SATIE: Orchestral Music = Parade; Trois Petites Pièces Montées; La Mort de Socrate; En Habit de Cheval – French National Radio and Television Orchestra/ Manuel Rosenthal – Everest EVERCD 014, 47:39 ***** [Not Distr. in U.S.]:
If you’d like to hear a French orchestra playing Satie and having a whale of a time, this will be an excellent starting point. Manuel Rosenthal, one of those conductors who worked well into old age, produces zinging and witty performances here.
Parade has rattles and horns, bell and typewriter, all recorded well to the fore, and the rhythms are so well put over and the tempo adopted doesn’t rush the piece unduly. En habit de cheval depicts Gargantua at play dressed as a horse; this and the Trois Pièces were first written for piano and later orchestrated by Satie.
La Mort de Socrate is the third part of Socrate, a symphonic drama in three parts commissioned by the Princesse de Polignac in 1916. First performed privately in 1918 after problems concerning both Satie and the princess had been sorted out, the text makes use of Plato’s Phaedo. The singer here, Denise Monteil, has just the sort of voice Satie would have anticipated, and sings simply and so very movingly of the tragedy.
The recordings really do sound freshly minted, though the notes and details provided have several misprints, sadly evident in several of these new releases. It’s to be hoped another fine French recording, Markevitch conducting music by Lili Boulanger is ready for reissue, too.
RAVEL: Bolero; Daphnis and Chloe Suite No. 2; La Valse; Rapsodie Espagnol – Hallé Orchestra / Sir John Barbirolli; Everest EVERCD004, 61:36 [Not Distr. in U.S.]**:
This programme was issued on LP on Everest 3471, and subsequently on CD on the Bescol label. Unfortunately, Everest was sold off by Bert Whyte soon after the last recordings – Beethoven’s symphonies with Krips – were made, and the label soon went into decline until resurrected by Seymour Solomon in the 1990s.
Barbirolli’s discography shows no sign of a recording of Bolero. The Daphnis is actually only half of the whole ballet score. Both of these recordings are in subfusc mono and are most certainly not Everest recordings made by Bert Whyte, nor do they sound like Barbirolli’s work.
However, Bert Whyte also recorded Theodore Bloomfield conducting the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in early 1960 with material for three LPs. Comparison with Bloomfield’s recording of Rapsodie Espagnol, a real Everest recording, shows that it is identical to the performance on this CD. Many thanks for Aaron Z Snyder for analysing the two recordings. Performance and recording characteristics lead one to believe that La Valse appears to come from the same source.
— Peter Joelson
If you’d like to hear a French orchestra playing Satie and having a whale of a time, this will be an excellent starting point. Manuel Rosenthal, one of those conductors who worked well into old age, produces zinging and witty performances here.
Parade has rattles and horns, bell and typewriter, all recorded well to the fore, and the rhythms are so well put over and the tempo adopted doesn’t rush the piece unduly. En habit de cheval depicts Gargantua at play dressed as a horse; this and the Trois Pièces were first written for piano and later orchestrated by Satie.
La Mort de Socrate is the third part of Socrate, a symphonic drama in three parts commissioned by the Princesse de Polignac in 1916. First performed privately in 1918 after problems concerning both Satie and the princess had been sorted out, the text makes use of Plato’s Phaedo. The singer here, Denise Monteil, has just the sort of voice Satie would have anticipated, and sings simply and so very movingly of the tragedy.
The recordings really do sound freshly minted, though the notes and details provided have several misprints, sadly evident in several of these new releases. It’s to be hoped another fine French recording, Markevitch conducting music by Lili Boulanger is ready for reissue, too.
RAVEL: Bolero; Daphnis and Chloe Suite No. 2; La Valse; Rapsodie Espagnol – Hallé Orchestra / Sir John Barbirolli; Everest EVERCD004, 61:36 [Not Distr. in U.S.]**:
This programme was issued on LP on Everest 3471, and subsequently on CD on the Bescol label. Unfortunately, Everest was sold off by Bert Whyte soon after the last recordings – Beethoven’s symphonies with Krips – were made, and the label soon went into decline until resurrected by Seymour Solomon in the 1990s.
Barbirolli’s discography shows no sign of a recording of Bolero. The Daphnis is actually only half of the whole ballet score. Both of these recordings are in subfusc mono and are most certainly not Everest recordings made by Bert Whyte, nor do they sound like Barbirolli’s work.
However, Bert Whyte also recorded Theodore Bloomfield conducting the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in early 1960 with material for three LPs. Comparison with Bloomfield’s recording of Rapsodie Espagnol, a real Everest recording, shows that it is identical to the performance on this CD. Many thanks for Aaron Z Snyder for analysing the two recordings. Performance and recording characteristics lead one to believe that La Valse appears to come from the same source.
— Peter Joelson
