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TOSCANINI

BEETHOVEN

Symphony No. 2
Symphony No. 4  

Transfers and XR remastering by  

Andrew Rose

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PASC 172 - Toscanini  

Although there are later Furtwängler-led versions of the Eighth, and superb Furtwangler recordings of other Bruckner symphonies, if I had to live with only a single example of this conductor's way with Bruckner it would be this one. This performance combines moment-to-moment intensity with an overall sense of architecture and inevitability that carries you through the almost 80 minutes, never really letting the dramatic tension to fall flat even for a moment. Furtwängler's unique ability to see the interconnections between tempo relationships, dynamic shading and scaling, phrase lengths and shapes, harmonic motion, and orchestral balance and color-to relate each of those elements to each other and to the whole-works to unify Bruckner's sprawling structure. He also inspires the Vienna Philharmonic to a stunning level of intensity of playing throughout-so that the result is gripping from beginning to end. Furtwängler uses the Haas Edition, of which he conducted the first performance, though he makes a few modifications.

This performance is a classic but many prior transfers have been inadequate, and none as good as this one. The closest to the mark has been, unfortunately, both the hardest to find and the most expensive-a two-disc Japanese EMI set (CD28-5757/58). Most others have been pitched sharp or afflicted by serious flutter, or both. Music & Arts had a very good one (CD-1209) that sounds as if it might have derived from the Japanese EMI. A different Japanese EMI (TOCE 3786) was at the right pitch and with minimal flutter, but somewhat congested and marred by dropouts. All DG and Japanese DG editions of this are sharp and have the flutter problem more seriously present.

Pristine has worked its magic and given us what is probably the best transfer we will get for quite some time, unless someone finds a better original. Some of the flutter that is on the original is still present on long sustained wind notes and chords, but the degree of the problem is minimal and the result will be tolerable for most listeners. More importantly, Andrew Rose has managed a fuller, richer orchestral sonority, one where the bass is firm and strong, as opposed to the bright, hard-edged sound of even the best prior efforts. The result is immediately evident in moment-to-moment A-B comparisons, and is even more compelling over the length of the symphony. Finally one can hear this without the listener fatigue that comes with the excessive harshness of the earlier versions.

The first movement is fierce and rugged throughout. The Scherzo manages to be both massive and light-footed at the same time-a seeming paradox achieved through rich orchestral textures combined with sharply sprung rhythms. The Adagio is the centerpiece that it should be: a longing, yearning performance of which I have never heard the equal. There are slight touches of portamento in the strings that add wondrously to the effect. Bruckner's finales are generally his most difficult movements for conductors, and this one is no exception. The shape is not clearly constructed, there are many tempo adjustments, and the coda is somewhat brief and lightweight for all that has come before (although it suffers less from this problem than do the Fourth and Seventh symphonies). Here in particular the music gains from the conductor's ability to see the big picture, to create the necessary tension and release through both tempo and textural adjustments, and to instill conviction in the playing. Furtwängler manages better than most others to hold enough in reserve so as to give a real weight of finality to those last three chords, chords often taken either too quickly or too slowly. The music must move into and through those three chords with logic, and they must produce a sense of climactic ending. Here they do just that.

It is important to note that the sound still does not represent the state of the art even for 1944 broadcasts-but anyone with a tolerance for historic recordings is likely to find it acceptable now, and the performance is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. This is one of the great Bruckner recordings of all time.     

PASC 260 - Bruckner 8

They call him America's greatest native-born violinist and, indeed, Albert Spalding's tone was as richly expressive as any, even by 1951 when he recorded the three Brahms Violin Sonatas with pianist-composer Ernö Dohnanyi. These gripping renditions couldn't be further removed from the sanitised norm we so often hear nowadays. Rather, they reveal a pooled creative impulse, sounding totally improvised, and while neither is what you'd call super-slick, musicality burns from virtually every note. It's a cliché but I'll say it anyway: these are real performances. And Mark Obert-Thorn's expert transfers are well mastered by Pristine Audio. 

PACM 078 - Spalding

The 30-31 July 1947 performance of the Dvorak Violin Concerto by Polish virtuoso Ida Haendel (b. 1928?) has had prior incarnation through the Dutton label in 1999 as CDK 1204, where it appeared in concert with the Tchaikovsky Concerto from 1946 and the Saint-Saens' Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso from 1945, each of those latter collaborations with Basil Cameron. The Pristine restoration by Andrew Rose carries a pungent immediacy; and thus Haendel's strong suit, her blazing attacks, gain in their feral approach to a combination of gypsy and Slavic impulses in the music itself. Conductor Karl Rankl (1898-1968), an Austrian musician who like Haendel embraced British citizenship, generates a natural sympathy in the course of A Minor Concerto, although sonically we could wish the National Symphony woodwinds had more color presence. Haendel's work with the flute solo and French horns in the Adagio of the Concerto proves exemplary in its taste and vocal phraseology. The outer movements with their respective drive and rasping intensity will remind auditors in several aspects of the Milstein approach: virile, robust, grandly scaled.

The Finale perhaps of all three movements reveals the "feminine" character in Haendel's playing, although Rankl's orchestral part continues to vibrate with the rustic energies we know from Dvorak's Slavonic Dance forms. Again, better miking of the National Symphony tympani would have added a distinct power to already colorful approach. The middle section, rife with double notes and high voltage changes in bowing and registration, showcase Haendel's studied approach, which would gain even more vertical acuity after her fateful encounter in the 1950s with Sergiu Celibidache. The lithe athleticism of Haendel's upper register and flute tone, however, quite dazzle even here in 1947, and music lovers can only marvel at her combination of fluid technical virtuosity and absolute comfort in the emotional authority of her conception.

The recordings of Milanese cello virtuoso Enrico Mainardi (1897-1976) have been grudgingly slow to re-enter the main stream; and while this affecting effort in the Cello Concerto from 24 January 1955 with Fritz Lehmann (1904-1956) gives us hopes of further issues, many collectors envision that Mainardi's work with Paul van Kempen will no less warrant restoration. Restoration engineer Andrew Rose has resuscitated a German Heliodor LP with pseudo-stereo effects and done away with all phony sources of separation. Mainardi then reveals himself as a cellist whose style lies somewhere between the older romantic tradition of Casals and the relatively "clean," almost Spartan linear drive of Emanuel Feuermann. Lehmann, working with the Berlin Philharmonic, performed at the height of his powers, although he would die prematurely only a year later. In 1955, the Berlin Philharmonic still reeled emotionally from the loss of their major conductor Wilhelm Furtwaengler, but the discipline remained honed under Karajan, Fricsay, Jochum, Lehmann, and Knappertsbusch.

The scale of Lehmann's orchestral part does not strive for the metaphysical objectivity of Karajan nor the "patient" indulgence of Fricsay, but rather proceeds in a literalist fashion that might remind some auditors of the classic contribution George Szell provided for soloist Casals. The warm sound of the BPO provides a pampered tissue for the long-lined, impassioned declarations and runs from Mainardi. In their intimate moments together, Mainardi and Lehmann manage a chamber-music effect, quite arresting, that segues easily into the martial and more heroic gestures the first movement proffers, especially in its extended coda.  For those who complain of Mainardi's predilection for slow tempos, a potent tonic reveals itself in these pages. On the other hand, Mainardi's old school sensibility in the Adagio yields up thoughtful, exalted moments of meditative beauty bathed in the woodwind miracles of Dvorak's seamless writing. A self-effacing, meticulous approach may not achieve the epic proportions some of our modern virtuosi effect, but Mainardi delivers a Dvorak Concerto intelligent as it is ardent, and the last movement dances and sings with that especial nostalgia the composer imparts when his fairy-tale ethos meets musical ideas that celebrate both his national style and his universality.   

PASC 308 - Beecham