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Renaissance
X35 with Cantatas Nos. 51 and 189.
The
Renaissance label.
Hans
Grischkat in the 1970s. Image taken from a record cover of one of his
Bach cantata recordings.
Hans
Grischkat conducts Magnificat (J.S. Bach) on the German OPERA label,
Reference 3251.
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When the LP
was in its infancy a lot of pioneers tried their luck. Many label
names came into existence but not all survived the mono era to make
the transition to the stereo format. Many ceased to exist or their
catalogs were sold to other record companies. In the record business
there was a lot of wheeling and dealing going on, not necessarily
in the pejorative sense.
Renaissance was
a label of Period Music Co., which held office at 884, 10th Avenue,
New York 19. Renaissance specialized in recordings of old music like
other labels did: Bach Guild (sub label of Vanguard Recording Society),
Bach Society, Handel Society (sub label of Concert Hall Society),
Haydn Society, and later Baroque Records.
Period was the main label of Period Music Co. and had conductor René
Leibowitz, cellist Janos Starker, Inez Matthews singing Songs (Lieder)
by Schubert and Beethoven, and later pianist Istvan Nadas made his
debut on Period playing stylish Beethoven Sonatas, and there was Jazz
Man Charlie Shavers.
In June 1952
the advertisement of Period in Schwann Long Playing Record Catalog
lists the Renaissance LP recordings of Bach works: Cantata No. 201
(Phoebe and Pan), No. 205 (Der zufriedengestellte Aelus - Aeolus appeased),
Missa Brevis No. 1 (S 233), Sanctus No. 1 (S 237), Missa Brevis No.
II (S 234), and Sanctus No. 2 (S 238). The discs have references X
42, X 43,X 44, and X 45 respectively. These choral works are all performed
by Soloists, the Swabian Choral Singers, The Tonstudio Orchestra,
Stuttgart, Hans Grischkat conducting.
That same advertisement announces the release of a 3-12" LP set
of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte on Period SPL 555. That is the recording
with Erna Hassler (soprano), Hetty Plümacher (contralto), Käthe
Nentwig (soprano), Albert Weikenmeier (tenor) , Karl Hoppe (baritone)
and Joseph Dunnwald conducting the Stuttgart Tonstudio Orchestra.
See 
Cosi fan tutte.
"S" is the practical indication used in the US for the numbering
of works by J.S. Bach devised by Wolfgang Schmieder, indicated
in Europe as "BWV" (Bach Werke Verzeichnis). Wolfgang Schmieder
(1901-1999) was a German musicologist who, after he had graduated
became archivist at Breitkopf & Härtel Publishers in 1927.
In 1942 he took the post of "Bibliothekrat" of the city
of Frankfurt a.d. Main. The "Bach Werke Verzeichnis" (BWV)
was published in the Bach year 1950, the 200th Anniversary of Bach's
death.
In May 1952 the
4-12" LP set of Bach's Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248/S248)
performed under conductor Hans Grischkat is listed for the first time
in Schwann Long Playing Record Catalog as Renaissance X 201. The recording
was probably made in 1951 or even earlier. The price for this edition
was $23.80 plus libretto. Quite expensive for a specialist's recording
and most certainly not a bestseller. In November of that year it was
announced that Don Gabor had bought the Christmas Oratorio recording
with Grischkat from the Period people and he was going to offer the
4 LP set on Remington for only $5.95 plus $ 1 for the libretto. The
deal meant that Remington Records obtained the original Renaissance
plates as well and from these plates the records were pressed, be
it on the special vinyl mix Don Gabor had devised to keep the cost
of records low.
The oratorio
(consisting of six cantatas) and the performance by a renown interpreter
of Bach's music, was obviously a nice addition to the Remington catalog.
Collectors who would buy cantatas issued on the Renaissance label
or whatever other label that carried Bach's choral music, could now
acquire the inexpensive, complete Christmas oratorio from Remington,
or they could buy the newly released, expensive recording by Vladimir
Grossman on Vox, which was officially listed in the January 1953 Schwann
catalog. So Remington presented itself again as the budget label with
"Music for the Millions" and ranked itself at the same time
in the same league, more or less, as these more expensive labels.
That was a clever idea.
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Marta
Schilling (soprano), Ruth Michaelis (contralto), Werner Hohmann
(baritone), Bruno Mueller (bass), The Stuttgart Choral Society,
the Swabian (Suebian) Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hans Grischkat.
Cover by Curt John Witt.
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The
dead wax shows the Period plate numbers.
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The liner notes on the inside of the front of the box say:
Hans Grischkat, the Conductor, has assumed as his life
work the study and performance of the church cantatas and other
choral works of Bach. Conductor of the Suebian Symphony and the
various "Singkreise" in Reutlingen and Stuttgart, he
is also Professor of Choral Conducting at the State Conservatory
of Music, Stuttgart.
The Stuttgart
Choral Society is a handpicked group of the best singers
from the local "Singkreise" or singing circles. Attendance
at weekly rehearsals, and at the community sing symposium, which
is conducted for two weeks every summer, is mandatory. The highest
standards of admission requirements and stringent regulations
concerning attendaanjce at rehearsals make it possible to acquire
the precision demanded by baroque music.
The Suebian
Symphony Orchestra, Oboe Choir (two oboi da caccia, two
oboi d'amore), two corni da caccia, bassoon, violone continuo
three D-trumpets.
Ruth
Michaelis, Contralto is a resident of Munich and member
of the Bavarian State Opera. She has appeared on every German
operatic stage, in roles ranging from Monteverdi to Richard
Strauss. She has appeared at the Salzburg Festivals and has
sung all of the alto cantatas of Bach in concert.
Marta
Schilling, Soprano has appeared as soloist in oratorio performances
under the world-famous conductor Hermann Abendroth, as well
as at the Stuttgart, Cologne and Leipzig Gewandhaus Bach Festivals.
Werner
Hohmann, Tenor has concertised in Germany and France. He
specialized in the study and the performance of various Evangelist
Tenor roles in the Bach Passions and Oratorios.
Bruno
Müller, Bass was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has
appeared in oratorio festivals in Stuttgart, Brussels, Cologne,
Frankfurt, Oslo, Basel, Berlin, Leipzig and Paris.
Instrumental
Soloists: Andrea Steffen-Wendling, Violin Solo; Adolf Kassa,
Trumpet Solo; Hans Sperling and Fritz Pfeifer, oboe; Eva Hölderlin,
organ continuo.
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Music editor Alec Robertson reviewed the performance on the Nixa
discs in The Gramophone of August 1952. The following paragraphs are
taken from that review.
The performance, as a whole, shows every evidence of loving
preparation and care and it is only occasionally that it seems
to fall short. Thus, there is a sense of haste in the cradle-song
that robs it of its tenderness; but in the beautiful quiet singing
of "Keep, 0 my spirit" in Part III, Ruth Michaelis
shows what she might have done with the earlier aria, and the
orchestra here at once establishes the proper atmosphere. Schweitzer's
great authority can be quoted for the heavily stressed playing
of the "angelic" opening theme in the Pastoral Symphony,
and this is usually done; but the effect is much more, it seems
to me, in accordance with Bach's intentions if the lovely melody
is allowed to float along, except where it is required to break
out joyfully. (...)
All the
singers phrase most artistically and Werner Hohmann, the narrator
and singer of the tenor arias, has remarkable breath control.
Bruno Muller, the bass, is admirable in his duets with the sopranos
but in his first aria in Part I (No. 8) he breaks out into a
rush of aspirates that only an Italian tenor would envy.
The one thing in the excellent orchestral playing, and sometimes
in the equally excellent choral singing, that I feel inclined
to criticise is too much use of staccato, so that the music
falls into a metronomic jog-trot rhythm that can be a danger
in Bach. (...)
The recording,
by and large, is good (though not free of pitch waver in some
places), and we certainly hear most clearly the carefully worked
out and most interesting schemes of Bach's orchestration.
- Alec Robertson
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Long before the eminent Gustav Leonhardt and the daring Nikolaus
Harnoncourt started dusting off the scores of Johann Sebastian Bach
and brought us a pure and sober and also original setting for the
performances of the many compositions of Bach, it was Hans Grischkat
who dedicated himself to the noble practice of performing the Choral
Works as original as can possibly be. Already in the 1920s - when
he was in his twenties himself - Grischkat made name by performing
Bach Cantatas in a style far from the dramatic and romantic approach
of so many a conductor in those days. After World War Two Grischkat
became the prominent researcher and knowledgeable interpreter of many
of Bach's works.
While most European musicologists and record collectors were hardly
aware of the significance of Grischkat's practice (except for those
who bought an incidental release on the Opera label), many performances
appeared already in the US on American record labels like Renaissance,
Remington oddly enough, Period, and later on Vox, from the early nineteen
fifties on. But he soon received tough competition from Hermann Scherchen,
Ferdinand Grossmann, and Felix Prohaska. Grischkat conducted many
a performance in the Stiftskirche in Stuttgart and for his recording
of the B minor Mass (H-Moll Messe) he received the "Grand prix
du disque" in 1960. This was a later recording issued on the
VOX label *), again with the "Schwäbische Singkreis",
and now with the Orchestra of the 35th German Bach Festival. That
was not all. He continued to make recordings and he continued his
research and studied extensively the Cantatas and prepared the publication
of the scores for professionals, and he even took care of the publications
in the pocket book format accessible to the layman as well. His performances
have nothing of the dry, ascetic practice one sometimes encounters
in the modern performances of a few conductors of today. That is why
many critics noted and appreciated the precise, yet very lively performances
led by Hans Grischkat.
*) with Friederike
Sailer (soprano), Margaret Bence (contralto), Fritz Wunderlich (tenor),
Erich Wenk (bass), Swabian Chorale and Orchestra of the 35th German
Bach Festival conducted by Hans Grischkat. Vox Mono VBX7, Stereo STPL511283
and SVBX 57.
Hans Grischkat whose full name was Hans Adolf Karl Willy Grischkat,
was born on August 29, 1903, in Hamburg, Germany. He died in Suttgart,
the town he lived his prosperous life in, on January 10, 1977.
Text and research, Rudolf A. Bruil. Page first published on July
20, 2011.
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