A four-decade friendship with Charles Gerhardt
by Robert E. Benson
For many years I had the pleasure
of friendship with the late Charles Gerhardt. I first met him in April of
1950; I had taken the train from my native Chicago to New York to buy records
(78s in those days!), and friends told me the best place to go was The Record
Hunter. Once there, I asked the clerk if they had the Ferdinand Leitner recording
of Beethoven's music for Egmont. He said they surely did, went right
to the spot on the shelf where it was, brought it over to me and commented
that it was a fine performance with good sound. We started to talk about
orchestras and conductors. Right from the start we had a lot to talk about.
Both he and I were admirers of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra and
Willem Mengelberg. He said one of his favorite recordings was Mengelberg's Tannhäuser overture,
with its perfect control and burnished brass. He asked me if I was going
to hear the Mahler Eighth with Leopold Stokowski and the New York Philharmonic
that weekend, and I said I couldn't— I had to get back home. He said it might
be possible to get a private LP recording of the performance, was I interested?
Indeed I was and a few weeks later it arrived.
Charles Gerhardt was a superb pianist, having studied privately
and at Julliard. He easily could have
had a career as a concert pianist.
That very knowledgeable, competent "clerk" was Charles Gerhardt who at the time had
not yet started his incredible career in the recording industry. He already had
studied piano, written some original compositions, and attended both Julliard and
the University of Southern California (I have a tape of him playing Rachmaninoff's
Second with their orchestra). If he wanted, he could have had a fine career as a
concert pianist, but he didn't want to limit himself solely to keyboard performance.
His piano technique and astounding memory stayed with him all his life. Once when
I was visiting him in London, after a trip to a recording studio, he sat down at the
piano and played, with remarkable virtuosity, Liszt's Funérailles.
Gerhardt always used a baton. Here he is in
a somewhat pensive mood.
Gerhardt's primary interest was the art of recording. He worked with RCA from 1951
through 1955 initially as as an engineer and editor, later on he was a
producer/engineer. One of his first tasks with RCA was making 15 ips copies of many
historic recordings editing out scratches so they could be issued on the then-new LP
format. In 1955 he began working for Westminster Records where he stayed for five
years until the company went out of business. He then got a job at Bell Sound,
recording Eddie Fischer among other pop singers. Then there was a telephone call
from George Marek who wanted Gerhardt to meet with him and representatives of the
Reader's Digest, which turned out to be a remarkably productive collaboration
that would continue for more than three decades.
René Leibowitz first recorded with Gerhardt in 1960
for the Treasury of
Light Classical Music Reader's Digest album, and is seen
here with Gerhardt at
1961 sessions with the Royal Philharmonic during which Gerhardt
produced a
much-acclaimed Beethoven symphony cycle.
That chance encounter at the record store in New York was the beginning of a
friendship that continued until Gerhardt's untimely death February 22, 1999, a few
weeks after his 72nd birthday. Late in November 1998 he was diagnosed with brain
cancer, and had surgery the first week in December. As I live in the Baltimore area
and he lived in northern California, we didn't see each other very often but were in
constant touch via email and the telephone. I visited him the second week in
January 1999 about a month after his operation and he seemed to be doing remarkably
well under the circumstances. But in mid-January he had a major relapse and spent
the remainder of his days in the intensive care unit of the hospital in Redding.
For these many years I have watched—and listened—with amazement to recordings
Gerhardt produced, conducted or arranged. Often he appeared in two or even three
of these roles simultaneously. For more details about his career, read the adjoining
articles, but it should be clarified that Gerhardt has made more recordings,
either
as conductor, producer or arranger, than anyone else. The first project he did
for
Reader's Digest was "A Festival of Light Classical Music." This was a 12-LP
album he planned, produced and supervised in every way. It was on sale in more
than 15
countries by mail order only and after just a few years had sold more than two
million sets— a total of 24 million LPs—and that was just the beginning.
Dozens of
other albums followed, including pop music, mood music, light classics and, of
course, classics. Gerhardt particularly enjoyed producing the Digest "Treasury
of Great
Music" album, a 12-LP set featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under some
leading conductors of the time (1960's): Charles Munch in Bizet and Tchaikovsky,
Rudolf Kempe in Strauss and Respighi, Josef Krips in Mozart and Haydn, Antal
Dorati
in Strauss and Berlioz, Fritz Reiner's Brahms Fourth, and Sir John Barbirolli's
near-definitive Sibelius Second.
Gerhardt with Antal Dorati at 1962 sessions for the Reader's Digest. With the Royal
Philharmonic Dorati recorded
music of
Richard Strauss ("Dance of the Seven Veils" from Salome) and Berlioz
(excerpts from Romeo and Juliet)
Early in his career with the Digest, Gerhardt met Kenneth Wilkinson, legendary
recording engineer, who had worked extensively with Decca over the years including
early recordings in the Concertgebouw. As "Wilkie" said to me when I met him in
1985, "I did 'em all!." He worked with Ansermet, Solti, Van Beinum and many other
leading conductors over the years. Gerhardt and Wilkinson had an incredible rapport.
Their goals were the same, and recordings they produced were distinguished by quality
of performance and sonic excellence. From the early '60s on, Gerhardt had a residence
in England which is where he did most of his recording, but always kept a home in the
United State, primarily in New York but later in California. Often when he was returning to the States after a period of recording sessions
he would stop off in Baltimore and we would spend a few days listening to tapes of
his newest recordings. As we listened he would make comments and often said in a
soft voice, "Well...perhaps I was a bit over the top there??" And there would be a
gentle laugh, as he knew he had done it right.
Gerhardt in 1969 on the West Coast in a
Reader's Digest recording
session with Jo Stafford
In London Gerhardt met George Korngold, son of composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and
the two became close friends, collaborating on many superb recordings of film music.
Gerhardt was particularly proud of his recordings for the RCA Classic Film Score
series, and rightfully so. I remember the first time I heard the magnificent Sea
Hawk and Robin Hood suites; really quite remarkable in every way. I
treasure the evening he played for me his recording of Howard Hanson's Symphony No.
2. This music was a particular favorite of his and he was proud of his
recording. He showed me a letter from the composer in which Hanson praised
Gerhardt's performance, the wonderful playing of the orchestra and the sonic quality.
(The Hanson, along with other music of American
composers, is available on CD, Chesky CD 11).
Sir John Barbirolli recorded Symphony No. 2 of Sibelius with the
Royal Philharmonic.
Produced by Gerhardt, this is considered to be among the finest recordings of this
music
Gerhardt loved percussion instruments, particularly tam-tams. One of his favorite
recordings was the mono Columbia LP of Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy, with Dimitri
Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic with, as he described it, "wonderful
dirty gongs." He always made sure that gongs were clear in all of his recordings,
and on occasion added bass piano notes to give more pitch to the instrument, as he
did in the last movement of Symphonie fantastique of Berlioz with Massimo Freccia
and the Royal Philharmonic (Chesky CD 88). Gerhardt had met Freccia in 1951 in
the billiard room at Toscanini's home in Riverside and made quite a few
recordings with him.
Gerhardt with Rudolf Kempe at Digest recording sessions in 1964. Kempe recorded a
number of works for the Digest
including Strauss's Don Juan and Respighi's
Pines of Rome.
Gerhardt had great admiration and respect for the many conductors he worked with,
beginning with Arturo Toscanini, with whom he worked for several years before
the Maestro's death. It was Toscanini who suggested toGerhardt that he become
a conductor. He
did so for the first time at a Digest recording session when a well-known
conductor was ill. The orchestra would have to be paid anyway, so Gerhardt picked
up the baton—with
highly successful results, the first of countless times when he would conduct
a wide range of music from pop to Mahler. Gerhardt particularly enjoyed working
with Fritz Reiner
recording the Brahms Fourth, and the sessions with Charles Munch went particularly
well. At the sessions for Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini, Munch rehearsed
just a few points in the score with the RPO, and they broke for a brief recess
before the recording began. Some of the players were a bit concerned, telling
Chuck that
they needed more rehearsal before recording a "take." Munch overheard this and
slyly said to them, "You're going to have to WATCH me, aren't you?" And they
did. The result was a tremendously exciting performance of Tchaikovsky's symphonic
poem,
with only one brief remake. Gerhardt also mentioned to me that at the first
playback, Munch was elated by the sound quality; Munch's RCA recordings surely
are not of the sonic quality of his two Gerhardt-produced recordings.
Gerhardt first heardCharles Munch in
concert at the University of Southern California concert. A
great admirer of Munch, Gerhardt was
delighted
when he agreed to record Tchaikovsky'sFrancesca da Rimini and Bizet's Symphony in C.
Gerhardt had a true meeting of minds with Jascha Horenstein, whom he admired above all conductors
he worked with. He suggested to RCA
that they record all of the Mahler symphonies with the venerable conductor.
Can you imagine the importance of that set, had it
come to be?
There are numerous works Gerhardt wanted to record. He would have liked to do a
complete Glière Ilya Mourometz, one of his favorite works, but was
able to do only a truncated version of the second movement, included in the Digest
set "Nature's Music." He wanted to orchestrate and record more of the Debussy
preludes and Ravel piano music. At the time of his death, he was orchestrating some
piano music of Lecuona. He had heard the BIS recording by Thomas Tirino, was
impressed by the pianist's virtuosity and musicianship as well as by the music
itself, and started to orchestrate "Ante El Escorial," "an impressionistic
tone-painting of the magnificent structure built by King Philip II in Madrid." We
can be certain that Gerhardt's orchestration would have been magnificent, had he
lived to complete it.
Stokowski was idolized by Gerhardt, who had a huge collection of his recordings and
attended numerous concerts. On a number of occasions Gerhardt worked with Stokowski,
including the early stereo version of RCA's 1954 recording of
Menotti's Sebastian) and Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet ballet
suites. Here he is with
Stokowski in 1961 during Walthamstow sessions for the RCA "Inspiration" album.
Stokowski was to participate in a Digest recording of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5, but union restrictions prohibited this.
It is frustrating to say the least to imagine what might have been—and it
must be equally frustrating to RCA to look back and realize they ignored, for
the most part,
Gerhardt's suggestions—which would have been very profitable for them. Once
the
Classic Film Score series was launched in 1972, with remarkable sales
figures, one would think CFS would be a continuing series. All 15 LPs in the
series were
best-sellers, remaining on the charts for months at a time, and the fact that
they constantly remained in the catalog indicates they were selling well. Gerhardt
suggested many additional LPs for the series including "The Women" (Classic
Film
Scores for the Great Hollywood Actresses), "Dodge City" (Classic Film
Scores for
Westerns by Max Steiner), "Frankenstein" (Classic Film Scores for Horror
Films),
and
"Things to Come" (Classic Film Scores for Science Fiction Films). He also planned
LPs devoted to film music of Victor Young, Elmer Bernstein and Sir William Walton.
For a comprehensive commentary on the Classic Film Score series, read
the article
on this site.
On several occasions Gerhardt was involved in recording sessions with Artur
Rubinstein; this photo was taken in 1961 when Rubinstein was recording
Chopin's
Piano Concerto No. 1. Max Wilcox produced the recording but Rubinstein wanted
Gerhardt to be there as Walthamstow Hall was new to Wilcox.
Gerhardt also did the
setup for Rubinstein's set of Beethoven concertos with Barenboim conducting.
Gerhardt also wanted to record large-scale symphonic suites of operas by Strauss,
Korngold, Puccini and Wagner; left-hand concertos of Korngold, Ravel and Prokofiev
(with Earl Wild); an LP of Korngold arias sung by Anna Moffo (when she was in
her prime); and, to commemorate the bicentennial, the first complete recording
of Porgy and Bess (Leonard Bernstein had expressed an interest in
conducting it).
And in 1974 Gerhardt wanted to record a new Elektra with Birgit Nilsson,
Leonie Rysanek and Christa Ludwig with Karl Bohm conducting. RCA turned thumbs
down on all of these. Their loss —ours, too!
Sir Malcolm Sargent also participated in the Treasury album and is
seen here
with legendary recording engineer Kenneth Wilkinson (right)
Gerhardt's artistry lives on in his recordings. Chesky has released five CDs: two volumes of "Light Classics" (CD 102, 108); "Hollywood Screen Classics"
(CD 71), a coupling of Ravel's Bolero, Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet,
and his own arrangement of an extended suite from Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier
(CD 35); a collection of American music including his definitive performance of
Hanson's Symphony No. 2 (CD 112), and his only all-digital Chesky CD, a Wagner
collection (CD 161). A superb collection of film music is available on Varese
Sarabande (VSD 5207). There are hundreds of other recordings issued only in various
Reader's Digest packages, unavailable to the public as most of the sets are
discontinued. Let us hope eventually many of these will be issued by some enterprising
company.
The author,
Bob Benson, with Chuck Gerhardt in Guardian care facility
in Redding,
California, January 1999, about a
month before Gerhardt's death
Reader's Digest issued in the Fall of 2000 a 3-CD set of Gerhardt
recordings called "Themes of Love." The first CD contains
short works of Debussy, Hanson, Holst, Chopin, Bach, Mozart, Donizetti, Satie,
Schumann, Tchaikovsky and
Rodrigo. CD 2 offers music of Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Walton,
Brahms, Mozart and Ravel plus an assortment of music for films. The third CD
consists music for Broadway and films. For ordering information
contact The Reader's Digest
R.E.B. (April 1999)