Web page: PACO 095     

Notes On this recording   

Furtw�ngler's only studio recording of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, took place in Vienna's Musikvereinsaaal between 13th and 17th October 1953, and followed a performance on 12th October in the Theater an der Wien with almost the same cast (Alwin Hedricks replaced Hermann Gallos for the recording).

The recording was certainly well made for its era, though it's no surprise to find most of the dialogue absent in a studio recording of its time. Remastering it has, however, brought far more musicality out of the performance than was previously apparent. In addition to curing some small pitch anomalies (early tape machines frequently drifted up and down in speed), I've used XR remastering techniques to completely open up the sound, with a far more even frequency response than could be captured at the time generating a much more natural tone across both instruments and voices. The lower end is fuller and richer, the top end clear and brighter, whilst the latest digital noise reduction techniques have helped reduce tape hiss without damaging the clarity of the sound.

Ambient Stereo processing has worked wonders to bring our the natural acoustic of the recording venue, and is highly recommended for this recording.

Andrew Rose      

Review UK LP Issue  

So here it is at last, a complete recording of Fidelio with the dialogue omitted except in the "melodrama" of Act 2 and the brief sentences for Jaquino and Rocco after the second of the trumpet calls in this act. The omission cannot be regretted except between the quartet and duet, also in this act, when Florestan says to his wife " what must you have not suffered for my sake ? " and she replies " Nothing, my Florestan. In spirit I was always near you ". No one who heard Lotte Lehmann say " Nichts, mein Florestan " in a voice stifled with emotion, after Leonora's heroic effort to save her husband, is ever likely to forget it: and these words are really needed here to drive the point home.

The glory of this performance is in the orchestral playing under Furtw�ngler, whose reading of the score is as superb, and as well recorded, as it was in Tristan.

That becomes evident at once in the Overture, in which the great conductor gives an interpretation which shows us (as it seems to me) the two sides of Leonora's character, heroic resolution and feminine tenderness and how enchanting is his treatment of a secondary theme that has so strong a flavour of Czech music.

Schock and Jurinac are a perfectly matched pair in the duet with which the opera begins-so surprisingly modelled on the French composer Gaveaux's Lionore, ou I'amour conjugal, but sounding very Mozart-ean. Jurinac's firm and beautifully moulded vocal line is a tower of strength in the opera, though it might be objected that she is rather too mature a Marcelline and has not the sparkle in her voice that Elizabeth Schumann brought to the part. One should not have the feeling that Jurinac might have been an admirable Leonora! The exquisite canon-quartet-static only in the heavenly manner of the Meistersinger quintet-brings Leonora on the scene, but not yet as an outstanding character. After this lovely quartet-it is very well sung and balanced-we have Rocco's conventional aria which draws attention to the excellent portrayal of the part by Gottlob Frick. Later in the opera we find him really acting with his voice and giving a most convincing presentation of his part.

In the Trio that follows the two sopranos have a high passage descending in thirds in which, when repeated, they change parts; this comes out very well, but elsewhere in the Trio Martha M�dl sometimes uses a strangled kind of tone that is evidence of tiredness and makes one anxious for what will happen later on. Edelmann, as Pizzaro, remains the conventional villain, and in the duet with Rocco, when he suggests the murder of Florestan, he could have been much more sinister and malicious.

Now comes Leonora's great recitative and aria and in this M�dl is disappointing. There is no real fire in her singing of "Abscheulichen", a focal point of the opera, and her cautious negotiation of the florid portions of the aria rob it of its dramatic force. She sounds, in fact, tired and uncomfortable and seems unable to keep her tone centred. She was more at ease, in fact, in her recent Telefunken recording of the scena (TM68003).

Now the publicity "hand-out" tells us that this recording of the opera was made immediately after the last performance of Herbert Graf's new production in Vienna, October, 1953. This statement presumably means the day after, which perhaps for Miss M�dl was at least a day too soon. Her performance in the production was rated as good, if not outstanding, and it is bad luck that she was not in her best form for the recording.

The prisoners' chorus, which follows, carries my mind back to the unforgettable production of the opera at Salzburg-was it by Reinhardt?-in which Lotte Lehmann, Elizabeth Schumann and Richard Mayr sang and Schalk conducted. The prisoners were mostly very old and could not have been politically dangerous, but there was a pathos in their singing which I miss in that of the excellent Munich chorus who sound, quite rightly, much younger.

The ensemble of soloists and chorus in this finale is well balanced and the end, when the prisoners return to their cells, has the moving quality I missed at the start of the finale. Furtw�ngler gives a marvellous and spine-chilling interpretation of the introduction to Act 2 and Windgassen catches the mood exactly in his opening recitative and, if not yet a Patzak, sings the aria very well. The atmosphere of deadly cold and darkness in the dungeons is well maintained by M�dl and Frick in the melodrama (speech punctuated by expressive phrases for the orchestra) but when we reach the great quartet, one of the finest dramatic pieces in opera, it does not, except in the orchestra, quite convey the thrilling excitement of the old H.M.V. disc (DB4417) that was only available on special order, and probably remained known to few. Leonora's great cry "First kill his wife" (which, of course, reveals her identity to Florestan), made its full effect on that disc and the singer's gasp, as the trumpet suddenly sounded on the battlements, was most telling. I know her name, only as the label gives it, H. Gottlieb.

If M�dl cannot quite rise to the height of the drama her tender repetitions of her husband's name in the duet "O namenlose Freudi" are really moving and so is her singing of the great phrase in the finale of the act "O Gott! welch' ein Augenblick", words which Pizzaro has used so differently in his Act 1 aria, except that he says Ha instead of Gott!

If this is not a superlative vocal performance of the opera it is by no means a negligible one, and it would certainly be hard to assemble a better cast for it to-day. (The other two recordings, available in America, give one confidence in this respect.) Orchestrally one could not want anything grander or more noble than Furtw�ngler's conception of the sublime score, whose "chastity" (as Berlioz said) hindered the success of the music in France.

The recording, as such, is extremely good and vital. It should be added that a very fine performance of Leonora No. 3 Overture divides the two scenes of Act 2. In that position it is, of course, an anti-climax, and it is equally out of place if played before Act 2. As, however, a groove separates it from what follows one can play it as an independent piece but omit it in a playing of the complete opera. This should satisfy everyone.
 
A.R., The Gramophone, May 1954
Review of HMV LP issue