All posts in category Chamber

A festive feast of Wagner and Verdi

To round off the Wagner and Verdi bicentenary year, I’ve gathered a varied selection of music by these two operatic greats, in various guises. Dajos Béla recorded extensively in many genres. The following abridged version of the Tannhäuser Overture is one of his more straightforwardly classical recordings, though the scoring is adapted for his band […]

Boult’s early Humperdinck and lighter fare for 2013

As the festive season passes, it’s time for some of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, in early acoustical recordings by Adrian Boult. To follow this, in the spirit of the New Year Concert, if not the letter, some very light fare indeed: two entertaining bassoon solos from E W Hincliff and two numbers performed by the […]

Delius – Eugene Goossens, Geoffery Toye, John Barbirolli; Mozart’s Figaro Overture – Barbirolli; Beatrice Harrison & Harold Craxton – Delius’s Cello Sonata; Dame Ethel Smyth – overture to The Wreckers

I couldn’t let this Delius anniversary year pass without a selection of his recordings from 78s. These range from acoustics conducted by Eugene Goossens III through some early electricals with Geoffrey Toye up to post-war records by John Barbirolli. There’s one filler side from Barbirolli which is not by Delius. There’s also the early electrical […]

Mark Hambourg, Marjorie Hayward, Frank Bridge and Warwick Evans play Scherzo from Saint-Saëns’s Piano Quartet

Another brief chamber music update, this time one of the four chamber sides recorded in 1917 by Mark Hambourg. This features Marjorie Hayward on violin, Frank Bridge on viola and Warwick Evans on cello, in a heavily abridged version of the Scherzo from Saint-Saëns’s Piano Quartet in B flat major. Saint-Saëns – Piano Quartet in […]

The London Wind Quintette (Murchie, Goossens, Draper, James and A.E. Brain) play works by Pierné and Scarlatti

The single record in this update is contains two treats from the wind ensemble repertoire. The London Wind Quintette are heard on an early 1920s Edison Bell Velvet Face 12” record. The quintette features flautist Robert Murchie, Leon Goossens on oboe, Haydn Draper on clarinet, bassoonist Wilfred James and horn player Alfred Edwin Brain Jr. […]

Virtuoso String Quartet – Beethoven Op.127, a movement by Dittersdorf; Marjorie Hayward & Una Bourne – Grieg’s Violin Sonata in C minor, Mozart K.378; Fethi Kapuz plays Alnar

The major project continues, so I’ve again transferred some other items, with the focus on violinists. Marjorie Hayward is heard as the first violinist of the Virtuoso Quartet in a Beethoven Quartet, and then as soloist in Grieg’s Third Sonata, with Una Bourne at the piano. The additional curiosity item is of the Turkish violinist […]

Franz André – Bizet’s Arlèsienne Suites; Ivanov, Gauk, Golovanov – Balakirev; Henry Wood – Purcell, Mendelssohn; Hamilton Harty – Tchaikovsky; Mengelberg – Johann Strauss II; The Virtuoso String Quartet – Debussy’s Quartet, Mendelssohn; Robert Carr – “The trail of the lonesome pine”, “When love creeps in your heart”

To begin the New Year, I’m looking back as well as forwards. Mendelssohn and Purcell had anniversaries in 2009, so you can hear works by them, conducted by Henry Wood. There’s also a movement from one of Mendelssohn’s String Quartets, as a filler for the Virtuoso Quartet’s recording of the Debussy String Quartet. There will […]