Monday, August 1, 2016

The Coolidge Quartet Completed (I)

Irene and Frederick Jacobi in Paris, 1950
My heroic quest is ended! This summer I have realized my goal of acquiring all of the Coolidge Quartet's published recordings, when the six sets that I lacked to make up a complete collection became available to me almost simultaneously from two different sources. So, this is to be the first of three posts uploading these. Particularly valuable is the piano quintet Hagiographa by San Francisco-born Frederick Jacobi (1891-1952), a composer who, like his teacher Ernest Bloch, specialized in music on Jewish themes. Like the Roy Harris Piano Quintet recording of a year earlier, this has the Coolidge Quartet collaborating with the composer's wife, Irene Jacobi (née Schwarcz, 1890-1984):

Frederick Jacobi: Hagiographa - Three Biblical Narratives (1938)
Irene Jacobi, piano, with the Coolidge Quartet
Recorded January 23, 1940
Victor Musical Masterpiece set DM-782, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 56.41 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 39.85 MB)

Beethoven: Quartet No. 7 in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1
The Coolidge Quartet (Kroll-Berezowsky-Moldavan-Gottlieb)
Recorded April 3, 1940
Victor Musical Masterpiece set DM-804, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 87.82 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 59.20 MB)

This Beethoven set was the Coolidges' last to have Nicolai Berezowsky as the second violinist; in the next season, he would be replaced by Jack Pepper.

9 comments:

  1. Alternate links:

    Jacobi:
    FLAC:
    http://www.mediafire.com/download/g0dkgmf2xsun4bx/Coolidge_SQ_-_Jacobi_Hagiographa_FLACs.zip
    MP3:
    http://www.mediafire.com/download/l11y8t9xi1gosjz/Coolidge_SQ_-_Jacobi_Hagiographa_MP3s.zip

    Beethoven:
    FLAC:
    http://www.mediafire.com/download/gjatngi9946d2bx/Coolidge_SQ_-_Beethoven_7_FLACs.zip
    MP3:
    http://www.mediafire.com/download/ljwzp2jz9jglovw/Coolidge_SQ_-_Beethoven_7_MP3s.zip

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  2. Congratulations on completing the set, and many, many thanks for so generously sharing your good fortune with the rest of us!

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  3. Thank you very much for this wonderful set. However, it seems that Beethoven's second quartet is missing... or did I miss something?

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    Replies
    1. That's coming in further installments, as are quartets by Hummel, Loeffler, and Daniel Gregory Mason. Stay tuned!

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  4. Bravo! I look forward eagerly to these - thank you again very much! Best wishes, Nick

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  5. Thx for the alternate links. Wow, great music. Thx for sharing. Looking forward to catching the rest of the series.

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  6. An historical milestone. Much looking forward to discovering all other recordings with them. Many THX !!!

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  7. Hi Bryan.

    Is there a way I can contact you privately? I have a proposition for you.

    Thanks.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Thurston, you can contact me by email. The part of my email address that precedes the "@" symbol is "bryan52063" and the part that follows it is "juno.com"...

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