Orpheus Records Returns Part 2

The return of the Orpheus label on Musical Concepts is a story of the revival of America's largest and yet least-known classical music record label. The Orpheus label was long a part of the Musical Heritage Society, a record club and record label started in New York City in the early 1960s by Dr. Michael Naida. 

Naida, who made recordings for Westminster in the 1950s, had a vision of a "society" where members would receive recordings in the mail, and be kept aware of developments and new recordings via "The MHS Review”, which became one of the earliest "record clubs". 

Dr. Naida sold MHS - the club and the record label - in the late 1970s. The new owners, the Nissim family, with a strong background in direct mail marketing, grew MHS to over 500,000 members in the late 1980s and 1990s. 

The MHS record club was sold in 2011, but the record label remained in the hands of the owners. Only a few hundred jazz and classical recordings on the MusicMasters label remained available in digital form, for downloading and streaming. Very few of the early MHS catalog appeared in digital form, or on CDs or LPs. 

In 2021, Musical Heritage Society completed the first true detailed research into the MHS catalog of recordings since the label and record club was purchased. They discovered that Musical Heritage Society owned over 2,000 recordings, either purchased by the Society or made by the Society's engineers and producers since the mid 1960s - far exceeding their estimates.

Musical Heritage Society approached Musical Concepts with the idea of reviving the Orpheus label - where historic and well-regarded MHS recordings could be restored and available to classical music lovers, with vastly improved sound (even from the LP era) and restored liner notes. 

Long-lost recordings from Ruth Slencnzyska, Huguette Dreyfus, the Austrian Tonkunstler Orchestra are scheduled for release, as well as many performances of New York City's early music groups. including the New York Consort of Viols. Also scheduled for release on Orpheus are a series of recordings created by early music pioneer Denis Stevens. An indefatigable force for the neglected music of the Renaissance and English baroque - particularly of Claudio Monteverdi and Henry Purcell - Stevens was responsible for the discovery of many Monteverdi and Purcell works, and their initial performances. One title scheduled to be released on Orpheus is believed to be the first recorded performance ever of Monteverdi's Il Combattimento. Also scheduled are several recordings from his group The Ambrosian Singers, which feature Neville Marriner, as well as other leading lights of the English classical music scene. And his reworking of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera - which led to its revival as a work that could be performed worldwide is also scheduled for early 2023.  

Patricia Clark and Ursula Connors, Sopranos

Jean Allister, Contralto 

Edgar Fleet and Leslie Fyson, Tenors

John Frost, Bass 

Neville Marriner and Peter Gibbs, Violins

Leslie Malowany and Max Gilbert, Violas

Bernard Richards, Cello 

DENIS STEVENS, Conductor

 

ABOUT "THE CRIES OF LONDON"

Centuries before our age of high-powered advertising and television commercials, it was up to the merchants, vendors, and pedlars of great cities to cry their wares and so attract the attention of prospective customers. The cries can still be heard today in some European cities, though they are rapidly losing ground because of the inevitable disappearance of ancient local traditions and the insistent encroachment of modern mechanical factors. In earlier times, cries were much more numerous and infinitely melodious, spilling over into the art-music of Italy, France, and England in such a way as to enshrine themselves in the cultural history of the country. Bridging the gap between functional folk-music and convivial polyphony, the Elizabethan and Jacobean settings of street cries convey some- thing of the bustling activity, the variegated attractions, and the sentimental side-shows of London thoroughfares in the age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Byrd, and Morley.

THOMAS MORLEY (1557-1602) 
1. A Pedlar’s Song: Will ye buy a fine dog? (Patricia Clark) 1:13

THOMAS RAVENSCROFT (c. 1590 – c. 1633) 
2. The Painter’s Song: Where are you, fair maids? (Edgar Fleet) 1:42

3 The Bellman’s Song: Maids to bed 
(John Frost) 0:58

THOMAS WHYTHORNE (c. 1528- - ?) 
4. Buy new broom, buy new broom! (Edgar Fleet) 1:11

CHRISTOPHER TYE (c. 1500 – c. 1573) 
5. In nomine, “Crye" 2:18

RICHARD DERING (c. 1580-1629/30) 
6 The Cries of London 10:48

 

ABOUT "MUSIC IN HONOR OF QUEEN ELIZABETH I"

Music has long been assumed to have played an important role during the reign of Elizabeth I, but the facts point to a less optimistic view of the scene, for political and religious struggles to some extent undermined the artistic life of England in the latter half of the 16th century. Even Byrd and Tallis, armed with a monopoly for printing music and music-paper, complained to the Queen that they were losing money heavily; so that one wonders how ordinary singers and fiddlers made ends meet. But the Queen took a personal interest in music, and encouraged concerts, songs and dancing at her court besides welcoming musical entertainment on her royal progresses. Morley’s Triumphes of Oriana, a collection of madrigals by most of the great composers of the time, pays tribute to Elizabeth in a garland of pastorals, those by Bennett and Hilton at the head and tail of this program being among the finest.

JOHN BENNETT (A. 1600) 
1. All creatures now are merry-minded 2:10

WILLIAM BYRD (1543-1623) 
2. This sweet and merry month of May (a 4) 3:25
3. This sweet and merry month of May (a 6) 2:25

HENRY YOULL (A. 1600) 
4. Each day of thine 1:18

JOHN BENNETT 
5. Eliza, her name gives honour (Edgar Fleet) 2:24

WILLIAM BYRD 
6. The Queen’s Alman 3:38

EDWARD JOHNSON (A. 1600) 
7. Eliza is the fairest Queen (Patricia Clark) 2:42

THOMAS MORLEY 
8. Blow, shepherds, blow 2:04

JOHN HILTON (d. 1608) 
9. Fair Oriana, beauty’s queen 2:33

 

II. Shakespeare: The Sweet Power of Musicke

The Sweet Power of Musicke is appraised in some thirty lines of verse, spoken by Lorenzo to Jessica while musicians play, just before Portia arrives home at Belmont in the last scene of The Merchant of Venice. The speech is Shakespeare’s most extensive single discourse on music, which he calls for and refers to frequently in his plays. The varieties of music on this recording would have been familiar to his contemporaries, particularly to the aristocrats and courtiers, since indoor, courtly music was generally written for the viols, the lute, or the virginals—a smaller version of, as well as a synonym for, the harpsichord. When Shakespeare wrote Sonnet 128, he seems to have thought that the “jacks’ were the wooden keys of a virginals rather than the mechanisms that plucked the strings when keys were depressed.