Three Early Weber Recordings

Most of the ear­ly record­ings that fea­ture the bas­soon did so in a com­i­cal fash­ion. A hand­ful of artists record­ed Quentin Ashlyn’s song “The Bassoon” in the first decades of the 20^th cen­tu­ry, and I have in my col­lec­tion a cou­ple of very strange (at least to mod­ern ears) “laugh­ing records” from the same era that include the bas­soon. In 1911, Carl Borgwald record­ed Julius Fučík’s clas­sic “Der Alte Brummbär” in 1911 (released as “Polka Fantastique” in the U.S.). And in 1918, Edison released two some­what sil­ly piccolo/bassoon duets: “The Elephant and The Fly” and “The Nightingale and the Frog”, both fea­tur­ing Benjamin Kohon, who would lat­er become prin­ci­pal bas­soon­ist of the New York Philharmonic. The ear­li­est “seri­ous” bas­soon piece on disc (the ear­li­est that I’ve been able to locate, any­way) was not the Mozart Concerto, as one might guess. Rather, it was Carl Maria von Weber’s Andante e Rondo Ongarese. In fact, this Romantic show­piece was record­ed three sep­a­rate times between 1920 and 1938.

Aside from being his­tor­i­cal curiosi­ties, these record­ings give us a glimpse of ear­ly twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry bas­soon play­ing. And as far as I can tell, none of these record­ings have ever been re-released. Below you will find copies of all three, dig­i­tized from discs in my col­lec­tion. I’ve applied a bit of noise reduc­tion and removed the worst of the pops and clicks, but these are far from pro­fes­sion­al-qual­i­ty trans­fers. I’d rec­om­mend lis­ten­ing to these on head­phones or real speak­ers, as they may be a bit dif­fi­cult to hear on lap­top, tablet, or phone speakers.

The three discs in chronological order

The first two of these were in fact made by the same man: William Gruner, who played bas­soon in the Philadelphia Orchestra 1906–1917 and 1929–1951. Gruner was born in Berlin on January 12, 1883 and arrived in the United States aboard the S.S. Deutschland in April 1906. He became a U.S. cit­i­zen in 1914, and lived near Philadelphia until his death in February 1971. In the peri­od between his two stints with the Philadelphia Orchestra (1917–1929), Gruner worked for the Victor Talking Machine Company, mak­ing numer­ous record­ings with the Victor Orchestra and numer­ous small­er groups.¹John Ardoin, The Philadelphia Orchestra: A Century of Music (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999); William Gruner, Petition for Naturalization, March 20, 1913, Naturalization Petitions for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1795-1930 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, microfilm series M1522, roll 93), 335; William Gruner, 165-03-6373, Social Security Death Index, 1935-Current (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2011); William Gruner, Draft Registration Card, September 12, 1918, World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918, (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, microfilm series M1509, roll PA83), 278.

William Gruner, from a 1920s Victor Records "Instruments of the Orchestra" poster

Gruner and the Victor Orchestra first record­ed Andante e Rondo Ongarese in June 1920. They record­ed ten takes over the space of three record­ing ses­sions in Victor’s Camden, New Jersey stu­dios. The last of these, record­ed on June 24^th, was issued as “Hungarian Fantasie” on the B side of Victor 18684, a ten-inch 78rpm disc. The piece was severe­ly cut down to fit this for­mat: it lasts a mere three min­utes and thir­teen sec­onds. (For com­par­i­son, com­plete record­ings I have by Milan Turkovic, Nadina Mackie, and Masahito Tanaka clock in at 9:53, 9:02, and 9:20, respec­tive­ly.) After the ini­tial 16 mea­sures of the Andante, a two bar orches­tral tran­si­tion launch­es us right into the Rondo. The Rondo is a bit more sub­stan­tial, but is miss­ing huge chunks (includ­ing most of that dread­ed last page of 16^th-note triplets). The end of the piece has been rewrit­ten, too. Hear it for yourself:

When Gruner made this record­ing in 1920, the tech­nol­o­gy involved was quite sim­i­lar to that invent­ed by Thomas Edison 43 years ear­li­er: the per­form­ers played into a large horn that trans­mit­ted sound waves to a flex­i­ble diaphragm con­nect­ed to a sty­lus that cut the sound direct­ly onto a wax disc. This method pro­duced record­ings with lim­it­ed fre­quen­cy and dynam­ic range and required per­form­ers to crowd around a sin­gle horn to be heard. But in 1925 Victor (and many of their com­peti­tors) adopt­ed a new elec­tri­cal record­ing process that used micro­phones, vac­u­um tube ampli­fiers, and an elec­tro­mag­net­ic record­ing head. This sys­tem allowed for much greater dynam­ic and fre­quen­cy response, and pro­duced a gen­er­al­ly much bet­ter sound­ing recording.

Gruner and the Victor Orchestra returned to the stu­dio on October 19, 1926, and record­ed an addi­tion­al five takes of the Weber with the new elec­tri­cal record­ing sys­tem. They used the same pared-down arrange­ment — elec­tri­cal record­ing did noth­ing to mit­i­gate the for­mat’s time con­straints. This new record­ing was released in June 1927 as the B side of Victor 20525, anoth­er ten-inch 78rpm disc. Although Victor did­n’t set about re-record­ing their entire cat­a­log after switch­ing to elec­tri­cal record­ing, this is in instance in which they clear­ly want­ed to re-cre­ate an ear­li­er disc. The A sides of the two discs are record­ings of Tourbillon (Whirlwind), a piece for flute and piano by Adolph Krantz, albeit fea­tur­ing dif­fer­ent per­form­ers.²The earlier disc (Victor 18684) features flutist Arthur Brooke of the Boston Symphony, while the performance on the later disc (Victor 20525) is by Clement Barone, a member of the Victor Orchestra and formerly principal flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

If you made it all the way through Gruner’s 1920 record­ing, you prob­a­bly don’t need to lis­ten to all of this one. His inter­pre­ta­tion does­n’t change appre­cia­bly, although it is inter­est­ing to hear the dif­fer­ences between the two record­ing processes.

The French bas­soon­ist Fernand Oubradous record­ed Andante e Rondo Ongarese in Paris in 1938, accom­pa­nied by the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire under the direc­tion of Roger Désormière. Oubradous was born in Paris on February 12, 1903. He won his Premiere prix from the Paris Conservatoire in 1923 — after only a sin­gle year of bas­soon study. He played with the Paris Opéra, the Orchestre Lamoureux, the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, and the Trio d’Anches de Paris. In addi­tion to Weber’s Andante e Rondo Ongarese, Oubradous record­ed con­cer­ti by Mozart, Weber, and Boismortier and a great deal of cham­ber music. But his first job after grad­u­at­ing from the Conservatoire was as music direc­tor of the Théâtre de l’Atelier, and he received much acclaim as a con­duc­tor through­out his career. Oubradous died in Paris in January 1986.³Jean-Pierre Seguin, "Fernand Oubradous: A Half-Century of Woodwind History," trans. Philip Gottling, The Journal of the
International Double Reed Society, no. 14 (1986). For more on Oubradous, see these two sites (both in French): fernand.oubradous.free.fr and Fernand Oubradous — Site de l’as­so­ci­a­tion Fou de Basson.

Fernand Oubradous

Oubradous’s record­ing of the piece is near­ly com­plete, thanks to it being issued on both sides of a twelve-inch 78rpm disc (L’Oiseau-Lyre O.L. 14). This is like­ly attrib­ut­able to the fact that Éditions de l’Oiseau-Lyre has always had a more spe­cial­ist and schol­ar­ly focus than more mass-mar­ket com­pa­nies like Victor. Side A is the Andante, which is just over four min­utes long. The Rondo (on side B) is slight­ly longer at four min­utes and six­teen sec­onds. The Rondo had to be cut down a bit to fit; forty-two mea­sures have been excised. This is most­ly most­ly repeat­ed themes and sec­tions of orches­tral inter­ludes, but the entire last state­ment of the ron­do theme has been removed as well. There’s one oth­er inter­est­ing change: the four mea­sures of quar­ter-note trills in the mid­dle of the last flashy sec­tion have been tak­en out of the solo part and giv­en to one of the orches­tral bassoonists!

It’s clear that record­ing tech­nol­o­gy and disc man­u­fac­ture had improved quite a bit in the 12 years since Gruner’s sec­ond record­ing. The bas­soon is clear­er and more present (the fact that he was play­ing a French bas­soon helps, too), and the orches­tra’s sound has far more depth and def­i­n­i­tion. Frankly, the qual­i­ty of the bas­soon play­ing is much high­er, as well. Although this par­tic­u­lar record­ing has­n’t been rere­leased, you can occa­sion­al­ly find Oubradous’s Mozart Concerto on CD on Amazon, or as mp3s here.

Notes:

• 1
  John Ardoin, The Philadelphia Orchestra: A Century of Music (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999); William Gruner, Petition for Naturalization, March 20, 1913, Naturalization Petitions for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1795–1930 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, micro­film series M1522, roll 93), 335; William Gruner, 165–03-6373, Social Security Death Index, 1935-Current (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2011); William Gruner, Draft Registration Card, September 12, 1918, World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918, (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, micro­film series M1509, roll PA83), 278.
• 2
  The ear­li­er disc (Victor 18684) fea­tures flutist Arthur Brooke of the Boston Symphony, while the per­for­mance on the lat­er disc (Victor 20525) is by Clement Barone, a mem­ber of the Victor Orchestra and for­mer­ly prin­ci­pal flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
• 3
  Jean-Pierre Seguin, “Fernand Oubradous: A Half-Century of Woodwind History,” trans. Philip Gottling, The Journal of the
  International Double Reed Society, no. 14 (1986).

• 1
  John Ardoin, The Philadelphia Orchestra: A Century of Music (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999); William Gruner, Petition for Naturalization, March 20, 1913, Naturalization Petitions for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1795–1930 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, micro­film series M1522, roll 93), 335; William Gruner, 165–03-6373, Social Security Death Index, 1935-Current (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2011); William Gruner, Draft Registration Card, September 12, 1918, World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918, (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, micro­film series M1509, roll PA83), 278.
• 2
  The ear­li­er disc (Victor 18684) fea­tures flutist Arthur Brooke of the Boston Symphony, while the per­for­mance on the lat­er disc (Victor 20525) is by Clement Barone, a mem­ber of the Victor Orchestra and for­mer­ly prin­ci­pal flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
• 3
  Jean-Pierre Seguin, “Fernand Oubradous: A Half-Century of Woodwind History,” trans. Philip Gottling, The Journal of the
  International Double Reed Society, no. 14 (1986).