This early recording of George Szell conducting the Berlin State Opera Orchestra was made in Berlin on 15, 20 and 27 April 1925.
The movements are:
00:00 1st movement
04:29 2nd movement
11:45 3rd movement
15:27 4th movement
From Wikipedia: George Szell (June 7, 1897 – July 30, 1970), originally György Széll, György Endre Szél, or Georg Szell, was a Hungarian-born American conductor and composer. He is widely considered one of the twentieth century’s greatest conductors. He is remembered today for his long and successful tenure as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra of Cleveland, Ohio, and for the recordings of the standard classical repertoire he made in Cleveland and with other orchestras.
Szell came to Cleveland in 1946 to take over a respected if undersized orchestra, which was struggling to recover from the disruptions of World War II. By the time of his death he was credited, to quote the critic Donal Henahan, with having built it into ‘what many critics regarded as the world’s keenest symphonic instrument.’
Through his recordings, Szell has remained a presence in the classical music world long after his death, and his name remains synonymous with that of the Cleveland Orchestra. While on tour with the Orchestra in the late 1980s, then-Music Director Christoph von Dohnányi remarked, ‘We give a great concert, and George Szell gets a great review.’
I transferred this work from English Parlophone E 10498/10500.
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This is a miracle, I thought I would never listen to this record. Szell's recordings for Parlophon are very rare and I even thought they were lost! Do you happen to have any others? This is one of if not the most important recording of the year, hands down. Thank you thank you thank you dear John.
Indeed a wonderful find. His later Haydn recordings in Cleveland are justly famous, but this shows him near the start of an illustrious career. It sounds as though he is conducting a fairly small ensemble. The labels from this period often said 'Mitgleider der Berliner Stattskapelle' – ie 'Members of…' – sometimes rather few! This is still an acoustic – the company did not go electric until well into 1926.
A surprise to me to hear such an early recording by Szell. I had no idea he was already recording by then. Although I don't know his conducting very well, would I be correct to say that we can hear the hallmarks of his later style already in this early recording? I would suggest orderliness & good taste among them. Thanks!
why does the label say symphony number 13???? wrong info defenitly 88!!
WOW! that's a real rarity, thank you for sharing it!