The Australian World Record Club – Part 4

(Continued from December article) 

Part 4 – Classical repertoire and presentations in the later years 

Background 

The 1960s and 70s saw the pinnacle of LP production of classical music worldwide, now recorded in stereo.  The major UK labels were EMI (Columbia, Parlophone and HMV), European labels DG, Erato, Melodya and Supraphon, and in US, RCA, Mercury and CBS.  Major recording artists, both well-established and emerging, were contracted to one or other of these labels, many exclusively.  At this period recording companies had not agglomerated and consequently each label issued competitive basic repertoire, sometimes duplicating or triplicating within their own label as well as recording and releasing lesser known repertoire as never before. (Multiple Beethoven symphony cycles within a label abounded.) 

From a formidable choice, examples of major releases in these times include the Decca/Solti and DG Karajan Wagner Ring cycles, the complete Haydn symphonies played by Dorati and the Philomusica Hungarica on Decca, Philips recording of Berlioz’s Les Troyens, Decca recordings of almost all of Britten’s works, conducted by Britten and likewise most Stravinsky works conducted by Stravinsky.  Other notable opera releases included the Decca Mackerras Janacek operas and DG Strauss operas under Bohm.  This was the era of the proliferation of boxed sets of complete oeuvres such as complete Beethoven piano sonatas under Kempff, (DG), Arrau, (Philips) and Barenboim (EMI), complete Beethoven quartets with Quartetto Italiano (Philips), complete Mozart Marches and Dances Boskovsky/Vienna Mozart Ensemble (Decca), Fischer-Dieskau singing almost the entire leider baritone repertoire and much, much more. 

Recording artists 

Elder statesmen conductors such as Ansermet and Monteux (Decca), Klemperer (EMI), Bohm (DG and EMI), Karajan (DG and EMI), Munch (RCA), Paray (Mercury), Szell (CBS), Stokowski (multi labels) and younger and emerging conductors continued to record prolifically.  The newer generation included Solti (Decca), Bernstein (CBS and DG), Dorati (Mercury and Decca), Giulini (DG and EMI), Kempe (EMI), Carlos Kleiber (GG and EMI), Jochum EMI and DG), Haitink (Philips), Abbado (Decca), Mehta (Decca), Davis (EMI and Philips), Marriner (multi labels) and Mackerras (multi labels) 

Major pianists included Arrau (EMI Philips), Curzon (Decca), Horowitz (CBS), Kempff (Decca DG), Gilels (EMI DG), Richter (multi labels), Rubinstein (RCA), Serkin (CBS) and younger emerging pianists such as Michelangeli (Decca), Katchen (Decca), Pollini (EMI DG) and Argerich (EMI DG). 

Prominent violinists were Oistrakh (EMI and DG), Kogan (EMI), Heifetz (RCA), Stern (CBS), Milstein (EMI and DG), Grumiaux (Philips), Suk (EMI Supraphon) and emerging Perlman (EMI) and Zukerman (CBS).  Rostropovich was the outstanding cellist (EMI and DG), other notable cellists being Starker (EMI), Fournier (EMI and DG) and of course, the ill-fated Jaqueline du Pre (EMI).  

String Trios and Quartets included the Beaux Art Trio (Philips), Amadeus quartet (DG), Quartetto Italiano (Philips) and Budapest quartet (CBS). 

Major singers abounded most in opera and song, De los Angeles (EMI). Schwarzkopf (EMI), Ludwig (EMI and DG). Fischer-Dieskau (EMI and DG), Wunderlich (EMI and DG).  Joan Sutherland (Decca), Franco Corelli (EMI) and Tito Gobbi were in their prime and Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo were emerging as the major tenors of this and future eras.  

The roles of record producers and engineers were beyond importance.  Producers for the major labels were commanding figures such as Walter Legge at Columbia/EMI, John Culshaw at Decca, John McClure at CBS, Richard Mohr at RCA and Robert Fine and Wilma Cozart at Mercury were the most prominent.    

Repertoire expanded significantly for the music of Bach and his contemporaries with specialist labels such as Archive, a subsidiary of DG, Argo, Harmonia Mundi and Teldec, as well as much output from mainstream Decca and German based EMI Electrola. 

The major conductors in this repertoire were Karl Richter (Archive), Karl Munchinger (Decca), Nicolaus Harnoncourt, and Gustav Leonhardt.  The latter two commenced recording the complete Bach cantatas in 1971 on Teldec. 

Historical recordings from the 78 era were edited and re-released.  Of particular note were Toscanini’s New York, Philadelphia and NBC orchestral recordings and Rachmaninoff’s conducting and playing his own works and playing the piano music of many other composers. 

World Record Club 

During the 60s the WRC expanded its label sources, now issuing alongside numerous EMI and Erato LPs, Decca (very significantly), Philips, DG, Unicorn and Harmonia Mundi.  The addition of these labels and other labels allowed a considerable expansion of repertoire and also, often, major releases.  Particular examples of these are the release of the 1963 Bohm Mozart Cosi fan Tutte (EMI) and the famous Beethoven 5^th symphony under Carlos Kleiber from DG. 

Some repertoire was replicated with different performers eg the Pathetique symphony was variously issued under conductors Mathieson, Giulini, Furtwangler and Rostropovich. Klemperer’s esteemed Beethoven symphony cycle, originally released in Australia on Columbia was reissued through WRC as individual LPs and subsequently as a boxed set.  (His famous Fidelio was also re-issued through WRC.) 

The club continued to issue “historical” performances, changing its titling from Connoisseur to perhaps the more accurate Retrospect.  The specialist label of Record Society disappeared in the mid sixties.  Its “specialist” repertoire was now included under the general WRC label. 

In comparison with light music, release of Australian works and/or performers was rare.  However, one release was an LP comprising Nigel Butterley’s In the Head the Fire, Alfred Hill’s Linthorpe and Robert Hughes’s Sinfonietta.  These were performed by John Hopkins with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Sir Bernard Heinze with the Sydney Symphony orchestra and Willem van Otterloo with the Melbourne Symphony orchestra respectively.  This recording was produced by the Australian Broadcasting Commission.   

Two other releases, produced by RCA in collaboration with ABC and surely unique were of piano roll recordings of Percy Grainger playing the Greig concerto and Tchaikovsky 1^st concerto on two separate LPs, both accompanied by a freshly recorded by John Hopkins and the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras respectively.  The fillers were a 1950 recording by Leopold Stokowski and the Stokowski orchestra playing Grainger miscellany and piano roll Grainger playing his arrangement of the waltz from the Nutcracker ballet. 

Examples of WRC releases 

A table of some of the issues follows.  This is a sample only of a much larger number of issues but demonstrates the breadth of the repertoire, quality of performers and expanded sourced overseas labels. 

The next article of this series describes the presentations and some technical aspects of the WRC LPs in these later years of the Club. 
 
David Edmonds 

References:

DE’s personal LP collection 

Please click HERE to read part 1, 2, 3 and 5