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hobbyists's
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On the afternoon
of Saturday, January 24th, 1953, a special presentation was held for
the Dutch press and important members of the musical and commercial
scene in the Netherlands. They gathered in the so called 'Kleine Zaal'
(small auditorium) of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Many a journalist
reported afterwards, that from the first bar until the last, everyone
present was captivated by the extraordinary performance of Bach's 'St.
Matthew Passion', now issued by Philips on four Minigroove Long Playing
records with a total playing time of three hours, notwithstanding
the cuts Mengelberg had made.
Dutch music critic Ralph N. Degens wrote in his review about the 8000 meter sound recording transferred to lp: "Listening to the now released gramophone records again, one undergoes the spell of this perfect chorus sound, of the orchestra playing. One hears the unequaled Evangelist-performance of Karl Erb, the impressive part of Christ by Ravelli, one hears Jo Vincent, Ilona Durigo, Louis
In 1939 Hungarian
alto Ilona Durigo was 57 years of age. Tenor Karl Erb
(1877-1958) was 62. He sang in Mengelberg's Matthaeus Passion every
year from 1918 on (and would do so for the last time in 1943). Mengelberg
himself was 68. Violinist Louis Zimmermann (born in 1873 in Groningen),
who had been concert master of the Concertgebouw Orchestra since 1911,
played the violin solos. He was 65 years of age. Violinist Ferdinand
Helmann (1880-1954) who played in the orchestra from 1916 till 1948,
was 59 years.
It was Mengelberg
(March 29, 1871, Utrecht, The Netherlands - March 22, 1951, Hof Zuort,
Switzerland) who established the tradition of performing Bach's St.
Matthew Passion BWV 244 every year, the first time on April 8, 1899.
Like Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, the discoverer of the original SMP
score, Mengelberg made several cuts for whatever reason.
"(Mengelberg's)
tastes are catholic and his artistic sympathies are wide. His programs
range from Bach to Strawinsky - and beyond. In his own country, particularly
he does not hesitate to go behind the beyond - as Nietzsche would say.
The
Concertgebouw of Amsterdam at the time when Willem Mengelberg was a
revered conductor in New York.
Rubin
Goldmark surely used the meaning of "faithful" in a religious
instead of pure musicological sense.
Dr. Anton van der Horst rendered a more authentic performance of Bach's masterpiece of which a recording from the 1957 performance exists on Dutch Telefunken/CNR, with the Residency Orchestra (Hague Philharmonic) and Dutch singers - Tom Brand (tenor), Laurens Bogtman (bass), Guus Hoekman (bass), Erna Spoorenberg (soprano), Annie Hermes (contralto), Arjan Blanken (tenor) - and many well known instrumentalists: violinists Herman Krebbers and Theo Olof, viola da gamba player Carel van Leeuwen Boomkamp, oboist Constant Stotijn, organist Albert de Klerk, and cellist Martin Zagwijn.
When American Columbia
had made the complete Mengelberg SMP recording available in the US,
critic "It is moving, romantic in conception, and grandiose in execution. It is Bach done in the shadow of Richard Strauss (...)." This is visually
indicated by Mengelberg's strong annotations on practically every page
of the score. His writings show accentuated drama alternating refined
movement of melody and subtle contrasts. The baton was the important
and basic instrument for the conductor. His left hand joined to add
depth and nuance. At
right the page of the choral "Was ein
Apart from the
wire recorder, the tape recorder and the direct-to-disc recording
system (as it generally was used in the days of 78 RPM before the
tape recorder made the Lp possible already in 1947, but launched in
1948), there is another medium for sound recording that has been widely
used. That medium is celluloid film as it is used in the film industry.
The sound track is a narrow strip on one side of the images on the 35
mm (and also on the 16 mm) celluloid film. The
track is a photographic track, read by a photocell.
The Philips
Miller audio recording system however had a different way of recording
and had its own specifications.
The speed of the film is 32 cm/sec. (12.56 inch per second.). The reading of the track is done the same way as with the optical soundtrack of a movie. The Philimil film passes along a narrow slot with a lamp on
The signal-to-noise ratio is said to have been better than the 40 dB mentioned for the soundtrack of 35 mm film used in the film industry. The frequency range was 50 to 7.000 Hz. within 2.5 dB and 30 to 8.000 Hz. +/- 6 dB. If measured with higher slopes of 12 dB the bottom end of the frequency curve could be close to 40 Hz. and the top could probably be 10.000 Hz., the limits being set by the limitations of the technique of those days: valve amplifiers, microphones, coils moving in a magnetic field. Despite the "restricted" bandwidth, the suggestion of a refined and relatively extended frequency characteristic is given. Editing of the recorded Philips-Miller film by means of splicing was possible and thus mistakes could be corrected by eliminating or replacing them by bits of other takes. Since the film did not need developing, the recording could be played back instantly on the spot. The system was also suitable for recording and reproducing two-channel stereo sound as is stated in "Radio-encyclopedie voor Nederland en België" from 1956. In the early thirties, right after its introduction, l'Union Internationale de Radiodiffusion (International Radio Broadcasting Union) announced that the Philips-Miller System was the best system available for sound recording. |
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Some sources on the Internet mentioned that Mengelberg's St. Matthew
Passion was issued earlier on 78 RPM records before the release on Lp
in 1953. And they maintained that the shellac discs had been the basis
for the Philips Minigroove 4 Lp set.
After the Germans had occupied the Netherlands in 1940, Mengelberg
continued to conduct 'his' St. Matthew Passion on subsequent Palm Sundays
except for the last two years of the war. And he continued perform for
the Dutch radio and he continued recording for the Telefunken label,
a/o. Symphony No. 3, Eroica (Beethoven), Ein Heldenleben (Richard Strauss),
and Symphony No. 9 (5) "Aus der neuen Welt" (Dvorak). He received
financial and organizational help from the occupier for these and other
performances, concerts and travels. His last recording was made in November
1942 conducting Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" (A Little
Night Music). During the war many performances by the Concertgebouw
Orchestra continued to be recorded, but now with Eduard van Beinum,
Paul van Kempen, Eugen Jochum, and Herbert von Karajan.
Right from the
beginning Mengelberg showed what his position was. At the time the Netherlands
were invaded, Mengelberg was in Frankfurt in Germany and he did not
see a possibility to return to Amsterdam. From Frankfurt he traveled
to Austria and from there in early July to Berlin to participate in
the festivities to commemorate Tchaikovsky's One Hundred's Birthday.
And it was there that he recorded Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1
in B flat minor, Op. 23 with pianist
Mengelberg's
only aim was the preservation of his orchestra and the well being of
his musicians; among them many Jews. But he shouild have known better.
Because of his prominent position he was judged more severely than other
artists after the German capitulation in 1945.
There is another
noteworthy aspect of the Philips recording of St. Matthew's Passion.
In those days the concerts given in the Concertgebouw were broadcast
at regular intervals. This custom was ended in the early nineteen eighties.
Before the war the performances were captured with justone microphone
hanging slightly in front of and several feet above the orchestra. (So
Bob Fine's
When listening to the "one microphone recording", the instruments, singers and choruses are placed in a natural perspective, exactly as they were positioned on the stage of the Concertgebouw's main hall with its beautiful acoustics. Us van der Meulen recorded Mengelberg's St. Matthew performance in 1939. He did join Philips Phonografische Industrie in 1950 when the Philips label started and the first recordings were made with conductors Willem van Otterloo, Paul van Kempen and Antal Dorati, with pianists Clara Haskil, Cor de Groot, Alexander Uninsky, Abbey Simon, Eduardo del Puyo and Theo van der Pas, with violinists Herman Krebbers and Theo Olof, with singers Jo Vincent and Gré Brouwenstijn, and other artists who made the Philips classical label famous at home and abroad. (Note: Eduard van Beinum had a long standing contract with English Decca. He joined the Philips label only much later, in 1956.)
Some 8 years after the first release on Lp this historic performance with Mengelberg was re-released in a new transfer when tape heads and amplifiers had gained in dynamic capability and when the filtering and the editing technique certainly had been improved, and when the cutting process and the production of matrixes had been improved significantly. But then the producers of 'Philips Phonographische Industrie' thought it appropriate to leave out the ticks of the baton at the beginning of the performance which were so characteristic of Willem Mengelberg.
Because of the
existence of CD, DVD and SACD, a significant aspect of optical signal
reading is the obvious absence of the mechanical contact of tape and
tape heads and of the stylus and the groove in the vinyl disc. If one
compares the recording of 'St. Matthew Passion' to the recordings of
other historic performances made with 78 RPM acetates, one can easily
hear that the recording of 'St. Matthew Passion' was done using the
Philips Miller audio recording system and thus does not show the "mechanical
quality" of acetates.
If the old Philips-Miller
machines would still exist and could be restored, and if the technicians
could transcribe the films once again, it would be possible to transfer
the sound captured on the Philimil film directly to a high resolution
digital format (DVD or double layer SACD) after which the restoration
of the signal and the editing could take place in the digital domain.
That would mean the complete elimination of the intermediate magnetic
sound recording tape and its anomalies, and it would mean that the authenticity
of the performance could be heightened further. This of course would
only be true if the CD transfer of the magnetic tape on the current
Philips CD edition showed that the result of the totally optical transfer
was superior. |
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RELEASES AND REISSUES
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Documenta Musicae |
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LINKS Visit also The Bach Cantatas Website (BCW), a comprehensive site covering all aspects of J.S. Bach's cantatas and his other vocal works. |
The series Documenta Musicae was a project of former conductor Otto Glastra-Van Loon who was responsible for building a classical catalogue right from the beginning of the existence of the Philips label. Note: in the series of the live performances for AVRO Radio Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 was damaged. The 3rd was later included in the box containing all of Beethoven's Symphonies (6767 003) when Teldec made their recording of the Third Symphony available. Many recordings made in Amsterdam, Berlin and New York have been edited and released on CD. There are various chapters of the "Willem Mengelberg Society" where more details can be obtained by subscribing to a newsletter.
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Amsterdam Concertgebouw on a Postcard from the 1960s.
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