Very Little Avant Garde or "Modern" Music on 78s

[russmovaz]

I am reading a book titled "Making Music Modern." The 1st chapter is on Leo Ornstein, and the second chapter is on Edgar Varase, and his music from the 1920s.

The author admits that very little Modern music was recorded before 1932. There were recordings of Gershwin, and a Harris String Quartet, and of course, some Stravinsky works.

But nothing at all we can consider modern: Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Varase, Cowell, Charles Ives.

I think it is the next wave of Moderns like Elliot Carter and Virgil Thompson and Copland who finally made it onto 78 rpm records.

However, I never see these in shops. Am I not looking hard enough, or is it true that the avant garde or Modern music of the early 20th century was not recorded? Would love to find it if it does exist on 78.

[estott]

American concert music of any sort was still a rather hotly contested issue in the early 20th C. You don't find recordings of even the academic composers such as Parker, Chadwick, Foote or Paine. Some of McDowell's piano pieces were recorded, and vocal works were better represented- you can find a bit of Sidney Homer's songs on acoustic records. About the most modern sort of music I've found are pieces like SKYSCRAPERS by John Alden Carpenter.

[marcapra]

I've seen Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder for solo vocalists, choir, and orchestra on RCA Victor red seal records conducted by Stokowski with the Philadelphia Orch. This album had 14 records and was a real gamble for Victor to put out in 1932 for such unknown music in such an expensive album. But let's be honest, you are much more likely to find Beethoven's 5th, or Tchaikovsky's 6th than you are Schoenberg or Varese. Come to think of it, I have Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht on a 40s 78 album. But they changed the title to a more commercial translation, "Night of Love"!

https://www.popsike.com/Arnold-Schoenbe ... 54062.html

[Menophanes]

Between 1920 and 1922 the conductor Adrian Boult, afterwards a revered interpreter of such British composers as Elgar and Vaughan Williams, recorded some very advanced music for H.M.V. with the British Symphony Orchestra (an ensemble formed largely from musicians who had been in the Services). The repertoire included Arthur Bliss's Rout (published 1920) in which a soprano sings 'meaningless syllables chosen for their phonetic effect' accompanied by a chamber group. Bliss later became less abrasive and more 'English', but at this time his work was decidedly adventurous. Other recordings in the series included George Butterworth's rhapsody A Shropshire Lad – less enterprising in style, but still pretty recent in date (1913).

Gramophone & Typewriter in Italy issued two short extracts from Richard Strauss's highly controversial Salome in 1909, four years after its première; Nina Ardoni took the title part and Carlo Sabajno, the company's house musical director in Milan, conducted.

Vaughan Williams's On Wenlock Edge for tenor, string quartet and piano (1909) was recorded complete for Columbia (British) in 1917 (Gervase Elwes, London Quartet, Frederick Kiddle).

Albert Coates conducted the London Symphony Orchestra (or at least about forty members thereof) in Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy for the same company in 1920.

Percy Grainger, the Australian pianist-composer, directed a number of his larger and more experimental works for American Columbia in the 1920s.

Paul Hindemith conducted his symphony Mathis der Maler for Telefunken within a year or so of its completion (1934).

The National Gramophonic Society, founded in 1923 by the writer Compton Mackenzie, offered an enterprising range during its eight years of operation, including works by Peter Warlock, Arnold Bax and even Schoenberg (his early and admittedly pre-serial string sextet Verklärte Nacht).

Oliver Mundy.

[Henry]

I own Columbia Masterworks MM-465, Alban Berg's Violin Concerto (1935), as recorded by Artur Rodzinski and the Cleveland Orchestra, with Louis Krasner, violin soloist. Unfortunately, it's not in very good shape: lots of surface noise. But I treasure it, because Krasner was the man who broached the idea of a violin concerto to Berg, who was then motivated to compose it by the death, at age 19, of Manon Gropius, a victim of polio (Manon was the daughter of the architect Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler, Gustav's widow). Furthermore, the Berg Violin Concerto is one of the truly great compositions of all time, in any genre. Now that's a brash statement, I know, but I'll stand by it. Dedicated "To the Memory of an Angel," the piece is also prescient in its symbolic portrayal of the imminent death of German culture, as well as Berg's own death (notice the date). It brilliantly incorporates folk song, and the Lutheran chorale melody "Es ist genug" as elements in this ultimate Expressionistic piece. I'm not nearly a good enough writer to do it the justice it deserves.

Further "research" indicates MM-465 was recorded in Severance Hall, Cleveland, in 1940, released in 1941. See https://www.discogs.com/Berg-Krasner-Ar ... se/7497771.

[drh]

A set that turns up more often than you might think is Stravinsky's Petrouchka played by the Royal Albert Hall Or. under Eugene Goossens, recorded in December 1923 and January 1924 and issued (in the States, at least) on Victor blue label double-sided records 55245-55248. The work was around a dozen years old at that point.

Another piece that was certainly "modern" when first committed to wax was Skilton's "War Dance," which Edison recorded performed by its dedicatees, the Zoellner Quartet, on diamond disc 80692. It sounds like something from a TV Western to us today, but at the time it was wet-ink-on-the-page stuff.

One other thought: let's not be too hard on the record mfrs. and buyers of the day. They weren't living in a world in which cheap CDs and the radio and streaming services have saturated every corner of the earth with every conceivable bit of standard repertoire; remember, even Beethoven's piano sonatas were not all on record until Schnabel's cycle in the early 1930s, and you couldn't assemble a complete group of the Tchaikowsky symphonies, even under different conductors, until after World War II (no. 1 receiving its first recording, by the Indianapolis SO under Fabien Sevitzky, as late as 1946).

[russmovaz]

One other thought: let's not be too hard on the record mfrs. and buyers of the day. They weren't living in a world in which cheap CDs and the radio and streaming services have saturated every corner of the earth with every conceivable bit of standard repertoire; remember, even Beethoven's piano sonatas were not all on record until Schnabel's cycle in the early 1930s, and you couldn't assemble a complete group of the Tchaikowsky symphonies, even under different conductors, until after World War II (no. 1 receiving its first recording, by the Indianapolis SO under Fabien Sevitzky, as late as 1946).

This seems to be the right answer to my wonder why there are very few 78 records of true avant garde music from the early 20th century.

The other reason I can imagine is the low fidelity of the recording process trying to capture a work like Anthiel Ballet Mecanical or any of the Varese modern works with a lot of invented percussion instruments.

Of course also 3 minutes a side is not going to get the listener involved in a ccomplicated work. Thank god for the CD.

[Inigo]

I acquired years ago two versions of Richard Strauss *Tod Und Verklarung*. The later version is the 1927 German grammophon recording, issued in Spain under Polydor label, with the Berliner Staatsoper orch conducted by Strauss himself. But the very first version I acquired back in 1997 was a reduction to four sides recorded in 1923 by the HMV house symphonic orchestra conducted by Albert Coates. This is also a Spanish Gramófono issue on two double sided records AB-48 & 49. Pretty advanced for it's era. I must say this set of mine is the only copy I've seen in 41 years collecting, while I can find myriads of copies of other acoustic records of the era. This acoustic abridged version is very good, and i prefer it to the later electrical by the author. Coates was a very respected conductor.
I have the two 1929 sets by German grammophon of Strauss Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel, conducted by the author, issued also in Spain under Polydor label.