Thursday, November 18, 2010

Bruckner 6th, Horenstein/LSO 1963 broadcast


*This is arguably a better sounding recording than the one available elsewhere*



Bruckner, Anton
Symphony No.6

London Symphony Orchestra
Jascha Horenstein, conductor

live broadcast
November 21, 1963 [please see information below, concerning date]


This is a bit of housekeeping, as this recording was contributed by State Worker GP49 by being posted to the comments section- Thank you GP for this and so many other treasured performances! It lay there in comments limbo for far too long, and so it has it's own post now as it is much deserving of the attention. Again, I must disclose that this is a recording of a night which is available elsewhere but never in this fine a quality of sound.

I just listened to the adagio for the umpteenth time with my infant son, who is staring placidly off into the wild blue yonder. We both were, really. Then the scherzo arrives with it's swooping brass (hints of portamento?), with the satisfying mash of the strident sections. It all brings to mind Billie Holiday's intoning a few words about how, "... the tunes I request aren't always the best, but the ones where the trumpets blare!"

Interesting to note, this symphony was premiered by the Wiener Philharmoniker under Gustav Mahler's baton.

The contributor advises us that, "There is some issue about the orchestra and date, but it has been confirmed that the orchestra is the LSO, not the LPO as some have said; and that the 1964 date often attributed is the BBC broadcast date, not the performance date. The remaining dispute is whether this is from a concert on Nov. 21, 1963 or Nov. 21, 1961. Horenstein's assistant Joel Lazar could not help, but he was only with the conductor from 1970 on.

Included in this download is a bonus spoken-word track, by composer Robert Simpson in 1973 in honor of Jascha Horenstein after his death that year.

Good-sounding mono; four movements plus the Simpson track: five FLACs"

GP posted more about this recording (which certainly deserves a more prominent position in the public eye) :
"...[GP49's] friend ...generously provided the original, dubbed from cassette tape. It's been edited and "freshened"; most dropouts and extraneous noises, some of which sounded like the microphone got bumped, have been repaired or at least ameliorated. In addition, the original sounded like some kind of dynamic range expander had been switched ON during the first minutes of the first movement, then was shut off resulting in an abrupt change in volume. That had to be addressed, so that the "join" would not be audibly evident..."

Great fun for all.

Guillermo



3 comments:

Guillermo said...

As uploaded by GP, Four movements plus the Simpson track: five FLACs"

http://www.mediafire.com/?lm9oelt9x6v90

And as MP3's at high quality >300 kbps rates (my upload):

http://www.mediafire.com/?3ykb2w0wbbbk4lt

The latter includes some 'cover art' which you can alternately just copy and paste off of the post.

maready said...

Guillermo --- I can only second your recommendation: I picked GP's transfer out of the comments earlier and it's a must! So many nearly-complete historical Bruckner sets that are missing the 6th, one of the composer's greatest achievements (furtwangler's is missing the first movement --- Sinopoli died before he could make a studio recording ... oddly enough that inexplicable Bruckner-basher Leonard Bernstein left us a great 1976 live recording of this symphony with the NYPO.) In any case, Horenstein and Simpson and the Bruckner 6th make this a must. (And I'll never be able to thank you enough for the Celibidache Fourth from Japan!)

Keep up the good work and thanks.

аффтор said...

dear Guillermo, i was late to download this recording at a time. now Mediafire marked the Finale of this recording as copyrighted and doesn't allow its downloading.
won't you be so kind to re-upload it elsewhere?

thanks in advance.
regards,
a