The
French record label Concerteum released recordings of various foreign
labels. Among these were Vox and Remington recordings. Vox recordings
had PL as a prefix. Remington records had CR as a prefix for 12
inch records, and TCR for 10 inch discs. A release containing more
than one record was indicated as Alb. (Album).
Jazz records were indicated with the prefix JCR. Some of the recordings
of Sarah Vaughan from 1944 and 1945 released on Remington RLP-1024
were issued in France on Concerteum JCR 258.
A curiosity is CR 326 on which Zoltan Fekete conducts "Orchestral
Suite" (Suite d'orchestre) by Béla Bartók. Although
the reference number has the prefix CR, this recording was not released
in the US by Remington, but on Colosseum (CLPS 1010).
At
the basis was a collaboration between Concerteum and Remington which
resulted in the production of a few French recordings: Georges Enesco
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Concerteum
Société Anonyme, 5 Boulevard Magenta, Paris
10ème, Téléphone NORD 78-81
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conducting his 1st and 2nd Romanian Rhapsody, and Jean Allain conducting
Symphony in C by Georges Bizet. The recordings with Céliny
Chailley-Richez, especially the performances of Schuman's Piano
Concerto (recorded in Vienna) and the recording of Enesco's Violin
Sonata No. 2, could have found their origin in this contract. However,
a release on the Concerteum label of Enesco's Sonata No.
2 could not be found. Even his Romanian Rhapsody No.1 was not available
on Concerteum.
The contract
for licensing to Concerteum was effective after many a Remington
recording
had already been made available in the USA and the label had established
itself there. This explains why the list does not show the releases
of the recordings in the original sequence of production/release
by Remington.
For
the pressings original Remington-matrixes were used.
The vinyl had a somewhat better quality than the kind used by Don
Gabor, hence there was less hiss and also the signal was generally
of a better quality, although the quality of the matrix was the
restricting factor for the Concerteum pressings.
In a few cases the label mentioned 'Une production DON GABOR' and
instead of the crown which is featured on the Remington labels was
adorned with a small logo picturing instruments or a conductor.
The label mentioned Pressé sous license "REMINGTON
RECORDS INC." New- York.
The
reference-numbers and titles in the list below are taken from
'Disques de longue durée - Catalogue complet permanent
- automne 1955' (Long Playing Records - Complete current catalog
- Fall 1955).
In the listings the addition "ème" as in "7ème"
(7th) is written as "e". Thus Seventh is "7e".
The names of orchestras like L'orchestre de la société
symphonique de Vienne (Symphony Orchestra of the Viennese Symphonic
Society), L'orchestre symphonique autrichienne (Austrian
Symphony Orchestra), L'orchestre des Tonkuenstler (Lower
Austrian Tonkunstler Orchestra), RIAS Symphony Orchestra, and Cincinnati
Symphony Orchestra, are mentioned as: "orch. autrichien",
"orch. symph.", "orch. RIAS", "orch. Cincinnati".
This catalogue
from 1955 did already list several Musirama recordings like the
ones of the Renardy Caprices and the recording of the Liszt Concerto
and Todtentanz by Kilenyi.
For Remington
R-199-156
with Beethoven's First Symphony by the Austrian Symphony Orchestra
led by conductor X,
the name
of Holstein is given. The people from Concerteum were well
aware of the fact that a record with 
conductor 'X'
(as the original Remington release mentioned) would not be regarded
as a serious release. It was only found out later that conductor
"X", alias conductor Holstein, was Arthur Rodzinski.
There are several recordings not listed in the Fall of 1955: Jorge
Bolet playing Chopin's Four Scherzi and Prokofiev's Second Concerto
Op. 16; Etelka Freund's rendering of Sonata No. 3 of Brahms; the
recordings of Alec Templeton, those of pianist Alfred Kitchin are
missing as well. There is no Symphonie Fantastique conducted by
Georges Sebastian, a Scheherazade recording with Karl Rucht, or
the Glazunov Concerto performed by André Gabriel (Tossy Spivakovsky?)
with the
RIAS Symphony Orchestra
on Concerteum, nor is there Zoltan Kodaly's
Cello Sonata Op. 4 performed by Richard Matuschka and pianist Otto
Schulhof. They all could have been listed in a later edition
of 'Disques
de longue durée - Catalogue complet permanent' which
I do not own. If there is no Rucht on Concerteum, there are
two releases with him and the Berlin Radio Orchestra listed on Chant
du Monde and on Urania. And the A&R of Concerteum did not want
to release a third Rucht performance which had to compete with the
two existing recordings.
Several Reference Numbers are not listed in the composer section:
CR 233, 243, 244, 246, 251, and many more. It is also possible that
a few recordings which are missing or were not found had been deleted
earlier from the Concerteum catalog. As the 1955 French Record Catalog
is the sole source available to me, some suggestions and suspicions
can not be substantiated and verified, unless other catalogs will
be available.
A few recordings are listed in the sections recital
and folklore. Sylvia Marlowe's recital of works by
Scarlatti, Bach and Couperin listed as CR 207 is also listed as
CE 199. The Voudou recording of Emy de Pradines is released on CR
300. On 10 inch Concerteums other folkore recordings can be found:
TCR 250 Calypso carnaval
TCR 253 Chants Indien de la prairie
TCR 265 Selah Jubilee quartet
TCR 294 Western songs
Recordings
originating from Austria and appearing on Remington (and a few on
Masterseal) were produced by Marcel Prawy. They were all
labeled as a Remington disc. There were Prawy productions which
were not selected and not acquired by Donald Gabor for release in
the US. And of course there were records produced by Prawy after
his contract with Remington had ended. A few early Prawy-productions
were released in the US on Gabor's Masterseal label. These recordings
were not issued in France on Concerteum, but on Counterpoint. An
example is the release in the series Viennese Operettas (Opérettes
viennoises) of Oscar Strauss's 'Rêve de valse' (Ein Walzertraum,
Dreamwaltz) on Counterpoint CMC 120.001, the composer conducting
the 'Tonkünstlerorchester', in the USA released as Masterseal
MW-47.
On
several occasions Don Gabor traveled to Europe and also visited
Paris where he met with Marcel Prawy who had travelled to Paris
from Vienna. Marcel Prawy was his European representative. In Paris
Gabor naturally discussed business with the people of the Concerteum
label.. Concerteum started issuing Remington recordings in France
around 1953 or just somewhat earlier.
Not all Remington recordings were released by Concerteum. For example
R-149-37 with violinist Eva Hitzker playing KV 219, and Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart's 5th Violin Concerto, with Fritz Weidlich conducting,
is missing from the catalog. Also
the recording of Christmas Oratorio (Oratorio de noël) performed
by Martha Schilling, Ruth Machaelis, Werner Hohmann, Bruno Lüller,
the Stuttgart Choral Society and the Suebian Symphony Orchestra
under Hans Grischkat is not in the Concerteum catalog. As said earlier
a release on the Concerteum label of George Enesco playing
his own Sonata No. 2 and Schumann's Sonata (both with pianist Celiné
Chailley-Richez) were not released in France or were deleted long
before the Fall 1955 French catalog was printed.
CR
204 Beethoven: 3e Symphonie - Fritz Busch, chef d'orchestre
Alb.205 Haendel: Messiah - Josef Messner, chef d'orchestre
CR 206 Beethoven: Concerto n° 5 - Felicitas Karrer, piano
CR 207 Bach: Toccata, Scarlatti Sonatas, Couperin: Les folies françaises
- Sylvia Marlowe, clavecin
CR 208 Beethoven: 8e Symphonie, Haydn 101e Symphonie - Fritz
Busch
TCR 211 Beethoven: 5e Symphonie - Hans Wolf
CR 212 Rachmaninoff: 2e Concerto - Felicitas Karrer, piano
TCR 213 J. Strauss: Valses - Kurt Wöss
CR 214 Brahms: Danses hongroises - Albert Spalding, violon
CR 215 Tchaikowsky: Symphonie n° 4 - H. Arthur Brown
CR 216 Brahms: Concerto - Albert Spalding, violoniste
CR 217 Paganini: Caprices 1-12 - Ossy Renardy, violoniste
CR 218 Beethoven: Concerto - Albert Spalding, violoniste
CR 219 Bruch: Concerto, Kol nidrei - Michèle Auclair,
violon
CR 220 Haydn: 93e Symphonie, Schubert: 3e Symphonie - George
Singer
CR 221 Mozart: Requiem - Hilde Gueden, Rosette Anday, Julius Patzak,
Josef Greindl - Josef Messner
CR
222 Beethoven: Sonates nos 4 et 5 - Paul Kling, violoniste
CR 223 Bruckner: 3e Symphonie
Zoltan Fekete
CR 224 Dvorak: Danses slaves Op. 46 - George Singer
CR 225 Beethoven: Sonate n° 2 - Walter Schneiderhan,
violon, Erich Berg, piano; Sonate no 8 - Helen Airoff, violon
et Céliny Chailley-Richez, piano
CR 226 Chopin: Sonates nos 2 et 3 - Edouard (Edward) Kilenyi,
piano
CR 227 Chopin: Valses - Edouard (Edward) Kilenyi, piano
CR 228 Haydn: 88e, 100e Symphonies - Paul Walter
CR 229 Beethoven: Waldstein et Les adieux - Edouard (Edward)
Kilenyi, piano
CR 230 Mussorgski (Moussorgski): Tableaux d'une exposition - Sari
Biro, piano
CR 231 Tchaikowsky: Concerto piano-orchestre - Hermann Schwertmann,
piano 
CR 232 Beethoven: 6e Symphonie - Kurt Wöss
CR 234 Schumann: Concerto piano-orchestre - Céliny (Céline)
Chailley-Richez, pianiste
CR 235 Mozart: Symphonie concertante - Kurt Wöss, 20e Concerto
- Fritz Weidlich
CR 236 Debussy: Préludes - Edouard (Edward) Kilenyi, piano
CR 237 Franck: Symphonie - Hans Wolf
CR 238: Bizet: Symphonie en Do (Symphony in C) Soloists of l'Orchestre
du Conservatoire - Jean Allain (matrix numbers RE-33-222-2
/ RE-33-223-2).
CR 239 Beethoven: Sonates nos 30 et 31 - Jörg Demus,
piano
CR 240 Beethoven: 7e Trio - Jilka Trio
CR 241 Bach: Partita no 1, Suite française - Jörg Demus,
piano
CR
242 Chopin: Etudes op. 10 - Edouard (Edward) Kilenyi, piano
CR 244 Schumann: Concerto Op. 54 - Celiny Chailley-Richez,
piano, Robert Heger.
CR 245 Dvorak: 5e Symphonie - George Singer
CR 247 Tchaikowsky: Concerto violon-orchestre - Michèle
Auclair, violoniste, Kurt Wöss
CR 248 Tchaikowsky: Symphonie n°. 6 - H. Arthur Brown
CR 249 Tchaikowsky: Symphonie n° 5 - Kurt Wöss
CR 250 Beethoven, Chopin - Alexander Jenner, piano
CR 254 Grieg: Peer Gynt Suites No. 1 et 2, Orchestre Symphonique
Autrichien, H. Arthur Brown, Max Schönherr
TCR 255 Tchaikowsky: Casse-noisette - Kurt Wöss
TCR 256 Schubert: Inachevée - H. Arthur Brown
TCR 257 Mozart Symphonie Haffner (N. 35) - Hans Wolf
TCR 259 Mendelssohn: Concerto violon-orchestre - Walter Schneiderhan,
violoniste
TCR 262 Mozart: 41e Symphonie (Jupiter) - Kurt Wöss
TCR 266 Rimsky-Korsakov: Suite Le coq d'or - George Singer
CR 267 Haendel: Triomphe de la Vérité
TCR
269 Enesco: Rapsodie Roumaine n° 2 - Enesco, Smetena: Moldau
- George Singer
TCR 270 Beethoven: 7e Sonate - Walter Schneiderhan, violon
TCR 271 Brahms: Sonate pour violoncelle - Gaspar Cassado,
violoncelle
TCR 272 Franck: Variations symphoniques, Debussy: Prélude - Frieda
Valenzi, piano - Jean Moreau
TCR 273 Mozart: 13e Serenade - Fritz Weidlich and Mozart:
Thamos, Koenig in Aegypten (musique de scene) - Felix Guenther
CR 280 Liszt, Schumann, Chopin - Simon Barere, piano
CR 281 Corelli, Tartini: Sonates - Albert Spalding, violon
CR 282 Dvorak: Concerto - Gaspar Cassado, cello
Alb.284 Haydn: Les sept dernières paroles de Jésu Christ - Josef
Messner
CR 285 Franck: Sonate, Ravel Sonate - Ossy Renardy, violon
- Eugene List, piano
CR 286 Haendel: Watermusic, Mozart Overtures - Hans Koslik
CR 287 Bach: La passion selon St. Jean - Josef Preinfalk
CR 289 Bartók: Pièces pour le piano - Bela et Ditta Bartok
au piano
CR 290 Verdi: Requiem - Hans Koslik
CR 291 Rossini: Stabat mater - Josef Messner
CR 292 Mozart: Concertos K216 et 218 - Gérard Poulet,
violon
CR 293 Mussorgski: Une nuit sur le mont chauve - Hans Koslik;
Rimsky-Korsakov: Capricio Espagnol - Mehlich; Borodine: Danses
Polovetsiennes - Hans Koslik. ( Rimski-Korsakov's Scheherazade
with Karl Rucht conducting the RIAS Symphony Orchestra is not listed.
There are two Rucht recordings of Scheherazade, both with the Orchestra
of Radio Berlin on Chant du Monde LDX-A-8016 and Urania URLP 7133.
These are appaerently the same performenaces. Probably the Concerteum
A&R department did not want a third recording with Rucht and
the RIAS Orchestra which had to compete with the other recordings.)
CR
296 Chants d'Espagne: Lydia Ibarrondo, singer, Miguel Sandoval,
piano, Juan Oñatibia, txistu and tuntun
CR 297 Liszt: 1re Concerto, Danse macabre - Edouard (Edward)
Kilenyi, piano - Jonel Perlea
CR 298 Beethoven: 1re Symphonie - Holstein
CR 299 Debussy: La boîte a joujoux - Jonel Perlea
CR 301 Dvorak: 4e Symphonie (8) - Thor Johnson
CR 302 Lehar et Strauss - Gerhard Becker
CR 304 Offenbach: Gaité parisienne - Manuel Rosenthal
TCR 304 Ravel: Tombeau de Couperin - Frieda Valenzi, piano
(Frieda Valenzi playing selections from Goyescas were not listed)
CR 309 Bach: Partita n° 6, Préludes nos 15 et 16 - Jörg
Demus, piano
CR 310 Schubert: Sonata n° 21 - Jörg Demus, piano
CR 312 Chopin: 1re Concerto piano-orchestre - Edouard (Edward)
Kilenyi, piano
CR 313 Mendelssohn: Songe d'une nuit d'été - H. Arthur Brown
CR 314 Grieg: Concerto pour piano et orchestre - Felicitas Karrer;
the3 recording of Haydn's 7th Symphony conducted by Karl
Randolph is also listed as CR 314, and the Pierre Luboshutz
& Genia Nemenoff recording of Mozart's K 448 has the same reference
number.
CR 315 Mozart: Cosi fan tutte (3x 30 cm) - Josef Dunwald
CR 321 Pergolèse: Stabat Mater - Hans Grischkat
CR 325 Liszt: Etudes de concert - Simon Barere, piano (there
is no listing in the French catalog of the Sonata performed by Simon
Barere, recorded on acetates in 1947 and transferred to Lp)
CR 326 Bartok: Suite d'orchestre - Zoltan Fekete
CR 328 Liszt, Balakirev, Rachmaninoff - Simon Barere, pianiste
CR 329 Haydn: Cello Concerto - Gaspar Cassado, violoncelliste
Concerteum
also released several 7" records. One was ECR 71 with excerpts
from Schumann's Kinderszenen (Scênes d'Enfant) coupled with
one of Dohnanyi's Rhapsodies performed by Ernst von Dohnanyi.
And there were
popular Remingtons. One of these was the recording of the Selah
Jubilee Quartet on TCR 265. But there was no mention of "The
Dixiaires" who sang four of the eight selections.
Image courtesy
http://www.nugrape.net
Research and
text by Rudolf A. Bruil. Page first published May, 2003
