First Hand Records -Catalogue: LMP

LONDON MOZART PLAYERS HARRY BLECH (booklet note)
Nowadays chamber orchestras are a very familiar presence in concert halls everywhere, but sixty years ago this was by no means the case. In England, apart from one or two smaller groups such as that founded in the 1930s by Boyd Neel, most of the orchestras regularly to be heard were of full symphonic size, and they were busily re-establishing themselves in the aftermath of the war years. In order to attract audiences they were heavily dependent on the mainstream symphonic repertoire, and few people at that time would have entertained seriously the idea that a chamber orchestra specialising in 18th century music could have much of a future.

Into this arena in 1949 stepped the London Mozart Players and their founder, Harry Blech (1910-99), formerly a violinist in the BBC Symphony Orchestra at its formation in 1930 and later leader of his own string quartet. He had taken up conducting as a result of being invited by Dame Myra Hess to conduct Mozart's Serenade, K361 at one of her famous wartime National Gallery concerts. Inspired by Dame Myra's praise It would have touched Mozart's heart, she told Blech he founded the London Wind Players, which began to give concerts and broadcasts for the BBC. I was encouraged to go with wind music because nobody else was specialising in that repertoire at that time, Blech said. Some years later, after hearing him conduct a Mozart symphony, the pianist Dorothea Braus proposed their collaboration in an all Mozart programme at which she would play concertos. To the London Wind Players were added the necessary strings, and the London Mozart Players were born. To Blechs surprise, the new ensembles first appearance at London's Wigmore Hall on 11 February 1949 sold out. ?I have never quite understood why, he once said in a radio broadcast. Whether it was because I was fairly well known as a quartet player and people wondered whether I could hold a baton as well as I could a bow, or whether they simply wanted to hear some Mozart rather than Tchaikovsky or Beethoven I really don't know. But it went on like that and we had to move to larger accommodation, and give the concerts twice.

In 1951 came an invitation to appear during the inaugural week of Londons Royal Festival Hall, and the LMP moved there permanently; their annual series of concerts under the auspices of their own Haydn-Mozart Society ran for 25 years and attracted a huge following, prompting The Times to enquire: What is Harry Blechs secret that, no matter how often he assembles his Mozart Players to play 18th century music in the Festival Hall, there are more people in the audience than seats for them to sit on. They were equally popular at the Proms and at festivals such as Edinburgh and Cheltenham, and with more broadcasts began to be invited abroad: first port of call was the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Soloists who appeared with them during those early years included Clara Haskil, Isaac Stern, Robert Casadesus and Paul Tortelier, as well as some young artists on the threshold of their careers such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim and Murray Perahia.

From the start the LMP was an ensemble of carefully selected players, and many of the leading instrumentalists of the day were associated with it. Max Salpeter was its first leader, succeeded by Eli Goren and Robert Masters, while Richard Adeney, Sidney Sutcliffe, Thea King and Archie Camden were among those who occupied the principal woodwind positions at various times. David Mason was among the earliest of the first trumpets. Among horn players Dennis Brain, Barry Tuckwell and Ifor James were all associated with the LMP at one time or another, and Brain was always a popular soloist: at only their second concert he played Mozart?s Horn Concerto No. 2, K417. With such players the LMP and Blech were soon invited to record, initially for the Decca Company which had recorded the London Wind Players in the 78 era: for Decca they successfully coupled Mozart?s Divertimento No. 2 in D major, K131 with Haydn?s Symphony No. 49, La Passione. But their main series began in 1952 for EMI. During the next five years, nine Mozart symphonies and his Coronation Mass, three Haydn and four Schubert symphonies were all recorded, together with miscellaneous pieces.

Soloists who appeared with them on disc included Irmgard Seefried, Vitya Vronsky and Victor Babin, Richard Adeney and Osian Ellis (in Mozart's Concerto for Flute and Harp, K299 on the Classics Club label), Archie Camden, Norbert Brainin and Peter Schidlof, and Denis Matthews. The best of their records provided outstanding examples of a small, stylish chamber orchestra: most were made in Studio No. 1 at Abbey Road, London, at that time in daily use by the
greatest artists from all over the world. Harry Blech used to delight in telling how Herbert von Karajan, arriving there for a session of his own with the Philharmonia Orchestra, was sufficiently intrigued at the thought of a British ensemble specialising in Mozart to come into the studio to listen (though when he was told the Players name he raised an eyebrow, before remarking drolly: When I return home I must start the Salzburg Shakespeare Players ...).

The euphonious and well-balanced sound that the LMP produced, based on a string strength of eight first and six second violins, four violas, four cellos and two double basses, had a distinctive quality that record enthusiasts as well as audiences quickly came to recognise and appreciate. From the start Blech had the second violins
positioned on his right, facing the first violins, in order to give point to the many antiphonal phrases in the music; he had learnt the value of this layout in his days in the BBC Orchestra under Adrian Boult. I always had this feeling that if you had a good second violin section playing opposite the first fiddles it added a particular dimension to the whole sound. I know it is more convenient to have the
firsts and seconds together, but if the seconds come out with something and it is well done it can add a great fillip. I remember Adrian Boult coming to a concert of ours and writing to me afterwards, I think the whole secret of your success is that you have the second violins on your right!.

Harry Blech retired as music director of the London Mozart Players in 1984 after a 35 year unbroken association. By then he had conducted well over 300 concerts in the Royal Festival Hall alone and taken the LMP on five tours of Italy, four of Germany and on visits to several of the Scandinavian countries, East Germany and Switzerland among others. Already, by the time of their 25th anniversary in 1974, they could claim appearances in more than 200 cities in the UK and overseas. In later years they repeated some of their repertoire for other labels, but never returned to the EMI fold, which makes the release of these stereo tapes from the 1950s especially valuable in enabling listeners to recall in improved quality the sound of one of the UK?s outstanding pioneering chamber orchestras.

The London Mozart Players Recordings
All the London Mozart Players recordings were made on tape and the very earliest Mozart's overture Lucio Silla, K135 and Haydn's overture to Armida recorded in 1952, as well as the two Mozart concert arias (Chi sà, chi sà, qual sia, K582 and Vado, ma dove?, K583) sung by Irmgard Seefried in September 1953 were issued in 78rpm format. Between 1953 and the period of the stereophonic recordings of 1956-57 featured in the present album, the Orchestra was a regular visitor to EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London. Mozart's Symphonies Nos. 31-36 and 40, Haydn's Nos. 86, 103 and 104, and Schubert's Symphonies Nos. 3-6 were all encompassed in mono sound within this period, together with two Mozart piano concertos (K453 and K503) played by Denis Matthews, the Sinfonia Concertante, K364 with Norbert Brainin and Peter Schidlof of the Amadeus Quartet, and the Bassoon Concerto, K191 which the LMP?s revered bassoonist Archie Camden coupled with a Stamitz concerto. A single venture into choral music produced Mozart's Coronation Mass, K317 and Haydn's Salve Regina; some sets of dances by Mozart (K568) and Schubert (D89 and D90) completed the
repertoire issued on monaural discs.

EMI began recording in stereo in 1955 but, as First Hand Records points out in the issue note, the changeover from mono was neither instantaneous nor smooth. It became the practice to issue the mono version of a new recording first, with the stereo following after an interval. In the London Mozart Players case, virtually all the repertoire taken down in the two years 1956-57 was recorded in both mono and stereo and published in monaural sound, but with the Orchestra's contract coming to an end in 1957 there was evidently no appetite for republishing them additionally on stereo LP. This was a pity, as the stereo tapes conveyed an enhanced view of Harry Blech and the London Mozart Players, more in keeping with the overall sound with which their faithful audience was familiar. This was demonstrated later when EMI selected Mozart's Symphony No. 28, K200 and the Symphony in D by Arriaga for stereo issue.

In fact, these two symphonies were the first to be recorded in stereo: the little symphony by the 19-year-old Spaniard Arriaga was outside the LMP's regular repertoire, but Blech had pioneered it on the radio and the critics had been calling for a recording. At the session the following day came Mozart's Symphony No. 28, a favourite work which had actually launched the Players? début concert in 1949 and to which they always brought tremendous élan. But it was the next two recordings, of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony and his Posthorn Serenade, that displayed Blech and his players at their best: judicious tempi, quite excitingly driven in the symphony's great finale, careful balancing everywhere and a good sense of style. In the Serenade the outer movements are fresh and alert, the minuets nicely robust and in the all-important woodwind parts the playing is everywhere delightful; the fourth movement with its relaxed open-air feeling is especially memorable. The seventh and last movement, however, has not survived in stereo and is here presented in mono.

Two more substantial works were the concertos for two pianos, (K365 and K242, the latter in Mozart's own version which reduces the original three solo parts to two). The celebrated Russo-American duo Vronsky and Babin play capitally though, rather to one's surprise, there is patently little attempt by the recording engineers managing the stereo equipment to demonstrate aurally any separation of the two pianos. The Four Minuets, K601 and Three German Dances, K605 complete the stereo repertoire recorded, chiefly notable for the inclusion in the instrumentation of a hurdy-gurdy in the second of the Minuets, K601 and a posthorn in K605, No. 3: both instruments were illustrated on the original LP record sleeve (reproduced on page 5).

Several of the London Mozart Players symphony recordings made only in monaural sound followed the pattern of pairing Haydn with Mozart. Haydn's Drum Roll (originally coupled with Mozart's Symphony No. 33 in B flat, K319) was one. It was well received, reviewers commenting on the neat, well-balanced playing, natural-sounding tempi, and firm and shapely phrasing. Two other points are worth mentioning: firstly, it is interesting to hear Harry Blech's approach to the drum roll that opens the work, which offered an alternative to the familiar crescendo-diminuendo suggested in most scores; secondly, that he employed the score that includes parts for clarinets in the Minuet and Trio as well as in the symphony's outer movements; at the opening of the Trio their unison with the first violins is unmistakable.

© 2009 Lyndon Jenkins

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