Although
Jonel Perlea made the bulk of his recordings for the RCA and Vox labels, his appearances
on Remington Records are noteworthy. He conducted the RIAS Symphony Orchestra
in works of Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, and he accompanied pianist
Edward Kilenyi in Brahms and in outstanding performances of works by Liszt.
His
understanding of various styles and his versatility with all sorts of music was
also illustrated in the recordings of works by Dane Rudhyar, Peggy Glanville-Hicks,
Ulysses Kay. Kay's Concerto for Orchestra was written in Italy, in 1948, and premiered
in Venice by the Teatro La Fenice Orchestra conducted by Perlea in 1954. According
to the liner notes on Remington R-199-166 Perlea mastered more than eighty operas
and about six hundred and fifty symphonic works. Critics hailed his exact
rendition of complicated scores and his phrasing and rhythmic elasticity which
made him at ease both with opera and ballet music.
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Jonel
Perlea (Photo Vox/Orbis/Parnass) | Jonel
Perlea
was born in Ograda (Romania) on December 13th 1900, of a German mother, Margarethe
Haberlin, and a Rumanian father Victor Perlea. That Jonel was talented was already
clear when he was still a young boy and was sent to Munich where he received his
musical education, studying with the German pedagogue Anton Beer-Walbrunn (1864-1929),
and at the Leipzig Conservatory of Music (Leipziger Musikhochschule) with Paul
Graener (1872-1944) and Otto Lohse (1858-1925), all three were strongly interested
in opera. In
1934 Perlea was appointed General Manager and Musical Director of the Bucharest
Opera, he gave concerts with the Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra and
was a professor in composition at the Royal Academy of Music of Rumania.
At the same time he toured Europe as a guest conductor of the major orchestras.
When
attempting to travel to France with his wife, he was arrested and interned in
a concentration camp. After World War II he settled down in Italy. First he conducted
the Santa Cecilia Orchestra. Later he was appointed at La Scala,
Milan, where he conducted a wide variety of operas.
In
1949 he made a successful debut at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, conducting
Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde'. A season with the San Francisco Opera Company,
several broadcasts of concerts as a guest conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra
and the musical directorship of the 1951 Grand Opera Festival at San Antonio,
Texas, followed. In 1952 he was appointed to the Manhattan School of Music
and was soon invited by Laszlo Halasz to make recordingens for Remington.
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A recording of
works by Tchaikovsky (Nutcracker Suite) and Grieg (Peer Gynt) conducted by Jonel
Perlea, made by VOX, was released in his homeland Romania on the Electrecord label. |
In
1955 he made his debut as conductor of the Connecticut Symphony and two
years later took up the post of principal conductor of that orchestra. He led
the Connecticut Symphony for ten years. His contract was not renewed. Jonel
Perlea had become partially paralyzed from a stroke, and was forced to conduct
with his left hand. The main reason for his leaving the orchestra however was
the financial situation of the Connecticut Symphony Orchestra which was then renamed
Greater Bridgeport Symphony. On July 29, 1970, Jonel Perlea died at the age
of 69 in New York. Jonel
Perlea's Remington recordings were made under the supervision of Laszlo Halasz
and on several occasions by Don Gabor as well. Perlea made recordings for Remington
probably already in the Fall of 1953 and were contnued in 1954, all prior to Perlea's
appointment in Connecticut. These
are the recordings made by Jonel Perlea for the Remington label: R-199-159
- La boîte à joujoux - The Box of Toys (Debussy)
- RIAS Symphony Orchestra, Berlin. In High Fidelity - Magazine for
Music Listeners - of September 1954, reviewer James Hinton, Jr., wrote: "This
obscure ballet score by the great French Impressionist dates from 1913. Jonel
Perlea directs a sensitive performance and we get some really excellent orchestral
sound from Remington."
R-199-160
- Carnival of Animals - Carnaval des animaux (Saint-Saëns) and Excerpts
from Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky). These are beautiful, spirited and balanced performances,
well recorded. The cello solo in The Swan is most certainly by Heinrich Köhler,
first cello player in the Rias Symphony, and the violin solo in Swan Lake is no
doubt by Rudolf Schulz. Also these performances show that Perlea is an excellent
conductor and his interpretations benefit from the fact that he is also an opera
conductor who knows how to present exciting, dramatic and lyrical performances.
R-199-164
-
Piano Concerto No. 2 (Brahms) - Edward Kilenyi, pianist and Jonel Perlea conducting
the
RIAS
Symphony Orchestra (the only recording of Kilenyi of this concerto).
R-199-166
- Piano Concerto No. 1 and Totentanz/Todtentanz - Variations on Dies Irae (Liszt)
-
Edward
Kilenyi, pianist and Jonel Perlea conducting the RIAS Symphony Orchestra.
Performances in the same vein as Kilenyi's 1936 French Pathé recordings. R-199-173
- Concerto for Orchestra - Toccata; Arioso; Passacaglia (Ulysses Kay) -
Jonel Perlea, conducting the Teatro La Fenice Orchestra (later reissued by Tom
Null on Varèse-Sarabande VC 81047). On R-199-173 the Concerto for
Orchestra is coupled with Normand Lockwood's 'Concerto for Organ and Brasses',
performed by Marilyn Mason (organ) and John Ware and Nathan Prager (trumpets)
and Gordon Pulis and Lewis Haney (trombones), conducted by Thor Johnson; and 'Quiet
Design' performed by Marilyn Mason at the organ. Released in May 1955. Recorded
in the series of American Composers Alliance. The recording was released in the
course of 1954, probably in the Summer of that year. Alfred
Frankenstein reviewed this Remington release in High Fidelity Magazine of July
1954:
Ulysses
Kay's Concerto for Orchestra is a robuts, vivid, intensely polyphonic composition
that fills one's ear, entraps one's mind, and lifts one's spirits in a fashion
not unlike that of Hindemith, with whom this composer has studied. Norman Lockwood's
Concerto for Organ and Brasses is a bold, monumental baroque inspired work
written in honor of the celebrated organist, E. Power Biggs, and well worthy of
the purpose for which it was created.The Lockwood side is filled with a Quiet
Design for organ solo composed expressly with the concerto on this record.
The Kay performance is excellent and the Lockwood performance is superb; both
recordings are first rate, with sonorous organ and clangerous brasses. - Alfred
Frankenstein, High Fidelity, July, 1954.
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R-199-188
- Sinfonietta (Rudhyar), Gymnopedia (Glanville-Hicks) - Jonel Perlea conducting
the RIAS Symphony Orchestra (coupled with Henry Brant's Saxophone Concerto performed
by Sigurd Rascher with the Cincinnati Symphony conducted by Thor Johnson). Released
in the course of 1956. A recording in cooperation with the American Composers
Alliance.
For a long time I
presumed that the complete recording of Lucia di Lammermoor performed by the Teatro
la Fenice on Remington R-199-200/3 was conducted by Jonel Perlea. This record
set was never encountered by me. However Schwann Long Playing Record Catalog
Artist Listing 1956 lists this recording as being conducted by Laszlo Halasz.
See Opera
on Remington. The
breach of contract with the Bertelsmann firm prevented the replacement of the
earlier anonymous recording by conductor X, with Beethoven's Symphony No. 1,
Jonel Perlea conducting the Teatro la Fenice. This recording was made at the time
when Lucia di Lammermoor and music by American composers were taped. The Beethoven
Symphony was released in Germany on Tefi Schallbänder (See for the Tefifon
Schallband label / Sound Film
RIAS
Symphony Orchestra - Tefifon).
Rudolf A. Bruil, September 2002
As so many
conductors also Jonel Perlea composed. On
The Romanian Blogspot
Dedicated to Ionel Perlea the following works are listed (no longer in English
but in Romanian).
Drei
Lieder (Three Songs) Op. 10 for Voice and Piano Der Fischer (The Fisherman)
on a Poem by Wolfgang von Goethe Op. 15 for Voice and Piano Piano Sonata Op.
12 Song without Words (Lied ohne Worte) for Piano Sonata for Violin and
Piano in One movement Seven Variations for Piano Ein heiteres Quartett
(A debonair Quartet) Op. 10 No. 2 Adagio for Orchestra Don Quixote (Symphonic
Poem) Variations on an original Theme for Orchestra Symfonia Concertante
for Violin and Orchestra Three Etudes (Studies) for Orchestra Symphony
No. 1 in C for Orchestra (transcription of String Quartet Op. 10 No. 2) R.A.B.
2013
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