Recording The Tchaikovsky Symphonies | Part Three

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1 in G minor, op. 13 “Winter Daydreams”

With the Fifth Symphony released, and the Fourth Symphony already on tape, it was time to for Mariss and the Chandos team to decide which of the symphonies to record next. Should we go for the obvious, and record the 6th Symphony – the famous “Pathetique”? Or should we go into relatively unknown territory and

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1

record one of the earlier symphonies? The 5th Symphony was released in November of 1984 to coincide with the orchestra’s tour of Great Britain, and it received glowing reviews. The safe bet would have been to record the Sixth and hope for the same success as the 5th, and it was to be hoped, with the fourth, which was scheduled for release in the fall of 1985. After some discussion, Maris and the Chandos team decided not to go into familiar territory, but to record one of the less well-known earlier symphonies. In this case, they chose to record the First Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Op. 13 in G minor, known alternately as “Winter Dreams” or “Winter Daydreams”.
This is not an easy work to play or record. While not as technically difficult as the later works, it is lighter in texture in places and requires a defter touch, particularly in the first and second movements. The scherzo has its tricky passages, and although the finale can be a little bombastic at the end, one needs to be on one’s guard at all times.

Once the decision to record the 1st Symphony was made, the next step was when to record it. Luckily, April of 1985 had several open days at the end of the month, which would otherwise been used for the recording of Norwegian music by the NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting). The NRK graciously yielded the time to the orchestra to allow us to record for Chandos, and the dates were set for the last week of April. If memory serves me, we followed a similar pattern in preparing the 1st Symphony as we did for the previous two symphonies, as there were no concert performances to “warm up” the orchestra. Two to three days of rehearsals, and two and a half days to record the symphony. Time was also allotted to record what was meant to be a filler for the symphony: “Capriccio Italien”, Tchaikovsky’s Opus 45.
The recording team from Chandos was the same, with Brian Couzens as recording producer, his son Ralph as sound supervisor, and the NRK engineer was Dag Kristofferson.

The Recording Sessions…

In the event, it took us a little longer to get the symphony on tape, as it was a very different style than the later symphonies. First off, it was lighter in texture, less robust (at least in the first three movements) and with a tricky scherzo to boot! The finale was not without its challenges, but was a bit easier to get on tape, as the main thing was to get the right balances in the finale, and not have it come off as a bit of tub-thumping.
Mariss was very careful to get the right sound out of the orchestra, spending the first day in playing through and balancing each to his satisfaction before getting it on tape. I used the Hinger timpani throughout, although I had to use sticks that were harder than I normally liked to use. I used a pair of Feldman light-blue medium-hard mallets for most of the symphony. The timpani are used in the first, third and fourth movements; the second movement, the Adagio cantabile ma non tanto, (subtitled “ Land of desolation, Land of Mists) being a tacet movement for the timpanist. (Incidentally, this slow movement is my favorite of the entire symphony. Tchaikovsky really does evoke the misty, desolate landscape in one of his most sensitive symphonic movements.)

I remember the first movement as being relatively straight-forward and it was recorded fairly straight off, whereas the second movement, owing to its texture, took a lot longer to record. The attention to detail paid off in the end, and in my opinion it was one of the most successful movements in the recording! The scherzo was also a bit of a bear to get on tape, owing to the acoustics of the hall and the articulations demanded by Tchaikovsky. The Hinger drums were still equipped with the Remo hazy heads, and for the scherzo’s coda, I applied an improvised muffler to the center of the heads of the 28 and 31 inch drums (which were tuned to C and G) to assist in the articulation. These were not felt mufflers, but rather pieces of masking tape curled over on itself. They did assist somewhat in taking away some of the reverb and made for a slightly more articulate sound. I had a set of Firth mufflers at the time, which were generally very good, but for that particular passage I felt that the Firths would have been too heavy. The tape curls did the trick, in combination with the Feldman reds (thinner shaft – ½ inch as opposed to 5/8 inch).
The finale went rather more quickly on tape; I actually played the movement on the larger two Hingers – pushing the 28 inch up to a D, which it handled it quite well.

Capriccio Italien – to be or not to be….

Once the symphony was on tape, we got set to record the Capriccio Italien, op. 45. This was originally supposed to be a filler for the 1st Symphony, but the NRK asked if they could videotape it, using the Chandos sound. In other words, both teams would be working side by side. We only had a session and a half, but since the NRK had ceded much of their allotted orchestra time to Chandos for the symphony, it was agreed to put the Capriccio on DAT (for the gramophone) and videotape it for NRK, virtually simultaneously. We rehearsed it well enough, and got into our dark suits and long ties (black dresses for the ladies) and did two and a half run-throughs for the cameras and microphones. NRK later broadcast it for public viewing, but I remember Mariss not being satisfied with the overall audio result, and he and Chandos agreed to redo it at a later date, when there was less pressure. We re-recorded it in studio (no TV) in June of 1987.
As a result, the symphony was released on its own, and our luck held – as with the previous two releases, it received high marks. So far, so good! On to Symphony No. 2!