Schoenberg

A very quick note this week from me as I'm working hard to get not only this week's website updates online, but to get ready for our proposed new website launch at the beginning of next week!

I must admit I've no idea what level of enthusiasm we might tap into for this week's new release - for some the mention of the names of the "holy trinity" of the Second Viennese School, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, still sends them running for the hills a century after Schoenberg began work on his serial music theories.

The four Schoenberg quartets, coupled with quartets from Berg and Webern, were recorded by The Juilliard String Quartet for Columbia in 1951 and 1952, and fine recordings they are too. Yet it was almost a decade before anyone in Britain was brave enough to issue them on LP - hats off to Philips in that regard.

Their excellent 1961 pressings were the source for this week's release - and because the Berg couldn't be squeezed onto the CDs we're offering this as a free download (it's of course included in the main downloads too) for anyone who'd like to hear it. The free download, which you'll find on the website page here, includes all our MP3 and FLAC formats, so if you want to experiment with the different types of download on offer from Pristine the Berg offers an ideal opportunity to do so.

 



   Different restoration engineers keep improving the Furtwängler/Scala Ring cycle, and now that Andrew Rose of Pristine has gotten around to it, the result achieves a level that frankly I never thought possible.

As followers of conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler know, there are two complete Ring cycle recorded performances of his. One is from fully staged 1950 performances at La Scala in Milan, and the other is a broadcast unstaged set of performances, recorded one act at a time, for the Rome RAI in 1953. I have reviewed one or the other of these three times in Fanfare (20:2 for the Music & Arts release of the Scala performances, and 33:1 for the Archipel improvement on that effort; 29:6 for the Gebhardt release of the RAI set). William Youngren also reviewed the EMI release of the RAI set in Fanfare 14:4.

For many years the Rome RAI set was preferable because of superior sound quality. It was, after all, produced for radio broadcast. In addition, the performers were able to retain freshness throughout, since they were only performing one act on any given evening, and they did not have to trouble themselves with stage business. Some of us always had a sneaking suspicion that the Scala performances were more satisfying, because they had that sizzle and specificity of inflection that comes from fully staged performances of music dramas, but the limited sonic reproduction made it hard to really enjoy them. The first release of the Scala Ring that provided real listening pleasure was the Archipel (a label with an uneven history, but one that did a fine job here). Now, however, things have moved up yet another whole level.

Any of those earlier reviews, easily locatable on the Fanfare Archive, will give you the specifics of why I believe that anyone seriously interested in The Ring must know Furtwängler's performances, and why I think that of the two the Scala set is preferable. If there ever was any doubt of this, Pristine Audio's transfer removes it. This is, in fact, a remarkably lifelike reproduction of a performance that when first heard decades ago on a poor LP transfer seemed like something one would never actually be able to take much pleasure in. By the time you read this, the entire Ring cycle will be available from Pristine, and it is urgently recommended even if you own one of the earlier transfers. I have listened to it in both monaural and the XR stereo versions (this release is in the latter)-both are satisfying. I slightly prefer the XR stereo-which is not at all like the fake stereo of the 1970s, but simply a way of allowing the ambience to feel more natural.

Henry Fogel




The Scala Ring conducted by Furtwängler is a monumental achievement and fully deserves to be heard at its best. And so it is that once more we sit in debt to Andrew Rose of Pristine Audio. This Walküre cannot have been an easy task, yet the result is a hitherto unheard of presence that enables us to wonder anew at this majestic performance.

Take the very opening. There is a tremendous clarity here that seems to match the fevered intensity Furtwängler sets up so well. Clear also is Furtwängler's attention to Wagnerian counterpoint (in the minute or so prior to Siegmund's entrance, for example). Bear in mind on occasion the sound can be quite fragile still, for example track 2, around the three-minute mark, but at no point anywhere in the piece is it overly distracting to the musical flow.

The act I singers are well balanced. Günther Treptow has a heroic edge to his voice (almost Mime-like at times) and is quite fascinating when relating histories. He is capable, too, of moments of restrained, lyrical magic. Towards the end of the act there is a tendency to strain (perhaps even to approach a bark). Hilde Konetzni is impetuous and eminently believable. One might reasonably wish for a Hunding that is more jet black in sound than Ludwig Weber, though. Perhaps the problem is he is not frightening enough. His voice struggles occasionally to surmount the orchestra. It is difficult to imagine him as the primordial hunter/gatherer/thug.

It is Furtwängler's underlying machinations that ensure the subtleties of the drama remain clear to the listener. The Scala orchestra reacts in chameleon-like fashion to his direction, ensuring a strong arrival on the cries of "Wälse" (given some space here) and then illustrating, like surely no other, the dance of the moonlight in sound; the arrival on "Nothung" is similarly expertly managed, the slightly scrappy brass playing unable to mar the moment in the slightest. The sheer sensuous outpouring of the act's later stages is due to Furtwängler and his orchestra, though. The web of sound he creates is surely unparalleled, while in no other version is so much orchestral detail so flawlessly evident in the closing measures of the act.

The Wotan, Ferdinand Frantz, seems backwardly placed at his first entrance in the Second Act; Kirsten Flagstad's glistening Brünnhilde is closer. Yet the dialogue is perfectly managed. There is no space here, or anywhere else in the long central act, for longeurs. Elisabeth Höngen is a Fricka with a spine of steel, her voice pure drama. It is of course Furtwängler who spins the thread that runs through the experience. In his hands, one feels that this central act truly holds the key to Walküre. Frantz delivers all the flawed nobility of his character, a nobility that runs right through this act's second scene. The true mastery here though is Furtwängler's: Try the instrumental color alchemy he achieves in the woodwind (end track 13). The act's vast span is impeccably shaped, culminating in a fourth scene that includes moments of unutterable tenderness, while its final climax is unbearably exciting. To hear this (almost) uncluttered and clear is a minor miracle. Bear in mind there is a change of disc (the latter-day equivalent of turning the LP) towards the end of the Second Act (the third disc begins with scene 5's "Zauberfest").

The woodwind trills of Walkürenritt seem positively infernal. There is something of a momentary change of perspective around two minutes in. The Valkyries are a feisty lot, and there is some stand-alone virtuoso string playing. Act III again brings a proper sense of over-arching form from the conductor, enabling dramatic climaxes, loud or quiet ("Hier bin ich, Vater") to register to their fullest. Frantz comes into his own in this final act, clearly aflame with anger in the earlier stages. Flagstad seems to project all of Brünnhilde's vulnerability at "Was es so schmählich" (scene 3); yet the dialogue between them is effectively managed by the conductor, who seems to hold the key to the dramatic trajectory. Flagstad's sense of the lyric is pronounced here, which heightens the poignancy of the situation. As always in this performance, though, it is Furtwängler that creates the sense of the monumental and of inevitability. The sense of momentum towards the famous farewell means that when it comes it is dripping in meaning. Frantz seems to find his finest form at this point; but has there ever been a finer, more gossamer fire than this?

This is certainly not the first incarnation of this splendid performance (LP versions appeared on labels such as Murray Hill, Everest, and Cetra; CD on Fonit Centra, Gerhardt, and Music & Arts), but the sonic improvements make it the only one worthy of serious consideration. With this upholstering, one can properly hear Furtwängler's intent, his integration of large and small scale. There are blips (CD 1, track 6, around three minutes in), but even to mention them seems churlish. Andrew Rose gives a detailed résumé of problems and solutions on the Pristine website, including the trimming of the coughing of distracted Italians. The studio 1954 recording sits well on Naxos in a transfer by Mark Obert-Thorn (reviewed briefly by Henry Fogel in Fanfare 30:4), while the 1953 RAI deserves shelf space right next to this 1950 Scala.

Colin Clarke




These articles originally appeared in Issue 37:1 (Sept/Oct 2013) of Fanfare Magazine.