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PASC039:
1812 Overture, Hamlet Overture - Tchaikovsky
MP3
price
London
Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Sir Adrian Boult Recorded:
2nd April, 1952, Kingsway Hall, London
Released as Decca LP LXT 2696
Download ID: 184905/395693
Duration
35'06"
Play
sample from Hamlet:
When
disc2disk's Peter Harrison, our vinyl transfer wizard, began work
on restoring these recordings, we had little idea of their effective rarity.
For although Sir Adrian Boult's career as a conductor was long
and prolific, he rarely ventured into the recording studio with the music
of Tchaikovsky in his hands. Of those recordings he did make, not
one is currently available in the British CD catalogue - until now of
course!
Why
this should be we do not know - for such a major composer as Tchaikovsky
to have been effectively sidelined by one of the twentieth centuries greatest
conductors, a man who embraced the Romantic reportoire so brilliantly,
is something of a mystery.
Here
we have his 1952 Decca recording of a very well-known work, the 1812 Overture,
one of only two recordings of this piece by Boult we've thus far been
able to trace (a second was made about fourteen years later), and also
a far less well-known work.
I
shall leave the story of the 1812 to one side - though point out that
you might like to compare Boult with Rodzkinsky's 1940 recording with
the Cleveland Orchestra (PASP004)
- and look instead at the Hamlet Fantasy Overture.
The
Decca sleevenotes to their 1952 release noted that "the overture
is a fine quasi-symphonic poem which until recently has been shamefully
neglected in England" - a neglect which seems to have continued to
this day, with very few modern recordings in existence in the current
catalogue. Originally written in 1888 with the intention of being a prelude
to incidental music for a production of the Shakespeare play - the French
actor Lucien Guitry agreed to play the lead role in Russia if Tchaikovsky
would write incidental music - the piece soon took on a life and dimension
of its own, more suited to the concert hall than as an introduction to
the play. In the end another, shorter and simplified version of this piece
was provided for the production, together with sixteen other numbers,
none of them considered particularly notable.
It
is suggested of "Hamlet - Fantasy Overture" that one does not
look to the music for scenes or a precise programmme - more that it is
"a study in moods and emotions". Saying that, one can identify
certain moments from the play in the music, in particular the march suggesting
the arrival of Fortinbras and the concluding funeral march.
The
sound quality, as always when Peter's transcribing from Decca vinyl, is
superb - but in this case he goes a step further and heralds this as his
greatest remastering work to date. I think you might just agree...
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