Laura Newell (harp)
The Philharmonia Recordings
Alfredo Casella (1883-1947)
Harp Sonata, Op.68 (1943)
Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
Notturno (1904, arr. Laura Newell)
Antiche Danze ed Aria (1917-31)
Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
Harp solo from Lucia di Lammermoor (1835, arr. Albert Zabel)
Sir Arnold Bax (1883-1953)
Quintet for Strings and Harp (1919)
Jacques Ibert (1890-1962)
Trio for violin, cello and harp (1943-44)
Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973)
Sonata a Cinque (1934)
The Stuyvesant String Quartet
rec. December 1953, Carnegie Recital Hall, NYC (Casella, Respighi, Donizetti) and February 1951, Village Lutheran Church, Bronxville, NY (Bax, Ibert, Malipiero)
ARTEK AR-0067-2 [78]
Artek has restored two Philharmonia LPs from 1951 and 1953 featuring the artistry of harpist Laura Newell and, in the case of the earlier disc, The Stuyvesant Quartet as well. They fit very nicely onto a single CD, the timing stretching to 78 minutes, and the repertoire is Anglo-Franco-Italian. I’d not heard any of these recordings before and I found them captivating.
Programming the solo harp LP first – it was called, disarmingly, ‘Music for Harp’ (Philharmonia PH-109) - allows one to focus on Newell’s remarkable virtuosity and elegance. She plays Casella’s Harp Sonata with dextrous clarity and directness. Its Sarabanda is particularly lovely and the way Casella returns to earlier material is both seamless and structurally convincing. Respighi is represented by his impressionistic Notturno in Newell’s arrangement and also by the Antiche Danze ed Aria. Note the delicacy of her articulation in the Siciliana and her deft dynamics here. The last of the Italian pieces is the harp solo from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in the arrangement by the nineteenth-century figure of Albert Zabel. This is the ‘Fountain music’ from the entr’acte before the second scene in Act I and is four minutes of evocatory and ominous projection.
The three items with The Stuyvesant Quartet come from Philharmonia PH-102. The first is Bax’s Quintet of 1919 in what must be the most fluid and fastest recording it has ever received, analogous to the Lionel Tertis-Bax recording of the Viola Sonata. Dedicated to the very much more retrogressive violist Raymond Jeremy, violist of the Philharmonia Quartet, who performed the work in 1921, this remarkably vivid performance mitigates any structural weaknesses the work may possess. Yet its tightness doesn’t sound rushed; instead, it sounds natural and thoroughly inside the music. Most contemporary performances last between 14 and a half and 15 and a half minutes. This one – if you insist on judging by the clock – takes just 12 and a half.
Jacques Ibert wrote his Trio for violin, cello and harp in 1943 and it’s remarkable what a creative composer can do with a trio of this kind. Veering from the diaphanous to a refined chanson, lyricism is at a premium. There’s also a great amount of Gallic charm and nuance about the piece and the performance too, not least the dazzle of the fast Scherzando finale – poised, genial and droll. Perhaps Alan Shulman’s cello is a touch under-recorded in unisons, but only then.
Finally, to the Malipiero, a feast of exuberance and refinement, and full of fancy, in which the strings play their own strong part. A chorale-like component reappears later in the work as do martial elements before the music dies away into a veil of nostalgia. So many ideas so cleverly fusing into each other.
The restorations are highly accomplished and the notes reprint Newell’s LP liner notes as well as adding some further details courtesy of Jay Shulman. If you have a yen for Newell – and I hope you do – then lend an ear to The New Friends of Rhythm (see review).
Jonathan Woolf
