Furtwängler's Vienna Concerts: 1944 - 1954

Wilhelm Furtwängler, Wiener Konzerte 1944 – 1954 (Orfeo C834 118Y - 18 CDs)

The 18 CDs in this new collection from Orfeo d'Oro include every identifiable recording of Furtwängler's live performances with the Vienna Philharmonic, but no studio recordings. The earliest performances date back to the last year of the Second World War, including a breathtaking recording of Bruckner's 8th Symphony (17th October, 1944, using his own edition). The latest date to Furtwängler's final months. 

Enthusiasts will already have many of the recordings here (particularly the Bruckner, Beethoven, and Brahms performances), and the selection ends up being rather skewed. We get 2 recordings of Bruckner 8, 3 of Beethoven's 9, and 2 of the Eroica, for example, as well as a double dose of the St Matthew Passion. But these are all without exception extraordinary performances and the remastering has produced an impressive sound quality. In addition to the October 1944 Bruckner 8th, stand-out performances for me include the November 1952 Eroica, the January 1945 Brahms 1, and the January 1951 9th Symphony. I'm sure that I have them all already in reasonable remasterings, but it is interesting to listen to them here in the context of Furtwängler's long and evolving career with the Vienna Philharmonic.

1953 Krauss Ring Cycle at Archivmusik

Surely this is the bargain of the century. Many have described the 1953 Krauss as the best ever recorded cycle. Certainly it's hard to imagine a better trio of principals than Hans Hotter as Wotan, Astrid Varnay as Brunnhilde, and Wolfgang Windgassen as Siegfried. Varnay in particular is outstanding. The depth of her characterization in the final drama is unparalleled. The quality of singing is almost uniformly excellent (the only exception being a truly awful Gutrune) and Krauss's conducting is lyrical and architectural in equal measure. 

The reissue by Opera d'Oro includes a full libretto with a new translation and has been remastered to yield a warm vocal sound (although the orchestral sound is rather muddy on occasion, as might be expected in a live recording from 60 years ago). 

If you can think of a better use for $50 please let me know.

Klemperer: Bruckner 4 – 9

Otto Klemperer: Bruckner Symphonies 4 – 9

Philharmonia Orchestra/New Philharmonia Orchestra

EMI (6 CDs: 50999 4 04296 2)

Otto Klemperer is much better known for his Mahler recordings than as a Bruckner conductor. That reflects the vicissitudes of recording rather than his work in the concert hall. Klemperer regularly conducted Bruckner to great acclaim throughout his career, but Walter Legge was apparently not convinced that Bruckner would sell on LP and so kept Klemperer on a fairly tight leash. The six symphonies in this excellent box set were all recorded between 1960 and 1970 and reveal Legge’s caution to have been a mistake. The set includes a truly outstanding recording of the 4^th, together with thought-provoking and insightful performances of the other five symphonies.

Klemperer has a very deliberate approach to Bruckner. The steadiness of his tempi bring home how much variation there is in other conductors. I found myself anticipating accelerations and decelerations that never materialized. At his best he finds a pace that allows the inner logic of the symphony to unfold. Good examples come in the finale of the 5^th and the slow movement of the 7^th. Klemperer’s steady tempi pay enormous dividends in Bruckner’s codas, with the triumphant returns of themes from across the movements.

All of the great pre- and post-war conductors made recordings that were flawed by corrupt editions. Furtwängler and Knappersbusch are cases in point. The problems should have disappeared with the emergence of the Bruckner Critical Edition, which drew a veil over the emendations of well-meaning but misguided Brucknerians. But Klemperer made things worse for himself by making some outrageous cuts in the 8^th synmphony for his 1970 recording – adding up to 141 bars from the finale. The first three movements of this recording are wonderfully deliberate and monumental, which makes the mutilation of the finale ever more devastating.

Klemperer is a wonderful Bruckner conductor, and there is no danger of confusing him with anyone else. Klemperer’s characteristically sinewy and granite-like approach works as well with Bruckner as it does with Brahms or Beethoven. This very reasonably priced set ($20 or so for 6 discs) is an excellent compilation. All of the performances (with the exception of the 8^th) are reference performances and are recommended both to those new to Bruckner and to dedicated Brucknerians.

Abbado's Bruckner 5 from the 2011 Lucerne Festival

Bruckner, Symphony No. 5

Lucerne Festival Orchestra, conduced by Claudio Abbado

Accentus DVD ACC 20243

This DVD of a live performance from the 2011 Lucerne Festival is truly a gem. Claudio Abbado’s conducting style is minimal, shaping the music with great economy of gesture, but he is clearly in tune with his hand-picked and carefully nurtured summer orchestra and their collective understanding of Bruckner’s complex 5^th symphony is deep indeed.

Abbado presents a highly articulated performance, bringing out the overall architecture with great clarity. The clarity extends, moreover, to the musical texture. Even in the tutti the different voices emerge distinctly – no small feat in the highly contrapuntal last movement, particularly in the coda where key themes and motifs and superimposed upon each other.

There is a real sense of a taut musical argument running through the symphony, with a running dialogs in each movement between the themes and motifs, and between the different voices and instrumental groups. In fact, Abbado brings out a feature of the 5^th symphony that emerges in relatively few performances. In many ways the symphony is an argument of moods – challenge in the fanfares, grandeur in the chorales, intermittent hesitation (in the short woodwind motifs, for example), and lilting dances, all juxtaposed with the extraordinary lyricism that emerges in the Adagio and elsewhere.

The sound quality is very good and the videography brings out the structure of the symphony and the details of the interpretation, rather than detracting from them and breaking the flow (as sometimes occurs). My only minor quibble is the rather breathless program notes. But this is a deeply satisfying DVD, highly recommended.

Celibidache Conducts Bruckner

Bruckner, Symphony No. 6, 7, 8

Sergiu Celibidache

Münchner Philharmoniker
Sony 88691952709-01/2/3 (3 DVD)

Bruckner, Symphony No. 4
Sergiu Celibidache
Münchner Philharmoniker
Sony 88691952709-04 (2 CDs)

This handsome set contains 3 DVDs of live TV broadcasts (2 from Suntory Hall in Tokyo and 1 from the Philharmonie am Gasteig), together with a CD recording of a concert at the Grosser Saal des Musikvereins. The DVDs are of the 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th symphonies, and have previously been released on VHS and Laserdisc. The performance of the 4^th on CD is a new addition to the catalog. The sound quality is good in all four symphonies. The picture on the DVDs leaves something to be desired, but it is hard to imagine that anybody will be buying this set for the quality of the picture.

These recordings are from late in Celibidache’s career, recorded between 1989 and 1991 (he died in 1996 at the age of 84). They are representative of the expansive and mystical approach to Bruckner that he developed during his tenure with the Munich Philharmonic. The timings tell the tale. The 4^th, for example, is over 1 hour 20 minutes long, compared say with 63 minutes for Haitink’s Philips recording with the Concertgebouw. No major conductor whom I can find has recorded a 4^th that is less than 10 minutes shorter than this one. Interestingly, the expansiveness is not uniform. The major stretch occurs in the finale (30”13’ for Celi, vs. 19”49’ for Haitink).
 

The DVDs reveal a compelling podium presence, able to extract gradations of sound with tiny movements of the baton. The Munich Philharmonic is incredibly responsive, and clearly well attuned to their principal conductor’s way with Bruckner. Celibidache conducts from memory and appears to be in a state of mystical communion with the music. He is visibly pained at how quickly the applause begins at the end of the 8^th.

Celibidache’s late style has rapturous proponents and violent detractors. This is exactly to be expected, given the extreme nature of his interpretation. And in a sense both groups are correct. It is quite right that nobody conducts Bruckner like Celibidache, and that his interpretation opens up aspects of each symphony that are either hidden or backgrounded with other conductors. The speed at which he moves allows the complex layers of Bruckner’s orchestration to emerge in all their richness, and Celibidache’s ability to shape a melodic contour is really quite extraordinary.

At the same time, however, there are definite losses. At times the musical line is so elongated that momentum is almost lost and it becomes hard to see the wood for the (admittedly wonderful) trees. It is also difficult for Celibidache to bring out some of the rhythmic and tempo contrasts that give structure to Bruckner’s symphonies. The Scherzo in the 8^th, for example, lacks the bite and edge that most conductors give it (and that, in my view, it needs to have for the symphony to work). And, more generally, one of the reasons Bruckner’s Adagios are so powerful is that they open up a sense of musical space not present in the other movements. This differentiation can be lost in Celibidache’s interpretations.

To my ear the 8^th is the least successful of these concerts, precisely because of this loss of contrast and tension in the outer movements (the Adagio, as might be expected, is very powerful indeed). I had similar problems with the 4^th, at least until the last movement. The 7^th lends itself more to Celibidache’s ultra-measured approach, but the most successful performance is definitely the 6^th.

Acoustically and visually this set is a testament to the vision of a great Bruckner conductor. These will never be reference recordings, but I think that every Brucknerian will want to listen to these recordings, and many will treasure them.

 

Paul Lewis and Schubert

Listening last night to Paul Lewis's new recording of Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy, the D 935 Impromptus, Moments Musicaux, and the D 845 Sonata made me think how difficult it must be to be a Schubert pianist.

To get the measure of Schubert one needs power (think Sviatoslav Richter), poetry (think Radu Lupu), and intellectual command (think Alfred Brendel). That's a tough mission, but Lewis acquits himself more than well. 

If you haven't already bought the CD (available here), you may be persuaded by this performance of the second D 935 Impromptu.

 

Stuttgart Ring

Some long journeys over the holiday period allowed me finally to catch up with the 2002/2003 Ring Cycle from the Staatsoper Stuttgart, released on DVD by EuroArts in 2004.

This was, to put it mildly a controversial production. Each opera had a different cast and different director, with the only continuity being the Staatsorchester Stuttgart under the baton of Lothar Zagrosek. Many have weighed in on the pros and cons of this attempt "to deconstruct the totalizing narrative of the Ring cycle", as one might put it. There is an insightful article by Andrew Moravscik here (originally published in Opera Quarterly in 2010), and a representative holding up of hands in horror here.

For my money the stagings were by and large thought-provoking. The test of a production is whether it reveals aspects of the drama that one hadn't previously seen and each of the four directors managed to pull the veil back on occasion. There was really only one act that was utterly devoid of merit or point - the first act of Peter Konwitschny's Die Götterdämmerung, featuring an utterly preposterous fur-clothed Siegfried gamboling around with a hobby-horse and the expression of a smirking village idiot before putting on Brunnhilde's amply proportioned feminine breastplate. The second and third acts of that same production showed real imagination, however, as did much of the other three productions. Many familar Wagnerian clichés showed up - the Nazi baby ward with a crib for each Valkyrie, the gods as gangsters, the post-industrial landscapes, barbed wire prison camps, and so on. But each production had a distinctive vision and the singers did a good job of framing their parts accordingly.

One of the strengths of the Stuttgart Ring is that it features an unusual amount of acting (as opposed to standing and singing). Memorable scenes include the last part of Brunnhilde and Siegfried's great duet, as they alternately fight over and swirl a sheet on their soon-to-be marriage bed, and the long dialog between Alberich and Hagen which begins with Hagen asleep and Alberich awake and appears to end with the roles reversed (quis custodiet custodies, I suppose). Unfortunately, some scenes are memorable for all the wrong reasons, and I would very much like to be able to forget Wotan besporting himself with what appear to be nude Grecian garden gnomes in the second act of Siegfried.

An obvious problem with having each role sung by different singers in each opera is that comparisons are easily made. The Wotans in Die Walküre and Siegfried (Jan-Hendrik Rootering and Wolfgang Schöne respectively) are completely overshadowed by Wolfgang Probst singing the same role in Das Rheingold, and Luana DeVol steals the show as Brunnhilde in Die Götterdämmerung (with a wonderfully sung and acted immolation scene). The fact of the matter, though, is that the three principal characters are disappointing, with the two exceptions just noted. Neither Jon Frederic West not Albert Bonnema makes much of a mark as Siegfried. West is a shouter, while Bonnema is erratic when he tries to project (if only they could somehow be combined!). The real highlights are in the more secondary roles. Robert Gambill and Angela Denoke are very moving as the Walsung twins in Die Walküre, and Heinz Göhrig (Mime) and Björn Waag (Alberich) sing and act very effectively in Siegfried. 

I have to say that I got much more out of the Stuttgart Ring than I expected. The singing is certainly not up to par overall, but Lothar Zagrosek's conducting is solid and at times inspiring. The conceptual approach is worth engaging with and frequently sheds genuine light on the drama. It's unlikely that I'll want to sit through it in its entirety again, but there are powerful acts that it would good to revisit.

I have more long flights later in the week. This time I think I'll take the 1957 Rudolf Kempe Ring from Covent Garden.