Wood's Eroica
The Queen's Hall Orchestra, Sir Henry Wood
The Eroica belies its eighty-plus years, with lithe, light outer movements, and a funeral march which actually marches, but still retains emotional depth. The Bach items have worn less well,...
Wood's Eroica
The Queen's Hall Orchestra, Sir Henry Wood
Purchase product
The Eroica belies its eighty-plus years, with lithe, light outer movements, and a funeral march which actually marches, but still retains emotional depth. The Bach items have worn less well,...
About
Sir Henry J Wood, founder of the Promenade Concerts ( the Proms) was in the vanguard of improvoing the standard of orchestral playing early in the twentieth century. After World War I his efforts to drive up standards were taken on by Sir Hamilton Hary in Manchester with the Halle, Sir Adrian Boult with the BBC and Sir Thomas Beecham and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The recordings on this disc are all of music beloved by Sir Henry.
In November 1926 Sir Henry Wood conducting his Queens Hall Orchestra recorded for Columbia an electrifying performance of Beethoven Symphony No 3 Erocia. However the recording , an early electrical recording, suffers from a dead acoustic and resonating hum plus surface defects. Three sets of discs were sourced and engineers at Beulah have been working on the acoustics the hum and the pressing faults that result in surface defects. We think the result demonstrates how powerful a conductor was Sir Henry Wood.
Contents and tracklist
- Henry Wood
- New Queens Hall Orchestra
- Henry Wood, New Queens Hall Orchestra
- Henry Wood
- New Queens Hall Orchestra
- Henry Wood
- Queens Hall Orchestra
Awards and reviews
March 2009
The Eroica belies its eighty-plus years, with lithe, light outer movements, and a funeral march which actually marches, but still retains emotional depth. The Bach items have worn less well, especially the truncated Brandenburg Concerto.
March 2009
...tempos are generally fast but finely held and very convincing in their own terms. The sound is not at all bad, considering it is an early electrical recording from 1926...The CD is valuable for this Eroica as a demonstration of Wood's genius (not too strong a word).
January 2009
...there is a clear sense of direction in all of these performances as well as what appears to be great care over balance and phrasing...The orchestra's sound is also of its time, with more portamento than would be usual today but not to such a degree in the Symphony as to be a problem to even modern listeners allergic to the practice.
