Biddulph Records | |
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Founded | 1989 |
Founder | Peter Biddulph Eric Wen |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Location | Devon, England |
Official website | www |
Biddulph Recordings is a record label based in Devon, England [1] specialising in the restoration of historical performances, particularly by string musicians. [2] It was founded in 1989 by violin dealer Peter Biddulph and Eric Wen, a musicologist and historian of string performances. [3] [2] In 2003, Sarah Woodward joined and has since overseen the historical vocal label Romophone. [4] Biddulph Recordings’ honours include the Gramophone 1999 ICRC award for "Historical Recording of the Year".[ citation needed ]
The early Biddulph titles included the first digital reissues of recordings by Fritz Kreisler, Joseph Szigeti, Jacques Thibaud, and Yehudi Menuhin. [2] [5] [6] By the mid-1990s, Biddulph Recordings had also released complete editions of Bronisław Huberman, Mischa Elman, Jan Kubelík, Henri Temianka, Toscha Seidel, Ossy Renardy, Lionel Tertis, William Primrose, Pablo Casals, and Ruggiero Ricci. [7] [8] [5] [9] [10] [11] [12] The Biddulph label soon include historical piano recordings, with the first digital reissues of recordings by Alfred Cortot, Harold Bauer, and Percy Grainger, [6] [13] [14] [15] followed by Myra Hess, Moriz Rosenthal, Raoul Koczalski, Wilhelm Backhaus, and Shura Cherkassky. [16] [17] [18] [6] [19] Biddulph later branched into historical orchestral and chamber music, reissuing the work of Willem Mengelberg, Serge Koussevitzky, Leopold Stokowski, Thomas Beecham, Max Fiedler, and Hermann Abendroth, [20] [21] [4] [6] [22] [23] [24] as well as the Budapest String Quartet, the Busch Quartet, the Capet Quartet, and the Primrose Quartet. [25] [26] [27] [28]
Biddulph Recordings has also produced a number of important original recordings. [12] The first of these was the recital recording debut of violinist Maxim Vengerov, then an unknown 14-year-old prodigy. [12] [6] This was followed by Ruggiero Ricci’s accounts of the Beethoven and Brahms Concertos featuring 16 and 14 different cadenzas respectively (both concerto albums were tracked to enable the listener to choose which cadenza to program into each performance). [29] Other new recordings on the Biddulph label include the Bach interpretations of pianist Edward Aldwell, [30] and the violin performances of Oscar Shumsky, Aaron Rosand, and Arnold Steinhardt. [3] [31] [32]
William Primrose CBE was a Scottish violist and teacher. He performed with the London String Quartet from 1930 to 1935. He then joined the NBC Symphony Orchestra where he formed the Primrose Quartet. He performed in various countries around the world as a soloist throughout his career. He also taught at several universities and institutions. He authored several books on viola technique.
Julius Baker was one of the foremost American orchestral flute players. During the course of five decades he concertized with several of America's premier orchestral ensembles including the Chicago Symphony and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
The Emerson String Quartet, also known as the Emerson Quartet, is an American string quartet that was initially formed as a student group at the Juilliard School in 1976. It was named for American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and began touring professionally in 1976. The ensemble taught in residence at The Hartt School in the 1980s and is currently (2022) the quartet in residence at Stony Brook University. Both of the founding violinists studied with Oscar Shumsky at Juilliard, and the two alternated as first and second violinists for the group. The Emerson Quartet was one of the first such ensembles with the two violinists alternating chairs.
Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher who made an international career, based in Hanover and Berlin. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.
Jan Kubelík was a Czech violinist and composer.
The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and referred to as the Oscars for classical music. They are widely regarded as the most influential and prestigious classical music awards in the world. According to Matthew Owen, national sales manager for Harmonia Mundi USA, "ultimately it is the classical award, especially worldwide."
Josef Gingold was a Russian-born American classical violinist and teacher who lived most of his life in the United States. At the time of his death he was considered one of the most influential violin masters in the United States, with many successful students.
Oscar Shumsky was an American violinist and conductor born to Russian-Jewish parents. Oscar Shumsky married Louise Sophia Carboni on October 4, 1939. Together they had two sons; Noel and Eric. A great deal has been written about Shumsky’s musical artistry; however, little is known about his “other interests”. Since his childhood in Philadelphia Shumsky was fascinated with photography. He was an avid amateur photographer who could often be found with a camera. His photographic skills and knowledge were recognized by the great American photographer- Ansel Adams. The two men became friends drawn together by their mutual interests and respect; Shumsky a professional musician and amateur photographer and Adams a professional photographer and amateur musician (pianist). Shumsky had a curiosity with the world around him. He was drawn to biology and microbiology which led him to the field of photo microscopy. He would often find himself in a situation where he needed a special mounting to marry one optical device to another. He taught himself how to use a metal lathe and other machining tools to build whatever was needed to accomplish the task.
James Ehnes, is a Canadian concert violinist and violist.
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Shura Cherkassky was a Russian-American concert pianist known for his performances of the romantic repertoire. His playing was characterized by a virtuoso technique and singing piano tone. For much of his later life, Cherkassky resided in London.
Ferdinand Ernst Victor Carl David was a German virtuoso violinist and composer.
Rudolf Firkušný was a Moravian-born, Moravian-American classical pianist.
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The London String Quartet was a string quartet founded in London in 1908 which remained one of the leading English chamber groups into the 1930s, and made several well-known recordings.
The Spencer Dyke Quartet was a string quartet active in England through the 1920s. It was formed in 1918 and its personnel remained unchanged until August 1927 when Bernard Shore became the violist and Tate Gilder the second violin. It is best remembered now for a series of pioneering chamber music recordings made for the National Gramophonic Society. At the time of the recordings, the Quartet members were Edwin Spencer Dyke, Edwin Quaife, Ernest Tomlinson (viola) and Bertie Patterson Parker cello. Bernard Shore played viola in the last two recordings only.
The 24 Caprices for Solo Violin were written in groups by Niccolò Paganini between 1802 and 1817. They are also designated as M.S. 25 in Maria Rosa Moretti's and Anna Sorrento's Catalogo tematico delle musiche di Niccolò Paganini which was published in 1982. The Caprices are in the form of études, with each number exploring different skills
Huw Thomas Watkins is a British composer and pianist. Born in South Wales, he studied piano and composition at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester, where he received piano lessons from Peter Lawson. He then went on to read Music at King's College, Cambridge, where he studied composition with Robin Holloway and Alexander Goehr, and completed an MMus in composition at the Royal College of Music, where he studied with Julian Anderson. Huw Watkins was awarded the Constant and Kit Lambert Junior Fellowship at the Royal College of Music, where he used to teach composition. He is currently Honorary Research Fellow at the Royal College of Music.
Ossy Renardy was an Austrian classical violinist, who made a major impression in Europe before migrating to the United States at age 17. There he made the first complete recording of any version of the 24 Paganini Caprices. He became an American citizen and served in the US Army in World War II, giving almost 500 concerts for the troops. He returned to the concert stage after the war, but only five years into his adult career he was killed in a car crash in New Mexico, at the age of 33. He left a number of recordings.
Michael Dussek is an English pianist specialising in chamber music and song accompaniment.