Chopin 19 Nocturnes - the Connoisseur Society LPs mystery

There are very few things perfect in this world. Moravec’ Chopin Nocturnes recorded in 1965 for the Connoisseur Society must be one of them. You may wonder: so many great pianists having tackled these works in concert and at the studio – in fact everyone! – how can you say that? Well, hearing is believing. I had remained for decades attached to my two Rubinsteins (pre-stereo & stereo), Guiomar Novaes (on Vox – thankfully available still), Samson Francois and Moura Lympany, and a host of others (Harasiewicz also a great favorite) and came very late to the shivers sent down my spine from Moravec. Dr. Duffy, an American friend, sent me his own transfers he made direct from the CS LPs and I was hooked. I acquired the set from ebay and wallowed in the sound of the Boesendorfer Imperial Grand (8 full octaves, 97 keys! manufactured at Busoni’s behest by the German piano makers) and the unbelievably realistic – and atmospheric – recording by E. Alan Silver’s team.

A few years after the set sold handsomely and earned the pianist adulatory reviews and the Connoisseur Society a good turnover, it was withdrawn! Dr. John L. Duffy, is a psychiatrist, whose violon d’Ingres is to make transfers from 78s, piano rolls and LPs. He knew a close friend of Alan Silver’s and had the story – allegedly explaining why the precious LPs were withdrawn.

The set of 19 was recorded in 1965 – the first batch in April, at St Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University, N.Y. and the second with the company’s personnel moving to Vienna, at the Konzerthaus, during November. Now rumor has it that just before moving to the studio set up at St Paul’s, that day in New York, the pianist and the producer had partaken in company of some "elegant wine”, and Moravec found himself a little more disinhibited than his usual.

Rumor has it also that this was the reason he later pressed Alan J. Silver to withdraw the records. This done, the recording continued selling in the form of chrome Dolby C tapes, which were, it seems, stocked in profusion (in those days this format reigned supreme in the market). Then they disappeared completely. A CD transfer done by a commercial company was found unsatisfactory to many collectors who knew the vinyl discs. The unique 30"/sec tape recorded from E. Alan Silver proved a tough nut to crack. Whether this was due to the absence of Connoisseur Society’s hardware to run them on or whether it has been a recording engineer’s decision to trim the sound – the result for some was disappointing. The only way then to get closer to the sound of Silver’s tape would be the commercial LPs, guarded by collectors like the Holy Grail.

Dr Duffy (himself deeply dissatisfied with the available commercial CD transfer) grappled for years with the LPs of the Nocturnes. His latest effort, of May 2009, was entrusted to bearac_reissues for making this treasure available more generally.

We thankfully accepted the offer. We have respected the huge trouble he undertook to restore the magnificent piano sound and so we left tape hiss (and some mild surface noise) intact in order to let the extreme bass and highs free from any interference. We cleaned a few clandestine clicks left on the matrix files and secured some seconds of absolute silence between tracks. If you do get them, it is recommended that the CDs are played at realistically high volume settings to experience the terrific sound reproduced.

P.S. A friend sent a comment to point that Connoisseur Society is still going strong under its founder E. Alan Silver and have issued a set of the Beethoven Sonatas in their usual exalted tradition. The comment was discarded by my mistake and I apologize to its sender. I hasten to repeat his points and thank him. (HL)

A Fantastique revived

I have a thing about those "lesser" names. True, discography spoils the minds of music lovers: we sometimes think like "he's not on CD, so he's not at all". And yet how many great artists were studio-shy, not to mention men like Mitropoulos and Celibidache who enjoyed only live music making, on the podium, with people attending the event, or Volkmar Andre who definitely hated recording (and recordings) calling them "canned music". Well Golschmann wasn't either studio-shy or snubbed recording. And he made quite a few in his time, chiefly when he became permanent principal conductor of the St Louis SO. Very active when still in his native Paris he did not became more "provincialized" staying for over 25 years in Saint Louis; instead he toured the world and got side-work all around it. Why the "lesser" names prologue then? Because somehow I had pigeon-holed Vladimir Golschmann as one of them ... when all his recordings I have prove quite the opposite. This Fantastique was done in Vienna and I hadn't listened to it for ages. I did recently and although I must say I've heard till now a surfeit of Fantastiques, this one bowled me over. And being so well recorder too! The decision to make a transfer was taken on the spot.

Now the bed-fellow I chose for this Berlioz, was another rarity. Franz Litschauer must have recorded the Trittico Botticelliano for the first time on LP. This was an original American Vanguard, pressed on noble and pure vinyl which withstood the passage of six decades and an assortment of not always very gentle styluses. A miracle! And what a lively recording it was. I had actually to tune it down to match the sonics of the Golschmann, otherwise the stereo Fantastique would sound almost dated by the side of this effervescent sound. I hope everybody enjoys this as much as the Berlioz. Of course Respighi wasn't betting on the right horse. Both Mussorgsky and Reger saw that their picture-to-sound metaphors were in their own advantage, basically dealing with rather second tier painters (only Ravel seems to have elevated the trite pictures of that exhibition to Chagall level!) Respighi chose Botticelli - at his own risk: his work in fact appears less poetic and colorful than the paintings from which it draws inspiration. His Botticelli is more a Pre-Raphaelite study on the Italian master than a reproduction of the original. No matter; he remains a great orchestrator and the artists involved in this recording made him proud. MSE Processing makes this a very balanced CD from the sound point of view.

Ivan Moravec

Hot after the heels of Steinberg's Rach 2 and Kaufman's Milhaud cum Poulenc cum Hindemith (the closest Germany came to Les Six, come to think of it!) here comes a glorious twofer: Ivan Moravec in two CDs with the full contents of three Connoisseur Society LPs. Here is the blurb I prepared for the backside of the jewel-box:

IVAN MORAVEC AND THE CELEBRATED CONNOISSEUR SOCIETY RECORDINGS

There are the piano-buffs pianists and there are the pianists' pianists. The second very select category includes most certainly Arturo Benedetti - Michelangeli and Ivan Moravec. They are the pianists to whom their colleagues listen to in awe and get object lessons of the great art. Moravec is very little represented in today's CD catalog and even less so are his legendary recordings for the extinct Connoisseur Society, a short-lived enterprise which graced the catalogs with audiophile recordings of great caliber artists. Moravec recorded for CS (whose founder E. Alan Silver was a personal friend of his) a number of unforgettable discs some of which have surfaced transferred to CD on various labels. Collectors owning or remembering the originals never found these reincarnations up to the standard set by the Connoisseur Society vinyls. We have in the past tried to restore some of the rarest of this series (BRC-2846 with Debussy works). Today we offer a double CD set compiled from three separate LPs and comprising the unforgettable Chopin Preludes Op.28. Moravec recorded again the Preludes for Supraphon in 1976, a glorious recording -- but this one, from 1966 and probably recorded in New York is very special - if nothing else for the remarkable piano sound. Also there is a collection of 5 Mazurkas, the First Scherzo and the beautiful Barcarole. Beethoven is represented by two sonatas recorded in 1967: the terrific Appassionata and the delectable Op.90, together with the set of 32 variations composed at the time the Appassionata was.

Moravec displays a very high intellect and an unparalleled musicality as well as a phenomenal technique (his use of the pedals is legendary among pianists who know that such mastery shows the greatness of a keyboardist more than anything else). His touch, by times ethereal, unreal, reminiscent of a stringed instrument, and then crashing torrentially with immense power, sends the listener to heaven (or hell) and back. He usually recorded on a Boesendorfer Imperial Grand (with its full 8 octaves, suggested to the makers by Busoni) in preference to Steinways. This is an essential part of the magic in Moravec sound. Also part of the magic of these discs was the recording equipment (custom made) used by Connoisseur Society's engineers.

Printed on high quality virgin vinyl the LPs were a treasure-chest of sound finesse and dynamics. Listeners will get very quickly used to slight tape hiss which was left intact in order to transcribe onto CD the full spectrum from deepest bass (impressive Imperial Grand here) to ethereal and transparent highs - exactly the main defect of all commercial transfers till now in the catalog.

The source material of this compilation are three original Connoisseur Society LPs: The 24 Preludes come from CS 1366 [Matrix Nos 1366A & 1366B] recorded in New York City 1966; the remaining Chopin works come from CS 2019 [Matrix Nos 2019A & 2019B] also recorded in New York City 1969; and the Beethoven comes from CS 2000 [Matrix Nos 2000 A-4 & 2000 B-4] and were recorded in New York City 1967 except the 32 Variations which were recorded in Prague by the Connoisseur Society team and machinery. The instrument used in all recordings was a Boesendorfer Imperial Grand.

For the restoration at bearac_reissues Click Repair and Cool Edit programs were used.

I just finished listening the my "test pressings" and I must say I am bowled over by the result. What composers! What a pianist! What a piano! What a set!

Here is a sample for you. A higher quality flac file of the Beethoven 32 Variations on an original theme, in C minor from CD1 of the set. You can download it and know what you are about to receive in the complete set. Enjoy!
YOUR LINK FOR THE DOWNLOAD (copy-paste on browser) IS:
http://rapidshare.com/files/315320041/-_Beethoven_32_Variations_in_C_minor.zip