Tortelier plays Strauss, Saint-Saëns Brahms (1954, Stereo Recordings)

This is the first release of at least three volumes of EMI early stereo recordings, in a joint venture with the Archive of Recorded Sound (ARS). EMI started to record in stereo in 1954 and all the recordings in this new series are from this historic period of recorded music. All the releases will appear for the first time in some form and feature many of the greatest classical artists of the time. Included in this first issue is Richard Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel, a recording which, for some reason, was never released on LP or any other format before this FHR release. This recording, with the LSO conducted by Norman Del Mar, is in fact, the earliest known surviving EMI stereo recording of a complete work. Paul Tortelier’s was a star cellist for HMV and was the most charismatic of an exceptional generation of French cellists. Tortelier gives an athletic account of this ‘lost’ stereo recording of Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 1 and Menges supports him admirably. There is an extraordinary difference between the well-known mono recording, and this stereo version, where the soloist is much more sympathetically placed within the orchestral texture. In the Brahms Violin Concerto, Hungarian Endre Wolf displays an effortless, fine style and lovely tone free of the wide ‘Hubay vibrato’ affected by many of his compatriots. Wolf’s playing here is a good example of the Hungarian Brahms tradition.