FYI for collectors of Mahler memorabilia

[Toblacher]

I was in an antique store recently where they a huge collection of old LIFE magazines and just happened to pick up a random issue and in it was a full page advert for the new and first ever release (or so they claimed) of a recording of the M4.  This is the one by Bruno Walter.  It included a few quotes by Walter on the piece.

For anyone interested it is the Feb. 18, 1946 issue and several are available on eBay ranging from about $10 to $30.  Actress Dorothy Maguire is on the cover.

[AZContrabassoon]

Can you imagine that? Living at a time when classical records were actually advertised in major magazines? Yehudi Menuhin once said that for him, after WWII, the last half of the 40's was the most civilized era imaginable - at least as far as music went. People dressed to the nines to go to concerts, concerts were broadcast on radio, there were many movies with classical music and classical musicians as subject matter...and magazine readers actually were worth advertising to.

[barry guerrero]

"there were many movies with classical music and classical musicians as subject matter"

Have you seen many of those?  .     .    .  most of them were just god-awful; often times 'patronizing' at best.  Far better, IMHO, were the 'film noirs' that exposed the grimy underbelly of America's post-war utopia. Those will remain with us long after ridiculous movies about Chopin and others will be long forgotten.

We may be living in some sort of foreboding, pre World War I like 'twilight', but at least we can own a multitude of recordings that can pretty well approximate what it's like to hear a fine performance of a Mahler symphony 'live'. I wouldn't trade.

In the late '40s and 1950s, there was the nervous uncertainty of entering the nuclear age (with its real risk of nuclear annihilation), not to mention just beginning the daunting task of addressing huge environmental, race and inequality issues (which we're still grappling with, of course). Little wonder that jazz went from swing to fast, nervous, pointillistic and slightly atonal i.e. Bebop. Oh, and don't forget those lovely McCarthy fueled witch-hunts out in Hollywood. Yes, those WERE the days - civilization at its finest.

[AZContrabassoon]

Oh yes, I've sat through my share of those god awful movies. The composer "biographies" were terrible. But there are a lot of other movies, thrillers and insipid dramas, too. And yet every once in a while there's a great one. "Laura" is on of them. I love it when the detective (Dana Andrews) mentions that the concert was changed from Sibelius. If a movie used a line like that now, what percent of the audience would understand it? Probably <1%. Just last week I saw an oldie I had never seen, The Snake Pit. The protagonist and her love went to a classical concert. Nowadays they'd go to a rock concert. Or John Tesh.
I absolutely agree that it's a great time to be a classical listener - more recordings, and of more obscure music, than anyone in the 40's could have imagined. And I have to say that in some ways I prefer recordings to live concerts - heresy, I know. But a well-engineered recording can reveal details of the score that are almost always lost in live concerts. And there's an immediacy, a presence, to a good recording that only the conductor can usually hear. Get too far back in any hall and it's gone. I avoid most summer festivals now since so many of them use electronic amplification. What's the point?
Menuhin specifically mentioned the late 40's; don't think he had the 50's in mind - the racial and nuclear issues really didn't come up until the late 50's and early 60's. I was there...dang I'm old. Environmental issues really didn't take off until Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in '62. And yes, we're still grappling with these issues. And sometimes when I see myself worrying about the state of orchestras and classical music I remember that there are far bigger issues and problems in the world than whose version of the Resurrection Symphony is best...

[waderice]

I'm a bit surprised that no one's mentioned a movie from 1947, "Carnegie Hall".  No Mahler played in that one, but you did see and hear conductors Bruno Walter, Leopold Stokowski, Fritz Reiner, Artur Rodzinski, and Walter Damrosch.  Also, there was cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, violinist Jascha Heifetz, plus singers Rise Stevens, Jan Peerce, Ezio Pinza, and Lily Pons.  The story plot was insipid from the very start, but the film is valuable for seeing and hearing these big names in classical music at the time in action.

Wade

[barry guerrero]

 "Laura" is one of them. I love it when the detective (Dana Andrews) mentions that the concert was changed from Sibelius"

Great movie with a great cast! For me, Vincent Price steals the show. But Dana Andrews is one of my favorites, and he's terrific in "The Best Years of Our Lives" with Myrna Loy (1946). I also really liked him in a strange 'noir' with the gorgeous Linda Darnell, called "Fallen Angel". He plays a bad character, obsessed by Darnell's beauty, who morphs into THE good guy by the movie's end.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037691/