REVIEW POTPOURRI: Record company: Grey Gull; Conductor: Richard Strauss

by  Peter Cates

Beyond the Clouds

Ben Hitchfield, tenor; The Old Rugged Cross – the Cathedral Duo (Hall and Ryan, male vocals); Grey Gull – 4091, 10-inch acoustic shellac 78, recorded approx. 1922-3.

The history of Grey Gull records begins in 1919 in Boston and lasts for just over a decade with some advanced techniques in disc techniques that almost bankrupted the firm, and more subsequent changes making for fascinating reading under wiki. This record has not generated any information beyond the above.

As listening material, it is extremely noisy yet still provided gleanings of some pleasure. The two vocalists gave a beautiful rendition of the ever familiar Old Rugged Cross while tenor Ben Hitchfield deployed his fine voice on the previously unfamiliar and pretty Beyond the Clouds; unfortunately, this side was even noisier. I will definitely keep this record as a stopgap.

Richard Strauss

Also Sprach Zarathustra
Henry Lewis conducting the Royal Philharmonic; London Phase 4, 12-inch stereo LP, released mid- to late-‘60s.

The late African-American conductor Henry Lewis (1932-1996) revealed his gifts through conducting for his former wife, the very famous and talented Marilyn Horne, and a series of LPs for the above listed Phase 4. I own a number of the latter, which feature the Beethoven Pastoral and Tchaikovsky Pathetique Symphonies; the Tchaikovsky 1st and Rachmaninoff 2nd Piano Concertos, with the great pianist Ivan Davis; and, of course, the above Strauss – all these quite recommendable.

There are other great Strauss Zarathustras on my shelves because it is a very exciting piece of music with the universally familiar theme from the 2001 Space Odyssey. They are conducted by Zubin Mehta, Karl Bohm, Serge Koussevitzky, Frederick Stock, Fritz Reiner, Eugene Ormandy, Herbert von Karajan, Carl Schuricht, Bernard Haitink, Zdenek Kosler, Rudolf Kempe, Clemens Krauss, William Steinberg, Sir Georg Solti, Antal Dorati, Gerard Schwarz, Artur Rodzinski, Pierre Boulez, Stanislaw Scrowaczewski and, last but not least, the composer Richard Strauss himself (1864-1949).