PASC335 - COPPOLA conducts SCHUMANN, WAGNER, R. STRAUSS

		National Symphony Orchestra Paris Conservatoire Orchestra Pasdeloup Orchestra Piero Coppola, conductor Studio recordings, 1933-46 Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn Cover artwork based on a photograph of Piero Coppola Total duration: 79:32 ©2012 Pristine Audio. Download ID: 1588898-99 Scroll down for PDF covers and cue-sheet download For FLAC playback and conversion support see our Help pages Download price category:	SCHUMANN Symphony 1 00:00 SCHUMANN Symphony 1 Not working? click here

Coppola turns his talents to German composers, with superb results

"he brings to this performance an altogether outstanding sympathy and a close understanding
of Schumann's essential warm-heartedness and naïveté" - The Gramophone

• SCHUMANN Symphony No. 1 in B flat major, Op. 38, "Spring" [notes / score]
  Recorded 11-12 July 1946, Kingsway Hall, London
  Matrix nos.: AR 10462-2, 10463-2, 10464-2, 10465-2, 10466-1, 10467-1, 10468-2 and 10469-2
  First issued on Decca AK 2151 through 2154
  
  National Symphony Orchestra
  
  
  
• SCHUMANN Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 97, "Rhenish" [notes / score]
  Recorded 7-8 November 1933, Salle Rameau, Paris
  Matrix nos.: 2PG 1195-97 and 1203-05 (all Take 1A)
  First issued on Disque Gramophone DB 4926-28
  
  Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire
  
  
  
• WAGNER Parsifal - Orchestral excerpts [notes / score]
  Recorded 6 November 1933, Salle Rameau, Paris
  Matrix nos.: 2PG 1191-94 (all Take 1A)
  First issued on Disque Gramophone DB 4918-19
  
  Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire
  
  
  
• R. STRAUSS Salome - Orchestral excerpts [notes / score]
  Recorded 20 March 1934, Paris
  Matrix nos.: 0PG 1426-1 and 1427-1
  First issued on Disque Gramophone DA 4854
  
  Orchestre des Concerts Pasdeloup
  
  
  Piero Coppola conductor
  
  FLAC downloads include full scores of both Schumann symphonies
  
  

 

REVIEW - SCHUMANN Symphony No. 1

That Coppola had a particular affection for Schumann we already more than suspected; now he brings to this performance an altogether outstanding sympathy and a close understanding of Schumann's essential warm-heartedness and naïveté, at the same time securing a cleanness of texture which is by no means common. He allows the music to be sentimental without becoming mawkish, and naif without being gauche.

The performance, as I have indicated, is a most satisfactory one. Coppola takes the fairylike finale at a very steady speed, producing a grazioso and slightly square effect totally different from that produced by Koussevitzky, who took it, I seem to remember (I speak without having the discs at hand) a good deal faster. At the same time, I do not agree with taking the coda of the scherzo so slowly: the tempo does not change to un poco più lento till 16 bars later. The balance of the orchestra is reasonably good, though the timpani are generally weak, and the cantabile tone of the first violins a little pallid. But it is a relief to hear a flute solo at the right level without it being boosted into the foreground. Once again, to my annoyance, Decca have managed to arrange these compulsorily auto-coupled sides so that the turn-over comes slap in the middle of the Larghetto.

L. S., The Gramophone, June 1949, excerpt (link)

 

REVIEW - RICHARD STRAUSS Salome Orchestral Excerpts

I don't suppose we shall hear the Strauss-Wilde Salome again, but it is mighty clever, in its erotic way: and yet a curiously bugaboo way, that perhaps would pall now that we are thrilled every day or supposed to be. Yet there is no other music really like this, that tackles so horrible a subject with such earnestness and vim. We have to remember that it is nearly thirty years old. The scene on this disc is that in which John (Jochanaan, as he is here called) is brought before Salome, repulses her attempt to vamp him, and descends again into his cistern-cell. There are numerous motives, which are very clearly set forth in Mr. Lawrence Gilman's guide to the opera (John Lane). Two leading ones of the prophet are that on the horns, about 1 in. on side 1, and the one which Mr. Gilman calls "Prophecy," which is best heard at the start of side 2. There is also Salome's theme of "Ecstasy," as Mr. Gilman calls it—the descending first-quarter-chime theme. It is worth one's while to hear this beautifully recorded playing of music that some may find powerful and others ugly, though not in the cacophonic sense in which, alas, we have been "larned" to use it in these post-war years.

The Gramophone, June 1934, excerpt (link)

 

 

Producer's Note

The sources for the transfers were French Deccas for the Schumann ‘Spring’ Symphony; Disque Gramophone pressings for the ‘Rhenish’ and the Parsifal excerpts; and a first edition late Orthophonic American Victor pressing for the Salome disc.

Mark Obert-Thorn

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