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As with other issues in this series of Bruno Walter's Mahler recordings, Pristine's 32-bit XR remastering system has succeeded in delving deep into the original recording to reveal new depths and new heights. Where previously the brass sounded perhaps a little veiled, now they can be heard in all their blazing glory. Meanwhile the choir opens out wonderfully, making previous issues sound perhaps a little strangled by comparison. Finally the full rumbling majesty of the lowest organ stops can be felt as well as heard to marvellous effect. The Gramophone's reviewer talks about an "apocalyptic" performance - now we can hear it in sound to match that artistic vision.

Andrew Rose

In good time for next year's Mahler centenary comes a recording which is certain to make a strong appeal to all real Mahler enthusiasts, all the more since it is conducted by the composer's distinguished disciple, Bruno Walter, whose reading may be accepted as authentic and who clearly loves this music. The Second Symphony, provided by Mahler with a weighty "programme" about life and death, the Last Trump and the resurrection of the dead, and the assurance of a life hereafter ("Sterben werd* ich, um zu leben"), is nevertheless a work which takes a good deal of stomaching. Faced with concepts of such magnitude, Mahler becomes merely grandiloquent: the enormous apparatus he demands-a huge orchestra, with large reserves of extra brass and percussion, organ, chorus and soloists-ends jby becoming unwieldy; the suspicion increases, as the symphony's vast length unfolds, that it would have been the better for more matter and less art; and it cannot be denied that at the very point where nobility of thought is needed, Mahler (like Strauss in a similar context) falls dangerously near bathos. For all that, beneath all the pomp there lie some characteristically striking and beautiful ideas, and when Mahler, for contrast, reverts to the vein of childhood innocence and naivete-as in the Landler movement - (based on one of the Knaben Wunder horn songs)-he is at his most charming. Indeed, there may be more of heaven here, as seen through the eyes of a child, than in all the alarums and excursions later.

The Klemperer recording which has been the only one available until now was not particularly satisfactory, owing to the general sense of constriction, the restricted dynamic range and the string quality, which tended to sound starved just when it should have been most opulent. The present issue, except for a short patch in the finale where the engineers, not altogether surprisingly, seem to have feared for the safety of their equipment and have brought their fader down a notch or so, is remarkably well recorded, with particularly good balance and excellent quality. Adequately to contain Mahler's vision of the heavens opening, with trumpets disposed to right and left, near and far, stereo at least is called for (and, in fact, the stereo version exists in America); but even in mono this does not overload. It is Walter's interpretation, however, which is the real joy of this issue: not only is he more apocalyptic than Klemperer, but in the lyrical passages he brings far more grace to the music. The second subject of the opening movement, for example, has more Viennese charro, without, as in the previous recording, turning into mere goo at the recapitulation; the Landler flows more easily (what lovely singing tone from the 'cellos, incidentally!); and the Scherzo, which before seemed unduly protracted, is taken at a better speed and is more pointed rhythmically. Though one should not forget the wonderfully steady singing of Hilde Rössl-Majdan in the earlier set, the soloists and chorus here are very good, and complete the attraction of this admirable issue.  

L.S., The Gramophone, June 1959   

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This volume is the second of five which will reissue, for the first time in one series, the complete symphony cycle which English Columbia commissioned to commemorate the centennial of Beethoven's death in 1927. It was a bold move for the label, perennially in the shadow of its larger competitor, HMV, to embark on such a project at a time when no other company had recorded all nine symphonies using the relatively new electrical process. Indeed, HMV and Polydor would not complete their cycles until several years after the centennial had passed.

The first four symphonies were assigned to British conductors (Henschel, Beecham, Wood and the Northern Irish Harty) while the remainder were given to Weingartner, already generally acknowledged as a Beethoven specialist.

Henry Wood had already set down an abridged acoustic version of the Eroica for Columbia on six sides in 1922 when he was approached to record it complete for the microphone. The recording locale is not precisely known; I have seen references to both the Scala Theatre and Columbia's Large Studio in Petty France. We do know, however, that the New Queen's Hall Orchestra did not record it in Queen's Hall, which was under exclusive contract to HMV at the time.

Wood's approach is surprisingly modern for its time - fleet, unmannered, and with hardly any string portamenti to be heard. Apparently, Wood was originally intended to play a greater role in Columbia's Beethoven Centennial series. In March of 1927, he recorded two concerti, the Emperor with Ignaz Friedman and the Violin Concerto with Albert Sammons; but neither was ever released, and the original matrices were destroyed.

The Fourth would turn out to be the only Beethoven symphony Harty recorded. His approach here is similar to Wood's, albeit with a bit more portamenti on display, and he benefitted from the almost-too-ample acoustics of Manchester's Free Trade Hall. For the final side (the last half of the fourth movement), the engineers must have told Harty that he was running perilously close to the four-minute maximum Columbia was apparently enforcing at the time for twelve-inch matrices, as he speeds up his already energetic reading to an exhilarating conclusion, the Hallé following him with great precision and virtuosity.

The sources for the transfers were American Columbia "Viva-Tonal" pressings for the Eroica and laminated English Columbias for the Fourth. Pitch fluctuations throughout each side, which were particularly severe in the Fourth Symphony, have been corrected in this transfer.

Mark Obert-Thorn