The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, according to some ‘the world’s best orchestra, is one of the Netherlands’ most prestigious export products. Its international fame is partly due to a joint effort of RCO musician Daniël Esser and Lodewijk Collette from Radio Netherlands Worldwide. They were responsible for the publication of Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra live –The radio recordings.

This summer saw the release of the latest volume in the series, which covers the recordings made between 1990 and 2000.

“It’s a supplement to the main body of the repertoire which has already been released on CD and earlier on LP. We selected a large number of Dutch works. And also compositions which were premiered by the RCO but later were more or less forgotten. Also included are concerts by famous and less well-known conductors and soloists. We wanted to show the adventurous nature of RCO’s programming.” says anthologist Lodewijk Collette.

And so they did: the latest – and last – volume features all-time favourites such as Elgar, Beethoven, Mahler and Mozart alongside lesser gods such as Frank Martin, Witold Lutoslawski, Theo Loevendie and Franz Schreker.

The first volume of Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra live covers the period 1935-1950. Box sets were subsequently released for each of the following decades. In addition, special collectors box sets were released featuring live performances of former RCO chief conductors Willem Mengelberg, Eduard van Beinum, Bernard Haitink en Riccardo Chailly.

Reputation
The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra –formed in 1888- is indebted to Radio Netherlands Worldwide for compiling and distributing the orchestra’s recordings to among dozens of radio stations across the globe, says board member Joel Ethan Fried:

“We have always had an international reputation. My mother listened to the RCO on US public radio in the 1940s. LPs and CDs came later. We have always had international fans, but at the time it was only on account of new recordings. And now we have this palette of recordings from the 1930s right up to 2000. That is a special bonus for our fans.”

RNW distributes the boxed sets among a wide variety of radio stations worldwide, which regularly feature music programmes from the Netherlands. In addition, the boxed sets are released by RCO under its own label.

Christmas
Anthologists Esser and Collette, two old friends in music, spent years listening to thousands of hours of music to compile make their selection. Recordings from earlier periods needed to be treated by a sound technician. In addition, countless meetings and conversations with musicians and publishers were required to obtain permission for the release of this historical anthology.

“Every time one of those Anthology boxed sets arrived in the mail, it felt a little bit like Christmas,” says Rob Cowan, a UK specialist in the field of historical recordings and a contributing editor to Gramophone magazine. He knows of no other orchestra with such a magnificent collection of historical recordings.

And live recordings have an added quality, he says: "If you catch an orchestra and a conductor in concert there is an extra shot of adrenaline in the performance. You’re very much aware that you witnessing something that seems to be taking place as you’re actually hearing it. Rather than a recording that has been knitted together by various takes. I think that is very important... You really have to hear an artist live, to understand what their art is all about.”

The anthology ends in 2000. And that is how it was meant to be. After 12 years, the megaproject is now concluded.

(gs)