August Wilhelmj playing
Hi, i heard august wilhelmj playing "the witches dance", and it's the most weirdest playing i have ever heard! He plays it like how paganini would have played it. Has anyone heard it? What do you think of the weird playing? Is there a way i could own this recording? Thanks.
Replies (16)
Where can one listen to this recording?
http://portico.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/wam.html
Scroll down to the box that says witches dance and click.
The recording is so old and bad that it's hard to hear the violinist's playing very well. But the part in the second half imitating the witch's song is definitely weird-sounding. I wonder how it's notated.
I have heard this recording, and all I can say is that you need to drink several bottles of vodka in order to be able to digest his playing in any sane way.
Thanks so much for this very interesting link! I was excited to hear Wilhelmj play! It was Liszt who wrote the famous letter of introduction for Wilhelmj to take to Ferdinand David..."Let me present to you the future Paganini!"
The playing is indeed interesting and anyone familiar with this type of media will realize that the sound is often stretched and thinned, as well parts are obviously playing too fast by no fault of Wilhelmjs, I want to hear the rest of the cylinders!
I would like to hear the rest of the cylinders, too. But, they don't have them on there. I'm glad other's on here like the recording! Is there a biography of wilhelmj?
Hi Jacob, there is no biography that I know of however it would be worth searching for. I have about 8 of his pieces in my collection and many of his arrangements...from his original compositions his brilliance is most apparent! Most of my quotes and information come from books on Liszt and Wagner...Wagner he was quite friendly with. I'll let you know if I find anything...the first place to check might be the Guildhall school library.
As well I have emailed the archives library requesting info on receiving the other recordings...of top interest is a recording of the first movement of Sivori's second concerto.
That's very odd. I hope his playing didn't actually sound like that...
What I really like on that site is, if you scroll up one from the Wilhelmj, you can hear a lovely little piano waltz written by, of all people, Lev Tolstoy.
Greetings,
did I imaginereading in the Strad a hweile back that some wax discs of Wilhelmjh playing the Paginini(truncated version) ist had been found?
Anybody know?
Cheers,
Buri
Yes Stephen, I have requested a copy from the library...they have 16 Cylinders in all...including his famous arrangement of the Paganini Concerto
Jonathan, when you get these, do you think you could somehow create audio files of these and send them to me?
Hi George, I will request permission!
Can anyone make a copy of these recordings and send them to me through the mail?
Hi everyone...the British Museum has the recordings available on CD-R but will not release copies to researchers or interested parties. I urge anyone interested in preserving and hearing this playing to contact:
Transcriptions@bl.uk
The man in charge is William Lowry, I see no sense in being greedy with these very historic recordings...who does it help to keep these recordings secret? Please email!
http://sounds.bl.uk/Classical-music/Wilhelmj
There are five recordings of "Wilhelmj" on there. I have a hard time believing that it's him playing. Why would he not play his own version of the Paganini concerto and Witches Dance?
I've read that Wilhelmj's play went downhill early, but he would have been only around 50 at the time of these recordings (he was 62, I believe, when he died.) If it is him, this may explain why the playing is sloppy, but still I have my doubts about it. Maybe someone can convince my otherwise.
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April 2, 2006 at 07:59 AM · It is not a wierd recording and he does not play it the way Paganini played it. He didn't even hear Paganini, ever :)
But it is true that it is written on the convolute "As played by Paganini", but It would be like I never heard any recordings by Kubelik and recorded a cd where I tried to play what I heard romours of, 70 years earlier.
Not wery likely that it would resemble the original player, heh?