I suppose what collectors would most want is a vast box or series
of smaller boxes devoted to Emanuel Feuermann’s complete studio
and off-air performances. That said, West Hill has taken a less
compendious though strategically astute route in focusing on
two specific areas of the cellist’s discography, namely the
acoustic recordings of 1921 to 1926 and selected live recordings
from 1938 to 1941. This doesn’t mean that other areas are overlooked.
Rather between the cracks come some electrically recorded Berlin
studio performances from the 1930s.
The most important thing to note is that eighteen pieces are
making what West Hill states are CD premiere appearances - I
have one small note to add to that in due course. Given that
many of Feuermann’s London and American sides are well known
and oft reissued – the Brahms Double with Heifetz, the chamber
sides for Columbia and numerous others – this more systematic
and focused look at his recorded legacy makes sense. Especially
important are the acoustics, though not all are especially well
recorded or indeed of huge musical worth, artistically speaking.
We open with two abridged movements from Haydn’s Concerto in
D, recorded in Berlin in 1921. He was 19 at the time, a youthful
prodigy of great promise, but the evidence of some gulped slides
and strong rubati points to a transitional stage in his artistic
development. Casals’ recordings of around the same time show
a cellist in his maturity, and already formed as an artist –
not surprising given that Casals was 39 when he first recorded.
The Chopin Nocturne – with Max Saal’s harp accompaniment
– fits comfortably into the salon bracket, but whilst the cellist’s
legato is suave and nonchalant, he can’t muster Casals’s intensity
or sentiment. With the addition of Frieder Weissmann at the
piano – who’d conducted the Haydn – Feuerman unleashed a fragment
(only) of his Zigeunerweisen adaptation. Thrilling
– but better encountered in his electrical remake. Incidentally
this Sarasate has been issued on CD before. It was included
in Annette Morreau’s biography of the cellist in a transfer
by Sebastian Comberti. The differences are striking. Comberti’s
work preserves ticks and tocks but it’s quite open and straightforward.
Lani Spahr prefers a much more interventionist approach, one
that removes glitches and scratches and presents the cello centre-stage
in the sound spectrum. It is, however, a more subterranean bass-oriented
sound and rather more tiring to listen to over long stretches.
The same is true of the Haydn Allegro which Comberti
also transferred but which West Hill doesn’t claim is a CD premiere.
Regarding transfers I should add that my Parlophone 78s, in
particular the 1926 Popper Hungarian Rhapsody, are also rather
lighter on the ear than this transfer. The bass emphasis has
the effect of redoubling the bass reinforcements used in the
orchestral acoustic sessions and this can sound rather congealed.
I would suggest the use of a graphic equaliser, if you have
one, to try to lighten the sound spectrum.
Back to the acoustics in disc one. Parlophone re-recorded some
items. The Mustel organ plus orchestra imparts a lugubrious
quality, so the Schumann brace was revisited using just harp
and Dominator harmonium – and issued under the same label number
as before, as was so often the case, but in completely different
(and better) performances. The Bach Air was once issued
on an Opal LP sounding lighter and brighter but very much more
distant than this transfer. It’s only when one gets to Dvorák
that one gets an inkling into the range of Feuermann’s instincts
by 1924. The Rondo is abridged but he plays it adroitly,
and then we hear an eight-minute abridgement of the slow movement
from the Concerto. This was a work he was much associated with,
and indeed he made the first recording of it in 1928-29, which
collectors will remember from the Pearl LP transfer. It’s not
included in this box, but then we do have two live performances
which should be compensation enough. One of the best things
from the first disc is the last item, Bruch’s Kol Nidrei,
recorded in 1930 at a time of now full maturity. It doesn’t
fit the rubric of the set, being neither acoustic nor live,
but let’s not quibble. His instincts have tautened; his expressive
gestures glint but are now firmly controlled. He refuses to
indulge gauche extroversion; he deigns cheap gestures.
The second disc opens with a 1941 live performance of the Dvorák
given with the Chicago Symphony under Hans Lange. This live
off-air performance is making its first ever CD appearance and
will be a central focus of interest for collectors, notwithstanding
the other surviving documents that chart the cellist’s association
with the work. Lange is rather at odds with his soloist. One
senses this from the start where he indulges too much metrical
freedom. Nevertheless Feuermann sounds rather freer than he
had over a decade earlier in the Berlin studios when making
that commercial set with Taube. It’s this lessening of constriction
that lends distinction to this reasonably well preserved broadcast.
Feuermann is scrupulously clean in his approach – no fake fingerings
for him in this work. And though it would easy to be thankful
that Toscanini didn’t conduct, which might have accelerated
things exponentially in the slow movement, it’s worth pointing
out that there were some Czech conductors of the time who shaped
a very fast Adagio as well; František Stupka, for instance,
conducting for Navarra at the Prague Spring in 1951 took the
same tempo as Toscanini and his cellist Edmund Kurtz.
The same composer’s Silent Woods and the Rondo
– complete this time – are caught on the wing with Leon Barzin
and the National Orchestral Association at Carnegie Hall in
1940. We also hear Bloch’s Schelomo – shimmeringly
intense - with the same forces. Feuermann’s recording of this
with Stokowski is rightly revered but it turns out that the
cellist didn’t much like the work which caused him endless memory
problems. If you had Philips’ poor No Noise CD transfers of
the two smaller Dvoráks, the Concerto with Barzin (which is
on disc 4) and the Bloch, you should know that it is wholly
superseded by Spahr’s work. That Barzin-conducted broadcast
is a better index of Feuermann’s playing of the Concerto, indeed
the best surviving example. It is architecturally powerful,
tonally expressive, exciting and sensitive – and once again
devoid of gestures that might draw the ear away from the true
musical argument.
The third disc gives us yet another slow movement from the Dvorák
– you can never have too much of a good thing in my book – this
time with the efficient Frank Black and the NBC Symphony from
February 1940. It’s followed by the d’Albert Concerto (Barzin,
April 1940) which witnesses one of Feuermann’s amazing explorations
of timbre and tonal variety, as well as seamless legato in pursuit
of a rather uneven work. Another rarity, then as now, is Josef
Reicha’s Concerto in A which the cellist encountered in a Philadelphia
music library. There are some really tricky cross-string passages
in the work and the Haydn contemporary clearly had an outstanding
soloist to perform it. There are a few slips in intonation and
absolute accuracy, though when one considers that this was a
live performance and he was playing from the music, then that’s
wholly understandable. Both these concerto performances have
been released on CD before. I first encountered them on Connoisseur
Society cassettes along with the other Barzin-led items, so
it’s good to ‘upgrade’. Things that have never been available
before however end this disc. There’s an excerpt from a live
Town Hall broadcast in February 1941 of Beethoven’s Op 102 No.2
sonata with Albert Hirsch. This is a very rough home recording
but it’s the only surviving evidence of the cellist in this
work. Two Kraft Music Hall items follow, live from Hollywood
in 1940. Theodore Saidenberg is the well-known pianist. The
whole of the on-air scripted banter has survived and is included.
We hear Feuermann’s speaking voice too – along with his de Falla
and Chopin Nocturne Op.9 No.2 (a piece he’d played
at his second ever acoustic session).
Along with the Barzin-directed Dvorák, noted above, the final
piece in this 4 CD set is Strauss’s Don Quixote in
the 1938 traversal with Toscanini. Opinion will doubtless rage
between those who prefer it, or the 1940 studio recording with
Ormandy. Maybe the most intense experience is generated by the
live BBC broadcast that survives with Feuermann and Toscanini
but the sound, unfortunately, is poor and is, in any case, not
part of this box.
This is a most impressive set. I wouldn’t necessarily rank it
higher than West Hill’s recent Piatigorsky box, but its rationale
is different. It collects disparate material but manages to
impose a degree of logic on it. There is an excellent booklet
note by Terry King and full discographic information. Given
the availability on CD of much material previously unavailable
in that medium, I can’t imagine how any true admirer of the
cellist can overlook this box.
Jonathan Woolf
Track-listing
CD 1
Acoustic Recordings made 1921-26
Joseph HAYDN (1732-1809)
Concerto in D – Adagio [3:46]: Allegro finale [3:38]
Berlin State Opera Orchestra/Frieder Weissmann
Fryderyk CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Nocturne in B flat Op.9 No.2 [3:48]
Max Saal (harp)
Pablo de SARASATE
Zigeunerweisen arr. Feuermann [3:58]
Frieder Weissmann (piano); Max Saal (harp)
Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Träumerei [3:03]
Abendlied [3:24]
Carl Stabernack (mustel organ)/Orchestra/Frieder Weissmann
Träumerei [3:19]
Abendlied [3:28]
Fritz Ohrmann (Dominator harmonium): Max Saal 9harp)
Johan Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Orchestral Suite in D – Air BWV1068 [3:50]
Johan Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)-GOUNOD
Ave Maria [3:56]
Frieder Weissmann (piano); Fritz Ohrmann (harmonium)
Antonin DVORÁK (1841-1904)
Rondo Op.94 [4:13]
ANONYMOUS
Alt-Italienisches Liebeslied [3:17]
Cesar CUI
Cantabile Op.36 No.2 [3:26]
POPPER
Serenade Op.54 [3:25]
Frieder Weissmann (piano)
Antonin DVORÁK (1841-1904)
Cello Concerto Op.104 – Adagio [7:59]
POPPER
Hungarian Rhapsody Op.68 [7:12]
Berlin State Opera Orchestra/Michael Taube
Electric recording made 1926
Max BRUCH
Kol Nidrei Op.47 [8:18]
Berlin State Opera Orchestra/Frieder Weissmann
CD 2
Live Broadcasts made 1940-41
Antonin DVORÁK (1841-1904)
Cello Concerto Op.104 [36:23]
Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Hans Lange
Silent Woods Op.68 No.5 [5:37]
Rondo Op.94 [6:48]
Ernest BLOCH
Schelomo [19:49]
National Orchestra; Association/Leon Barzin
CD 3
Electric Berlin recordings; and Live Broadcasts made 1940-41
POPPER
Hungarian Rhapsody Op.68 [6:54]
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Paul Kletzki
Antonin DVORÁK (1841-1904)
Cello Concerto Op.104 – Adagio [11:51]
Eugen d’ALBERT
Cello Concerto Op.20 [22:01]
Josef REICHA
Cello Concerto in A Op.4 No.1 [24:39]
National Orchestra Association/Leon Barzin
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Cello Sonata in D Op.102 No.2 – fragment of Adagio; Allegro
fugato [5:06]
Albert Hirsch (piano)
Fryderyk CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Nocturne in B flat Op.9 No.2
Manuel DE FALLA
Siete Canciones Populares Espańolas: No.4 Jota [8:30]
CD 4
Live Broadcasts 1938 and 1940
Antonin DVORÁK (1841-1904)
Cello Concerto Op.104 [35:33]
National Orchestra Association/Leon Barzin
Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Don Quixote Op.35 [39:30]
Mischa Mischakoff (violin); Carlton Cooley (viola)/NBC Symphony
Orchestra/Arturo Toscanini
WEST HILL RADIO ARCHIVES WHRA-6042 [4 CDs: 74:09 + 68:41
+ 79:08 + 75:02]
