known on disc perhaps for his association with the
Hollywood Quartet, casts his net more virtuosically wide in
presenting Dohnányi’s Variations on a Nursery
Theme in September 1956. It’s a fine performance too,
one that can be reckoned against the composer’s own effervescent
recordings. The 78 set with Collingwood is my favoured one but
the Boult-directed one, made pretty much at the same time as
Aller’s, is obviously in more up to date sound and almost
as good. William Kapell gave the US premiere of the mighty Khachaturian
Concerto in 1943 and recorded it with Koussevitzky. Leonard
Pennario took it up in the 1950s and one can cite this recording
alongside those of other fine players, including Kapell, who
dominated its early discography; Oborin, Lympany, Katz, Flier,
de Larrocha, and others. In fact Katz set down his recording
just a week after this Pennario traversal. Of the two the Katz
is the more virtuosic but Pennario and Slatkin offer ripe rewards
too, and their recording makes a valuable reappearance here.
The acoustic tweaking renders Purcell’s Variations
and Fugue on a theme of Purcell doubtless far more expansive
than it could ever have sounded on the commercial LP of the
time.
Disc two offers a cornucopia of evocative delights. The two
Villa-Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras are augmented by his
Bach arrangements. There is lusciously committed string playing
here, buttressed by an equally fine rhythmic attack. Noteworthy
too is the pathos evoked in the first BB, as well as its inherent
drama. Marni Nixon articulates finely in her contribution, whilst
the Bach Prelude and Fugue is movingly declaimed. After this
the solo Chávez - challenging and unusual repertoire
for the time - receives a virtuoso demonstration of the percussive
arts via the adroit dexterity of Hal Reese, who finds plenty
of misterioso, colour and charge in it. Milhaud’s
pocket Concerto is equally a fine sonic vehicle for Reese who
proves well up to the sassy challenges embedded in it.
These tracks derive from the contents of four LPs and this two
disc compilation certainly ranges widely, stylistically speaking.
It showcases Slatkin and his top-notch collaborators with verve,
aided by the rich acoustic alluded to in my opening paragraph.
Jonathan Woolf
Track listing
CD 1
Ernst von DOHNÁNYI (1877-1960)
Variations on a Nursery Theme, Op.25 (1914) [25:07]
Victor Aller (piano)
rec. 29 September 1956
Aram KHACHATURIAN (1903-1979)
Piano Concerto in D flat (1936) [36:45]
Leonard Pennario (piano)
rec. 5-6 October, 1956
Benjamin BRITTEN (1913-1976)
Variations and Fugue on a theme of Purcell (Young Person's Guide
to the Orchestra), Op. 34 (1947) [16:53]
rec. 18 and 20 August 1956
Concert Arts Symphony Orchestra/Felix Slatkin
All rec. at Samuel Goldwyn Studios, Stage 7
CD 2
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS (1887-1959)
Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1 for an orchestra of cellos (1930)
[18:13]
Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 for voice and eight cellos (1938,
1945) [11:31]
Marni Nixon (soprano)
Johann Sebastian BACH
(1685-1750)
Prelude and Fugue No. 8 in E flat minor (arr. Villa-Lobos) [5:45
+ 5:28]
Concert Arts Cello Ensemble/Felix Slatkin
rec. 10-11 January 1959, Capitol Tower, Studio B
Carlos CHÁVEZ
(1899-1978)
Toccata for Percussion (1942) [11:57]
rec. 17 October 1954
Darius MILHAUD (1892-1974)
Concerto for Percussion and Small Orchestra Op. 109 (1930) [7:27]
rec. 10 January 1955 Hal Reese (percussion)/Concert Arts Orchestra
and Percussionists/Felix Slatkin
Mono recordings presented in Ambient Stereo, made at Capitol
Records, Melrose Studio
PRISTINE AUDIO PASC218 [74:46 + 60:23] 
