Dear all,
I'm writing in the hope that someone may help me obtain an old Melodiya recording of Alexander Goedicke (=Aleksandr Gedike)'s Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 30 from 1922. It was released in 1958, with the USSR Radio Symphony Orchestra playing under Boris Khaikin (Melodiya D-04786/87).
All I have seen of it is an old auction web page (https://www.popsike.com/ALEXANDER-GOEDICKE-Symphony-3-RARE-Melodiya-LP/380205749258.html), so it must be exceedingly rare. Any help in getting my hands on the recording (not necessarily the LP itself) is highly appreciated. I've been something of a Goedicke fan ever since hearing his gorgeous Konzertstück for Piano and Orchestra and the Diary of a Dead Soldier, and as far as I can see this is only of his three symphonies ever recorded.
You're in luck - it was uploaded on to the Art Music Forum on 22 December. It's from an LP, though, so against the upload rules of this forum.
Thanks! That is lucky indeed. Nothing beats instant gratification.
Would love to see Goedicke's other symphonies recorded, though...
Can anyone share the link to the download, please?
Don't like such kind of forums obliging members to contribute within a certain deadline. However, Ilja and Alan, will try to see if I can trace this Symphony from one of my Moscow contacts, since I too I am looking for it since quite some time - and had forgotten to search again.
That's very good of you.
Goedicke's Third is now in the Downloads forum. As a Melodiya recording from 1958, it's proper to regard it as orphaned as far as copyright goes, I think.
Yes, I agree. Thanks for the upload.
Oh, infinite thanks, Ilja! A nice week-end gift :-)
Serviceable recording, fascinating music. Perhaps Vasily Petrenko might take it up?
This LP transfer does not ignore some bad scratches in the 2nd and 3rd movement and two very short groove jumps. I have repaired these and also added initial and final fades.
Shall I upload this repaired version until I might get perhaps an LP from Russia? I am so happy to hear this work again after so many years, I like it very much!
Yes, please do upload your version! Any improvements would be most welcome (I too noticed the problems you mention).
Thank you very much, Adriano: I've moved your download link plus commentary to the Downloads board.
We're just going out, so I'll look forward to downloading this later on.
Thanks, Adriano, for your work on this upload. Perhaps you would give us your collected thoughts on this piece? My main reservation would concern its occasional raucous loudness, but this is probably more to do with the playing of the (otherwise very good) USSR Radio SO under Khaikin. It is exciting, though.
Strangely, in its quieter moments I sensed a kinship to Elgar's brand of melancholy. Otherwise, I can hear Tchaikovsky refracted through a later romantic lens - and perhaps Glière, although Goedicke's writing isn't as melodic. I see that he was Medtner's first cousin - that's an interesting connection. Is Myaskovsky also an influence?
Does anyone know if Goedicke's Piano Concerto has survived?
On the orchestra in the recording of Goedicke's 3rd:
Founded: 1930 - Moscow, Russia, as Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra
Re-named: 1993, as Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra
The Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow (= TSOM is a Russian classical music orchestra established in 1930. The Orchestra is internationally recognised as one of Russia's most prestigious and versatile orchestras. Originally founded as the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra (= MRSO), it served as the official symphony for the Soviet All-Union Radio network. During Soviet times, the orchestra was sometimes known as the USSR State Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, the USSR State Radio Symphony Orchestra, or the Symphony Orchestra of All-Union Radio and Television. Following the dissolution of the USSR in 1993, the Orchestra was renamed by the decree of the Russian Ministry of Culture and became Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio. Awarding the Orchestra the name of this great Russian composer was recognition of its role in promoting much of the music written by Tchaikovsky.
https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/MRSO.htm (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/MRSO.htm)
Will come back later on, on Goedicke's Symphony, I need another listening. Such a pity I cannot find yet a score...
The Moscow Radio Symphony was Golovanov's Orchestra from 1937 till 1953.
The sound of this Goedicke LP transfer is overdriven, I could not improve this. Already examining its wave image (with WaveLab software) I counted with a bad surprise of this sort. So let's hope one day I get an LP myself...
Once more we have that typical rather clumsy (butt still clear) USSR balance trademark of that time, which I actually like; it reflects a whole epoch's technical and stylistic features. I still find the Melodiya sound so characteristic and atmospheric. One already feel familiar with it from the first oboe entrance (Prelude to the famous complete "Swan Lake" recording by Yuri Fayer). Before even travelling to Russia (in the 1960s), I had the impression of getting a glimpse of a fascinatingly "exotic" culture waiting for a real exploration. And this all later happened in a way I would have never dreamt of!
Two of the "old guard" of Melodiya's producers and balance engineers (they did quite a few of my earlier Moscow CDs) showed me the various recording venues - including Mosfilm, where we were going to record with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. What in LP times was not always mentioned officially is that a lot of Melodiya recordings were done in the English Church near the Conservatory, it had much better acoustics for operas than the Great Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. I've also been invited to Melodiya's Moscow offices and to see its archives. And I was a regular customer at the famous Melodiya shop at Novy Arbat, which, unfortunately, closed down in the early 1990s. It's incredible all the LPs you still could find there!
Old Melodiya box sets often smelled fishy (or even like uring) from the glue which was used to bind them. But those LPs were often less noisier and were pressings with less static cracklings than many European and most US labels, except that they had occasional bubbles...
The printed scores and parts of all Goedicke's symphonies are in Fleisher. I know they do lend scores to musicians (especially conductors) for assessment in case they are contemplating mounting a performance. Worth enquiring, I would think. Incidentally, they spell his name "Gedike" in their catalogue - took me a few attempts to locate the scores!
Yes, I know that, Gareth Vaughan, but I have litttle hope. I have no chance to record it (even though I would love to)...
In the meantime I consulted my books on Myaskovsky and could find out that in the summer of 1922 he was a guest of musicologist Pavel Lamm at the Tchaikovsky House in Klin, to work on his 6th and 7th Symphonies. Alexander Goedicke (or Gëdike) was there too, working on his 3rd Symphony. The two composers were friends already. Myaskovsky was 4 years older than Gëdike.
It also appears that a Gëdike Symphony (his Third?) and Myaskovsky's Sixth were performed in a hugely successful 1926 concert at the Vienna Musikverein. Interestingly, Myaskovsky's earlier Symphonies were published by Universal Edition, but not Gëdike's, who, in as early as in 1900, had won the Vienna Anton Rubinstein Composition Prize.
(I am not a musicologist, what follows now is not authoritative, since I have not enough time to cross-check everything):
In 1932, the Union of Soviet Composers was formed; its Moscow administrators were Glière (its chairman), Ippolitov-Ivanov, Gëdike, Goldenweiser (composer and pianist, the great Scriabin interpreter) and Myaskovsky (including his former students Shebalin and Shekhter) – and others. They were in charge of reviewing new compositions and responsible for education, planning and creative work, they commissioned operas, ballets, symphonic and chamber music. At this occasion, the National journal Sovetskaya Muzika was also created, and, later in 1939, the All-USSR Composers Union.
In this apparently quite "mighty handful", Gëdike and Ippolitov-Ivanov were considered "old-fashioned" members, since their ideologies opposed modern tendencies. Myaskovsky officially welcomed new ideas and also ahgreed to write music inspired by patriotic/political events, but his style was not modernistic – and, incidentally, rather similar to Gëdike's.
This Union would become questionable during Stalin's 1947-8 "musical purges", involving prominent composers like Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Khachaturian and even Mayskovsky (who was only rehabilitated after this death). Gëdike and Glière, for example, had nothing to fear: their music was neither modernistic, nor anti-proletarian; it was considered "traditional". Gëdike had been an overt opponent of (Russian) Futurism during its short existence after the Revolution. The music of Rachmaninov, Glazunov, Scriabin and Medtner was considered "old-fashioned" also by most members of the All-USSR Union. Like Myaskovsky, Gëdike did not like polemics. He avoided discussions and preferred concentrating on teaching and researching the music of Bach and other classics (he became Russia's most prominent Bach organ interpreter): Although he had an auto-didactic formation as a composer (that's also why I like him so!) - therefore getting just the right opportunities to try out the experimental or a stronger individualistic style, he had voted for classic counterpoint and classic forms – things which (for example, and fortunately) I can say he did not apply systematically in his Third Symphony; which the only work I know at present.
Fascinating. We'll now look forward to your thoughts on the 3rd Symphony itself.
I assume Myaskovsky and Gedike were on reasonable terms since the latter was the dedicatee of one of the former's better-known works (the B minor string sinfonietta.) Hrm... (and as to Medtner, Gedike helped edit his cousin's complete piano works. Interesting.)
I'm a little surprised Scriabin's music was considered old-fashioned, actually. Many people now still find the late sonatas hard to crack, and though all were written before 1915 I wouldn't dream of bringing them up in this forum! (One last thing- there's a letter from Rachmaninoff to Gedike commiserating over the reception of the latter's 2nd symphony around 1908... (letter around 1908, premiere 1907, my bad)).
yes eschiss1, but consider also the fact that the Russians always had often a very strange and partial way of judging things. This (unofficial) list of "old fashioned composers" caused quite a stir, but nobody dared to react officially. Suppose the "system" did not like Rachmaninov, Scriabin and Medtner because they were so successful and could go abroad on extended tours. Medtner had left Russia in 1921 and Rachmaninov already in 1917 (in 1931, on top of everything, he had condemned the Soviet system in an article of the New York Times) and Scriabin was considered demented, drug-addicted or sexually deviant - and his mysticism was considered a heresy. He had died already before the Revolution, so post-mortem it was even more easier to condemn him. In other words, (also) those who were already unliked for other than stylistical reasons, were not judged unpartially. Some Russians considered only Scriabins Chopinesque youth sonats as valuable (!); I have met a couple of Moscow musicians who despise him still today! In any case, Myaskovsky and Gëdike adored the "Poem of Ecstasy" and played it often four-hands (as his Symphonies) - and Goldenweiser promoted Scriabin as much as he could. Gëdike, after Goldenweiser had attacked his fellow composers of being too "modern" (he juged Rachmaninov, Scriabin and Medtner as the only valuable great Russian composers after Tchaikovsky & Co.) reacted by saying that he must have lost his mind.
A propos Myaskovsky; there is an interesting episode in connection with one of Otto Klemeperer's Russian tours in the 1930s: He was invited by Pavel Lamm (who reports this incident) to listen to a piano version of Myaskovsky's 7th Symphony, and could follow it with a score. At the end he expressed his intention to perform it in the West. Then he added that he would like to conduct Mahler in Russia, but Myaskovsky answered that his music was "banal" and had not gained real success, Klemperer answered "yes, but it just has to be banal!"
You've mentioned Goldenweiser a few times. Tell us about him. 1875-1961. Would his music be of interest to this forum? Is any of it recorded, especially orchestral?
I think we'll start a separate thread on Goldenweiser...
http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,7103.0.html (http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,7103.0.html)
btw re the symphony no 3 score, not only RSL but also St Pancras (see here (https://www.worldcat.org/title/simfoniia-no-3-dly-bolshogo-orkestra-ltsoch-30gtpartituraetc/oclc/1061699251&referer=brief_results)) have a copy. Newberry Library in Chicago has the duet reduction pub.1927 and I think also the full score. U Chicago has the fs too I believe.
Thanks, eschiss1. I am already in contact with the Fleischer Collection for a scan - and hope it will work. I am offering them a good deal in exchange :-)
didn't know they had the work too. good!
I happened to find another copy of the symphony (under catalog number 04786), although it is a bit faster than the one already uploaded on this site. The label says CCCP, which I assume is Melodya?
Perhaps someone could help determine which version is the correct speed? I would just like to verify that I can upload it legally, so if I could get a thumbs up from the moderators, pretty please? :D
Thanks,
Justin
@ Zusac
The download I have edited seems to be a half-tone lower.
I have now streched the file electronically. The Symphony's final chord (which I suppose to be in the work's principal key) now sounds in C Minor.
You can download from here, in order to compare it with your recording.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/jkc5n8dfq01mawq/GOEDICKE+-+Symph.+No.+3.zip
Unfortunately the Fleisher Collection refused to let me have a scan of the score - for copyright reasons, of course... And I am still struggling to get it from Russia...
Fleisher also doesn't loan (or I assume scan) to anyone but performing ensembles and institutions,I believe. (Items in their general, not Fleisher or chamber collection as labeled in their online catalog, distribute somewhat more widely.)
Thanks, eschiss1
So you see how it is - also referring to earlier postings concerning the availability of Fritz Brun's scores...
@hadrianus
My recording is still about 20-30 seconds faster, but the tone sounds practically the same. The only difference I can tell now is that mine has virtually no background hiss, and just pops and crackles (especially at the beginning of the second movement).
So, are we talking about different versions of the same recording?
Yes, Alan. And based on Adriano's comments, it looks like the original upload by Ilja is too slow.
I wonder how that this has come about...
This can be easily explained: these "LP-to-audio-file-transfers" were done by two different people with two different equipments. This happens more than often, when private LP transfers are done with amateur equipments. At first there is a turntable playing at a speed which is not always correctly at 33 1/3 rpm - then comes a tape recorder which also has an unexact or irregular speed etc. Today, of course, one can transfer from a turntable directly to a hard disc recorder. In my case, my turntable output is already transmitting a digital signal and not a chinch-like analog one.
In other words, these Goedicke uploads are certainly not Melodiya studio remasterings, but private ones. The proof is that the person who have done were unable to do a professional filtering, eliminating mechanical faults (scratches, crackles etc).
But original Melodiya LPs too were not always perfect during the Mono years. One can find speed fluctuations. We are still far away from today's techniques!
In the past have transferred a lot of 78s and mono LPs - and have also remastered some Toscanini acetates for a Swiss label with historical recordings; not to speak about my important Respighi and Khachaturian 78rpm (and LP) archives - which I have donated to the Bologna Music Museum (At home I have only CDR transfers). I never filtered/altered those recording's original sound, I only "cleaned" them and, in the case of 78's, joined interrupted movements together, due to side breaks. I have also transferred the complete Medtner Society 78s from my collection long before Melodiya had started doing it (5 CDRs). I donated these 78's to the Zurich Central Library. Incidentally, all Russian pianists and musicologists still don't like these Medtner recordings; a typical reaction at an emigrated artist...
Thanks, Adriano. So which version of the Goedicke is the more trustworthy?
I think Zusac's, I am working on it now.
That's very good of you. Thanks.
I've just found this:
https://mp3-muzyka.net/mp3songs/goedicke.html
On this list there is a quite satisfactory - and clean - upload of Goedicke's Third Symphony!
You can download an MP3. It does not always work, so I am going to play and record it on my hard disc.
And then let me check it first.
(It's a "Rufinatscha" upload, so one can never know where he got it from).
Check also all the other Goedicke works on this list!
I can't access it via the link. Their security is blocking me.
I've downloaded it with my recorderand checked it. But I am not satisfied. Comparing the (presumed) final C minor chord with the chord of this version, it's in a lower speed too. And the overall filtering is too extreme; everything sounds too muddy. I prefer continue working on Zusac's download, which sounds very present. But I await from him the original download version of the second movement - which he had already tried to filter - but it sounds too different from the rest. I prefer working on an homogenous file.
Who know, perhaps the old CCCP LP was already mastered a half tone lower...
http://www.mediafire.com/file/l7x4pz94v8h4ghj/GOEDICKE+-+Symph.+No.3+-+New+transfer+%28Adriano%29.zip
This is now "my" new transfer version of this old Melodiya recording. Please note that in oder not to destroy all frequencies I still have left over some "tape noise". At the movement's beginnings and at ends there are fade-ins/outs - contrarily to my principles that in-bretween movements the ground noise should continue going on - if it is an old recording. The disurbancies at the beginning of the 2nd movement could be eliminated by hand only, not by a filter. I did not alter the overall pitch. The final chord is in C minor - even though not totally 100%. This must have been an original Melodiya feature, so let's respect it :-)
I hope you can fully enjoy this splendid work and splendid performance now!
Thanks, Adriano. I have also posted these details in the Downloads Board.
Thanks, Adriano. I also have a recording of this symphony – even in wav format – which I got from another collector many years ago. I haven't checked whether it might be identical with any of the recordings discussed here. Just one small annotation: the final chord is in C Major, in fact.
Thanks, Holger :-)
My working format on this file is also .wav. I transferred the received MP3 to .wav - and then back again to MP3 for UC users after my editing. My audio archive is all .wav of FLAC.
Would be nice to have all 3 of his symphonies (the earlier F minor and A major published in the first two decades of the 20th century, and this one published in 1925) together with more of his orchestral works recorded, I hope Toccata Classics might take an interest...
Toccata Clsssics (an excellent label) also need full sponsorship for a recording. You have to pay for everything. At present, they are issuing music by some Swiss composers like Sutermeister and Jaques-Dalcroze.
Martin Anderson, Toccata's producer, seems having changed his mind about Swiss composers, since at the time Fritz Brun's 9th Symphony was released, he wrote a review in "Fanfare" with following generalizing - and xenophobic - sentence:
A conductor friend of mine, looking through the scores of several Brun symphonies, reported that they were "typically Swiss – all sex and no orgasm," and I have yet to find the Brun work to prove him wrong.
In the case his "conductor friend" really had consulted Brun's manuscript scores (and not only his three Symphonies, which were printed) - he did not do a serious job!
That is a ridiculous statement, I agree. Whatever one might think of Brun's music, it's beyond stupid to label a whole nation's music in that manner.
In the "American Music Guide", David Hurwitz once wrote that Brun's music is "for penitential souls only" and that my project was "a lost cause" :-)
But back to Goedicke's Third. What a wonderful, tense and passionate work!
In a way, it is still in the harmonic world of Rachmaninov and Myaksovsky. I already wrote in here about Goedicke's connection with Myaskovsky.
I hope they will photocopy the score in Moscow for me...
Some critics, as we know, are beyond stupid in their arrogant pronouncements.