New Releases

GHCD 2341 Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977) -  Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) – Finlandia Op. 26/7- Symphony No. 1 in E minor Op. 39 – Peiléas and Mélisande Op.46 (Excerpts from the incidental Music) – Symphony No.7 C major op. 107 –Helsinki City Symphony Orchestra – Recorded live at Helsinki University’s Festival Hall Wednesday June 17 1953 – 78:55

This disc is of the greatest musical interest. It contains a complete concert from Helsinki entirely devoted to the music of Sibelius conducted by Leopold Stokowski from 1955, marking the 90^th birthday of the composer.  As such, it is an utterly unique document in itself, but as it also contains previously unavailable material in the conductor’s commercial discography, refined by the latest technological advances to obtain the best possible sound, it self-evidently becomes a major addition to the recorded legacy of this very great conductor

GHCD 2313_14 PORGY & BESS [COMPLETE] Music – George Gershwin (1898-1937) – Words Ira Gershwin (1896-1993) & DuBose Hayward – Live recording  Sunday 21^st September 1952,  Titiania Palast Berlin.
Image: George Gershwin - DuBose Hayward and Ira Gershwin
William Warfield (Porgy) / Leontyne Price (Bess) / Cab Calloway (Sporting Life) / John McCurry (Crown) / Joseph James (Jake) / Helen Colbert (Clara) / Howard Roberts (Robbins) / Helen Thigpen (Serena) / Leslie Scott (Jim) / Moses Lamar (Frazier) / William Weasey (Undertaker) / Walter Riemann (Detective) / Helen Dowdy (Strawberry woman) / Ray Yates (Crab man) / Eva Jessye Choir / RIAS-Unterhaltungsorchester / Alexander Smallens, CD1 62’:08 – CD2 77’:09 – Total 2:19:17

This is one of the most important issues of historic opera recordings ever released. In 1952, the US State Department sub vented a world tour of George Gershwin’s opera Porgy & Bess which was seen in many countries in Europe and in South America. It was the tour which made an international star of the great black soprano Leontyne Price, who thereafter never recorded the opera complete. We are pleased to present a broadcast recording from September 1952 in Berlin, sung in English, of a live performance of the complete opera from the Titiania Palast Berlin. The sound has been completely updated with modern technology, and the ‘feel’ of a live performance (which this is) adds a dimension to the experience which is utterly authentic and most exciting. 

This is a very important record for collectors of great orchestral interpretations, in that it reveals aspects of the great Hungarian-born but naturalised American conductor Fritz Reiner which have rarely been made available on disc before. There are two major highlights on this CD – Prokofiev’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’ with the magnificent tenor Lauritz Melchior adopting a new role on disc as narrator, and an early war-time performance of Shostakovich’s epic Sixth Symphony with the Phlharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York. This very well-filled CD is completed by a brilliant performance of Mozart’s ‘Impresario’ Overture, and masterly accounts of the March from Tchaikovsky’s First Orchestral Suite, Debussy’s Fetes from his three Nocturnes and a beautifully transcription by Lucien Caillet of Bach’s ‘Little’ Fugue in G minor – the last three with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Excellent sound.

Page revised Monday March 17 2008