In 1950 producer
Marcel Prawy asked Viennese conductor Bernard Paumgartner to make
recordings for Remington and as a bait Prawy mentions the contract
he has for making recordings with the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg
which was eventually conducted by Joseph Messner. However, Prawy did
not mention the name of Zoltan Fekete, the Hungarian conductor who
conducted the Mozarteum on several occasions, but whose biography
remains an obscurity. Zoltán Fekete was not a specific Remington
artist in the sense that Kurt Wöss, H. Arthur Brown, Joseph Messner,
or later Thor Johnson was.
Information about
Zoltán Fekete is very scarce, in fact it is practically
nonexistent. Encyclopedias do not mention the man. Grove's does not
have an entry on Fekete. And liner notes on the LP releases often
merely mention his name and only in two cases one or two facts which
may allude to an existing biography. On the Remington cover of Bruckner's
Symphony No. 3 on R-199-138 there are just a few lines which
indicate that Zoltán Fekete came to the US, apparently just
before World War II, and that he must have obtained American citizenship:
"(This) American-Hungarian conductor first penetrated the
musical consciousness of New York through a series of concerts
with the Midtown and New York City orchestras."
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After the war
he returned to Vienna as Wanda C. Von Rudolph writes on the back of
the cover of Colosseum CLPS 1012 with Suites of music
by Georg Friedrich Handel arranged and conducted by Zoltán
Fekete:
Zoltán Fekete to whom we are indebted for the suites
presented here, conducted this performance with the Vienna State
Symphony Orchestra. A Hungarian by birth his musical education
includes study in the Budapest Academy of Music and in Vienna.
Mr. Fekete has devoted a great deal of research to the final
period of Handel's creations. In his arrangements he has kept
faithfully to the original melodies and harmonies, transposing
them into forms which are easily understandable today. Mr. Fekete
is also a composer, one of his compositions on another Colosseum
record is his "Caucasus Ballet Suite" (CLPS 1011).
Other numbers conducted by him are : "Snow White Ballet
Suite" (CLPS 1011), and the "Grand Duo Opus 140"
arranged by Fritz Oeser as the "Gastein Symphony"
(CLPS 1013) also Bartok's early work (1905) - First Orchestra
Suite, opus 3 (CLPS 1010).
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Zoltán Fekete is arranger of Mozart's Fantasy, of Suites
by Handel, he conducted works by Bartók, Bruckner, Mahler
and Tchaikovsky, and is the composer of Caucasus Ballet Suite
and Snow White Ballet Suite.
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Zoltán Fekete was born on July 25th, 1909, in Budapest,
Hungary. He studied with Zoltán Kodály and Béla
Bartók in Budapest and later in Vienna. The recordings
of Zoltán Fekete are not many. They have been released in various
countries on different record labels. Reviewers were not always appreciative
of his conducting. I suspect that the poor technique of most recordings
led to this opining. Some of Fekete's performances show that he certainly
had the needed authority to lead an orchestra in an inspiring way.
He surely did not have the wish to build a career solely as a conductor
forcing him to lead performances of an extensive repertory with many
different styles. He was the man who preferred to appear from time
to time in front of an orchestra, would arrange works from others
and would compose orchestral scores of his own. How many works he
wrote in total is not known. Also the exact date he passed away is
not found. But Teri Noel Towe told me that Fekete died in the late
1970s. He was living in Munich. His wife was Alma Hoehn, the
legendary dealer in collectable 78 rpm shellac records and LPs. She
died around 1988.
Zoltán
Fekete's Remington recordings:
R-149-2
- Elisabeth Wysor in Contralto Arias: Mozart, Meyerbeer, Verdi,
Wagner - The Vienna Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Zoltán
Fekete. It was originally released by Don Gabor on Continental CLP
1002 in 1950 (Songs of the Great Masters). It also became available
on Halo 50312 in 1957.
R-149-25
- Mozart: Music To "Thamos, Koenig in Aegypten",
Austrian Symphony Orchestra conducted by Zoltán Fekete, coupled
with Finlandia (Sibelius) conducted by Kurt Wöss.
R-199-2
- Mozart: Fantasia in F Minor KV 608 (arr. Fekete) - The Vienna
Symphony Orchestra conducted by Zoltán Fekete, coupled with
Symphony No. 1 (Schubert) conducted by Kurt Wöss.
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Click here
for a Sound Clip of a fragment from Tchaikovsky's Tempest.
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R-199-55
- Tchaikovsky: Tempest (Symphonic Fantasia, Op. 18, The Storm)
- Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Zoltán Fekete, coupled
with Le coq d'or (Rimsky-Korsakov) conducted by George
Singer.
R-199-55 was first released in the winter of 1951/1952. The recording
was also released by Gabor on the Etude label (ref. 706; again
coupled with Le coq d'or).
In April of 1955 the recording of The Tempest was issued in Great
Britain on Concert Artist LPA 1022, but here coupled with Fekete's
own composition 'Caucasus Ballet Suite'. Although a Concert Artist
release, reviewer R.F. exactly described the Remington-like sound
character and the quality of the performance of this recording in
the April 1955 issue of then 'The' Gramophone (see the excellent
Archive
of Gramophone):
The performance is reasonably good, though lacking in precision
of attack, but the balance of the instruments is not satisfactory.
There is no mellowness about the string tone—and after
all they are Viennese violins and cannot really sound like this.
The microphone, presumably too close, is picking up too much
from too few desks, and the result is edgy tone with some distortion
on climaxes.
On the other side there is a piece by the conductor who is not
known by Grove or any other book of reference that I can find.
Readers will notice that he has been doing a lot of recording
in Vienna lately. According to the sleeve he is a Hungarian
who has lived in America since just before the war. Had I not
been told, I would have guessed that his Caucasus was the work
of a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov writing in the 1890's. It seems
to me to be quite without merit.
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You may disagree somewhat - as I do - with the reviewer's qualification
of the performance as being "reasonably good". It suffice
to listen to the - indeed badly recorded - but exhilarating performance
on the Remington disc. The harsh string tone can certainly be corrected
somewhat. But it is clear that Fekete is in full command of the orchestra
and the players show that they really can cope with the virtuoso passages
of the storm building up and raging. Noteworthy is the brass section
of the Orchestra of the Viennese Symphonic Society. It is not a polished
recording, that's for sure, yet Fekete's is a strong and captivating
performance and reminds one of the suspense generated by the sound
track of an old 1950's B-movie, indicating the important influence
of European, Eastern European and Russian artists, musicians and composers
in Hollywood at the time.
R-199-138
- Bruckner: Symphony no. 3 (1889 ver., pub. Rättig 1890)
- Zoltán Fekete, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra (1950).
From 1950 on this
recording had been available on
Concert
Hall Society CHS 1065. In the beginning of 1954 Concert Hall
CHS 1065 was no longer available and had been deleted from the Schwann
Long Playing Record Catalog. The reason was that Concert Hall had
now recorded a Bruckner Third with Walter Goehr conducting
The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra which was released on
Concert Hall CHS 1195 and was well received by the critics.
In High Fidelity Magazine of April 1954, critic Paul Affelder wrote:
"Walter Goehr conducts a compact, intense performance that is
played in fine fashion by the Netherlands Philharmonic." From
then on the original recording of Fekete's performance from 1950 became
available on Remington R-199-138. It is definitely not a Remington
MUSIRAMA recording as is suggested by cover and label. In Great Britain
the Fekete recording was released on Concert Artist LPA 1018.
Many years later it also appeared on Qualiton (Hungaroton) LP HLPX
1047.
A curiosity is
Concerteum CR 326 on which Zoltán Fekete conducts "Orchestral
Suite" (Suite d'orchestre, Op. 3) by Béla Bartók.
Although the Bartok Suite recording appeared on Concerteum with the
specific Remington prefix CR, the Suite never appeared on Remington
but was released on Colosseum CLPS 1010 in the US. A
release on Remington was maybe planned but did not go through. It
could well be that the plates were cut in the
Webster pressing plant or at
least by the same engineer who cut the lacquers of other Remingtons.
See:
Remington releases on the Concerteum
label.
Zoltán
Fekete on other labels:
Zoltán
Fekete: "Caucasus Ballet Suite" Colosseum CLPS 1011.
(April 1955)
Zoltán
Fekete: "Snow White Ballet Suite" Colosseum CLPS 1011.
Hector Berlioz:
Le corsair, Prague Symphony Orchestra - Supraphon SUG 20371
Hector Berlioz:
Le Corsaire, Benvenuto Cellini.
Vincent d'Indy: La mort de Wallenstein, Istar.
Prague Symphony Orchestra - Supraphon SUA ST 50735. Issued as a Crossroad
release in the USA. Prague Symphony Orchestra conducted by Zoltan
Fekete.
Franz Schubert:
Gastein Symphony (orchestration by Fritz Oeser of Schubert's Grand
Duo Opus 140, now known as Symphony No. 9 (The Great) D 944. Colosseum
CLPS 1013.
Béla
Bartok: Suite for Orchestras No. 1, opus 3 - Colosseum CLPS 1010.
In France on Concerteum CR 326. (1955)
Gustav Mahler:
- Das Klagende Lied.
Ilona Steingruber (Soprano), Sieglinde Wagner (Contralto) and Ernst
Majkut (Tenor). Vienna State Opera Orchestra, conductor Zoltan Fekete.
Mercury 10102.
In Great Britain this recording was not released as a Mercury but
was issued on the Concert Artist label in April 1955.
Georg Friederich Handel: Jephta Suite No. I , arranged by
Zoltan Fekete. Joseph Haydn: Symphony in C (arranged by Fekete).
Salzburg Mozarteurn Orchestra conducted by Zoltan Fekete. Mercury
10066.
Timothy Mather
Spelman: The Vigil of Venus. Ilona Steingrunber (Soprano), Otto
Wiener (Baritone), Vienna Academy Choir conducted by Ferdinand Grossman,
The Vienna State Opera Orchestra conducted by Zoltan Fekete. MGM E3085.
(1955).
Georg Friedrick
Handel: Alceste Suite and Festival Suite (arranged by Zoltan Fekete).
Vienna State Opera Orchestra conducted by Zoltan Fekete. Colosseum
CLPS 1012.
Joseph Haydn: Symphonies 86, 88. Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra
conducted by Zoltan Fekete. Mercury MG 10071
Georg Frederick
Handel: The Triumph of Truth arranged by Zoltan Fekete. The Orchestral
Society of Vienna conducted by Zoltan Fekete. Lyrichord LL 25.
Jules Massenet:
Werther, excerpts. Geori Boué (Soprano), Barnay Marti (Tenor).
Orchestra conducted by Zoltan Fekete. Orphée 51082 E (France).
Later issued on Vogue LDM 30130.
Rudolf A. Bruil.
Page first published on March 29, 2009
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