Ahhhh romance!
The romances must've been why EMI decided to put a strange highschool-level painting of a blond winged cherubim sitting atop either a golden LP or a sundial, not sure which, using an over-sized orange quill as a record stylus. The romance is also communicated by the ornately framed landscape painting over the left shoulder of the weird record angel (liner notes say it's "A Tranquil Mountainous Landscape", by George Engelhardt.)
Now, I'd already heard and loved the Romances in the 'nineties.
Before his hearing vanished along with his invincible will to party, my Iranian grandfather, Khosrow Hirbod, used to visit us in the summer occasionally when I was a kid living in and around Oshawa, then later, Kitchener, Ontario. A life-long classical music buff, Khosrow (we never called him grandpa) often claimed that if he hadn't been busy making a fortune working for oil companies and the Shah of Iran, he would've been a music historian. I didn't and don't believe him - music historians don't roll high - but there wasn't and isn't a doubt about his enthusiasm for music and on his long visits, he made this enthusiasm my mother's problem.
He would have my Mom drive him to the library in whatever town we were living in and he would spend hours flipping through the vinyl collection, picking out what he considered the best recordings of his favourite works (meaning, of course, all recorded before 1980. Like, on tenors: "Jussi Bjorling "A master". Domingo: "Sounds like he smokes."). He would pile into the car with his arm-load of vinyl, then have my mother take him to buy about 50 blank cassette tapes. Then he'd sit in our living room, in front of my father's silver multi-unit Marantz sound system, big headphones on his big head, listening to the LPs and making at least two cassette copies of every LP: one for himself to bring back to Nice and one for us, as a gift.
The thing I remember most about his cassette copies - and there are still a few floating around - was his handwriting. My grandfather was an engineer and/or an architect (I've never been clear which) and his penmanship is exquisite. Artful, beautiful, always in black ink. It made the cassettes feel exotic and special - of another time and place.
One of these cassettes, that I listened to on and off into my teens, was of Beethoven's Romances. The "best" recording, in Khosrow's esteem, was of David Oistrakh (Russian, 1908-1974). I don't know which orchestra Oistrakh was playing with on this recording, but it was achingly beautiful. I'm gonna write "I loved it" a lot in this blog, so if you don't like a guy loving stuff, sign off. I LOVED that recording.
But I do not have that cassette anymore. My CD is of Yehudi Menuhin (slouch) playing with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Pritchard. It was recorded at Studio 1, Abbey Road, in 1960, which is nerdy-great when you think of what happened there in the same decade. It's also an amazing recording, though I do wish I had that cassette.
I only had time today to listen to Romance No. 1 in G, Op. 40.
I love how the orchestra tip-toes around the solo violin as the central theme is introduced - all hushed and pizzicato. Then when the full heft of the orchestra comes in it's after an almost rockstar 2-3-4!
I also love the almost gypsy direction the solo takes. I just LOVE IT.
There. That's me talking about music. It doesn't get more erudite than that, folks, so pop on your blissful ignorance hats and enjoy.
Here's my grandfather's fave David Oistrakh playing the piece in 1966 in Moscow.
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