It was inevitable that the Boston Symphony – hailed as “The Aristocrat of Orchestras” in the early ‘60s by RCA Victor, its long-time record company...

It was inevitable that the Boston Symphony – hailed as “The Aristocrat of Orchestras” in the early ‘60s by RCA Victor, its long-time record company – would spin off an ensemble from its elite roster of principals. The Boston Symphony Chamber Players were duly launched in 1964 during the Austrian conductor Erich Leinsdorf’s music directorship. Starting that October, RCA Victor recorded them regularly in Symphony Hall until the orchestra changed labels at the end of decade. By then, ten LPs of chamber music had been issued in four critically acclaimed releases.

Sony Classical is now pleased to present all these recordings for the first time on album. The BSO’s ensemble of first-chair players is led here by its patrician concertmaster Joseph Silverstein, one of the finest American violinists of his generation as well as a highly regarded conductor and teacher. It also features such illustrious BSO principals as oboist Ralph Gomberg, flautist Doriot Anthony Dwyer, violist Burton Fine and cellist Jules Eskin, as well as two distinguished guest artists: Claude Frank and Richard Goode sharing honors in the works with piano. RCA Victor recorded these outstanding musicians in a wide spectrum of repertoire, and each LP release represented a judicious balance of classical and modern works, both European and American.

REVIEW:

Brahms’s C-Minor Piano Quartet is sober but expressive; the opening in particular is deliberate, but the entire first movement features a great intensity. The second-movement Scherzo is furious, with good “Scotch snap” rhythms. The fourth movement incorporates the exposition repeat. The Beethoven Serenade is delightful, with Doriot Anthony Dwyer showing a fluent flute technique. Irving Fine’s Fantasia is atonal but lyrical; Copland’s Vitebsk an early work with a percussive piano part. Elliott Carter’s brief, two-movement Woodwind Quintet is also early (1948) and is more accessible than his later music. Piston’s Divertimento is well crafted, like all of his music.

In Mozart's Piano Quartet, the sound is a bit dry and Fine’s viola tone a little nasal, but otherwise it’s a fine reading, with first-movement exposition repeat. The wonderful Quintet is a joy, as it always is; repeats are taken in the first two movements. Claude Frank, the pianist here as in the Brahms and Copland works, is a fine collaborator. Brahms’s Horn Trio is sober but enjoyable despite James Stagliano’s big, orchestral sound. The fourth-movement repeat is taken.

In Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet, pianist Richard Goode takes Frank’s place as the group’s pianist, and Henry Portnoi replaces Georges Moleux as the bassist. The performance isn’t quite as jovial as Rudolf Serkin’s Marlboro recording, but is well played; Portnoi’s bass, however, is too weakly recorded. There are no exposition repeats. Goode is passionate in Brahms’s B-Major Trio, which also features Silverstein’s patrician playing. The first-movement repeat is observed. In Poulenc’s light-hearted Sextet, I prefer the sonority of the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet with the composer at the piano; in particular, Stagliano sticks out too much.

The Chamber Players deserve credit for programming Anton Webern's Concerto, in which trumpeter Ghitalla and trombonist Gibson make their sole appearances in the set. I have always found this to be one of Webern’s most accessible pieces; this is rhythmically tricky music, though, with its frequent ritardandos and syncopations, and the group plays it with impressive precision. The performance is even more remarkable if it is played without conductor; none is credited. Martinů’s Nonet No. 2, for wind quintet and one of each string instrument, is characteristic and pleasant. I had more trouble with Ingolf Dahl’s atonal Duettino Concertante, although Dwyer’s playing is agile as always.

Schubert’s B♭-Major Trio, with Frank again as the pianist, is given a sparkling performance in which everything goes right despite the lack of repeats; Silverstein and Eskin are totally in sync and Frank’s playing is alert and sensitive. Milhaud’s four-and-a-half-minute Pastorale is innocuous, but Hindemith’s Kleine Kammermusik, an iconic, and iconoclastic, wind chamber work, is well performed.

The three pieces that were not issued on LP are on CD 9. There are no big revelations here; Louis Spohr’s Nonet, for the same nine instruments as Martinů’s, receives a fine but not exceptional performance without exposition repeats. I could have done without Wilson Coker’s Concertino, a six-minute piece in an astringent atonal language; Walt’s playing, however, is beyond reproach. Barber’s Summer Music, another core repertoire wind quintet piece which, however, was only about 10 years old when the Bostonians recorded it, seems overly lethargic here. Much more animated is the earlier recording by the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet.

The remasterings are a great improvement over the sound of the original RCA LPs, which date from the worst period in that company’s stereo LP era. The originals were “Dynagroove” and “Dynaflex” pressings, which were designed to sound decent on inferior equipment but were sonically compromised. A small quibble: the CDs all bear facsimiles of the RCA “no dog” label, whereas the first two three-record sets were issued on RCA Victor “white dog” pressings.

The Boston Symphony Chamber Players was and is an elite musical organization, and with few exceptions these are highly enjoyable performances. The Chamber Players would become even more outstanding with the addition of clarinetist Harold Wright and hornist Charles Kavalovsky in 1970 and 1971, respectively; I still treasure a Nonesuch LP, never reissued on CD, of the Brahms Horn and Clarinet Trios featuring these two artists. Still, I greatly enjoyed this set. Recommended.

-- Fanfare