The Remington Story and Don Gabor 3


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	Old releases in new style: new label, new cover, yet same reference number and same stampers.

Several Remingtons were released in Germany on the Diamant label: Symphony Fantastique (Berlioz), Cello Concerto (Dvorak), Symphony (Franck).

In Germany Gabor launched the Diamant label for the release of recordings made in Austria: Franck Symphonie (Hans Wolf), Famous Opera Arias (Astrid Varnay), Dvorak Cello Concerto (Gaspar Cassado). An oddity is the Diamant release of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto Bo. 2 with Jorge Bolet. But the Diamant issue states that Thor Johnson conducts the Austrian Symphony Orchestra instead of that of Cincinnati.
The contract with Bertelsmann was breached when recordings made with the RIAS Symphony were also released on the Diamant label. This would mean competition for Bertelsmann on the German market. An example is the recording of Symphony Fantastique with the RIAS Symphony Orchestra conducted by George Sebastian.
Before there was trouble, excerpts of Remington recordings were released on a Bertelsmann 10" disc called "Wunschkonzert - Meisterwerke der Klassik" (Classical Masterworks). This shows that Bertelsmann also had access to earlier Remington recordings made in Austria as Alexander Jenner plays here one movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata taken from Remington R-199-10. Could be that Marcel Prawy had sent the tapes of this music to Bertelsmann as Prawy was the copyright owner.

The first cellist of the RIAS Symphony Orchestra was Heinrich Köhler. He was engaged by Ferenc Fricsay in the season of 1949/50 and he stayed with the orchestra untill 1995. His cello playing can be heard in Carnival of Animals (Saint-Saëns) and Excerpts from Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky) on R-199-160. Heinrich Köhler witnessed the artistic rise of the orchestra under Fricsay, the intermediate period after Fricsay had left in 1953 and until he returned in 1959 to the orchestra (that was now called Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin) and was again principal conductor until Fricsay's death in 1963. Mr. Köhler told me about the sessions of the orchestra for the Remington Record Company in the years 1953 and 1954. He recalls:

"In a three hour session at least one hour ready music should be recorded on tape. Unknown conductors acquited with difficulty their tasks. At one time Günther Wand stood in front of the orchestra; already at that time he was a feared perfectionist. He explained a lot of the music while rehearsing and he shaped every detail. (Even at his old age his interpretations are mindblowing.) When Günter Wand wanted to record the same passage again because he wanted a better take, recording director Laszlo Halasz had enough of it and said: "Hey man, we already have that on tape". Günther Wand put down his baton, took his hat and coat, and left. The recording sessions for Remington records had a rather business like character. For example a work was played through and recorded in the same session and the title was ready: The next piece please!"

Of course, Laszlo Halasz had to see to it that the limited budget and the recording time were well spent and thus did not give young Günther Wand the time to shape the performance and bring it to a higher level. If it were not for the limited time, we now would have another historic performance of Günther Wand, but this time with the RIAS Symphony Orchestra on the Remington label.

Most conductors however were glad to have a job though. They accepted the limited time schedules. Some of the conductors were hardly known like Karl Rucht. Relatively unknown at the time were Wolfgang Sawallisch, Jonel Perlea , Manuel Rosenthal, George Sebastian , Georg Ludwig Jochum (brother of famous Eugen Jochum).

Fact is that also in this case Don Gabor did not buy ready tapes, and in no case tapes of obscure and illegal origin, (as Eli Oberstein did for his Royale label), and Gabor did not invent names, but hired a genuine and well trained orchestra of professional musicians and through Laszlo Halasz very able conductors and soloists were contracted. Yet a three hour session was too short for a recording of Brahms's 2nd Concerto with Kilenyi and Perlea which did not show some minute imperfections. Generally the performances were of a very good quality which rose far above the standard of any provincial orchestra and certainly above the quality of the 'Austrian Symphony Orchestra' or 'Niedersterosterreichisches Tonkünstler Orchester' which was also founded in 1946 but did not get the time to rehearse enough before recording.

On Bertelsmann Schallplattenring 8135 a variety of Remington artists can be heard:

Wolfgang Sawallisch, Alexander Jenner, Karl Rucht and Laszlo Halasz.

The gold/white striped label of Bertelsmann Schallplattenring 8135..

In Paris, where Laszlo Halasz had engagements also and was to perform with pianist Samson François, George Enescu's Dixtuor was recorded with the composer conducting the French National Orchestra.
In Vienna where Halasz himself had made a recording of Kodaly's Suite to the Singspiel 'Hary Janos', which was released on a 10" disc (R-149-44), the now famous performances of the Beethoven and Brahms concertos with Albert Spalding were recorded under the supervision of Halasz. And Verdi's "Aida" and Puccini's "Turandot" were recorded in the "Teatro La Fenice" in Venice with Franco Capuana and strong casts. After these recordings were released the quality of the performance was immediately noticed by other labels and this led to Capuana's contract with London/Decca.

On most covers the annotation "Recorded in Europe" was printed. In those days many American companies travelled with their taperecorders practically all over Europe, from Denmark to Austria and from Berlin to Rome. At home in the US there were many restrictions imposed by the Petrillo act, restrictions concerning working hours of artists and orchestras and the fees which made the productions very costly. If one did not have the facilities to tape in Europe, existing tapes from radio broadcasts and even tapes from the "Reichs Rundfunk Gesellschaft" which were made during World War 2 could be bought.
The annotation "Recorded in Europe" was not always a guarantee that the recording really was made in Europe. There were labels which had recorded at home in the USA, yet put "Recorded in Europe" on label and cover with the name of a so called European orchestra.
In those days there was a lively trade in taped performances of all sorts of works and it happened that inferior labels aquired the same tapes of performances which were released on mayor labels or simply copied a recording of a quality label and then printed fancy names for singers, instrumentalists and conductors on labels and covers and often omitted a movement from a symphony or abbreviated the work by splicing in order to avoid that the bootleg was recognized or just because they did not have any knowledge of the composition.
Don Gabor did not follow that fashion as far as I could detect. In any case not when he managed the catalogue of his Remington label. There are however some names of artists who need further explanation.

Cover and label of Frieda Valenzi's recording of "Variations Symphoniques" of César Franck, state the name of the conductor as Jean Moreau. A conductor with that name is not known. Apparently Jean Moreau was Jean Morel, originally from France, who worked also in the USA and made several recordings with DECCA/LONDON and American Columbia. Jean Morel was also a conductor at the New York City Opera Company. When I asked Mrs. Valenzi about the conductor she could not remember facts about Jean Moreau. The handwriting on the container with the recorded tape must have been wrongly read and copied.

The soloist in Glazunov's Violin concerto on R-199-191 is André Gabriel. No data can be found about this artist. Was he an upcoming star who never made it? Was he the principal violinist of the RIAS Symphony Orchestra? A record collector who visited my pages suggested that Andre Gabriel was a pseudonymn for Roman Totenberg who could not have his name printed because of contractual ties with another label. It is also possible that the artists is Tossy Spivakovsky. In the 1953 edition of the Remington record catalog Don Gabor announced the new Musirama recording releases. New recordings with various artists were in the making. One of these artists is violinist Tossy Spivakovsky. But his name never appeared on the Remington label. In this case also because of contractual obligations with another record company?

Record R-199-76 mentions Hermann Schwertmann as pianist in Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor Op. 23. For many years it was not clear if Hermann Schwertmann really was the pianist as the Plymouth issue of the same tape mentions Hans Kessler as pianist. No information was known until recently several entries on the internet could be found about a concert where Hermann Schwertmann played the piano and also he is mentioned as a teacher. The only recording of Hermann Schwertmann is this Remington R-199-76 which eventually was replaced by the distant approach of the concerto by pianist Conrad Hansen and conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch with the RIAS Symphony on Remington Musirama R-199-197.

There is a recording by The Boshovsky Sextet. This is certainly Willy Boskovsky's Sextet. The 'k' in the handwriting on the container must have been interpreted as 'h'.
The recording of pianist Frieda Valenzi playing Schumann and Brahms on Merit (another of Don Gabor's labels) has her name printed as "v. frieda" on cover and label. This prompted a record dealer and many musiclovers whose brains fantasized ad lib to suggest that the artist was Etelka Freund. The container of the tape apparently was labeled "v. frieda" by someone in Austria before the tape was shipped and Gabor or an assistant must have thought that the artist was "v. frieda" and had this copied onto cover and label. It is the custom to write first the family name (or the initial of the family name) followed by the Christian name. Merit recordings were simultaneously released with Remington and Plymouth discs. The address on the cover of Merit M200-28 reads: 263 West 54th Street, New York 19, N.Y., the same address of the earlier Continental and Remington productions. Some Plymouth releases also carried the Merit-logo in the left upper corner.
Obviously the Valenzi-recording was obtained via Marcel Prawy and was meant to be released on the Remington label. But since Kilenyi played the same works on a Remington disc, the recording of Frieda Valenzi was only released on Merit.

Frieda Valenzi's Merit release, Sondra Bianca performing Liszt on Plymouth and Conductor X with Beethoven's 1st.

Generally the Plymouth releases did not always bear the names of the artists and of the same orchestra. There are exceptions however. One is the recording of Liszt's 1st concerto played by pianist Sondra Bianca with the Lamoureux Orchestra conducted by Jean Martinon(!) coupled with the Piano Concerto of Carl Maria von Weber played by Fritz Egger with the Linz Symphony Orchestra (no conductor is mentioned).

There was one occurance when a name was not accidently changed or was really a pseudonymn, but was deliberately omitted. That was when Beethoven's 1st Symphony had been recorded with the Austrian Symphony Orchestra for release on R-199-156. Instead of the name of a known conductor the release mentioned "Conductor X" instead. The liner notes stated that the conductor could not be named because he had contractual obligations with another record label. Don Gabor and Laszlo Halasz wanted to release the recording anyway because a lot of money had gone into producing it. So it was decided that the record should be released without mentioning who the conductor really was. This recording kept reviewers and collectors guessing for many years about who really was the man who had led the Austrian Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven's First. Maybe it was a tape made by the "Reichs Rundfunk Gesellschaft" during the war when tape was already used in Germany for hours and hours of nightlong radio broadcasts? Could it be a bootleg and Furtwängler was the conductor? Or was it a recording with Hermann Scherchen, Carl Schuricht or even Herbert von Karajan? Or Clemens Krauss who had already appeared on Remington RLP 149-26 with a Johann Strauss program.
The guessing stopped when in 1998 the International Classical Record Collector revealed who the conductor really was: Arthur Rodzinski. He, according to the ICRC, had made a few recordings with Remington but did not approve of the quality. Obviously Rodzinski was talked into making the recording by fellow conductor Laszlo Halasz who was producing for Remington after he had left the New York City Opera Company in 1952. At the time Rodzinski's Beethoven recordings on Columbia were listed in the catalogs. Apparently he was negotiating a recording contract with Westminster. A Remington recording was not opportune. So Arthur Rodzinski did not allow his name to be used. The release of this recording on the french label Concerteum mentioned Holstein as conductor. The people from Concerteum were well aware of the fact that a record with a conductor named 'X' would not be regarded as a serious release.
Whether this affair influenced Rodzinski's negotiations in a positive or negative way is not clear. In the end he made recording for Westminster.

Carlos Montoya on R-199-171 and R-199-179, the Palace reissue of 171 and Lydia Ibarrondo on R-199-139.

The covers of R-199-171 and R-199-179 (reissued on Vox Records STPL 513 430) of guitarist Carlos Montoya state "Recorded in Spain". Could be that the recordings were made when Laszlo Halasz was conducting in Barcelona, and could be that Montoya who lived in the US was vacationing in Spain at the time. One is not always sure if "Recorded in Europe" or in this case "Recorded in Spain" is in all cases correct. I do not have a copy of the other record of Carlos Montoya (R-199-134) accompanying mezzo-soprano Lydia Ibarrondo. This album most likely was recorded in the USA. In any case Ibarrondo's "Songs of Spain" (R-199-139) was recorded in the USA.

Cover and label of Sari Biro's recording of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" also mentions "recorded in Europe". Miss Biro lived in the United States. She travelled to Europe to concertize and made a recording of Mozart's Piano Concerto K491 in Vienna, so she could have made the Mussorgski recording then and there.
(An interesting investigation regarding several recordings of famous artists with pseudonym names which appeared on the Allegro, Royale and Ultraphon labels can be read on Ernst Lumpe's pages.