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- THE WORLD’S MOST RECORDED ORCHESTRA
- THE FORMAT FOR ENTRIES
Definition: Scope, Sources, etc., is at >DD Introduction: Historical Survey is at >DI Explanation: the format for entries is at >DE Chronological entries begin at >DC >DD THE SCOPE OF THE DISCOGRAPHY All recordings, both audio and video, legitimately using the London Symphony Orchestra’s name, including those made by chamber ensembles drawn from the orchestra, are listed. So too are recordings arranged by the LSO’s management, but issued anonymously or under pseudonyms for marketing or contractual reasons. Some sessions played by orchestras composed largely of LSO players, but not booked through official channels, appear in an appendix (at >A), as do those recordings made by the London Symphony Chorus without the orchestra (at >C). Over the years London has had a number of orchestras with somewhat similar names (Sinfonia of London, New Symphony Orchestra of London, London Sinfonietta, London Schools Symphony Orchestra and even just plain London Orchestra) so innocent misattributions are not uncommon. Some of the less scrupulous labels reissuing out-of-copyright recordings on CD do not appear to have registered the fact that the London Symphony and London Philharmonic Orchestras are two quite separate organizations, and have therefore attributed practically all pre-war London recordings to the LSO. Such mistakes are far too numerous to list, but there seem to have been few deliberate attempts to defraud the public by taking the orchestra’s name in vain. Releases by Apollo Classics in 1991-92, attributed to conductors “George Richter” or “Alberto Rizzio”, should be regarded with some suspicion. All entries either were intended for publication, or have actually been published. So issued recordings from commercial sessions are supplemented by recordings as yet unpublished, and by live performances not originally intended for issue that have now reached the public, whether through authorized or pirated discs. Recordings made for the cinema are included if published as soundtrack albums or, failing that, as home videos. [Note that owing to the difficulty of dating film sessions precisely, most pre-1968 films are relegated to an appendix, at >AC]. The number of unpublished live recordings held in radio station and other archives is probably exceeded by the number of illegal off-air recordings in private hands. To list all of them would be impossible; additional entries will be inserted as and when they become available. In the interim many can be heard by appointment in London, at the British Library Sound Archive, the Music Preserved Studio in the Barbican Library, or the Jerwood Library, Trinity College of Music. SOURCES So far as possible, this discography is based on the primary sources in the LSO’s office files. There sessions first appear as a forthcoming engagement in the diary. Next they are listed in the monthly schedules distributed to the players then, after the event, they are reported in the attendance sheets. In all of this, the principal concern is to ensure that the booked players are present in the studio at the proper time and that they receive the correct fees. Who is paying, rather than who is conducting, is the focus of the office’s attention. So it is relatively simple to establish who played second oboe at Abbey Road one morning in 1974 and whether the session ran into overtime. Determining what music they played can be more problematic. Classical repertoire (now known as Listed Sessions) is usually specified in the sources, as the orchestra’s librarian may be called upon to provide parts, but what used to be called Light music (now General Sessions) is quite another matter. The London orchestras have been called musical whores, prepared to record anything if the money is right. Certainly financial necessity obliges them to ply for hire – so taxi driver would be a kinder analogy – and regular clients such as Nat Peck, Paul Whitehead, José Calvario and Katsuhisa Hattori seldom disclosed much detail of either artists or repertoire when booking light music sessions. In particular the files rarely reveal who was to be backed by the orchestra’s backing tracks, so locating the end product has required some detective work. The earliest extant diary is that for 1973; attendance sheets have been preserved from 1967 and schedules from 1964. Thanks to a handful of players who kept diaries, some information has been recovered for the 1950s. But for the first half of the orchestra’s century of existence virtually nothing relating to recordings survives among the archives, apart from an occasional oblique reference in the minutes. Fortunately for most of that time the orchestra recorded only for labels in the E.M.I. group, and for Decca, whose archives, specifically the matrix cards detailing 78rpm sides, provide a generally satisfactory alternative. The advent of independent American labels, beginning with Westminster in 1953, would have presented a serious problem but for the work of Michael Gray – in particular his research in Mercury’s archives – which fills the gap until the LSO’s own diarists (especially Robert Noble) come to the rescue with details of the Everest sessions at the end of the decade. So much for who played what where when. Additional credits, for producers and engineers, come from CD booklets, supplemented by the LSO’s correspondence files (extant from the early 1980s) and diary references, and (for the 1960s and earlier) from the researches of Malcolm Walker and Michael Gray. UK release dates and catalogue numbers derive mainly from “Gramophone” and “Records and Recordings” (with US equivalents from the Schwann / Opus catalogs). The discs themselves have been checked wherever possible. Some details of foreign releases (mostly non-classical) and of home videos have had to be obtained via the internet, where catalogue numbers are rarely cited. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the 1990s, Malcolm Walker and Michael Gray did some groundwork on the pre-1970 recordings and I am grateful to both for inviting me to build on their foundations, and for their continuing support. Libby Rice (the LSO’s Archivist), Sue Mallet (head of the Concerts Department), Marc Stevens (who draws up the schedules), Chaz Jenkins (LSO Live label manager) and indeed everyone else in the LSO’s Barbican office could not have been more helpful in facilitating my work, nor more tolerant of my obsessive pursuit of minutiae. The staffs of the British Library Sound Archive (and particularly its Listening Service), the British Film Institute National Library, the Barbican and Westminster Music Libraries and many other public libraries, were resourceful and obliging. Special thanks for access to LPs and deleted CDs are due to Harold Moores Records and the Classical Music Exchange (Notting Hill Gate); branches of Tower Records, HMV, Virgin Megastore and MDC Classic Music did as much for the currently available discs. Of those directly involved in making the LSO’s recordings, the producers Brian Culverhouse, Wilhelm Hellweg, Andrew Keener, Erik Smith and John Snashall, the widow of the engineer Robert Auger and the singer Helen Watts provided valuable information about specific sessions. Brian Godfrey, a former member and discographer of the London Symphony Chorus, generously shared his knowledge. Orchestra schedules earlier than those kept by the office were recovered from Denis Wick and Roger Lord, while Robert Noble’s widow very kindly allowed the archive access to his diaries. Andrew Dalton of Decca and Sonita Cox of EMI Archives at Hayes helped to resolve some uncertainties. In view of the time spent on the internet tracing the ultimate use to which some backing tracks were put, gratitude is due to those who were kind enough to donate copies of their recordings to the office. Finally thanks to Lewis Foreman and Alexander Gleason for assistance with the Rank Film Music series, and to John Pattrick and Jon Tolansky for advance notice of forthcoming BBC and Andante archive issues. Since the first published edition of this discography in 2004, ongoing research has prompted the addition or revision of numerous details and I am grateful to Peter Fulop (who noticed that the CDs of Horenstein’s Mahler 9 contained two different performances from 1966), Brian Godfrey, Peter Bromley and Evelyn Watson (Archivist of the Royal Society of Arts). BIBLIOGRAPHY Andrews, Frank & Bayly, Ernie “Catalogue of HMV ‘B’ Series Records” (London, City of London Phonograph & Gramophone Society, 2000) Arnold, Claude Graveley “The Orchestra on Record, 1896-1926” (Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1997) Blandford, Linda “The LSO: scenes from orchestra life” (London, Michael Joseph, 1984) Campion, Paul & Runciman, Rosy “Glyndebourne Recorded” (London, Julia MacRae, 1994) Clough, F.F. & Cuming, G.J. “The World’s Encyclopaedia of Recorded Music” (London, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1952-57) Culshaw, John “Putting the Record Straight” (London, Secker & Warburg, 1981) Dyment, Christopher “Felix Weingartner – Recollections and Recordings” (Rickmansworth, Triad Press, 1976) Foss, Hubert & Goodwin, Noël “London Symphony – Portrait of an Orchestra” (London, Naldrett Press, 1954) Gifford, Denis “The British Film Catalogue” (Newton Abbot, David & Charles, 1973) Harris, Steve “Film, Television and Stage Music on Phonograph Records” (Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland, 1988) Huntley, John “British Film Music” (London, Skelton Robinson, 1947) Moore, Jerrold Northrop “Elgar on Record” (London, Oxford University Press, 1974) Morrison, Richard “Orchestra The LSO: A Century of Triumph and Turbulence” (London, Faber & Faber, 2004) Nicholson, Ralph “A Fiddler Tells All” (Taunton, Nicholson, 2000) Pearton, Maurice “The LSO at 70” (London, Victor Gollancz, 1974) Stewart, Andrew “The LSO at 90” (London, LSO, 1994) Taylor, Ronald “Columbia Twelve-Inch Records in the UK, 1906-30” (London, Symposium Records, 1994) various “The Gramophone Shop Encyclopedia of Recorded Music” (New York, 1931-48) >DI THE WORLD’S MOST RECORDED ORCHESTRA As Henry Wood’s disgruntled players considered the viability of forming their own orchestra, the question that would weigh heavily with their successors at future moments of decision – what about the recording contract? – would not have occurred to them. A century ago opera singers were just beginning to take recording seriously, but arias were accompanied by pianists, not orchestras. So the LSO returned from its first visit to the USA leaving no calling card but the memory of its sound. In the same year The Gramophone Company opened new studios at Hayes whence its trademark dog could look forward to hearing more varied fare than his master’s voice. Negotiations over terms were protracted, but on 25 June 1913 the orchestra spent the day in Middlesex attempting to come to terms with the cumbersome acoustic recording horns. The results were evidently not entirely satisfactory, several sides being marked down for a re-make, but it was a year before another session could be arranged. By the time the discs were ready for publication, Nikisch was an enemy alien and patriotic Englishmen were being urged to shun the Hunnish music of Mozart and Weber. If political factors brought an abrupt end to this first venture, they prompted the next. Albert Coates arrived in London from post-revolutionary Russia in 1919 and soon secured both an orchestra and a recording contract. The LSO found itself being booked for sessions at Columbia’s Petty France studios and signed its own three year contract with the label on 16 September 1920. A few months later the Board was dismayed to hear that Coates had switched to HMV, but was assured that this would not jeopardize its position. Columbia offered sessions with Richard Strauss and Felix Weingartner and began a series of contemporary British works, mostly conducted by their composers. The contract was renewed for a further three years, Holst completed the first recording of “The Planets”, and Beecham eventually joined the roster. Meanwhile the rival label was issuing a considerable number of discs with Albert Coates conducting “The Symphony Orchestra”. It eventually transpired that his players were being booked with the connivance of the LSO’s secretary, so many members of the orchestra were no doubt moonlighting at Hayes. In modern terminology neither Coates’ ensemble nor the LSO as recorded prior to 1925 would be called a symphony orchestra. The acoustic process could only capture sounds at short range so orchestras were restricted to fewer than twenty strings: even heavy late romantic scores were recorded with no more than six first violins. The advent of electrical recording transformed the possibilities. The recording apparatus could now be installed in a van and the microphone could go to concerts. The record companies looked to the great choral festivals. HMV set its sights on the Three Choirs Festival at which Elgar conducted the LSO. When the contract came up for renewal in the autumn of 1926, HMV offered twice as many sessions per year as Columbia had averaged since 1923 and the orchestra duly transferred its allegiance. It also found itself working in more congenial conditions as the cramped studios were now obsolete and sessions moved to The Queen’s Hall or Kingsway Hall, which was regularly hired from the Methodist Church when it was found to have the finest acoustic in London for recording an orchestra or chorus. Besides frequent engagements with Elgar, the new contract meant regular work with Coates, who was undertaking a major Wagner series. Angling for the right to record at Bayreuth, HMV gave Siegfried Wagner some LSO sessions. Such was the demand for recordings made with the new technology that the number of sessions played in 1927-28 far exceeded the contracted minimum, but by the time the contract was extended in 1929 the peak had passed. The ceremonial opening of Abbey Road Studios in 1931 masked the economic reality that had forced the merger of HMV and Columbia. Hard times for all, but compounded for the LSO as press attacks on its playing standards and competition from the BBC Symphony Orchestra were aggravated during the summer of 1932. Many players were induced to join the newly formed London Philharmonic Orchestra through what the Board regarded as treachery by Beecham and disloyalty by Sargent. HMV paid some compensation for unused sessions but let the contract lapse. Ironically within less than four weeks during the worst of this crisis, the LSO made three of its most celebrated pre-war recordings: Sibelius’s Third and Fifth Symphonies conducted by Kajanus, Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with the composer as soloist, and Elgar’s Violin Concerto with the teenage Menuhin. Nothing much for EMI’s labels during the next five or six years, but something completely different from their latest rival. Decca, formed in 1929, was drawing much of its classical catalogue from the German Polydor label, but occasionally risked a bold gesture. Three such came the LSO’s way in 1935-37: Bliss’s music for “Things to Come”, Walton’s First Symphony and his Viola Concerto. HMV came back with a few accompanying sessions in 1936-37 and Bruno Walter in 1938-39; Weingartner reappeared for Columbia. With the LPO in difficulties as Beecham’s money ran out, with Wood reconciled and Sargent no longer banned from the LSO rostrum, the prospects for a return to pre-eminence in the 1940s must have begun to look good. Instead, the war brought a virtual suspension of commercial recording sessions, though film work flourished – notably patriotic scores by Walton and Noël Coward – and produced in the “Warsaw Concerto” an early demonstration that pastiche classical music sold rather better than the genuine article. Two orchestras formed at the close of the war – Walter Legge’s Philharmonia and Beecham’s Royal Philharmonic – met most of EMI’s needs for the next twenty years. The LSO accompanied concertos and singers, did some work for M-G-M (issued in Britain on EMI’s Cinderella label, Parlophone) and made a few discs of English music, notably the first recording of Vaughan Williams’s Sixth Symphony, though even that was soon displaced by Decca’s version with the LPO. Decca’s work on military electronics enabled it to rebuild its catalogue with superior recording technology. Initially it favoured Sidney Beer’s National Symphony Orchestra, turning to the LSO at the start of 1945 and the LPO a year later. Decca’s preference was soon made clear: during 1948 the LPO recorded sessions with Knappertsbusch, Kleiber, Furtwängler, Schuricht, Celibidache and Martinon; the LSO with Krips, Sargent and Mansel Thomas. Even Josef Krips, who first appeared in 1947, recorded with three other London orchestras before his appointment as the LSO’s Principal Conductor in 1951. More substantial projects ensued, notably Anthony Collins’s cycle of the Sibelius Symphonies. The addition of Solti to the roster in 1952 and Benjamin Britten in 1954 perhaps foretold a brighter future, but it is difficult to avoid an impression that, in the first half of the 1950s, London based record companies turned to the LSO as a last resort. With the advent of tape recording and the Long Playing record, a crop of new record labels appeared in the USA. Most initially tried their luck in Vienna. The first to record in London was Westminster, which engaged the LSO and LPO in 1953; it subsequently favoured the LPO and RPO, and did not return to the LSO until 1962. Next came Vanguard, which opted for the LPO. Mercury, arriving a month later in July 1956, perhaps settled for the LSO as all that was available; if so both parties must have been agreeably surprised by the results. Mercury was arguably the first audiophile label. Its “Living Presence” recordings were bought by hi-fi enthusiasts to stun their friends and neighbours. It had just gone over to recording in stereo, a technique first encountered by the LSO in course of EMI sessions in March 1955. Mercury brought Antal Dorati, their regular conductor from Minneapolis. A year or so earlier, most of the LSO’s principal players had walked out following a dispute about film sessions. Their young replacements, who later gained a reputation for deferring to few conductors, realized that the orchestra needed knocking into shape and tolerated Dorati’s abrasive approach. It proved a winning formula: Mercury returned every summer until 1965 (being subsequently absorbed by Philips) and references to the LSO’s dazzling playing were soon strewn across the review pages. Stravinsky’s “Firebird” (1959) and the orchestra’s first Berg recordings (1961) were notable highlights. Another American label, Everest, which arrived in 1958 attempted to emulate Mercury. It had an ambitious repertoire, a somewhat less than starry cast – Eugene Goossens directed many of the LSO sessions and the company missed a trick by recording Stokowski in Houston and New York instead of bringing him to London – and a gimmick: recording on magnetic film in preference to tape. Everest’s money had run out by 1960; Mercury acquired the film recorder, promoted it with headlines on LP sleeves, and soon laid it aside. Meanwhile Decca had mastered stereo recording and noted the LSO’s rapidly improving standards. LPs that would eventually command three figure sums as collectors’ items ensued from Argenta and Maag. Decca also formed an alliance with RCA (which had divorced its previous European partner, HMV) whereby RCA’s contracted artists would work with Decca’s producers and engineers. In 1961 this brought the LSO its first complete opera recording, “Die Walküre”. More immediately it brought Pierre Monteux for sessions in 1957. Dorati had driven the players to work; Monteux charmed them. Dorati was never accorded any official position; Monteux was made Principal Conductor for life in 1961. He was rather less cherished by the record companies. Despite versions of the “Enigma Variations” and “Daphnis et Chloé” that are now heard as among the finest ever made, RCA passed him on to Decca, who let him go to Westminster, before he eventually found refuge with Philips. Philips, which had hitherto worked mainly in Holland, first came to the LSO for Sviatoslav Richter’s UK debut in 1961. They quickly signed up Colin Davis and were soon embarked on sets of Mozart’s Violin Concertos (Arthur Grumiaux, 1961-64), his Piano Concertos (Ingrid Haebler, 1964-68) and the symphonies of Tchaikovsky (Markevich, 1962-66) and Dvořák (Rowicki, 1965-71). For Decca Richard Bonynge recorded quantities of obscure ballet music, besides operatic work with his wife Joan Sutherland. Curzon and Szell collaborated on a terrific realization of Brahms’s First Concerto. Britten, besides showing off the players’ individual and collective virtuosity in his “Nocturne” and Purcell Variations, produced in the “War Requiem” one of the legendary handful of recordings to remain in the catalogue, still with the original cover design, after more than forty years. Two operas, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Billy Budd”, followed. István Kertész undertook a Dvořák series that continued throughout his spell as Principal Conductor (1965-68). Solti recorded Mahler, whilst both Hungarians tackled Bartók. Decca engineers also played around with multi-track recording for the Phase Four series. The LSO initially hid behind a pseudonym (“London Festival Orchestra”) but came clean when Stokowski endorsed the questionable technology in 1964. That was the year in which Walter Legge decided to disband the Philharmonia. With the RPO still in crisis following Beecham’s death, EMI found it prudent to offer the LSO an occasional session. Barbirolli, who had first recorded with the orchestra in 1929, reappeared and with two young soloists, Jacqueline Du Pré and Janet Baker, made what is probably the best-loved of all the LSO’s discs. Elgar’s Cello Concerto was recorded on 19 August 1965. The very next day RCA, by now detached from Decca, introduced the orchestra to a Hollywood musician who was trying to gain acceptance as a symphonic conductor. A year later he recorded a version of Walton’s First to set beside Harty’s 1935 original. Two years later he began an acclaimed Vaughan Williams cycle and in 1968 André Previn succeeded Kertész as Principal Conductor. RCA’s rival, CBS, also brought interesting projects to the LSO: Copland, who had previously put in an appearance for Everest, conducted a substantial portion of his orchestral output (1964-70), Boulez directed Webern (1967-71) and Bernstein tackled Mahler’s Eighth, Verdi and Stravinsky. When Deutsche Grammophon booked its first LSO sessions in 1968 the picture was complete: every major record label, plus any minor label that could afford to, was eager to work with the LSO. Unicorn recorded a couple of Mahler symphonies with Horenstein – two more eventually circulated as pirated recordings from concerts – and Lyrita explored rather less fashionable British music. In the 1970s London was the capital of operatic recording: demand was such that an extra orchestra – the National Philharmonic – was needed to keep pace. The LSO’s share included sessions for Westminster (whose new owners seemed to be exclusively interested in Beverly Sills), Verdi and Bellini for Decca, Verdi, Boito, Rossini and Donizetti for HMV, Leoncavallo, Massenet, Montemezzi and Verdi for RCA, Massenet and Puccini for CBS, Mozart, Rossini and Berlioz for Philips, plus three Edinburgh Festival productions for Deutsche Grammophon. The same decade saw the first engagement with jazz and rock. Hitherto “Light Sessions” on the schedule had meant Stanley Black or Frank Pourcel, but David Measham emerged from the violins to direct backing tracks for Neil Young and collaborations with The Who, Jack Nitzsche, Ornette Coleman, Rick Wakeman, plus arrangements of Beatles songs. There was work with Deep Purple, Camel, Elton John, Mike Batt, Peter Gabriel, culminating in “Classic Rock”, a series of albums treating pop hits to symphonic arrangements overlaid with rock rhythms (1976-94). The same years also saw a return to film work, largely shunned since the 1955 secession. An inclination to distance himself from his background did not prevent Previn conducting both “The Music Lovers” and “Rollerball” before “Star Wars” (1977) linked the LSO to John Williams’s epics for the rest of the century. Despite all these diversions, there was no shortage of symphonic sessions. In 1971 Previn switched from RCA to EMI, to record Gershwin, Orff, Prokofiev, the Tchaikovsky ballets and a Rachmaninov series, besides “lollipops” linked to his “Music Night” television show. Accompanying Vladimir Ashkenazy, he set down the Rachmaninov and Prokofiev concertos for Decca. Claudio Abbado, his eventual successor as Principal Conductor (who had first appeared for Decca in 1966), recorded many of Stravinsky’s ballets for Deutsche Grammophon. His own successor, Michael Tilson Thomas, made his debut in 1974. Colin Davis, whom many still thought ought to have been Previn’s predecessor, continued to appear regularly with Mozart, Berlioz and Tippett prominent among his work. Stokowski made a number of discs, but stopped working with the LSO at the age of only 92, several years before the end of his recording career. Various labels, both commercial and philanthropic, engaged the orchestra to perform obscure American repertoire. Several discs were subsidised by the Welsh Arts Council. Ole Schmidt recorded the first integral set of Nielsen’s symphonies for Unicorn. Contemporary composers championed included Panufnik, Penderecki, Berio and Khachaturian. To restore some measure of Germanic gravitas, Eugen Jochum recorded all Beethoven’s symphonies and Karl Böhm Tchaikovsky’s last three. The LSO was engaged for the first digital recordings made in England (1978) but by the time the new technology came to fruition with the launch of the CD (1983) the orchestra was in a financial crisis that obliged it to accept whatever work it could get. Besides numerous film scores – many by Philippe Sarde – an astonishing variety of light music sessions appeared in the schedule, and should now perhaps be left buried in the depths of the discography. One may be hauled out to challenge the extraordinary assertion made in the composer’s album notes that some players did not seem particularly eager to return from a local hostelry for a final session with Frank Zappa. Perhaps it all seemed worthwhile for two weeks in 1988 when the LSO found itself at the top of the UK singles charts backing Whitney Houston’s “One moment in time”. A fashion for recording musicals with operatic singers and symphony orchestras brought versions of “South Pacific”, “My Fair Lady”, “Anything Goes”, “Candide” and “Kismet”. Earlier the growing home video market had prompted a complete set of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, repertoire last touched fifty years earlier. As Principal Conductor from 1979-87, Claudio Abbado recorded Mendelssohn’s symphonies, Mozart concertos with Rudolf Serkin and Ravel’s orchestral works. Michael Tilson Thomas responded with his own Ravel album shortly after he took over. Decca and Philips faded from the scene but there were sessions for Erato, Nonesuch and Teldec (which later comprised Warner Classics), for such new American independents as Centaur, Delos and Arabesque, and for Sony a number of concerto recordings with Japanese soloists. The new British labels – Hyperion, ASV, Conifer, Castle, Cala, Nimbus, Virgin Classics – soon had LSO recordings in their catalogues. From 1986 the orchestra financed its own series in partnership with Pickwick (later acquired by Carlton). Produced by John Boyden, who had managed the LSO for a brief spell in the mid-1970s, it featured recordings conducted by Barry Tuckwell and John Georgiadis, formerly Principal Horn and Leader of the orchestra, and Wyn Morris’s Beethoven cycle, the first to include a conjectural Tenth Symphony. Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos moved on to Collins Classics to begin his Beethoven cycle but it, like Maxim Shostakovich’s set of his father’s symphonies, had not progressed far before the money ran out. A more enduring relationship was established with Chandos, developing from curiosities directed by Geoffrey Simon through Bryden Thomson’s Vaughan Williams and Neeme Järvi’s Brahms cycles to Richard Hickox’s choral series, which included Elgar’s oratorios and an award-winning “War Requiem”. Thereafter Hickox recorded Ireland, Alwyn, Arnold, Ferguson, Tippett, Holst, Howells, Carwithen, Dyson and eventually began his own Vaughan Williams cycle. But from 1991 he had a monopoly of Chandos’s LSO sessions, as the company cut costs by resorting to provincial orchestras. Opera reappeared in 1990 with Cheryl Studer and Plácido Domingo singing Donizetti, followed by Edita Gruberová, Kiri Te Kanawa and Angela Gheorghiu & Roberto Alagna in Pappano’s Puccini series. Colin Davis and Richard Hickox conducted Britten and John Eliot Gardiner Stravinsky prior to the advent of Charlotte Church and the Opera Babes. Already vocalists from Gloria Estefan to Julio Iglesias, Luther Vandross, Sarah Brightman and ChiChi Peralta, and singers from the Bible Belt to Korea, besides producers of albums of carols and show tunes, had all opted to have the LSO in the background. Interspersed with various versions of symphonic rock, a significant number of LSO commissions were recorded, together with Reich, Schnittke, Tavener and Adams. Rostropovich appeared regularly as both cellist and conductor. Deutsche Grammophon brought Previn back after an eight year gap. There were sessions for Telarc and Koch. Tilson Thomas’s work for CBS continued (after the label’s purchase by Sony) with Strauss, Stravinsky, Janáček and Debussy, though he also recorded for other companies: his television series “Concerto!” was issued by RCA (now owned by BMG). Colin Davis, who returned home from Bavaria as Principal Conductor in 1995, took a fresh look at Sibelius for the same label. EMI recorded Jeffrey Tate conducting Elgar and issued a chamber music series featuring several LSO Principals. But beneath this quality work a steady demand for “Classics By Request”, titbits for use in compilations, marketing applications or any context not expecting attentive listening, showed where the industry was heading. Out of copyright classic pre-war interpretations were reappearing in the catalogue in tolerable sound quality. Recordings lifted from concerts, restricted in the past to clandestine circulation on “private” labels, appeared purportedly as imports from Italy on Intaglio CDs and subsequently as legitimate releases from BBC archives. In the face of such competition, the full-price studio recording of serious repertoire was in trouble. The BBC Music Magazine for September 1998 had a cover-mount CD taken from a couple of Previn’s Barbican concerts that showed what could be done. The orchestra responded with LSO Live, its own bargain-priced label recorded during the concerts given in its home base. Beginning modestly with a couple of Dvořák symphonies, the label shot to prominence with a Berlioz series. Davis went on to conduct symphonies by Elgar, Bruckner and Sibelius and operas by Britten and Verdi. Previn and Rostropovich joined the roster, along with Haitink and Jansons, neither of whom had previously recorded with the LSO. Chandos and EMI took exception to the competition and eventually cut back on work with the orchestra, but Telarc and Deutsche Grammophon remained on board. Meanwhile DVD, as the new standard for home video, enhanced the demand for symphonic film scores recorded in high grade sound. John Williams stayed with the LSO for the new “Star Wars” trilogy and Trevor Jones has been a frequent collaborator in recent years. Computer games and animation, which might have seemed the natural preserve of the synthesizer, evidently prefer the symphony orchestra, so the LSO could yet be saved from doom and destruction by Lara Croft. The continual re-recording of core repertoire, boxed sets of symphonies and concertos, perhaps even studio made operas, may belong to the past, but the end of the LSO discography is not yet nigh. >DE THE FORMAT FOR ENTRIES >entry number LABEL / Record Company or agent, etc technology Producer Engineer
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