West Hill has certainly fulfilled its brief in this boxed set
of 8 CDs plus a CD-ROM containing nearly a hundred pages of
highly informative notes. The music derives in the main from
concert broadcasts and some tough-to-trace early LPs. Given
the composer’s propensity occasionally to mull over and revise
scores it’s additionally beneficial that we hear first and then
afterthoughts scattered throughout the set: the Violin Concerto
is perhaps the most obvious place, but there are others.
There is a bewilderingly exciting list of soloist names, orchestras
and conductors. There is also one performance that I had always
hoped to hear but had never thought I would: Albert Spalding’s
world premiere of the Violin Concerto. For me this is reason
enough to get the box, though I appreciate others will require
more evidence of the set’s indispensability to Barber collectors.
Given that everything here has been sonically superseded many
times over that is inevitable, but this set contains such a
rich variety and depth of material, that it would be a gung-ho
Barberite who chose to ignore its content.
The first two CDs are largely given over to a live broadcast
from the Met of Vanessa. Mitropoulos conducts an all-star
cast in 1958, a fortnight after the world premiere. The commercial
LP followed later and by then the work had been bedded down
but this broadcast is generally fine though there is some station
drop-out and other extraneous noises, so don’t expect perfection.
The cast is solid, expressive and impressive, albeit sometimes
technically overstretched (Steber briefly in particular). The
Medea Orchestral Suite, Op. 23, recorded by the composer
in London for Decca in 1950, is followed by an exciting Medea's
Meditation and Dance of Vengeance, Op. 23a (Mitropoulos,
1958, live).
The third disc opens with Overture to The School for Scandal
with the Janssen Symphony under its founder, Victor Janssen.
This is from a commercial disc and the composer took issue with
Janssen’s tempi, which are zippy. We then get two performances
of the Symphony No.1, in the original version with the NBC Symphony
Orchestra under Artur Rodzinski and the revised with New York
Philharmonic Orchestra and Bruno Walter. The opportunity to
hear the work from 1938 and then 1944 proves far too good to
forego, not least because both performances are so eloquent
and convincing, albeit different. Rodzinski’s broadcast preserves
the original Scherzo. Rodzinski, whose performance
is intense and powerful, never recorded the work commercially
but Walter did; his broadcast is richer, more dramatic and more
imposing than his later LP version. It’s terrific in every respect
and Barber admired it, quite rightly. Toscanini’s famous live
1938 Adagio is the premiere of this orchestral version.
Finely chiselled, brisk and cumulatively intense, this classic
inscription has been out before on CD, but it had to be here.
The First Essay for Orchestra Op. 12 comes from the
same Toscanini concert, whilst the second Essay comes
from Walter six years later. It’s useful to have the Commando
March directed by Koussevitzky in 1943; not much of a piece,
it’s true, but historically of value.
The fourth disc is a bonanza for lovers of the Symphony No.2.
We have two versions plus an extensive extract of Barber rehearsing
part of the work. The first version is represented by the Boston
Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitzky in March 1944 (live),
and the revision is with the New Symphony Orchestra and Samuel
Barber (studio recording). The composer takes a more taut view
of things than Koussevitzky: that much has been known, as the
studio recording has been reissued several times already. But
the revisions, which include the finale’s epilogue, certainly
more than justify the placement of the Barber-conducted version
in this box. The rehearsal sequence is with the Boston Symphony
Orchestra, where we find him courteous, polite, rather insistent,
and even punctilious. He had taken lessons in conducting from
Nikolai Malko and Barber’s constant directions to the Boston
Symphony regarding the music’s ‘chamber’ quality are certainly
illuminating. Current conductors might do well to note the implications
of this with regard to the symphony’s textual clarity and ‘lightness’.
Avoid density!
Die Natali, Op. 37 is a charming, highly effective
work, heard in a performance given the day after the 1960 premiere.
Charles Munch directs the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The same
conductor also directs the Prayers of Kierkegaard,
Op. 30 one of the composer’s most impassioned works, and still
one of his most underappreciated. In terms of technical and
expressive matters, it ranks very highly. Maybe the title puts
people off. It puts me off too, but one has to listen to the
music and that tells a different story. The performance here
from 1954 is stunning, Leontyne Price proving the first among
equals.
This brings us to Spalding’s February 1941 Violin Concerto in
Philadelphia with Ormandy. Unfortunately the sound is not great
but perseverance reveals tremendous things. I always wondered
how Spalding would deal with the tempi of the first two movements.
He differentiates them nicely, not wallowing in the opening
movement: Louis Kaufman started that trend. His portamenti are
admirably devised and his passionately intense reading is pretty
much all I’d hoped it would be. What a shame he never recorded
it in studio conditions. The next disc provides an opportunity
to compare and contrast Spalding with Ruth Posselt’s 1949 version
of the revision with the Boston Symphony Orchestra directed
by Serge Koussevitzky. The recording quality is clearer, the
performance more restrained and classical, and the first two
movements are already becoming less differentiated. Don’t overlook
her stereo 1962 performance with her husband Richard Burgin,
also on West Hill. The Capricorn Concerto is not one
of Barber’s strongest pieces, but the Cello Concerto with the
wonderful Zara Nelsova certainly is. Barber conducts this London-made
performance, which you’ll also find transferred elsewhere, notably
in the Decca Nelsova box: five CDs and essential for cello lovers.
The seventh disc is given over to chamber and instrumental music.
The Cello Sonata was written for Barber’s Curtis friend, Orlando
Cole, here in 1973 partnered by Vladimir Sokoloff — apparently
known to chums as Billy. The spoken introduction by Cole is
a charmer — he and the composer had premiered the work forty
years earlier. It’s a powerful reading, the most recent in the
box, and gaining from intimate awareness of the composer’s intentions.
The String Quartet, Op. 11 is performed in 1938 by the Curtis
Quartet, of which group Cole was the cellist. The work underwent
significant revision, though not the Adagio, so it’s especially
exciting to hear the ‘white hot’ creation in its raw immediacy.
Yes, the acoustic is boxy and unflattering, but the chance to
hear it in this way, in a public performance given the day before
the official premiere, is not to be spurned. Excursions
is played in a 1950 studio recording by Rudolf Firkušnư who
latches on to the Americana with seeming relish. Elite duo pianists
Gold and Fizdale perform Souvenirs two years later:
huge fun.
The final disc offers Dover Beach, in the 1935 78 set
with Barber himself as baritone and his friends from the Curtis
Quartet accompanying. Again, this is a fixture in the Barber
Discography, and there is a great frisson in hearing his assured
singing, and the emphases and phrasing subtleties he brings
to bear. Knoxville: Summer of 1915 has a secure
place in the hearts of most Barber admirers, which is a good
thing as we can hear first Eileen Farrell in 1949, with Bernard
Herrmann conducting the full orchestral version, then the revised
version in 1958 with Eleanor Steber and piano accompaniment
by Edwin Biltcliffe, and then finally the revised version again,
this time with Leontyne Price with the New York Philharmonic
Orchestra under Thomas Schippers. Barber wrote the work for
Steber, and whilst I don’t especially mind the piano accompaniment,
maybe others will. All three are major achievements whichever
edition or accompaniment you prefer. Jennie Tourel can also
be heard in orchestrations of three songs in performances conducted
by the composer, though the 1945 sonics are not great. We also
hear a brief talk from Menotti, Barber’s partner, not least
about Brahms. Barber is heard in interview with James Fassett,
taking mainly about Medea and Greece. His speaking
voice is patrician.
Given the duplications, the survival condition of some of the
recordings, and the bulky nature of this set, I am sure it will
not appeal to all devotees of the composer, who will stick to
the latest, most sonically easy-on-the-ear traversals. But for
those seriously interested in the performance history, in the
versions and revisions, and in the then contemporary electrical
current in Barber’s music, this is an indispensible box. I’ve
already singled out the Violin Concerto but I’d also cite the
Second Symphony, Prayers of Kierkegaard, the String
Quartet, and others to convince you of the historical and archival
significance of this outstanding box.
Jonathan Woolf
See also the review by Rob
Barnett
Full track-list
CD 1 [78:16]
Vanessa – Acts 1-3
rec. live, 1 February 1958
Eleanor Steber (Vanessa)/Rosalind Elias (Erika)/Nicolai Gedda
(Anatol)/Giorgio Tozzi (The Doctor)/Regina Resnik (The Old Baroness)/George
Cehanovsky (Nicholas)/Robert Nagy (Footman)
Orchestra and Chorus of the Metropolitan Opera House/Dimitri
Mitropoulos
CD 2 [78:27]
Vanessa – Act 4
Medea Orchestral Suite, Op. 23
rec. 12 December 1950
New Symphony Orchestra/Samuel Barber
Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance, Op. 23a
rec. live, 16 March 1958
New York Philharmonic Orchestra/Dmitri Mitropoulos
CD 3 [78:35]
Overture to The School for Scandal, Op. 5
rec. 11 March 1942
Janssen Symphony/ Victor Janssen
Symphony No. 1, Op. 9
Original version; rec. live, 2 April 1938
NBC Symphony Orchestra/Artur Rodzinski
Symphony No. 1, Op. 9
Revised version; rec. 12 March 1944
New York Philharmonic Orchestra/Bruno Walter
Adagio for Strings, Op. 11
rec. live, 5 November 1938
NBC Symphony Orchestra/Arturo Toscanini
First Essay for Orchestra Op. 12
rec. live, 5 November 1938
NBC Symphony Orchestra/Arturo Toscanini
Second Essay for Orchestra, Op. 17
rec. live, 16 April 1942
New Symphony Orchestra/Bruno Walter
Commando March
rec. live, 30 October 1943
Boston Symphony Orchestra/Serge Koussevitzky
CD 4 [79:37]
Symphony No. 2, Op. 19
Original version; rec. live, 4 March 1944
Boston Symphony Orchestra/Serge Koussevitzky
Symphony No. 2, Op. 19
Revised version; rec. 13 December 1950
New Symphony Orchestra/Samuel Barber
Symphony No. 2, Op. 19
Composer rehearsing Boston Symphony Orchestra
CD 5 [61:12]
Die Natali, Op. 37
Boston Symphony Orchestra/Charles Munch
rec. live, 23 December 1960
Prayers of Kierkegaard, Op. 30
Boston Symphony Orchestra/Charles Munch
rec. live, 3 December 1954
Violin Concerto, Op. 14
rec. 7 February 1941
Albert Spalding (violin)
Philadelphia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy
CD 6 [66:46]
Violin Concerto, Op. 14
Revised version; rec. 7 January 1949
Ruth Posselt (violin)
Boston Symphony Orchestra/Serge Koussevitzky
Capricorn Concerto
rec. live, 2 May 1945
Harry Freistadt / Julius Baker / Mitch Miller / CBS Symphony
members / composer
Cello Concerto, Op. 22
rec. 11 December 1950
Zara Nelsova (cello)
New Symphony Orchestra/Samuel Barber
CD 7 [69:47]
Cello Sonata in C minor, Op. 6
rec. live, 28 January 1973
Orlando Cole (cello)/Vladimir 'Billy' Sokoloff
(piano)
String Quartet, Op. 11
rec. live, 14 March 1938
Curtis Quartet
Excursions Op. 20
rec. 17 November 1950
Rudolf FirkuŠnư (piano)
Souvenirs, Op. 28
rec. 15 August 1952
Gold and Fizdale Duo
CD 8
Dover Beach, Op. 3
rec. 13 May 1935
Samuel Barber (baritone)
Curtis String Quartet
Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24
rec. live 19 June 1949
Eileen Farrell (soprano)
CBS Symphony Orchestra/Bernard Herrmann
Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24
Revised version; rec. live, October 1958
Eleanor Steber (soprano)
Edwin Biltcliffe
Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24
Revised version; rec. live, 15 November 1959
Leontyne Price (soprano)
New York Philharmonic Orchestra/Thomas Schippers
Sure, on this shining night, Op. 13 No. 3
Four Songs, Op. 13/No. 4 (Nocturne)
I hear an army Op. 10 No. 3
rec. live, 2 May 1945
Edwin Biltcliffe (mezzo)
CBS Symphony Orchestra/Samuel Barber
Also includes interviews with Barber and Menotti and rehearsal
footage of the Second Symphony (Barber conducting)
WEST HILL RADIO ARCHIVES WHRA6039 [8 CDs + CD-ROM]
WEST HILL RADIO ARCHIVES WHRA6039 [8 CDs + CD-ROM]