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Two splendid 'fifths' performances in superb XR-remastered sound
Notes on the recordings: These two recordings indicate quite powerfully the swift advances in sound quality which were obtained in orchestral recordings through the 1950s. Despite there being just three years between them, the 1951 recording of the Piano Concerto No. 5 can sound at times like it belongs to a different era when the two are compared directly. There could be a number of reasons for this - tape technology was still in its commercial infancy, and the degree of hiss to be heard on the earlier recording is substantially higher than that of the Symphony No. 5 recording. But there is more to it than this - there is an added directness and clarity about the Symphony recording which the Concerto quite simply lacks. The reasons for this are not too difficult to guess, and one immediately suspects both the choice and placing of the microphone(s) used to make each recording. Whilst the recording techniques used for the 1951 recording would have seemed perfectly adequate for the 78rpm era (which was still in full swing - though not for much longer), they had simply yet to address fully the technical and sonic advances offered by the new vinyl LP disc. In short it's reasonably good for 1951, but would not have been considered good for 1954. My aim has been to ameliorate the shortcomings of the original as much as possible and to keep the overall sound as open as I could - as a result there are slightly higher levels of background tape hiss still to be heard on the Concerto recording. This is my third restoration of my second transfer of this concerto recording - and in it I believe I was finally able to do justice to both the performance and the recording. Meanwhile the Symphony was, comparatively speaking, a breeze - one of those wonderful recordings which almost fell off the record thanks to a combination of excellent original coupled with a superb pressing, all of which improved further with XR remastering to bring out the very best in it - a restorer's delight! Andrew Rose Click here to view additional notes
Full Beethoven biography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beethoven
Hermann Scherchen Notes from Wikipedia
Hermann Scherchen (21 June 1891 in Berlin – 12 June 1966 in Florence) was a German conductor.
Life Scherchen was originally a violist and played among the violas of the Bluthner Orchestra of Berlin while still in his teens. He conducted in Riga from 1914 to 1916 and in Königsberg from 1928 to 1933, after which he left Germany in protest at the Nazi regime and worked in Switzerland. Along with the philanthropist Werner Reinhart, Scherchen played a leading role in shaping the musical life of Winterthur for many years, with numerous premiere performances, the emphasis being placed on contemporary music.[1] Making his debut with Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, he was a champion of 20th century composers such as Richard Strauss, Webern, Berg and Varèse, and actively promoted the work of younger contemporary composers including Iannis Xenakis and Luigi Nono. He was the teacher of Karl Amadeus Hartmann, and contributed to the libretto of Hartmann's opera Simplicius Simplicissimus. He also premiered Hartmann's early work Miserae. The conductor Francis Travis was a pupil, then conducting assistant, for five years. He is probably best known for his orchestral arrangement (and recording) of Johann Sebastian Bach's The Art of Fugue. Another notable achievement is his 1958 recording of Beethoven's Eroica symphony for the Westminster label (subsequently reissued on compact disc), containing what is still (as of 2006) the fastest first movement ever recorded and the closest to Beethoven's own, problematic, metronome mark. [1] [2] His 1953 "Lehrbuch des Dirigierens" ("Treatise on Conducting" ISBN 3-7957-2780-4) is a standard textbook. His recorded repertoire was extremely wide, ranging from Vivaldi to Reinhold Glière. Like Vasily Safonov and (in later life) Leopold Stokowski, Scherchen commonly avoided the use of a baton.[2] His technique when in this mode sometimes caused problems for players; an unidentified BBC Symphony Orchestra bassoonist told the singer Ian Wallace that interpreting Scherchen's minuscule hand movements was like trying to milk a flying gnat.[3] According to Fritz Spiegl[4], Scherchen worked largely through verbal instructions to his players and his scores were peppered with reminders of what he needed to say at each critical point in the music. However, Scherchen did not always dispense with the baton. The film of his rehearsal of his edition of Bach's 'Art of Fugue' with the CBC Toronto Chamber Orchestra shows him using a baton throughout, and very effectively.
Family After a brief marriage to actress Gerda Müller, Scherchen married Chinese composer Xiao Shuxian. A daughter, Tona Scherchen, was born to them in 1938. She has also made a name for herself as a composer. His last wife was Pia Andronescu from whom he had 5 children. He was survived by a number of children, from five wives and other women.[5] One his sons was Wolfgang "Wulff" Scherchen. Wulff's six-year relationship with Benjamin Britten started when he was aged thirteen. John Bridcut describes the passionate exchanges of letters between the famous composer and the young boy in Britten's Children. His daughter, Myriam Scherchen, runs a record label Tahra which produces historic recordings on CD devoted to famous conductors, including Scherchen himself. His sister Helen was married to Hungarian cartographer Sándor Radó.
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Recordings In 1996 Tahra published the only commercially released recording of Malipiero's complete L'Orfeide. It was a remastered live recording of the 7 June 1966 performance at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, conducted by Scherchen only five days before his death. The cast included Magda Olivero and Renato Capecchi (Tah 190/191).[6]
These notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Scherchen
Paul Badura-Skoda Notes from Wikipedia
Paul Badura-Skoda (born 6 October 1927, in Vienna) is an Austrian pianist. He won first prize in the Austrian Music Competition in 1947. In 1949, he performed with distinguished conductors like Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan. He has specialized in works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, but has an extensive repertoire, and has made numerous recordings, including more than 200 LPs. Together with his wife Eva Badura-Skoda, he has also produced musical scholarship of impressive quality. The Badura-Skodas edited one of the volumes of Mozart's piano concertos for the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (Serie V/Werkgruppe 15/Band 5, consisting of K. 453, 456, and 459).
These notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Badura-Skoda
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