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For the newcomer to Newstalgia - Sunday nights, aside from classic Jazz is also classic Classical, by way of the Weekend Gramophone. Originally, it was supposed to be the place all the old 78's and early lp's were going to be posted. But lately it's shifted to showcase some of the amazing radio recordings that have not been commercially released. Such as tonight's post, which features the famed French Pianist Yvonne Lefebure in two Debussy pieces, recorded in the studios of the ORTF in Paris (French radio pre-1968). These recordings were made in the early-mid 1950's, and sadly there are no concrete dates of recording as there is nothing to indicate when they were recorded on the disc labels, only when they were aired. According to when the disc was broadcast, it appears to be 1955.

The two pieces featured are:

1. Debussy - from Images, Book 1 - Hommage à Rameau
2. Debussy - from Preludes - Danseuses de Delphes

More discoveries next week. In the meantime, enjoy.

I always talk about how many concerts are broadcast any given day by the radio networks in Europe, and how many of them are live on-the-spot. Well, to prove that point, here is a concert that was recorded lived earlier today (8:00 pm Paris time - 11:00 am Los Angeles time) featuring Orchestre National de France led by podium superstar Daniele Gatti and featuring Antonio Meneses, cello in music by Faure`, Saint-Saens, Debussy and Ravel.

Both the orchestra and soloist are given rousing ovations and, as is customary, they play rousing encores.

Great concert all the way around, and to hear it live as-it's-happening is a bonus.

The concert is divided between two players and the intermission feature has been edited out (no interviews, just commercial recordings featuring Meneses) and the announcements have been edited down in order to take the concert down from its original three hours to a reasonable length.

Here's what's being played:

Part 1 - Gabriel Fauré

Pelléas et Mélisande, Musique de scène pour la pièce de Maeterlinck(1902)

Camille Saint-Saëns

Concerto N°1 en la mineur Op.33 (1869)

Part 2 - Claude Debussy

Jeux (1912)

Maurice Ravel

Daphnis et Chloé, Suite N°2 (1913)

Antonio Meneses, Violoncelle
Orchestre National de France
Daniele Gatti, Direction

Who says music is dead? Not around here.

Remember, it's Anti-Road Rage Wednesday so step away from the computer and turn the speakers up.

And enjoy.

Over to Austria by way of Spain this week for a concert given on May 21, 2011 by French Piano sensation Cedric Tiberghien in a recital of music by Beethoven, Schumann, Ravel and Debussy.

Tiberghiend has been getting great reviews over his U.S. debut with the National Symphony (of Washington D.C.) and is slated for a busy tour schedule of the U.S. this year.

But in the meantime, here is the recital from last year as recorded by ORF in Austria and relayed to Radio Nacional Espana. The concert is broken up into two parts - Part One has the Beethoven and Schumann and Part Two has the Ravel and Debussy.

Here are the notes:

17.00►Gran Auditorio
Concierto celebrado en la Sala Markus Sittikus de
Hohenems el 21 de mayo de 2011. Grabación de la ORF,
Austria. Schubertiadas 2011.

BEETHOVEN: Sonata para piano nº 14 en Do sostenido menor, Op. 27 / 2.

SCHUMANN: Kreisleriana, Op. 16.

RAVEL: Gaspard de la nuit.

DEBUSSY: Masques. D‟un
chaier d‟esquisses. L‟isle joyeuse.
Cedric Tiberghien (p.).

We're looking at almost perfect Anti-Road Rage music today. I think it's safe to operate heavy machinery while listening to this one.

Enjoy no matter what.

Over to Madrid this week for a soothing blast of Chamber music as performed by Ruben Reinas, violin, - Javier Albares, cello and Cameron Roberts, piano. It was recorded and broadcast live a couple weeks ago (Feb. 4th) by Radio Nacional Espana and their excellent Radio Clasica outlet.

Featured are works by Montsalvatge, Debussy and Villa-Lobos and the concert is broken up over two players with the Montsalvatge and Debussy on the top player and the Villa-Lobos taking up the bottom player.

Here's the rundown:

Los conciertos de Radio Clásica

Música de Cámara de la Orquesta y Coro de RTVE.

Transmisión directa desde el Teatro Monumental de Madrid.

MONTSALVATGE: Trío para violón, violonchelo y piano.

DEBUSSY: Trío para violín, violonchelo y piano en Sol mayor.

VILLA LOBOS: Trío para violín, violonchelo y piano nº 3.

Ruben Reina (vl.), Javier Albarés (vc.), Cameron Roberts (p.).

I realized we haven't had any chamber music on the Mid-Week concert in a while - of all things, talk about perfect Anti-Road Rage music. I promise we'll do more in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, enjoy and put down the baseball bat.

Continuing with festival season. This time it's a live and direct concert recorded this past Sunday (the 23rd) at the prestigious Aix en Provence Festival in Provence France. One of the really great European festivals, this year they featured the London Symphony as Orchestra-in-residence and they turned in some memorable concerts.

This concert features the LSO with Valery Gergiev in a program of music by Debussy and Shostakovitch. Debussy's La Mer and the Shostakovitch Symphony Number 8.

From all reports, the festival was a sell-out within the first day tickets were offered. So, in case you missed it this year, here is a reasonable substitute . . .or not.

The concert is broken up into two players. The top player is the Debussy and the bottom player is the Shostakovitch.

Here are the notes.

samedi 23 juillet 2011
En direct du Festival d’Aix en Provence : Debussy, Chostakovitch

Claude Debussy
La Mer (1903, 1905)

Dmitri Chostakovitch
Symphonie N°8 en Ut mineur Op.65 (1943)

London Symphony Orchestra
Valery Gergiev, Direction

Concert donné au Grand Théâtre de Provence d’Aix-en-Provence

Announcements are in French but have been cut down as it was live and they were padding quite a bit while the orchestra set up, tuned and took a fifteen minute break between numbers.

Enjoy and consider Anti-Road Rage as an answer.

Staying in Paris this week with another concert by Orchestre National de France, this time conducted by Daniele Gatti and featuring Pianist David Fray in the Schoenberg Piano Concerto (1942). Starting off with Wagner's Siegfried Idyll and continuing with Debussy's Nocturne's after the Schoenberg and finishing up with Wagner again, this time the Good Friday Spell from Parsifal. All together a pretty good and well-received concert with a Bach encore from Fray.

The concert is broken up on to two players. The top player features the Wagner and Schoenberg and the bottom player features the Debussy and Wagner Parsifal.

Announcements are in French as always when it's from Paris and below are notes for all you note takers:

Théâtre des Champs-Elysées : Wagner, Schoenberg, Debussy

Richard Wagner
Siegfried Idyll Ww. 103 (1870)

Arnold Schoenberg
Concerto Op.42 (1942)

Claude Debussy
Nocturnes

Richard Wagner
Parsifal, Enchantement du Vendredi Saint, Ext. de Parsifal (Act.III ; 1882)

David Fray, Piano
Choeur de Radio France
Matthias Brauer, Chef de choeur
Orchestre National de France
Daniele Gatti, Direction
Concert donné le 21 mai 2010

Another installment in your weekly dose of Anti-Road Rage.

Over to Madrid this week for a live concert with Orquesta Sinfonica y Coro de RTVE (Spanish Radio and TV) guest conducted by Gunther Herbig (who seems to be guest conducting everywhere at once). The concert features a well-known batch of music by Ravel (Ma Mere l'Oye), Debussy (Nocturnes) and Beethoven (Symphony Number 7). The concert was broadcast live and recorded on February 4th.

As always, it's broken up into two players - the top player features the Ravel and Debussy and the bottom player features the Beethoven.

Announcements are in Spanish and, as always, they're cut down for time.

And the notes . . . .

Orquesta Sinfónica y Coro de RTVE Transmisión directa desde el Teatro Monumental de Madrid.

Part 1: RAVEL: Mi madre la Oca (suite).
DEBUSSY: Nocturnos.

Part 2: BEETHOVEN: Sinfonía nº 7 en La mayor, Op. 92. Orq.

Sinf. y Coro de RTVE. Dir.: Gunther Herbig.

Should fill the bill for Anti-Road Rage Wednesday quite nicely.

(Esther Hoppe plays Mozart quite nicely, thank you)

Tonight's concert comes from the Joaquin Turina Chamber Music Festival in Spain this past September, 2009. It was recorded by Radio Nacional Espana and features the music of Mozart, Debussy and Shostakovitch with a variety of soloists. The program goes as follows:

Joaquin Turina International Chamber Festival
September 12, 2009

1. W. A. Mozart: Sonata for violin and piano, B-flat Major, KV 454
Esther Hoppe, violin, Benedicte Palko, piano

2. C. Debussy: Sonata for violin y piano, g-minor
Stephanie Gonley, violin, Daniel del Pino, piano

3. D. Shostakovich: Sonata for viola and piano, op. 147
James Dunham, viola, Benedicte Palko, piano

Announcements are Spanish and, as always, the music is universal.

Back to the Radio Transcriptions tonight. A concert featuring the Indianapolis Symphony, one of the few orchestras in the U.S. with a 52-week schedule. Times have been very rough for orchestras these days, and the ones doing well are doing very well and the ones not doing well are closing up shop. Sadly, the ones closing up shop outnumber the ones doing well. Hopefully someday that will turn around before it's too late.

In the meantime, here is a concert recorded on March 19, 1949 and broadcast over NBC Radio as part of its Pioneers Of Music series. It features long-time music Director Fabien Sevitzky conducting a program of music by Debussy, Delius, Griffes and Ravel.

Pretty standard 1940's fare. Sevitzky, newphew of Boston Symphony Music Director Serge Koussevitzky, was music director of the Indianapolis Symphony from 1937-1955. He recorded a goodly amount, first for RCA Victor during the days of the 78 and later recorded some lp's for Capitol.

So here's a taste of what some of the lesser luminaries in 1940's American symphony orchestras sounded like in concert.

Can't be exotic every week, you know.

As the Record industry evolved from a living room novelty to becoming a serious method of preserving music, the clamor was on to get as much repertoire recorded and available to an insatiable audience as possible. Classical had always been a problem because of the length of works, the size of performing bodies and just the effort and expense it took. It was easier when a particular orchestra or conductor was "in-house" or under exclusive contract to a particular label. In France, where there was a hotbed of recording activity going on in the 1920's and 30's, each of the major labels had their own "Exclusive conductor" to rely on. HMV (or VDSM as it was known) had Piero Coppola. Columbia had Philippe Gaubert and Polydor had Albert Wolff.

Albert Wolff was one of the great conductors of French repertoire and had a hugely popular reputation throughout Europe, not only as a conductor of Orchestral work but also of Opera, which he was closely associated with the legendary Opera Comique in the early 1920's and several other opera companies later on (including the Metropolitan Opera in New York after World War 1). He was responsible for many premiers of important works all throughout his career and his later stereo recordings (he died in 1970 so he was well into the LP period) are benchmarks of technique as well as stellar examples of the recording art.

But today we're going to play a work by a composer he was very much associated with early on. Claude Debussy and the 1928 recording of Nuages and Fetes from Nocturnes. Albert Wolff conducts the Lamoureux Orchestra. Wolff made a vast quantity of recordings for Polydor and not all of them have been reissued on CD. I'm not sure if this one has, but you get to hear it now nonetheless.

Perfect Sunday music.