Franz von Suppé (1819-95)
The Overtures are separately tracked.
- The Beautiful Galatea
- Pique Dame
- Light Cavalry
- Poet and Peasant
- Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna
- Boccaccio
Pieces that were once regularly played, which today have fallen out of the repertoire: Overtures by Franz von Suppé. Six of these gems with the Detroit Symphony & Paul Paray, recorded 1960 for Mercury.
Perfect! Please note that the Pye Boult/LPO recordings have just been reissued in the Warners Boult mono box. They’re terrific too!
I have the Boult mono set, Rob, looking forward to exploring it. Col
I collected all the ‘Mercury’ Paray / Detroit recordings back in my collector days, so it’s nice to see this selection in Colin’s Column. I’m not familiar with the ‘Pye’ Boult / LPO Suppe Overtures but he recorded ‘Light Cavalry’ with the BBCSO in 1934 and luckily it is on YouTube – where else?! – for anyone wanting to hear a splendid performance. Incidentally, Boult could turn in some really first-class performances of what might be called, in his terms, off-beat casting. For example, many decades ago, I recall the RPO giving some cut-price concerts in the Odeon Cinema, Swiss Cottage, and one of them featured Boult conducting a concert which included Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherezade.” Even after all this time, I can still remember that long baton flailing around in the finale and I think he almost jumped up and down on the rostrum, a la Bernstein, such was the excitement being generated. Many years later, I dropped him a line, saying he ought to record it and got a nice hand-written letter back: “How nice of you to remember Scheherazade. I always enjoyed it. I’ll certainly pass it on to EMI, but the mysterious committee that decides these things makes what I think are often very queer decisions. Another Planets, for example, seems rather too soon, particularly as they say it [ie: Boult’s previous EMI recording] has sold very well.” … Anyway, here is the 1934 Suppe as a taster for the later Pye recording …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXTJS8XTkv8
Hope you enjoy it!
Thanks Edward, yes Boult’s Cavalry is enjoyable and impressive, and it’s good to know the Scheherazade story. I also have a handwritten letter from Sir Adrian. Colin
I heard ‘Light Cavalry’ open a concert for the first time…..last week! Honeck in Paris in a wonderful concert of mostly Johann Strauss with the Korngold concerto with Duenas.