I’ve already posted Leo Blech’s 1926 recording of the Overture to ‘Oberon’ played by the Berlin State Opera Orchestra. Here is Blech’s later version with the London Symphony Orchestra, recorded in Kingsway Hall, London, on 27 October 1931.
From Wikipedia: Leo Blech (21 April 1871 – 25 August 1958) was a German opera composer and conductor who is perhaps most famous for his work at the Königliches Opernhaus (later the Berlin State Opera / Staatsoper Unter den Linden) from 1906 to 1937, and later as the conductor of Berlin’s Städtische Oper from 1949 to 1953. Blech was known for his reliable, clear, and elegant performances, especially of works by Wagner, Verdi, and Bizet’s Carmen (which he conducted over 600 times), and for his sensitivity as an accompanist.
Blech was born to a Jewish family in Aachen, Rhenish Prussia. After attending the Hochschule in Berlin where he studied piano with Ernst Rudorff and composition from Woldemar Bargiel, he studied privately with Engelbert Humperdinck.
After working briefly in sales, he landed a position conducting at the Stadttheater Aachen in 1893. From 1899 to 1906, he conducted at the Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague before moving to the Königliches Opernhaus in Berlin. In 1913, he was promoted to General Music Director. Between 1923 and 1926, he took various positions at opera houses in Berlin and Vienna, including the Deutsches Opernhaus, the Volksoper Berlin and the Vienna Volksoper. In 1926 he returned to the Staatsoper unter den Linden, where he remained until Adolf Hitler’s antisemitic policies forced him in 1937 into exile in Riga, the capital of Latvia, where he conducted the Latvian National Opera and Ballet Theatre.
With an eye to Blech’s substantial German and foreign reputation, Hermann Göring, then Hitler’s second in command, issued an order to Major Karl Heise, head of the Schutzpolizei in German-occupied Riga in September 1941, to issue an exit visa to Blech for neutral Sweden, making him the only Jewish survivor in Riga to escape as a result of such high-level intervention.
During and after World War II, Blech conducted at the Stockholm Royal Opera. In 1949, he returned to Berlin to conduct at the Städtische Oper (Civic Opera), where he worked until 1953. One of his pupils, conductor Herbert Sandberg, married his daughter Luise (Lisel) (1913 – 2006).
Blech made recordings of operatic and orchestral music for the Deutsche Grammophon, HMV, Ultraphon/Telefunken, Decca, and Elite record labels.
I transferred this side from a Sydney pressing of HMV DB 1675.
source
A great addition, one of the finest conductors of his age. The sound as fresh as paint.
On this showing the LSO had nothing to fear in comparison with the Berlin State Opera Orchestra. And this is certainly not what would be a widespread view at the time or since. But the quality of playing is astonishing here, and Blech clearly has the discipline to get what he wants, but it seems to me that the band are comfortable with him, and ensemble is not just strict, but natural. Another German conductor who managed that with the LSO was Karl Boehm, who even took the orchestra to Salzburg, which until then had been a monopoly of the Vienna Phil or its own Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra.
I always liked Blech since I discovered his way with the 1927 HMV recordings of the Brahms and Beethoven Violin Concertos with Fritz Kreisler, where is just about as brilliant an orchestral conductor accompanist as could be imagined. He seems almost like a German version of Landon Ronald, which as you will know is high praise indeed in my book.
Thank you for bringing some sunlit joy into these dreary cold January days, with a lazy cold wind … at least it has stopped raining.
Best wishes from George
Mesmerizing! The music and the musicians performing it (conductor included!) are worth each other… ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thank you for the great post! 🙏🍀