Last Tahra label

by Peter Cates

Tahra Story

Tah 768, one CD, released 2014.

Tahra was a historical CD label started in 1992 by Myriam Scherchen, daughter of the conductor, Hermann Scherchen (1891-1966), and her late husband, Rene Tremaine, journalist, producer and voracious record collector. They started the label as a means of releasing previously unavailable tapes, recordings that had been out of print for decades and some restored material that had wretched sound in their earlier release but now were much improved.

Hermann Abendroth

Although the catalog had several conductors, pianists and string players of significant interest throughout its availability, the couple’s initial focus would be three important conductors- Myriam’s father, Hermann Abendroth (1883-1956) and Wilhelm Furtwangler (1886-1954). I own a sizable pile of their releases and enjoy them thoroughly.

Unfortunately, the decision to end the label, due to several business considerations in 2014, was made and the above CD was its last release.

It was focussed one final time on the same three conductors – Scherchen, Abendroth and Furtwangler, each of whom was a brilliant interpreter of Beethoven. They were also very personalized and individualistic in their conducting styles and gave frequently exciting performances, of which there are five vibrant examples on this CD:
Scherchen conducted a short instrumental piece by the fascinating French baroque composer, Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), Sixieme concert en sextuor , from a 1964 broadcast; and a powerful Schubert Unfinished Symphony, from a long, out-of-print 1960 LP.

Wilhelm Furtwangler

Abendroth was a most adept political survivor under two totalitarian regimes. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Abendroth was resistant to, and highly critical, of the regime; thus he lost one conducting post. By 1937, he had joined the Nazi Party and appointed music director of the Leipzig Gewand­haus.

After the war, he was again dismissed by the recently installed Communist government in East Germany yet within a few short years would be busy doing concerts and recordings mostly in Leipzig and Berlin. After his death, from a stroke he suffered during surgery, he was honored by the East German government with a state funeral.

On this CD, Abendroth conducts the opening Allegro moderato, from Bruckner’s 7th Symphony, in a majestic, truly stirring 1951 broadcast performance.

Hermann Scherchen

Furtwangler is generally the most well-known conductor of the three, even sparking more interest in his many live and studio recordings since his death more than 60 years ago. He had a unique talent for communicating the spiritual essence of whatever musical piece he was conducting, whether it was Mozart or Wagner, and his sizable catalog of CDs is more profitable than that of any other conductor, alive or dead!

He conducts the Beethoven 7th’s joyously jubilant first movement in a 1943 Berlin Philharmonic broadcast and the same composer’s 5th Symphony’s second movement in a 1954 Vienna Philharmonic concert, both renditions typically fascinating Furtwangler tracks.

REVIEW POTPOURRI

by Peter Cates

How I started collecting records

My first experience of Mozart came with the beautiful set of his 40th Symphony, three Columbia 78s recorded in 1937, that were given to me in seventh grade – I remember to this day the captivating, rolling rhythms of the opening movement. The conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961), had a knack, at his best, for making music heavenly sounding and he had a greater number of recordings than any other conductor, during the ‘30s and ‘40s, that were first class in both performance and sound.

Beecham was also quite the wit. A colleague of his, who remembered the conductor dismissing the composer, Brahms, as boring during his youth, noticed years later that Beecham conducted Brahms very well and asked if the latter had changed his mind: “No, Brahms still bores me but he bores me less. ”

Dark Mountain

starring Robert Lowery, Ellen Drew, Regis Toomey, etc.; directed by William Berke; Paramount Pictures; 1944; 57 minutes.

Robert Lowery

Regis Toomey

Dark Mountain deals with a newly promoted forest ranger, Don, who patrols the Dark Mountain region in an unnamed western state. At his boss’s insistence, he takes a long overdue vacation to visit his girlfriend, Kay, with a marriage proposal. However, because Don has been away for months, Kay has married Steve, a very successful businessman and exceptionally considerate husband to Kay.

Don returns early to his job, discouraged; meanwhile Kay finds out hubby Steve is a murderous racketeer and escapes to the mountain to hide, with Don’s help. Steve tracks her and the suspense accelerates. A high speed chase in a car loaded with explosives leads to Steve’s fiery death and a happily ever after for the predictably reunited lovers.

Ellen Drew

Zdenek Kosler

Although the story was ho-hum, I enjoyed certain aspects of this B film – the black and white footage of a forest fire at the beginning, with its quite convincing authenticity; and the classy acting and presence of Robert Lowery (1913-1971) as Ranger Don and the skillful sustaining of charm and menace from longtime character actor, Regis Toomey (1898-1991), fresh from his work in the classic Bogie film, The Big Sleep.

Lowery was later a fixture of ‘50s TV. In fact, I have a still vivid childhood memory of him as a friend of Clark Kent in a 1956 episode of Superman, ‘The Deadly Rock’, in which he too has a dangerous vulnerability to Kryptonite.

Beethoven

Symphony No. 3, the Eroica; Zdenek Kosler conducting the Slovak Philharmonic; DM-2-1009.

Ludwig van B’s 3rd Symphony was such an assertive, heroic, rhythmically-aggressive 45 minutes of glorious, at times noble and sublime music, needing a larger orchestra than the Symphonies 1 and 2 and it has received a fine performance from the late Maestro Kosler and his musicians, one of a very large number of quality recordings, of which I own and cherish dozens of them. It often stimulates the best efforts of players because of its monumental grandeur. And this performance is very cheap when available.

A little quibble. There is no information on the music and, while Kosler’s name is listed in two of the three spots ID’ing the conductor, another gifted maestro, Libor Pesek, has his in the third space. Personally, I believe Kosler is the right name due to its frequency of listing and the driving intensity of the performance while Pesek has a more lyrical poetic approach when he conducts. But I will not be dogmatic here!