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Toscanini

Beethoven
Symphony No. 1   

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Arturo Toscanini conductor

Rec. 1937    

   Toscanini's 1937 recording of Beethoven's First Symphony with the BBC Symphony Orchestra was one of the first successes for our "Natural Sound" process - which was further developed to become our acclaimed 32-bit XR remastering system.

   

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PASC 066    

 Wilhelm Furtwängler led a production of Mozart's Magic Flute for three summers at the Salzburg Festival: 1949, 1950, and 1951. I reviewed the Orfeo release of the 1949 production in Fanfare 29:6, and a Music & Arts release in Fanfare 19: 5. Those interested in more detail may wish to find those reviews in the Fanfare Archive. I said at the time that the 1951 performance was the better of the two that were recorded (nothing seems to have survived from 1950), and that one could find it on EMI (65356). I had earlier reviewed that 1949 performance on a Music & Arts release (Fanfare 19:5).

The principal difference between the two is two casting changes: Anton Dermota replacing Walter Ludwig as Tamino, and Erich Kunz replacing Karl Schmitt-Walter as Papageno. Both are strong improvements. Also, after three runs of the production, this later one seems more settled and better executed, and the conductor seems more willing to take a few more chances. There is a terrific sense of life and theater about this, from the opening chords of the overture through to the end.

There is also, it must be noted, an approach to Mozart that is very far from today's historically informed theories of how Mozart should be performed. Even in its day, this was a weighty, even massive performance. I find it a noble, humanist Flute, a reading where the conductor reacts to what he sees as the philosophical and dramatic implications of the text. If you prefer your Mozart fleet, crisp, and light-textured, this is almost certainly not for you. But if you are open to a weightier approach, you will certainly not hear it done more persuasively.

In his superb book The Furtwängler Record, John Ardoin quotes the conductor on the subject of this opera: "a sacred drama, a vital mass, a religious consecration of life, a temporal realization of all that is elevated and noble." Thus those who see this as a light, comedic work will probably have difficulty relating to this performance.

The cast is a who's-who of Mozart singers in Vienna and Germany in the immediate postwar period, and could hardly be bettered. Seefried's Pamina is gorgeously sung and deeply felt. Lipp manages the tortures of the two Queen arias as well as anyone (and slightly better here than in 1949). Dermota sings Tamino's music with warm tone, melting legato, and a well-developed ability to inflect and phrase with meaning. Kunz is utterly captivating as Papageno, and Greindl's dark, rich tone compensates for his occasional intonation problems. The Vienna Philharmonic plays more precisely here than in 1949 for Furtwängler.

If you already have this performance on EMI, should you consider replacing it? For those who watch their budget, I am sorry to report that if you love this performance it is Pristine's transfer that you will want. Andrew Rose has removed most of the glassy hardness that affected the string sound on the EMI release, and the overall sound is cleaner and more natural by a significant amount.

Pristine throws in a bonus: Furtwängler's 1944 Berlin performance of Mozart's 39th Symphony. This is the second of two surviving performances of this work by the conductor (the other is from 1942), and this is the superior one. It has been issued on DG, but sounds fuller and more natural here. The performances on February 7 and 8, 1944, were the first concerts given by the Berlin Philharmonic and Furtwängler after the bombing of their home, the Philharmonie. They were played in the Staatsoper. Whether that added to the extra sense of drama and intensity of this performance one can never know, but there is a vitality here not present in the 1942 performance. Again, this may be old-fashioned Mozart rooted in the 19th-century performing tradition, but it would take a stonier heart than mine to resist its sweep, its long, arching phrases, and rich textures. There is a meaningful difference between "weighty" and "heavy-handed." This performance is weighty. The bass line is firm and prominent, the forces are large, and the concept is on a grand scale. But never is it heavy-handed. Even at relatively slow tempos, the momentum is consistently maintained through the firmness of the rhythmic pulse and the careful shaping of the phrases. And perhaps a surprise to those who would not normally associate the word "charm" with this conductor, the trio section of the third movement is indeed charming, conducted with a smile. Although some distortion remains at climaxes, and the string sound is a bit hard, this transfer is a big improvement over any prior one of which I am aware.

Pristine continues to do a genuine and meaningful service to those of us who care about the performing traditions of the first half of the 20th century by preserving recorded documentation in the best quality of reproduction possible. As is customary with this label, there are some notes about the transfer process but no other commentary.  

(PACO 075,  2hr 51:54)

 

This lavish Decca stereo (John Culshaw) production from 1960 famously featured not only the elaborate sound effects for which the company was well known in those days, to enhance the party atmosphere in act II, but also an interpolated Gala performance of star turns from a succession of Decca big names in an eclectic selection of light and what would now be called "crossover" fare. The recording also included the act II ballet sequence, part of Strauss's score but rarely heard. Previous CD reissues on Decca have retained the Gala but not the ballet (which presumably would have necessitated a third CD). Pristine does the opposite, restoring the ballet but excising the Gala. For my part, I find it an irrelevant distraction and don't miss it one bit, but for those who feel otherwise, Pristine has released it separately.

At first I was skeptical that Andrew Rose's XR treatment could do anything for such vintage stereo fare from a major label. But to my surprise, comparison with Decca's own latest CD incarnation, in its Originals line, gives a clear advantage to Pristine; tuttis are more open, warmer, with sharper detail and imaging. On the other hand, Decca's sound is a little smoother in quiet passages, where Pristine's transfer betrays its LP source, though this is a small point. Overall this is most impressive, and given the choice I would now opt to listen to the Pristine.

The performance is a classic that calls for little comment. Karajan's conducting combines high polish and an idiomatic Viennese quality: an easy authority that is very persuasive, even if his direction is longer on aristocratic reserve, and rather shorter on spontaneous high spirits, than with the Philharmonia in his EMI set of five years earlier. And if he is less memorably individual than Clemens Krauss was with the Vienna Philharmonic in Decca's 1950 predecessor, so is every other conductor on record. The cast is uniformly excellent (Hilde Gueden repeating her entrancingly earthy Rosalinde from the Krauss set, now 10 years older and a little darker in voice and expression)-with one exception, Regina Resnik's low-pitched, tired-sounding Orlofsky, who sounds much too old. A major difference from the two classic sets mentioned above concerns the inclusion of spoken dialog, which is most welcome in imparting crucial breathing room to the listening experience. (It is completely cut from the other sets.)

If you have the set in one of its previous CD incarnations you already have the Gala, so you won't miss it here. But you have to buy the Pristine (or the original LP set) to get the ballet-reason enough to justify purchase, and you'll get a better-sounding remastering into the bargain. A win-win proposition, and strongly recommended.  

(PACO 068, 1hr 57:05)