Here we have a celebration
of Giulini’s 90th birthday
by the BBC in re-mastered live relays
from the Royal Festival Hall. Whilst
I applaud the sentiment behind this
disc particularly now that Giulini is
no longer active in the recording studio,
I believe a little more imagination
could have been used in the repertoire
chosen. Here we have an extremely hissy
mono rendering of the Weber overture,
albeit wonderfully played, with a stereo
recording of Schubert’s Great C Major
Symphony, and followed up by another
mono recording of Britten’s The Building
of the House Overture. The earliest
recording here (1968) was made ten years
after the introduction of stereo, and
the BBC still was not on the new, or
by now not-so-new technology.
Giulini’s ability to
get an orchestra to love playing for
him is well in evidence here. The inclusion
of the Weber is partly due to the fact
that although he recorded it for EMI,
this was never released so it is new
repertoire for the conductor on record.
The inclusion of the Britten is because
of Giulini’s great love of the composer.
It is a relatively slight work but although
good is in no way representative of
either composer or conductor. This leaves
us with the main work on the disc, Schubert’s
Great C Major Symphony, well known to
us already in the guise of two commercial
recordings, both with the Chicago Symphony
on DG and then on Sony. As both of these
are in much superior sound quality,
is there any good reason for buying
the current disc if the Weber and Britten
are not mandatory purchases?
The London Philharmonic
plays superbly for their conductor,
albeit not with the tonal splendour
of the other two performances. There
is a benefit to the current release
however and this is the flexibility
of the phrasing, which, in the live
environment, sounds absolutely natural
with the rhythms taking on a life all
of their own. Particularly attractive
are the coda to the first movement and
the finale; the latter bubbles along,
not too fast as with some, but resiliently
sprung in a very attractive manner.
The RFH audience is
fairly quiet, and it erupts at the end,
showing its appreciation which was very
well deserved.
Turning finally to
the Britten, the presence of the choir
was due to the fact that in this programme,
Giulini also conducted Rossini’s Stabat
Mater, thus requiring the presence of
the choir for a little more than just
the overture. Giulini’s sympathy with
Britten is well known from superb recordings
of the Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,
and the Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia
from Peter Grimes.
Giulini was famous
for his ability to control and motivate
choral (and operatic) forces and the
choir here sing with confidence, clarity
and enthusiasm in the work which was
originally written to commemorate the
opening of the Maltings at Snape in
1967. This performance records what
was Giulini’s only public performance
of the work.
Recommended to those
who have neither of the commercial recordings
of the Schubert or to those who are
Giulini completists.
John Phillips
London
Philharmonic Orchestra (Schubert) New Philharmonia
Orchestra, (Weber) New Philharmonia Chorus and
Orchestra (Britten), conducted by Carlo Maria
Giulini.