INSIDER VIEW 1948: Mitropoulos rehearsing James Aliferis No 1
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- čas přidán 9. 09. 2024
- Pretty unique find in the archive - a rehearsal of Dimitri Mitropoulos working the Minneapolis Symphony through a challenging modern piece by James Aliferis (Symphony #1) on March 19th, 1948.
Aliferis was a student in 1941, with Leonard Bernstein and Lukas Foss, in Serge Koussevitsky's first conducting class at the Berkshire Music Center. I can find little else about Aliferis or this symphony so if you know more please comment!
The unique thing about this is you can hear Mitropoulos’ distinct voice as he starts and stops the orchestra through various sections. At one point early on you can hear him singing the violin lines along with them. He famously didn’t work with scores and had an incredible memory. I’m pretty sure he’s humming along at a different point in the rehersal.
The first part of the recording is not very high quality - mostly because the tape was very old, on an acetate backing which had hardened and peeled away some of the oxide. But the later half of the recording is of stellar quality. The brass section in particular is electrifying.
At the end of the recording you hear that this was a broadcast of KUOM, the University of Minnesota radio station. Based on the quality of this recording and previous notes from Reynolds Marchant, I believe this was recorded directly off the line at Northrup Auditorium that fed the radio broadcast.
Technical info:
Unknown Scotch, maybe 102
7” Reel
7 1/2 IPS
00:00 - Aliferis Symphony #1 rehearsal
12:42 - KUOM Announcer
This from the 1992 NY Times obit for James Aliferis: "Mr. Aliferis was a student in 1941, with Leonard Bernstein and Lukas Foss, in Serge Koussevitsky's first conducting class at the Berkshire Music Center. From 1946 to 1958 he taught at the University of Minnesota, was the permanent guest conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, served as Paul Hindemith's assistant at Tanglewood and was the conductor of the International Society of Contemporary Music. His First Symphony received its premiere with Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting the Minneapolis orchestra. He was the president of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston from 1958 to 1962. He was the author of the Aliferis Music Achievement Tests, the country's only standardized college-level musicianship examinations. In the late 1960's, he served as director of choral music for the city of Philadelphia and led his own professional chorus, the James Aliferis Singers."
The New England Conservatory's website adds this earlier background info: "James Aliferis was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. As a child, he studied piano and violin at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Aliferis received both his bachelor’s degree (B.S., 1936) and master’s degree (M.A., 1939) from Western Reserve University. At Western Reserve, Aliferis studied theory, counterpoint, and fugue with Melville Smith, and composition and music history with Arthur Shepherd. In 1939, he received a Ranney Fellowship for further study in Europe."
What an increadible inside in Mitropoulos incandescent art of conducting !
Astonishingly, it appears for four years in a row, starting in 1945, the University of Minnesota’s "educational" radio station KUOM negotiated the rights to broadcast portions of the MSO’s afternoon final dress rehearsals which preceded their normal Friday evening subscription concerts, focusing on especially challenging scores programmed by Mitropoulos. These broadcasts were intended to offer those attending the Friday night concerts a “preview” audition of the complex new scores:
Thursday, 29 November 1945: Schoenberg Violin Concerto (with Louis Krasner)
Thursday, 12 December 1946: Arthur Schnabel Symphony
Thursday, 13 November 1947: Roger Sessions Violin Concerto (with Louis Krasner)
Friday, 19 March 1948: the James Aliferis Symphony heard here.
The Schoenberg, Schnabel, and Sessions broadcasts were complete and uninterrupted, full "dress rehearsal" broadcasts, unlike the Aliferis rehearsal. Also, for some reason this live KUOM rehearsal broadcast occurred on the morning of the Friday night premiere performance of the new symphony, not the day before.
What an amazing thing to do for that community! Nothing quite like it now. Of course many more people were listening to symphonic music in the 40s.
The great thing is that I have much if not all of these things on reels - see the Roger Sessions piece (the effective live debut) here:
czcams.com/video/s82YMgQaFOk/video.html
I haven't found the Schoenberg or Schnabel rehearsals yet but I bet it's something I just haven't pulled off the shelf yet.
@@MarchantTapeArchive Well, by the mid 1940s commercial radio had become big business. Air time was increasingly valuable, so classical music on commercial radio stations became rarer and rarer -- unless some big corporation like American Rubber, Ford Motor Company, or Texaco was willing to become a deep pocketed sponsor for it. KUOM was an "educational" non-commercial university station, so part of its mission was to "educate" audiences about classical music in general, especially if it was "difficult" like many of the works Mitropoulos performed during his time in Minneapolis. NBC's "Orchestras of America" (the source of your Mitropoulos "Eroica" broadcast was a rare commercial exception). By the 1950s only a few major American symphony orchestras and the Metropolitan Opera still had national radio broadcasts. It wasn't until the creation of a national system of education TV and radio broadcasting stations was created in the 1970s that classical music was heard on a regular basis on FM stations across the country.
@@MarchantTapeArchive I doubt you will find the 1945 and 1946 Minneapolis Symphony rehearsal broadcasts on Marchant tape recordings, alas -- since they predate wide use of tape recording in the U.S. If the Schoenberg broadcast survives anywhere, it would be on KUOM transcription discs, like the Schnabel did.
Mitropoulos was a passionate advocate and conductor of modern music-the best that ever was! Take a look at the variety of his (reference) recordings on the recent wonderfully produced
69cd box set. No conductor ever played so many difficult modern works and in his time 1930s and 1940s - nobody of his famous contemporaries conductors would have dared touching any of them!
The Symphony No 1 of James Aliferis sounds wonderful - I don't know why it has never been put to disc.
It just longs for a new recording!
So how about that Chandos? Naxos? Hyperion? CPO?
Give this wonderful music piece a chance.
D. Mitropoulos and Aliféris had some things in common: they were both talented musicians, both having their "roots" back in Greece. Anyway, an interesting work with massive orchestration, at times.
Interesting about Aliféris’ Greek background - I found barely anything about him with a basic Google search.
This is an incredible post!
Getting to hear DM rehearse an orchestra in his own voice is a real rarity. Thanks again!
Isn't it great? Such a fun find.
Thanks
Fascinating recording. Other than video of Mitropoulos recording Liszt’s Faust Symphony (with the orchestral finale), this is the only recording of Mitropoulos rehearsing that I’ve come across: czcams.com/video/Kl-dSoNHx8Y/video.htmlsi=iVADn2xmh3VmcuhU
I've seen that one! It's great. He put his ENTIRE body into conducting!
He also rehearsed the Philharmonic on CBS' See It Now, which can be seen at the Paley Center in Manhattan.
@@Twentythousandlps czcams.com/video/zGj39ra2BXU/video.html
@@MarchantTapeArchive Most similar I’ve seen to that is Guido Cantelli: czcams.com/video/4Mmg5LbeEY4/video.htmlsi=ulNF77eTroldM-CR