Elektra Records Master Discography: Browse
Georgiana Bannister (Soprano) and John Gruen (Piano) New Songs by John Gruen
Elektra EKLP 1 (Mono) - Matrix E1 LCC 2237 / E1 LCC 2238
Released: March 1951
Production: Jac Holzman
Engineering: Jac Holzman
Recorded: Peter Bartók studio, New York
Side 1
'Vier Stundenbuch Lieder' by Rilke
- Da neight sich die Stunde
- Wenn es nur einmal so ganz stille wäre
- Lösch mir die Augen aus
- Was wirst du ton, Gott, wenn ich sterbe?
- Die Sirenen
- Hälfte des Lebens
Side 2
Four songs by e e cummings
- It is at moments After I have Dreamed
- Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand
- The Moon is Hiding in
- O By the By
'Chansons de Geishas' by anonymous Japanese poets
- Intimité
- Fleurs qui Tombez
- O Reves
- A Peine M'as-Tu Dit
- Pour une Parole Timide
12-inch album with the company credited as Elektra Records, 54 Maryland Avenue, Annapolis, Maryland. A note on the sleeve says: New Songs marks the first release of Elektra Records which shall continue to offer disks of unusual and worthy musical fare.
John Gruen lived in Greenwich Village and had a varied career beyond his early composing. This included time as an art critic, dance critic, book buyer, publicity director and photographers' agent, and he went on to be a photographer under his full name of John Jonas Gruen.
The recording was done in the New York studio of Peter Bartók (son of composer Béla) and the Jac supervised the second, satisfactory, mastering at RCA himself.
This disc has also been listed (eg in Schwann June 1953) with the title 'Gruen: Poetry set to Music' but that was almost certainly an invention of the catalogue in the absence of real information.