01. - 05. Symphony No. 2 in C minor 'Resurrection' [90'23]
Elizabeth Ander- soprano, Alfreda Hodgson- alto, The Ambrosian Singers, Symphonica of London conducted by Wyn Morris
Symphonica LP SYM7/8 (recorded May 1974; original LP issue 1978)
(24bit/48kHz LP rip to FLAC, sleeve front and back scans)
Recording venue: Not disclosed
Recording engineer: Michael Gray; Producer: Isabella Wallich
These files of a famous, not to say notorious, recording came to me from a friend without any documentation so I have no idea of their provenance. When first released, these LPs, like the earlier release of Symphony No.8, had universally noisy surfaces and after a number of exchanges, I eventually received a listenable copy from a special stash held in producer Isabella Wallich's central London apartment. As far as I know, this recording has never been issued on CD. (All the Symphonica tapes were reportedly seized by the British Treasury when the financial backers went bankrupt in 1979.)
The files that I received also came with numerous pops and clicks. I have applied a light click repair which seems to have removed the worst of the clicks without adversely affecting the orchestral sound. Having said that, I do not remember the sound on my long-departed original LPs being quite as "grey" as it sounds here. Possibly this is more a result of the cartridge used for LP playback rather than the original recorded sound - although this could never be described as 'sparkling'.
I have also joined the two parts of the fifth movement - end of side 3 after Urlicht and the whole of side 4. (I guess that a 37 minute LP side was out of the question.) And I have added scans of the sleeve covers purloined from the interweb. I also found a scan of the inside of the gate-fold sleeve but this is virtually illegible.
The recording was made in an unnamed hall with a rather reverberant acoustic (sounds like the Royal Albert Hall). The maverick Welsh conductor, Wyn Morris, had at his disposal a pick-up orchestra, put together by Sidney Sax, made up of many of London's top musicians. As you can see from the overall timing shown above, this is a very long performance (compare with 79 minutes for my favourite Otto Klemperer studio recording for EMI). But only the first and possibly the last movement seem overly slow. A stand out is Alfreda Hodgson's singing of Urlicht. (Perhaps not quite as overwhelming as her Das Lied von der Erde with Jascha Horenstein, but nevertheless very beautiful.)
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