Fritz Reiner - Bach: Brandenberg Concertos, Orchestral Suites (1949-53) [2014]
![Fritz Reiner - Bach: Brandenberg Concertos, Orchestral Suites (1949-53) [2014]](https://www.dibpic.com/uploads/posts/2023-02/1675602929_cover.jpg)
BAND/ARTIST: Fritz Reiner
- Title: Bach: Brandenberg Concertos, Orchestral Suites
- Year Of Release: 1949-53 [2014]
- Label: Pristine [PASC425]
- Genre: Classical
- Quality: FLAC (Tracks)
- Total Time: 03:09:55
- Total Size: 871 mb (+3%rec.)
- WebSite: Album Preview
Fritz Reiner's brilliant Bach: The 6 Brandenburg Concertos and The 4 Orchestral Suites
"A virtuoso reading, incisive, with sparkle and rhythmic propulsion" - The Gramophone
A casual observer looking over Fritz Reiner’s pre-Chicago discography might well come to the conclusion that he was as much of a specialist in Bach as he was in the works of Richard Strauss, at least if measured by LP sides. Besides the three discs devoted to the Brandenburg Concertos and the two featuring the Orchestral Suites, Reiner had recorded an earlier version of the B minor suite in Pittsburgh, originally coupled on 78s with Lucien Cailliet’s transcription of the “Little” Fugue in G minor (forthcoming on Pristine). Yet, after becoming music director of the Chicago Symphony, he made only one further Bach recording, the F minor piano concerto with André Tchaikowsky, which was not released until years after Reiner’s death.
Nevertheless, as Philip Hart relates in his biography of the conductor, “Reiner experimented restlessly with the Baroque.” From his days in Dresden onward, he would include a harpsichord continuo in an era when it was not yet fashionable. In his 1946 Pittsburgh Bach B minor suite, “he added a lower octave to the bass to secure a more ‘symphonic’ nineteenth century sonority.” But in the recordings from a few years later presented here, he strove for lighter textures. In this, he was helped by the small forces employed for the Brandenburg Concerto recordings (four violins, two violi, two celli, two basses, with other personnel as needed) and by the spare acoustics of Columbia’s 30th Street Studio, which gave a close-up intimacy to the proceedings.
His soloists in the Brandenburgs included the cream of New York instrumentalists. Violinist Hugo Kolberg had been Reiner’s concertmaster in Pittsburgh; trumpeter William Vacchiano and violinist William Lincer were playing in the Philharmonic, while oboist Robert Bloom and flutist Julius Baker were at the time teaching and freelancing. Landowska pupil Sylvia Marlowe was harpsichord soloist in the Fifth Brandenburg and Fernando Valenti played continuo elsewhere.
The style, both here and in the later Orchestral Suite recordings, was what Hart called “a modified ‘authentic’ approach to Bach”, played with modern instruments but aiming at Baroque textures and tempi. This was a period of transition for Baroque performance in general, between the monumental Romantic approach heard in, for example, Stokowski’s Brandenburg Second (1929) and Furtwängler’s Brandenburg Third (1930) and the period instrument revival that would come to the fore in the 1960s. Seen in the context of their time, Reiner’s Bach recordings were on the progressive side of Baroque interpretation. Still, he could not resist allowing some string slides in the Third Suite’s famous Air; and the Second Suite, while perhaps lighter in texture than the earlier Pittsburgh version, is nonetheless markedly slower in tempo.
While Columbia kept the Brandenburgs in the catalog throughout the 1950s on three successive imprints (full-price Masterworks, then on their budget Entré and Harmony series), they have not seen an “official” reissue in over half a century. French RCA re-released the Suites on LP in the early 1980s, but not subsequently on CD. The present transfers were made from Harmony LPs for the Brandenburgs and the French pressings of the Suites.
Tracks:
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F, BWV 1046
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F, BWV 1047
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G, BWV 1048
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G, BWV 1049
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D, BWV 1050
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B flat, BWV 1051
BACH Orchestral Suite No. 1 in F, BWV 1066
BACH Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067
BACH Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D, BWV 1068
BACH Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D, BWV 1069
Personnel:
Soloists and Chamber Group
RCA Victor Orchestra, Fritz Reiner
![Fritz Reiner - Bach: Brandenberg Concertos, Orchestral Suites (1949-53) [2014]](https://www.dibpic.com/uploads/posts/2023-02/1675602968_back.jpg)
"A virtuoso reading, incisive, with sparkle and rhythmic propulsion" - The Gramophone
A casual observer looking over Fritz Reiner’s pre-Chicago discography might well come to the conclusion that he was as much of a specialist in Bach as he was in the works of Richard Strauss, at least if measured by LP sides. Besides the three discs devoted to the Brandenburg Concertos and the two featuring the Orchestral Suites, Reiner had recorded an earlier version of the B minor suite in Pittsburgh, originally coupled on 78s with Lucien Cailliet’s transcription of the “Little” Fugue in G minor (forthcoming on Pristine). Yet, after becoming music director of the Chicago Symphony, he made only one further Bach recording, the F minor piano concerto with André Tchaikowsky, which was not released until years after Reiner’s death.
Nevertheless, as Philip Hart relates in his biography of the conductor, “Reiner experimented restlessly with the Baroque.” From his days in Dresden onward, he would include a harpsichord continuo in an era when it was not yet fashionable. In his 1946 Pittsburgh Bach B minor suite, “he added a lower octave to the bass to secure a more ‘symphonic’ nineteenth century sonority.” But in the recordings from a few years later presented here, he strove for lighter textures. In this, he was helped by the small forces employed for the Brandenburg Concerto recordings (four violins, two violi, two celli, two basses, with other personnel as needed) and by the spare acoustics of Columbia’s 30th Street Studio, which gave a close-up intimacy to the proceedings.
His soloists in the Brandenburgs included the cream of New York instrumentalists. Violinist Hugo Kolberg had been Reiner’s concertmaster in Pittsburgh; trumpeter William Vacchiano and violinist William Lincer were playing in the Philharmonic, while oboist Robert Bloom and flutist Julius Baker were at the time teaching and freelancing. Landowska pupil Sylvia Marlowe was harpsichord soloist in the Fifth Brandenburg and Fernando Valenti played continuo elsewhere.
The style, both here and in the later Orchestral Suite recordings, was what Hart called “a modified ‘authentic’ approach to Bach”, played with modern instruments but aiming at Baroque textures and tempi. This was a period of transition for Baroque performance in general, between the monumental Romantic approach heard in, for example, Stokowski’s Brandenburg Second (1929) and Furtwängler’s Brandenburg Third (1930) and the period instrument revival that would come to the fore in the 1960s. Seen in the context of their time, Reiner’s Bach recordings were on the progressive side of Baroque interpretation. Still, he could not resist allowing some string slides in the Third Suite’s famous Air; and the Second Suite, while perhaps lighter in texture than the earlier Pittsburgh version, is nonetheless markedly slower in tempo.
While Columbia kept the Brandenburgs in the catalog throughout the 1950s on three successive imprints (full-price Masterworks, then on their budget Entré and Harmony series), they have not seen an “official” reissue in over half a century. French RCA re-released the Suites on LP in the early 1980s, but not subsequently on CD. The present transfers were made from Harmony LPs for the Brandenburgs and the French pressings of the Suites.
Tracks:
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F, BWV 1046
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F, BWV 1047
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G, BWV 1048
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G, BWV 1049
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D, BWV 1050
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B flat, BWV 1051
BACH Orchestral Suite No. 1 in F, BWV 1066
BACH Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067
BACH Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D, BWV 1068
BACH Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D, BWV 1069
Personnel:
Soloists and Chamber Group
RCA Victor Orchestra, Fritz Reiner
Classical | Oldies | FLAC / APE
As a ISRA.CLOUD's PREMIUM member you will have the following benefits:
- Unlimited high speed downloads
- Download directly without waiting time
- Unlimited parallel downloads
- Support for download accelerators
- No advertising
- Resume broken downloads