Best friend with Charles Ives

 

 Elie Robert Schmitz (Piano)

Debussy: Arabesque No. 2 in G Major

Debussy: Children's Corner - Suite  

5. The Little Shepherd  6. Golliwogg's Cake Walk  

Edison Diamond Disc 80690

[18261 B-1-7; 18262 B-2-2]

Recorded: Saturday 25^th February 1928

Chopin: Nocturne in F Sharp Major Op. 15, No. 2

Chopin: Waltz in C Sharp Minor Op. 64, No. 2

Edison Diamond Disc 80696

[18590 B-1-3; 18591 B-1-2]

Recorded: Monday 25^th June 1928

Link (FLAC files, 73 MB)

I don't think these four electrically recorded solos played by  Elie Robert Schmitz (1889-1949) on Edison have ever surfaced on CD or the Internet. The Schumann Piano Quintet Op 44 (see below) is however available through the British Library site but only to Europeans so I thought I should tag this recording onto the end. I also recommend listening to Bryan's transfer at Shellackophile blog of Beethoven: Piano Quartet in E-Flat, Op. 16 with members of the Roth String Quartet.

A biography of Schmitz can be found on Wikipedia and Yale University (who hold his archive) has an even more fulsome details. Being both well acquainted with Debussy and his works and a pupil of Louis Diémer, teacher of Cortot among many others, his small recorded output ought to have had more exposure.

I don't agree with Charles Timbrell's assessment (in his essay on Debussy in Performance in The Cambridge Companion to Debussy) that Schmitz playing was affected due to an injury on his left hand during the First World War and that it 'may account for the inelegant and erratic playing heard on his Debussy recordings.' Trimbell had access to only the recordings of Debussy Preludes Books I & II from 1947 but still I think he has misunderstood Schmitz's interpretations.

Of the Chopin the middle section of the Nocturne is quite magical and I would dearly have like to heard more of Schmitz's Chopin playing, especially so considering his pedagogical lineage.

I feel a better assessment of this musician place in the history of performance is better understood by Ronald V. Wiecki in his article (Two Musical Idealists - Charles Ives and E. Robert Schmitz: A Friendship Reconsidered American Music Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), pp. 1-19.) Wiecki also gives cogent reasons why Schmitz is near forgotten, and when remembered, often misunderstood:-

'For a number of interconnected and complex reasons, Schmitz's importance, not only for Ives, but also for the history of music in America between the two world wars, has been overlooked. In part, this is because his musical and cultural ideals were at odds with the dominant trend of the time toward commercialization of "classical" music and reliance on "superstar" virtuosi. But, in addition, Schmitz's internationalist outlook in music means that he does not fit easily into the nationalistic perspective of historians studying the emergence of post-World War I "American Music." From his early association with American composers such as Emerson Whithorne and Leo Sowerby through Ives to Virgil Thomson, Schmitz was a friend of American music more committed than many American-born musicians. Schmitz has fallen into relative obscurity because he has been commonly perceived as insufficiently "modern."' his, in spite of the fact that the composers he championed were at the time considered to be among those seriously committed to carrying on the musical tradition through the combination of both old and new elements.' 

Elie Robert Schmitz (Piano) & 

Philharmonic String Quartet of New York

Scipione Guidi (vn), Arthur Lichstein (vn), 

Louis E. Barzin (va), Osvaldo Mazzucchi (vc)

Schumann Piano Quintet Op 44 (abridged)  

Edison Diamond Disc 80885-80886

[18051 B-1-3; 18052 C-2-1; 18055 C-1-2; 18056 C-1-3 [1-1] ]

Recorded: Tuesday 22^nd  & Wednesday 23^rd November 1927

Link (FLAC files, 90 MB)

Of the Schumann Piano Quintet one member of the Philharmonic Quartet remembered the recording session and was none too happy about the result:-

HARVITHS: We know that you took part in a recording of the Schumann Piano Quintet for Edison in the late 1920s, with E. Robert Schmitz and the Philharmonic String Quartet of New York.

BARZIN: I wasn't at all happy with that quintet release [issued on Edison Diamond Discs EDD 80885/6, out of print]. If I hadn't been bound by contract, I wouldn't have allowed it to be released.

Schmitz was a French pianist who came to this country. He wanted to record, and his outlet was Edison. He knew me from Europe, so he came to me, mentioned the upcoming recording, and I said, "Well, if you want to play that quintet, use the Philharmonic Quartet. Why go and get four strangers?" That's how the project started.

HARVITHS: As a musician who recorded for both Victor and Edison in the 1920s, how would you compare the behind-the-scenes recording operations of the two companies?

BARZIN: You know, that dog in front of the horn is quite a symbol. The professional music world completely disregarded Edison. The people who registered the sound at the other companies knew more about what they were registering and therefore tried to get more fidelity and a sense of live music._;

HARVITHS: And you felt that musicians were more in control at the Victor Company?

BARZIN: Much more. The staff was geared totally differently. At Victor you kept in contact with a musician who was the head of what they called serious music. There was the sheet music department, you had the jazz department. I mean, they had people who handled things. It was better organized, and certainly commercially they were much better, distribution was much greater.

At Edison you didn't know. There was no musician attached to the department. You might have been talking to a very good, efficient bureaucrat, yes. But you were never talking directly to a musician. They just worked from a scientific point of view. They were never interested in the relation of the tone of a violin to the tone of a viola, for instance. They just let us play through the quintet, and they took it. They never said, "This bar or this passage could be clearer." They just took it, and that was it. The other companies made you play it six or seven times before they would make a take.

HARVITHS: What kind of reliance do you think present-day musicians can place on recordings of forty, fifty, sixty years ago?

BARZIN: Reliance is purely nostalgic.

HARVITHS: You really don't think there is anything of substance that we can rely on in those recordings?

BARZIN: Well I hear, for instance, pianists say "X," and they go into ecstasy. I hear a recording of "X" and I say, "Yes, he must have been great, but that's not the way he played." Artists sit in the studio and repeat and repeat. Or they finally say, "All right! I allow you to send this out." But inwardly, they're not very happy. Understand what I mean? They're never
happy.

HARVITHS: What do you think the advantage of recording has proved to be, then?

BARZIN: Purely as home recreation. "I heard Schnabel; I'd love to have him home." That was the original idea. If I could hear today a recording of [violinist Eugene] Ysaye, I wouldn't care if it was a terrible recording. Because having known him, I'd say, "Oh, yes, but this is the way I hear
him." I hear him as a human being; I don't hear him because of the record. I hear what he would have done.

HARVITHS: So you would say that anyone who listens to recordings would have to have an idea of what the artist sounded like in person?

BARZIN: I think so. I think there should be some kind of human contact.

Edison, musicians, and the phonograph : a century in retrospect edited by John Harvith and Susan Edwards Harvith. New York : Greenwood Press, c1987 (pp. 170-171).

Slightly earlier in the interview Barzin complains of playbacks sounding different from the performance. From this I believe that the pitch problems in the Edison's – apart from the balance and abridgement of the piece, caused his negative judgement.  

The first side starts about a quarter-tone down and sinks another quarter tone towards the end – the next three side are about a half-tone out and again are not consistent. In fact Edison Diamond Discs seem to have a tendency to speed up or slow down! I have managed to correct this annoying habit in these downloads.

The usual problems with Edison is the amount of rumble and the variability of the pressings - I'd rather leave in the noise than loose any of the sound.

Something Festive

With the Olympics going on but a few miles away from me to the north and the Proms to the west I though some musical offering was in order especially as there was once in the distance past Olympic medalists for Art competitions - more on that here. 

Debussy:  Nocturnes - No. 2  Fêtes 

Royal Albert Hall Orchestra cond. by Landon Ronald

HMV D 1000

[Cc 5863-III & Cc5684-II]

Recorded Tuesday, 10th March 1925

Score 

One Flac file, HERE at Mediafire. [about 16Mb]

One of the last acoustic orchestral recordings made by HMV the Debussy recording got decent reviews in its day, but I can't see the disc having been reissued on LP or CD. 

 (Alec Robertson 'N.P.' The Gramophone, July 1925 ) 'Debussy's Three Nocturnes (Nuages -  Fêtes - Sirines), composed in 1899, were played by the Queen's Hall Orchestra with the composer conducting at a concert of his works in February, 1909. Fêtes was encored, together with the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune it is a most attractively scored work and has recorded exceptionally well - as anyone might have prophesied - but-, as is so often the case in Debussy's music, the composer is apt to repeat one rhythmic figure ad nauseam; a trick he probably learnt from the Russians. The gradual crescendo to a climax that the march reaches comes out finely. There are many delightful touches of colour, such as those afforded by the harps and drums and the muted trumpets. The title of the movement sufficiently indicates its programme, which may be supplemented by individual fancy.'

 (Discus in Musical Times, August 1925) 'Debussy's 'Fetes' (No. 2 of Three Nocturnes) makes a brilliant record. I know of few, if any, better in regard to vivid tone, colouring, and clarity of texture. It is a happy thought to record 'Fêtes ,' for gramophonists appear to have little of this side of Debussy-a side that records better (and wears better) than his more elusive (I had almost said invertebrate) essays. The performance of 'Fêtes ' is by the Albert Hall Orchestra, conducted by Sir Landon Ronald.'

Landon Ronald and the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra attempted to record the first side of Fêtes in on the 8th September 1922, the same day as the re-recording of  Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune  that was made to silently replaced the 1911 and 1916 version on HMV D 130. An attempt of making a recording of the first side of  Nuages was made 4th September 1923 so there may have been and idea to record the work complete. They where back in the Studio on the 10th March 1925 and this time managed the two side which were to be successfully issued in time for the July 1925 HMV Supplement. The recording was to last in the British catalogue until March 1930 even though the version of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Stokowski had been issued in September 1928 on HMV E 507. Considering the Acoustic 12 inch D 1000 cost 6s 6d and the 10 inch E 507  

Page from HMV Supplement July 1925 

The name 'The Royal Albert Hall Orchestra' [RAHO] began life in 1915. - The orchestra was really the same as the New Symphony Orchestra that was formed by John Saunders, concertmaster; Eli Hudson, flutist, and Charles Draper, clarinet. Edward Howard-Jones conducted their first concert and in 1906 Thomas Beecham became conductor, Beecham fell out with the orchestra as many of its members did not want to tour in the north of England - this was due to poor wages and most of the orchestral members also playing in the London theater orchestras to make ends meet. In 1907 Landon Ronald conducted the orchestra and was appointed permanent conductor in 1909 with a series of concerts at the Queen's Hall which ran to 1914. When the orchestra started to play at the Royal Albert Hall it changed its name for these concerts to the RAHO and from 1920 the orchestra used the RAHO name wherever it performed. However  C.B. Cochran, the general manager of the Royal Albert Hall put a stop to this and forced Landon Ronald to drop the RAHO name in 1929 when the orchestra became for a while known as the 'Orchestra formally known as the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra.' With the advent of the BBC and London Philharmonic Orchestras the RAHO was doomed and finally expired soon after Landon Ronald death in 1938.

Jon Tolansky make some interesting comparisons between recorded versions of this work in his article Performance Research and Conservation: Its Historical and Comparative Study, The Musical Times, Vol. 128, No. 1727 (Jan., 1987), pp. 21-23. 'We can hear on commercial recordings how some styles, and maybe even habits of orchestral playing and vocal performance, have changed in certain countries during the century. An interesting example may be found by listening to several recordings of 'Fetes' from Debussy's Nocturnes. In the middle section, in 2/4 and marked 'Modéré', Debussy portrays a distant brass band, in the open air, gradually drawing nearer to mingle with the sparkling brilliance of the carnival. After a barely audible suggestion of faraway marching drums, there is a magical moment when faint muted trumpets are heard, entering after a dotted-quaver rest, on the first beat of their bar. In the recordings made by Sir Landon Ronald and the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra (1924), Gabriel Pierné and the Colonne Concerts Orchestra (1930) and Piero Coppola and the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra (1935) the trumpets enter after nearly a double- dotted-quaver rest. On all the later recordings I have heard, including those by Pierre Monteux, who was nevertheless one of the first to conduct the Nocturnes, the trumpets enter after exactly a dotted quaver as written. Although Debussy never heard Pierné's recording, he is reputed to have expressed satisfaction at his interpretation.'