Latest / The Piano Maven with Jed Distler / Three Messy Discographies

Transcript

Three Messy Discographies · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

• 0:00
  This is Jed Disler and welcome to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano
• 0:12
  recordings.
• 0:13
  Discographies are listings of recordings that are usually comprehensive and complete when
• 0:22
  they are devoted to specific performers.
• 0:25
  And some pianists have relatively clear-cut and easy to navigate discographies.
• 0:33
  Usually this is because of the trend toward big box sets that collect the complete recordings
• 0:41
  of a certain artist for a certain label.
• 0:45
  For instance, you have all of Claudio Arau's recordings for the Phillips label and American
• 0:51
  Deca label all boxed up.
• 0:54
  So that discography is easy to navigate.
• 0:57
  But then you also have the complete Warner recordings of Claudio Arau, meaning all of
• 1:02
  his EMI and HMV and British Columbia discs all together.
• 1:09
  I think Parlophone might be in there.
• 1:11
  I can't really remember.
• 1:13
  And then there was a box set of his complete American RCA and Columbia recordings.
• 1:18
  So basically you have his complete commercial recordings in these three handy box sets.
• 1:26
  Whether or not you can access the box sets is another question.
• 1:30
  But that's an example of a large yet manageable discography.
• 1:35
  And you can say the same for artists like Alfred Brendel or Clifford Curzon or Ratulupu.
• 1:42
  But there are certain pianists who recorded prolifically for numerous labels over the
• 1:48
  course of their long careers, often re-recording the same works on different labels at different
• 1:55
  times.
• 1:57
  And as such, it's difficult to make sense of their discographical trajectory, let alone
• 2:05
  trying to string together a comprehensive and systematic discography of these artists.
• 2:11
  So I thought I would talk about on this episode three pianists whose recorded outputs are
• 2:19
  discographically messy.
• 2:22
  I'm going to start with Nikita Magalov.
• 2:25
  He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1912, and his family fled Russia to Finland in the
• 2:32
  aftermath of the revolution.
• 2:35
  As a youth, he studied at the Paris Conservatory with Isidore Philippe, and he had private
• 2:40
  composition lessons with Sergei Prokofiev.
• 2:44
  He met Rachmaninoff in Paris, and he also met the violinist Joseph Zagetti, with whom
• 2:49
  he would collaborate.
• 2:51
  And also, he later on married Zagetti's daughter Irene.
• 2:56
  He was highly sought after as a teacher, and he passed away at the age of 80 in 1992.
• 3:03
  In the 1950s and 60s, Nikita Magalov largely recorded for the British Deka and Phillips
• 3:13
  labels.
• 3:14
  And a lot of these recordings were reissued on CD.
• 3:18
  There was a box set that came out on Deka in Italy that contained, I would say, 75%
• 3:25
  of Magalov's output for those labels.
• 3:27
  I wish they had really done a complete and systematic Nikita Magalov on Deka and Phillips,
• 3:34
  but they didn't.
• 3:36
  But there's a lot of really good things in these collections, such as the Chopin cycle
• 3:43
  that Nikita Magalov recorded in the 1970s.
• 3:46
  It's an uneven cycle, but there are wonderful things in it, like the mazurkas, the C minor
• 3:53
  sonata, that early first sonata that nobody cares about.
• 3:57
  The scherzos are really quite good.
• 4:00
  The nocturnes are beautiful things.
• 4:02
  The posthumous polonaises he plays really wonderfully.
• 4:06
  Also, for Phillips, he made the first recording of the Tchaikovsky Second Concerto that did
• 4:12
  not have the traditional cuts.
• 4:15
  It was recorded according to the Urtext.
• 4:18
  This is a 1962 recording with Colin Davis conducting, and I think it still holds up
• 4:23
  very well.
• 4:25
  But then in the late 60s, actually even starting in the early 60s going on until the end of
• 4:32
  his career, he just recorded arbitrarily, it seems, for so many different labels, a
• 4:40
  lot of small labels especially.
• 4:42
  A lot of this material was licensed over to other labels, so it can get very confusing
• 4:49
  navigating the Nikita Magalov discography.
• 4:53
  There also were a lot of bootlegs of live performances.
• 4:58
  The Arcadia label, for instance, published live things, and so did Hermitage.
• 5:05
  Also there have been some German radio broadcasts that have been officially issued in download
• 5:13
  format which you can find.
• 5:15
  So basically the Nikita Magalov discography is all over the place, and we really do need
• 5:21
  a complete and systematic Magalov discography.
• 5:25
  Now when it comes to discombobulated discographies, I would put the discography of the pianist
• 5:32
  Sviatoslav Richter in the absolute top tier.
• 5:37
  Now I would not blame Richter entirely for the messy state of his discography because
• 5:43
  a lot of live recordings with Richter issued by small labels may not have been sanctioned
• 5:50
  by the pianist.
• 5:51
  And when he first started touring in the West in 1960, numerous labels jumped on the Richter
• 5:57
  bandwagon.
• 5:59
  Everybody wanted a piece of him.
• 6:01
  And because he recorded a lot in Russia on the Melodia label, many of those releases
• 6:07
  started coming out on small Western labels, and the performances often were duplicated
• 6:12
  between labels.
• 6:13
  It was a big mess.
• 6:16
  On the other hand, Richter did not make things easier when Phillips issued that big series
• 6:23
  of quote unquote authorized recordings in 1994.
• 6:28
  Apparently, either Richter or one of his representatives basically dumped a bunch of recordings on
• 6:37
  the desk of the set's producer, Tom Deacon, and they left him holding the bag, so to speak.
• 6:43
  And very few of these had any recording dates or venues listed.
• 6:48
  So the original Richter authorized edition contained tons of recording date errors.
• 6:55
  But fortunately, the Richter discographer Falk Schwartz wrote this extensive article
• 7:00
  that identified the provenance for about 99.9% of these recordings.
• 7:07
  In addition to Phillips bringing out live material from Richter's last performing years,
• 7:13
  you have labels like Stradivarius and Live Classics bringing out material of similar
• 7:20
  vintage and duplicating the same repertoire, and there have also been extensive series
• 7:27
  of releases like Richter in Prague on the Praga label, that box set.
• 7:33
  The BMC labels Richter in Hungary, and the TNC Classics label has their Richter in Kiev
• 7:41
  series.
• 7:43
  Of course, there was that limited edition 50 CD box set from Melodia, and there used
• 7:50
  to be a Richter society that issued cassettes and then CDRs to members.
• 7:56
  There even was this totally obscure label called Rérisema that brought out lacquer
• 8:02
  LPs, not vinyl, but lacquer LPs of Richter performances.
• 8:08
  Some of these performances did not appear anywhere else.
• 8:12
  My late friend Ateshtanin prepared this extensive Richter discography that's available online
• 8:20
  on the website of the Canadian Doremi label.
• 8:23
  I don't know how up to date this discography is, but even if it is incomplete, you still
• 8:31
  look at it and you wonder why anyone really needs 51 Richter recordings of Chopin's Polonaise
• 8:40
  Fantasy.
• 8:41
  I mean, the situation is crazy.
• 8:44
  I called Richter the Grateful Dead of pianists at one time just because of all the duplication
• 8:51
  and how people followed him around with recording devices.
• 8:56
  But I have written quite a lot about Richter and his discography and about how certain
• 9:01
  items have been continuously misidentified or how the same performances were available
• 9:08
  and transfers that sounded so radically different from one another.
• 9:13
  But at least that 50-disc Melodia collection and then the box set with the complete Decca,
• 9:19
  DG, and Phillips recordings and the Columbia and RCA box set and the complete Eurodisc
• 9:28
  box and the complete Warner box that has all of the EMI and Teldeck material all bundled
• 9:36
  together.
• 9:37
  These are all discographically comprehensive and thorough in the right way, pretty much.
• 9:45
  But then you see these big Richter boxes on the profile label that are all over the place,
• 9:52
  discographically speaking.
• 9:53
  There used to be a time when I sort of enjoyed being the Richter discography policeman, but
• 10:01
  now I only come out of retirement once in a blue moon.
• 10:06
  I guess eventually I'm going to have to do a Richter box set mini-series on this podcast,
• 10:12
  but that's going to be like climbing Mount Everest.
• 10:16
  However, the big, big, big mess of a discography that Paul Bedora Scoda left behind, well,
• 10:25
  I would say that that's mostly the pianist's fault simply because he willingly re-recorded
• 10:32
  and re-re-re-re-recorded much of the same repertoire ad infinitum ad nauseam, some would
• 10:40
  say, and he did this for different labels, both on modern concert grands and on period
• 10:45
  instruments.
• 10:46
  And trying to wade through all of these recordings would take a lot of work and way too much
• 10:54
  time.
• 10:55
  Although there's a pretty good and fairly, though not absolutely comprehensive Paul Bedora
• 11:02
  Scoda discography online if you go to bedorascoda.cc.
• 11:09
  But getting back to how Paul Bedora Scoda was a chronic re-recorder, here is a truly
• 11:17
  crazy example that came to light only recently when Sony BMG issued his 1967 and 1968 Schubert
• 11:28
  piano sonata cycle for RCA Victor.
• 11:32
  These recordings first came out in 1971 as a 13 LP box set, and they were later repackaged
• 11:43
  into four smaller individual multi-disc volumes.
• 11:48
  Now, listen to this, for these individual multi-disc volumes, Bedora Scoda re-recorded
• 11:56
  five of the sonatas, plus he re-recorded the A major, deutche number 959 sonata scherzo.
• 12:06
  Anyway, all of these recordings, both the originals and the remakes, all appeared together
• 12:15
  in a Sony BMG box set that came out a few years ago.
• 12:20
  So far so good, right?
• 12:22
  Uh-uh.
• 12:23
  What happened was, Bedora Scoda, who was still alive at the time that this big box came out,
• 12:31
  he still couldn't leave well enough alone.
• 12:33
  He played a major role in the remastering process for this box set at his request.
• 12:40
  And at his request, a wrongly printed and recorded F natural was replaced with a correct
• 12:50
  G natural in the deutche number 845 sonata slow movement.
• 12:57
  I'm talking about measure 114.
• 13:00
  And then, if that wasn't enough, slight tempo modifications were effected in several movements,
• 13:08
  meaning that computer technology enabled Paul Bedora Scoda to change tempos in some of the
• 13:16
  original recordings without altering the pitch.
• 13:20
  So this means that the original LPs are slightly different from the CDs in this regard.
• 13:29
  You know, I suppose purists will cry foul, but I suppose that Paul Bedora Scoda probably
• 13:36
  had the right to put things right, so to speak, as he saw fit.
• 13:41
  Now, here is some more discographical weirdness that may not have been Paul Bedora Scoda's
• 13:48
  fault, or maybe it was.
• 13:50
  Anyway, I remember years ago the Grammola label released a cycle with Paul Bedora Scoda
• 13:58
  containing the 32-Bethovin sonatas.
• 14:02
  And the publicist working on this project claimed that these performances had never
• 14:07
  been released before and they were all newly edited for CD.
• 14:12
  Now, I knew that the Orpheus label, which was a subsidiary of Musical Heritage Society,
• 14:20
  had released a Paul Bedora Scoda Beethoven cycle on LP around 1970.
• 14:28
  So knowing that, I asked the publicist, are you sure that the Grammola set is really previously
• 14:37
  unissued because, you know, there was a Paul Bedora Scoda Beethoven cycle on LP recorded
• 14:45
  around that same time, but the publicist said, oh no no no no no no, these are all previously
• 14:50
  unpublished.
• 14:51
  Okay, so I took that information on faith.
• 14:55
  However, only just recently, I noticed that all of the Orpheus Bedora Scoda Beethoven
• 15:04
  sonata recordings had been released as downloads and were all being made available on YouTube.
• 15:12
  So being the discography policeman that I suppose I always will be at heart, I compared
• 15:20
  the Grammola recordings alongside the Orpheus versions and guess what?
• 15:26
  They were identical.
• 15:28
  They were one in the same.
• 15:31
  So where did that publicist get that information that these Grammola recordings had not been
• 15:38
  issued from Paul Bedora Scoda himself?
• 15:42
  I don't know where this information came from, but honestly, does it really matter?
• 15:48
  Because frankly, you really do not need this cycle in your collection.
• 15:53
  Is this the Beethoven cycle to have when you can only have one?
• 15:56
  I would say not.
• 15:59
  Now there are some very fine performances in this cycle that I am happy to have heard.
• 16:05
  And of course he did record some of these sonatas earlier and he recorded some of these
• 16:11
  sonatas later.
• 16:13
  And there's also a complete sonata cycle from Bedora Scoda on period instruments, which
• 16:19
  I have sitting on my shelves.
• 16:21
  It was originally on the Valois label.
• 16:24
  I think Astray brought it out, maybe Naïve, I have no idea.
• 16:30
  But I have this cycle on my shelves and I take it down maybe once every 500 years.
• 16:36
  But in all fairness, Paul Bedora Scoda's discography does contain a lot of really welcome
• 16:42
  surprises and some wonderful things.
• 16:45
  I have talked about his superb Chopin etude cycle for the Westminster label in a previous
• 16:52
  podcast episode.
• 16:54
  And I like his Mozart sonata cycle for the Eurodisc label very much.
• 16:59
  I think it's much better than the period instrument Mozart cycle he recorded years later.
• 17:06
  And Bedora Scoda's 1951 Bach Partitas for Westminster I think really should be reissued.
• 17:13
  This is an excellent cycle.
• 17:16
  He did a beautiful Brahms disc on the Valois label that's long been at a print.
• 17:22
  And there's a lot of excellent chamber music in his discography as well.
• 17:26
  There also was this very interesting Bach set on the Kleos label, K-L-E-O-S, called
• 17:34
  Paul Bedora Scoda, a man and his music.
• 17:38
  And it contained a wide range of recordings and repertoire representing every stage of
• 17:45
  this pianist's career.
• 17:47
  You probably can find it as a download now.
• 17:50
  I don't think it's in print physically.
• 17:53
  And this box had wonderful things like a truly old school kind of interpretation of the Chopin
• 18:00
  fourth ballade.
• 18:02
  There was a performance of Frank Martin's wonderful Three Movement Fantasy, which was
• 18:07
  written for Paul Bedora Scoda.
• 18:10
  And it sounds like flamenco at the piano.
• 18:12
  It's a really cool piece.
• 18:14
  And there are some amazing recordings of Paul Bedora Scoda as a teenager playing the accordion.
• 18:21
  And he's playing these really flashy transcriptions.
• 18:24
  I mean, who knew?
• 18:26
  Anyway, I hope this talk will inspire you to begin your own exploration and navigation
• 18:33
  of these three messy yet often rewarding discographies of Nikita Magalov, Svyatoslav
• 18:42
  Richter, and Paul Bedora Scoda, because there are many recorded treasures waiting to be
• 18:48
  discovered.
• 18:49
  This is Jed Disler.
• 18:51
  And you've been listening to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
• 18:58
  I look forward to being with you next time.