The Albert Coates Collection Volume 1 (Pagodes Records)
7: Polovtsian Dances ("Prince Igor") (with chorus, in English)
"The ..Borodin dance music will be very popular. The chorus is rather modestly distant,
at the start, but warms up later. ... the vim and rhythm surge mightily."
Gramophone Review
Malcolm Sargent: Mendelssohn, Haydn & Faure
Surprise Symphony
Symphony No. 3 (Scottish)
Recording excels in clarity, virility. Softer tones not so fine. The strings tell better, on
the whole, than the wind. Not quite the finest wood-wind playing, I think.
That start is a difficult one....In such music our players triumph gallantly.
One could not wish a firmer-based recording, and scarcely a better-balanced one.
(February 1948 issue)
Faure Pavane
Gieseking, Volume 1
SCHUBERT: 4 Impromptus, D935, 4 Impromptus, D899
September 1955
The very first piece is a wonder. It is in any case one of the best things Schubert
ever achieved for the piano, and I have always thought that it is usually played
much too fast. ....
Gieseking takes the music quite slowly, and the result to me is immensely moving.
The A flat needs innocence and self denial, and Gieseking catches the mood beautifully.
Gramophone Review
Henry Wood Disc 2
Chant sans Paroles
1812 Overture (Jan & April 1926)
It is a long time since we had an " 1812."
The new process can do it ever so much more effectively than the old.
Freider Weissmann: Beethoven 6th, Haydn "Surprise"
In Haydn's Surprise Symphony the conductor is great, as are his players.
These Berliners know better than to treat Haydn as only fit for amateurs;
which is more than can be said for most English orchestras.
Gramophone Review
Constant Lambert Rarities
1: Rimski-Korsakov: Ivan the Terrible Overture (Liverpool Phil, Col. DX 1140)
in music of the very modest calibre of this overture (modest as regards ideas),
nothing could be much nicer than the bright, clear adequacy of the record.
3 - 6: Purcell, arr. Lambert: Comus Ballet Suite
The orchestration is piquant : in things like the chipper trumpet-stuff at the end of side 2,
the effect is quite delicious. The recording makes the most of the instrumentation's clarity
and sparkle. For such music it seems to me almost ideal.
7 - 10: Adam / Lambert: Giselle
A very favourable sample of bold, rich colouring in recording: I don't think anyone could ask for anything better, in that respect.
Gramophone Review