Leonard Pennario Plays Spanish Music

[maestrob]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80IVejF4tlg

An outstanding recital!

ALBENIZ
Sevilla
Tango in D (3:50)
GRANADOS
Playera - Andaluza (7:29)
INFANTE
El vito (11:56)
ALBENIZ
Córdoba (19:33)
LECUONA
Malagueña (24:21)
ALBENIZ
Prelude (27:35)
LECUONA
Gitanerias (32:49)
Andalucia (34:39)
ALBENIZ
Under a palm tree (37:17)
Seguidillas (42:15)
GRANADOS
The maiden and the nightingale (45:06)
DEFALLA
Ritual fire dance (50:55)

Leonard Pennario, pianist
rec. 1967

[Lance]

Brian, what's the chances of getting a download of this program and placed on CD? It is the one thing I have been unsuccessful in doing with downloads. I would love to have this. Pennario was a friend of our family for many years. I interviewed him here in my studio, prepared his piano for a superb recital.

[maestrob]

Brian, what's the chances of getting a download of this program and placed on CD? It is the one thing I have been unsuccessful in doing with downloads. I would love to have this. Pennario was a friend of our family for many years. I interviewed him here in my studio, prepared his piano for a superb recital.

Interesting that you knew Pennario, Lance! He was a client of mine at the NYAC, albeit briefly, when he stayed at the club. An absolute gentleman.

While my youtube subscription allows me to "download" those tracks, unfortunately their software doesn't permit the burning of CDs. Lots of Pennario's output has been made available on Presto's website as downloads only, but sadly this excellent release is not among them.

[Lance]

Brian, thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Near as I know, I have everything Pennario issued on LP (including the early Capitol days), plus every CD that has been issued. Indeed, he even supplied me with some of the early Capitol LPs. At this point on CD, I have everything RCA and Sony issued, EMI (quite a number of CDs, but never a boxed set - yet), a Testament CD, and the recordings he made for Cambria, Naxos Historical, MSR, and Pantheon. I also understand Pennario made recordings of the music of Bach for EMI, but it was never issued. The Spanish repertoire in your initial post, recorded in 1967 — as far as I can determine — was not issued on any commercial CD. MSR issued a four-CD set [1188] called "Early Recordings, 1950-1958" that I quickly and eagerly snapped up. I'm not so sure that issue is available any longer, but it gave some of those recordings new life.

An interesting story about Pennario ... my brother was in New York City with Pennario when he was a Baldwin piano artist. He had a key to their store to go in and practice when the store was closed. He was scared to death to go in there alone and pushed my brother ahead of him! Eventually, Pennario became a Steinway artist due to having more Steinways available internationally than Baldwin had available at that time. ♫
!

Brian, what's the chances of getting a download of this program and placed on CD? It is the one thing I have been unsuccessful in doing with downloads. I would love to have this. Pennario was a friend of our family for many years. I interviewed him here in my studio, prepared his piano for a superb recital.

Interesting that you knew Pennario, Lance! He was a client of mine at the NYAC, albeit briefly, when he stayed at the club. An absolute gentleman.

While my youtube subscription allows me to "download" those tracks, unfortunately their software doesn't permit the burning of CDs. Lots of Pennario's output has been made available on Presto's website as downloads only, but sadly this excellent release is not among them.

[CharmNewton]

Brian, thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Near as I know, I have everything Pennario issued on LP (including the early Capitol days), plus every CD that has been issued. Indeed, he even supplied me with some of the early Capitol LPs. At this point on CD, I have everything RCA and Sony issued, EMI (quite a number of CDs, but never a boxed set - yet), a Testament CD, and the recordings he made for Cambria, Naxos Historical, MSR, and Pantheon. I also understand Pennario made recordings of the music of Bach for EMI, but it was never issued. The Spanish repertoire in your initial post, recorded in 1967 — as far as I can determine — was not issued on any commercial CD. MSR issued a four-CD set [1188] called "Early Recordings, 1950-1958" that I quickly and eagerly snapped up. I'm not so sure that issue is available any longer, but it gave some of those recordings new life.

An interesting story about Pennario ... my brother was in New York City with Pennario when he was a Baldwin piano artist. He had a key to their store to go in and practice when the store was closed. He was scared to death to go in there alone and pushed my brother ahead of him! Eventually, Pennario became a Steinway artist due to having more Steinways available internationally than Baldwin had available at that time. ♫
!

Brian, what's the chances of getting a download of this program and placed on CD? It is the one thing I have been unsuccessful in doing with downloads. I would love to have this. Pennario was a friend of our family for many years. I interviewed him here in my studio, prepared his piano for a superb recital.

Interesting that you knew Pennario, Lance! He was a client of mine at the NYAC, albeit briefly, when he stayed at the club. An absolute gentleman.

While my youtube subscription allows me to "download" those tracks, unfortunately their software doesn't permit the burning of CDs. Lots of Pennario's output has been made available on Presto's website as downloads only, but sadly this excellent release is not among them.

I was curious about this too. This is a re-issue compilation taken from two earlier mono discs titled The Spanish Piano. It doesn't include everything from those earlier LPs.

According to the July, 1968 Schwann Catalog, the re-issue was released in February, 1967 as (D)P-8647. The (D) in the catalog number refers to its being "Duophonic", which was Capitol's term for monaural recordings that were electronically split (or re-channeled) into two channels to simulate stereophonic sound. I saw a copy of this edition on eBay the other day.

The earlier recordings were titled Piano Music of Spain (P-8190) and Ernesto Lecuona Andalucia and Isaac Albeniz Songs of Spain (P-8319), information courtesy of Discogs which lists the works on all three LPs (but omits Falla's Ritual Fire Dance, the last track on Side 2 of the re-issue).

John

[maestrob]

Thanks for all that clarity, John. I'm disappointed that this material has never made it to CD. I can envision a CD of both original mono tapes with the Ritual Fire Dance thrown in for good measure. Perhaps the original master tapes have been either lost or deteriorated due to poor storage conditions. Where is Scribendum when you need them?

Incidentally, the youtube source is definitely single-channel.

Happy Independence Day!

[CharmNewton]

Thanks for all that clarity, John. I'm disappointed that this material has never made it to CD. I can envision a CD of both original mono tapes with the Ritual Fire Dance thrown in for good measure. Perhaps the original master tapes have been either lost or deteriorated due to poor storage conditions. Where is Scribendum when you need them?

Incidentally, the youtube source is definitely single-channel.

Happy Independence Day!

As far as I can tell, the American Capitol classical catalog is in the hands of Universal Music (unless the catalog is tied up in litigation between Universal and Warner--none of it has appeared on Warner since the merger in 2012) and seems to be suffering the same fate as the other early American LP catalogs they acquired, Decca and Westminster. Westminster had a European presence and some of those recordings have been briefly made available again--the Paul Badura-Skoda tribute on DG comes to mind as well as the recent Erica Morini collection.

Both Universal and Warner issue material as "playlists" for streaming services and/or download so perhaps some of this material will be re-issued in this manner. I'm surprised that none of the Capitol material has been re-issued by Australian Eloquence as they have shown themselves to be very skillful in their re-issue program. But historic American artists may be completely unknown to the generations now in the music industry outside the U.S (well, they did have a listen to the wonderful and exciting early Decca LP recordings of Albert Wolff and others and are turning their attention to the American recordings of Paul Paray and Antal Dorati on Mercury, so maybe the Capitol material may be on their radar. I hope so).

Happy Independence Day to you as well.

John

[Lance]

John, thank you for your work on Pennario. I must have been half asleep when I responded to Brian's initial post. I forgot to look at my LP catalogue. Today, after re-reading your update, I discovered I have Capitol P-8190 (Piano Music of Spain), and DP-8647 (The Spanish Piano). Surprisingly, I did not have P-8319 (Lecuona/Albeniz); some of those tracks may have appeared on other Pennario Capitol LP collections. Pennario was a top-seller of his Capitol recordings in the heydays of LPs. Thanks, again, for looking into this and clarifying it.

I was curious about this too. This is a re-issue compilation taken from two earlier mono discs titled The Spanish Piano. It doesn't include everything from those earlier LPs.
According to the July, 1968 Schwann Catalog, the re-issue was released in February, 1967 as (D)P-8647. The (D) in the catalog number refers to its being "Duophonic", which was Capitol's term for monaural recordings that were electronically split (or re-channeled) into two channels to simulate stereophonic sound. I saw a copy of this edition on eBay the other day.

The earlier recordings were titled Piano Music of Spain (P-8190) and Ernesto Lecuona Andalucia and Isaac Albeniz Songs of Spain (P-8319), information courtesy of Discogs which lists the works on all three LPs (but omits Falla's Ritual Fire Dance, the last track on Side 2 of the re-issue).

John

[Rach3]

Pennario was a top-seller of his Capitol recordings in the heydays of LPs. Thanks, again, for looking into this and clarifying it.

One of the first classical recordings I ever heard was his ubiquitous Gershwin "Rhapsody in Blue " with Felix Slatkin and the Hollywood Bowl on a Capitol lp.

[CharmNewton]

John, thank you for your work on Pennario. I must have been half asleep when I responded to Brian's initial post. I forgot to look at my LP catalogue. Today, after re-reading your update, I discovered I have Capitol P-8190 (Piano Music of Spain), and DP-8647 (The Spanish Piano). Surprisingly, I did not have P-8319 (Lecuona/Albeniz); some of those tracks may have appeared on other Pennario Capitol LP collections. Pennario was a top-seller of his Capitol recordings in the heydays of LPs. Thanks, again, for looking into this and clarifying it.

You're welcome.

I was thinking that there was a collection Spanish piano muisc on a Seraphim CD--could picture it in my mind--but that is just my imagination. I'm also a discographic nerd at heart and enjoy the intrigue and the occasional digging. There were many wonderful American-produced recordings in the Capitol catalog.

John