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MENGELBERG

Mahler 4, 1939   

The question of what is valid in art and what is not will forever be a question of personal taste and what one personally considers valid; and nowhere is it more varied, or more hotly contested, than in musical art. What works for listener A will sound like mere noise to listener B. All we as reviewers can do, or hope to do, is to describe what we hear, say how we react, and whether or not we find it valid.

This famous performance, which I have to admit I have just now heard for the first time, is a case in point. The archival remains of a live performance given at the Concertgebouw on November 12, 1939, it was proposed by its conductor to be an accurate replica of the way the composer himself had conducted it in 1904. In that year, Mengelberg invited Mahler to perform a special concert in which he conducted this work twice on both halves of the program. Mengelberg took copious notes in his score and later replicated the performance in the presence of Mahler, who supposedly proclaimed that it was as if he himself were on the podium. Yet the numerous and widely varied tempo changes and dramatic accents, not marked in the score as such, have led many arbiters over the years to deny the authenticity of Mengelberg's claim.

Let us examine the evidence, pro and con. Against it:

* * Mahler's score, highly detailed, contains no markings suggesting such an extreme treatment of the music.

* * The piano roll recording of the last movement of this symphony left us by Mahler himself does not even contain as much rubato or as many tempo fluctuations as there are in this performance.

* * Neither Bruno Walter nor Otto Klemperer, Mahler's two youngest disciples, ever conducted the Fourth like this.

* * Mengelberg was known to exaggerate what he felt the composer wanted in a score, and often italicized phrases in a way not marked in the score.

Now, let us examine the evidence in favor of it:

* * Piano rolls, even Welte-Mignon rolls of the type Mahler recorded, were really only accurate in capturing a steady tempo. The Welte rolls captured touch and nuance better than conventional rolls, but only within a steady tempo choice.

* * Mengelberg's other "italicized" performances, e.g., his Beethoven symphonies, are nowhere as mannered as this.

* * Neither Walter nor Klemperer ever disavowed the interpretation on this recording as being not authentic.

* * Klemperer recalled that, on his deathbed, Mahler told him that he wished that Mengelberg was going to conduct the world premiere of Das Lied von der Erde instead of Walter.

* * The score of Mahler's First Symphony that reposes in the library of the New York Philharmonic is touched up considerably with extra, exaggerated phrase, accent, and tempo markings not in the original score by the composer himself.

This last item is the one that clinches it for me. Mahler the interpreter was known for his exaggerated, schmaltzy, gemütlich readings of the classics, especially his own. Though the extraordinarily elongated tempo of the opening theme, which practically brings the orchestra to a standstill, is far out of kilter with our aesthetic today, it was by no means an unknown effect in Mahler's day-not even for Beethoven in the hands of someone like, say, Mahler, who similarly touched up a score of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

Having decided that, for me at least, this performance probably does reflect Mahler's own approach to the score (at least on that day and month in 1904-who knows how he conducted it later?), the question then arises: Is it valid? The not-so-certain answer comes back, I'm not really sure.

Certainly, those first-movement tempo changes-some 30 of them-are not only plentiful but always noticeable, sometimes too much so. This bothers me a lot. And yet, it is only in this performance that I hear the genesis of the fascinatingly intense phrasing that James Levine brought to the work when he recorded it in 1978 with the Chicago Symphony: the nervous edginess of the short solo violin passage in the first movement, for instance, or the wide variety of colors that both conductors bring out in the work. Of course, Levine works more from the aesthetic of a steady tempo with subtle modifications, rather than Mengelberg's aesthetic of wild modifications with occasional passages of steadiness. Mengelberg also performs a double exposition, in the second of which you hear even more of the portamento string style that was so much in fashion during Mahler's time. For all its good points, however, it is my own personal feeling that the first movement goes on interminably, almost as if Mengelberg were wishing that someone would take down his phrase and tempo markings on their score!

The second movement, by contrast, is faster than normal, played at a relatively steady tempo (with some modifications), and expressively edgy and eerie throughout. Again, this is very much like Levine, but in some ways better because the general tempo is faster.

Yet it is in the third movement that the Mengelberg performance comes into its own. Creating his own little cosmos of sound and expression, the conductor gives here one of the greatest performances of his life. I never for a single moment lost connection with the thread of what he was doing, and attempting, and at every turn-especially the double-time passage later in the movement-Mengelberg strikes sparks. This is the best Adagio of the Fourth I have ever heard.

The last movement  is very good in its own right too. Soprano Jo Vincent had a pure sound, good for the music, but rather weak breath support that sometimes defeats her phrasing. I have a rare recording of this symphony, which I treasure, by Anton Nanut and the Ljubjana Symphony Orchestra, with a boy soprano (Max Emanuel Cencik) in the final movement, and not even Cencik has as spotty breath support as this. But she is good, at least, and Mengelberg's conducting is alternatively sensitive and edgy as the music calls for. [MP3 sample]

Should you listen to this recording? Most definitely. Should you keep it? A matter of taste, really. Andrew Rose's re-mastering has taken a performance that always suffered, in the past, from not only excessive surface noise but also undernourished strings and a hollow bass response and made it sound like a real performance. This is, undoubtedly, one of his finest achievements at the re-mastering controls.   

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Pristine Sound Engineer Andrew Rose tells us in the liner-notes that his research into which Callas Norma to re-master indicated that this live 1955 performance was the best candidate - and I agree with him. The RAI broadcast from earlier the same year is also estimable and in similar sound; it has the same two principals and the advantage of Serafin's more flexible conducting over the rather staid Votto. It must also be said that the great Ebe Stignani was by that stage of her career rather mature for the youthful Adalgisa and Giulietta Simionata's impassioned singing is more apt. Zaccaria is also marginally preferable over Modesti as Oroveso.
 
Rose tells us that his investigations revealed that the tapes of both this and that RAI performance were sharp. He has corrected this fault with the result that the voices sound fuller, richer and altogether easier on the ear. Flutter has been removed and individual sound strands emerge more cleanly and better differentiated instead of melding into the familiar orchestral mush. Following practice of previous issues, Rose has resorted to substituting the overture missing from the original recording with that from the RAI broadcast and no-one is likely to complain or hear any difference. The Pristine "Ambient Stereo" treatment also lends added presence to the rather thin, scratchy sound whose relative inadequacy is more noticeable in purely orchestral rather than vocal passages. This will never be an aural treat but the Pristine re-mastering has given us the best we are ever going to hear.
 
As I remarked in my previous review of the IDIS double CD featuring a compilation of ten versions of Callas singing "Casta Diva" over ten years, she was amazingly consistent during that period. This recording comes slap-bang in the middle of the decade and finds her in excellent voice, worthily partnered by the heroic Del Monaco.
 
As the years go by it is increasingly apparent that we shall not hear the likes of either Callas or Del Monaco again. Even if their emphatic and even stentorian delivery is sometimes rather removed from what we might expect from a quintessential bel canto opera we hear great delicacy and some lovely divisions from Callas in her big arias.
 
There will always be some flap and wobble even in her finest recordings but these flaws are negligible alongside her peerless ability to inflect the music with unforgettable intensity and pathos. I retain an affection for Callas's last studio, stereo recording for EMI where not only is the whole enterprise lent glamour by the presence of Corelli and Ludwig but also we finally hear her in good sound at a point where despite the supposed decline in her voice over the previous decade she is in fact still sounding very good indeed. However, the recording under discussion remains the finest memorial to her most famous role.  

 

Pristine Sound Engineer Andrew Rose tells us in the liner-notes that his research into which Callas Norma to re-master indicated that this live 1955 performance was the best candidate - and I agree with him. The RAI broadcast from earlier the same year is also estimable and in similar sound; it has the same two principals and the advantage of Serafin's more flexible conducting over the rather staid Votto. It must also be said that the great Ebe Stignani was by that stage of her career rather mature for the youthful Adalgisa and Giulietta Simionata's impassioned singing is more apt. Zaccaria is also marginally preferable over Modesti as Oroveso.
 
Rose tells us that his investigations revealed that the tapes of both this and that RAI performance were sharp. He has corrected this fault with the result that the voices sound fuller, richer and altogether easier on the ear. Flutter has been removed and individual sound strands emerge more cleanly and better differentiated instead of melding into the familiar orchestral mush. Following practice of previous issues, Rose has resorted to substituting the overture missing from the original recording with that from the RAI broadcast and no-one is likely to complain or hear any difference. The Pristine "Ambient Stereo" treatment also lends added presence to the rather thin, scratchy sound whose relative inadequacy is more noticeable in purely orchestral rather than vocal passages. This will never be an aural treat but the Pristine re-mastering has given us the best we are ever going to hear.
 
As I remarked in my previous review of the IDIS double CD featuring a compilation of ten versions of Callas singing "Casta Diva" over ten years, she was amazingly consistent during that period. This recording comes slap-bang in the middle of the decade and finds her inIt would be all too easy, especially at a time when recordings of Donizetti operas seem to be issued at an ever-increasing rate, often performed in editions much closer to the composer's text than we have on these discs, to regard Callas's first studio recording of Lucia di Lammermoor as essentially more of historical than musical interest. After all, she made a later studio recording (1959) and there are many live recordings of her in the role, including a much-praised version under Karajan in Berlin from 1955. Despite all of this to me this is the performance that shows that Donizetti was a great dramatic composer but whose music requires a particularly imaginative and sympathetic approach from the performers for this to be apparent.
 
I have known this recording for many years but have not listened to it for some time. Largely that was because of my memory of a particularly unatmospheric recording quality which reduced the impact of what was obviously an immensely exciting performance. Pristine have once again performed technical wonders which I do not begin to understand but which have turned this ugly duckling into the most radiant of swans. What was always worth hearing despite some discomfort is now simply a joy to hear from beginning to end, encouraging the listener to forget any concerns over recording balance or the brutal and wholly unnecessary cuts and simply to enjoy what still seems an almost perfect cast. The three main characters all sing with total dramatic and musical conviction. Understandably the packaging is dominated by the name of Callas but in reality the contributions of Gobbi and Di Stefano are of equal importance, all singing with real urgency and imagination. The other roles are perhaps more routine, even Raffaele Arié as Raimondo but Serafin's wonderfully flexible and understanding conducting disguises any small weaknesses in the cast. Although Karajan's Berlin performance is often praised I find it at times exaggerated in comparison with Serafin's equally positive but more idiomatic and less self-conscious approach.
 
One result of the disgraceful cuts in Lucia is that the set is able also to include Callas's first commercial recordings. Here too Pristine manage to make them much less uncomfortable for the listener although I have not changed my view that these are essentially of interest in showing how far Callas managed to travel later as an artist than for their own intrinsic merits.
 
As usual with Pristine Audio there are no texts or translations, but these are easily obtainable elsewhere and it would be a pity if this put anyone off buying it. For admirers of Callas or Donizetti this set has always been an essential part of their collections, and in this newly minted form that is more than ever the case.