Many of us have attended or heard performances of the Brahms First Symphony that for the most part have slipped from memory. As important as it is, this symphony has fallen into the war-horse, crowd-pleaser category and a performance whether heard live or via recordings can appear to be just another work on the program, or a revelation! Granted any first hearing will be a unique experience but one would need to be quite familiar with a few different versions to recognize that a particular new performance is exceptional. Case in point is a new release of a concert performance by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sergiu Celibidache (Vienna Symphony CD, WS002 mono).
Celibidache refused to make commercial recordings, stating that such documents would only reveal how he conducted the work at that time of day, on that date, in that venue ... etc., etc. On the evening of October 30, 1952, in the Konzerthaus, this is how they played! It remains a truly memorable event. The playing is articulate, no slurring, clean winds and brass and no pregnant pauses. The music seems to drive itself. This is a passionate performance directed by a young firebrand and is no way akin to his later settled-in and comfortable versions — from the 1976 Stuttgart RSO (DG) and the 1987 Munich Philharmonic (EMI). This performance remains not a monument to Brahms but a celebration. The mono sound is full bodied and dynamic, typical of the best engineering of the day.
Although there were others, for the second half of the 20th century and beyond, when one considered performances of Schubert lieder, the late Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau enjoyed his well-deserved prime reputation. Of course, he was also known for his Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Hugo Wolf, Mahler and Richard Strauss and others from Bach to Berg and Britten. And he loved to make recordings.
He recorded the three Schubert cycles many times, because, unlike instrumentalists and some conductors, he wanted a wide audience to know how he sang it that day with that accompanist. He talks about this in a charming interview/conversation dating from the 1985 Schubertiade, part of a DVD release from Arthaus Musik of Schubert (Arthaus 107523, 2 DVDs). Die Schöne Müllerin was recorded live in 1991 at the Montforthaus in Feldkirch with Andres Schiff including, as a bonus, the conversation with Franz Zoglauer. Winterreise was filmed a dozen years earlier in Siemens Villa, Berlin in 1979 and includes almost an hour of rehearsal for the recital with Alfred Brendel. So why would this singer require a rehearsal of what was his basic repertoire? As he says on the other disc, different accompanists can elicit different variations in his interpretation and together they work it out. Together, the two DVDs provide a most satisfying evening.
I must remind readers of what I consider to be the most satisfying recording ever of Das Lied von der Erde: Fischer-Dieskau conducting the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra with alto, Yve Janicke and tenor Christian Elsner (Orfeo C494001 B). Not surprisingly, the orchestral playing is unusually expressive and much more sublimely lyrical than other versions particularly, but not only in the winds. The overwhelming loneliness and resignation of Der Abschied is heart-breaking. Recorded in concert on June 22 at the 1996 Schubertiade in the medieval town of Feldkirch, this would be one of my ten Desert Island discs.
Alfred Cortot was one of the most respected musicians and pianists of the early 1900s and into the 1950s. His recordings were once the cornerstones in the libraries of Chopin and Schumann aficionados around the world. Cortot was born in 1877 in the Suisse Romande and studied and was awarded in Paris. He was choral conductor in Bayreuth in 1901 and was responsible for the mounting of Götterdämmerung in Paris in 1902 which he also conducted. The Cortot, Casals and Jacques Thibaud Trio had a well-deserved reputation and was in part responsible for elevation of the trio form from the salon to the concert stage. Cortot was a sensitive accompanist for singers and string players alike. He also conducted notable recordings.
Today, perfect technique has become the norm and the prime concern of audiences who, to paraphrase Professor Higgins, don’t care about what instrumentalists play as long as they play all the right notes. Cortot was one of the last musicians from the times when personal and intuitive interpretations overrode minor concern for technical perfection.
The motherlode of his recordings, Alfred Cortot An Anniversary Edition, contains every EMI recording from 1919 to 1959 including unreleased items (EMI 5099970490725 40 CDS). As of this writing, a complete list of the some 275 works can only be seen at Arkivmusic: arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=817326.
Chatting about this totally new, all newly remastered set recently, I was asked “Did they leave in all the wrong notes?” Yes, they did.
ICA Classics continues to release DVDs of concert performances featuring Benjamin Britten conducting the English Chamber Orchestra in The Maltings Concert Hall in Aldeburgh as they were recorded for broadcast by the BBC. From June 16, 1968 (ICAD 5025) Mstislav Rostropovich is the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations Op 33 and the Pezzo capriccioso Op.62. The orchestra plays the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. Also on this DVD, the orchestra is joined by the Aldeburgh Festival Singers on June 5, 1970, from a performance of a suite from Britten’s Gloriana: The Tournament, The Lute Song (with Peter Pears) and Apotheosis. As this is the only recording of Britten conducting anything from Gloriana it will be of particular interest to collectors.
