Johann Sebastian
BACH (1685-1750)
Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV565
Leopold Stokowski
Recorded May 1939
Alban BERG
(1885-1935)
Violin Concerto
Louis Krasner (violin)
Fritz Busch
Recorded April 1938
Richard STRAUSS
(1864-1949)
Four Last Songs
Sena Jurinac (soprano)
Fritz Busch
Recorded May 1951
Richard WAGNER
(1813-1883)
Tristan und Isolde – Act I Prelude and
Liebestod
Arturo Toscanini
Recorded December 1934
Siegfried Idyll
Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt
Recorded May 1963
Wolfgang Amadeus
MOZART (1756-1791)
Symphony No. 39 in E flat major K543
Bruno Walter
Recorded September 1950
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN
(1770-1827)
Symphony No. 8 in F major Op. 93
Overture – Leonore No. 3
Wilhelm Furtwängler
Recorded November 1948
Igor STRAVINSKY
(1882-1971)
Chant du Rossignol – poème symphonique
Victor de Sabata
Recorded September 1947
Johannes BRAHMS
(1833-1897)
Symphony No. 4 in E minor Op. 98
Otto Klemperer
Recorded April 1958
Variations on a Theme by Haydn Op. 56a
Constantin Silvestri
Recorded March 1962
Jean SIBELIUS
(1865-1957)
Pohjola’s Daughter Op. 49
Tor Mann
Recorded April 1958
Gioacchino ROSSINI
(1792-1868)
Guillaume Tell; Overture
Carlo Maria Giulini
Recorded April 1960
Ottorino RESPIGHI
(1879-1936)
Ancient Airs and Dances for Lute – Suite
no. 1
Pierre Monteux
Recorded October 1961
Gabriel FAURÉ
(1845-1924)
Requiem Op. 48
Gunilla af Malmborg (soprano)
Rolf Leandersson (baritone)
Musikaliska Sällskapet Choir
Åke Levén (organ)
Rafael Kubelik
Recorded September 1964
Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY
(1840-1893)
Symphony No. 5 in E minor Op. 64
Ferenc Fricsay
Recorded March 1957
Arnold SCHOENBERG
(1874-1951)
Chamber Symphony No. 1 Op. 9
Jascha Horenstein
Recorded December 1967
Carl Maria von
WEBER (1786-1826)
Oberon-Overture
Josef Krips
Recorded April 1973
Sergei PROKOFIEV
(1891-1953)
Symphony No. 5 in B flat major Op. 100
Paul Kletzki
Recorded November 1968
Hugo ALFVÉN
(1872-1960)
En skärgårdssägen Op.
20
Herbert Blomstedt
Recorded January 1977
Antonín
DVOŘÁK (1841-1904)
Slavonic Dances Op. 46
No. 1 in C major
No. 3 in A flat major
No. 8 in G minor
István Kertész
Recorded November 1970
Symphony No. 6 in D major Op. 60
Antal Dorati
Recorded December 1973
Franz BERWALD
(1796-1868)
Sinfonie singulière (Symphony
No. 3) in C major
Igor Markevitch
Recorded September 1978
Richard STRAUSS
(1864-1949)
Don Juan Op. 20
Sixten Ehrling
Recorded June 1964
Anton BRUCKNER
(1824-1896)
Symphony No. 7 in E major
Rudolf Kempe
Recorded April 1975
Daniel-François-Esprit
AUBER (1782-1871)
Gustave III ou Le Bal Masqué;
Ouverture
Gennady Rozhdestvensky
Recorded May 1976
All items with Royal Stockholm Philharmonic
Orchestra – conductors and dates as
above.
One of the most exciting
features of the last decade or so has
been the emergence of the large, celebratory
box sets issued by distinguished orchestras
and containing mouth-watering historic
and archival material. One thinks of
the New York set for example or the
recent Minnesota twelve CD set and the
current Concertgebouw retrospective
and the others that happily proliferate,
whether on wide commercial terms or
on a subscription basis. Now we can
add the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic
to the list in a set issued to celebrate
its centenary. It is produced in four
slimline doubles housed in an attractive
slipcase and containing a fine and attractively
designed booklet, 132 pages long and
in four languages. The performances
range from Toscanini’s Wagner in 1934
to Markevitch’s Berwald in 1978 and
offer a fascinating perspective on music-making
in the city in a forty plus year survey,
rich in local and much visiting talent.
We begin with Stokowski
in 1939 and his Bach Toccata and Fugue,
as ever intensely and dramatically overpowering
but with occasional scrappy playing
and brief acetate damage. The first
disc also contains the earliest items,
with Toscanini’s intense and beautifully
moulded Wagner. One must counsel care
with these two items however because
they have survived in pretty poor shape.
There is a veil of surface noise and
damage in the Act I Prelude and one
part of the Liebestod, equally afflicted,
has had to be excised and these can
really only be considered aural souvenirs
of Toscanini’s visit. It’s the other
items here that are the focus of most
interest; in fact in many ways they
are the most treasurable items in the
whole set – Krasner’s Berg and Jurinac’s
Four Last Songs, with Fritz Busch happily
conducting on both occasions. We know
Krasner’s way with the work from the
BBC/Webern live performance made in
1936 and available on Testament as well
as from the commercial Cleveland/Rodzinski
set made in 1940. It’s always fascinating
to learn from Krasner in this work,
so associated with him. He is much faster
with Busch than he was with Webern –
incredibly so at points. In the space
of two years, under two conductors,
Krasner has tightened the work by nearly
four and a half minutes (29.43 with
Webern, 25.30 with Busch) with the greater
weight of revised tempi taking place
in the first part of the concerto. Krasner’s
astringent, dry tone and his very fast
vibrato (especially on the upper strings)
are part of an idiosyncratic personalised
armoury; added to this are his quick
portamanti. They create a powerful patina,
unignorable in the history of the work
on disc. As exciting is the Jurinac/Busch
Strauss. This was taped in 1951 and
though the sound is not quite as good
as one would have hoped from this period
(the orchestra is rather distant) it’s
still a noble document. The box reveals
the sometimes up and down fortunes of
the standards of execution of the orchestra
– this certainly wasn’t a consistently
well oiled machine – but when Busch
is in charge there is little wrong.
Jurinac is deeply expressive and moving.
Her In Abendrot is utterly compelling
and Busch time and again points revealing
orchestral strands and supports the
voice with his well-known instinct for
vocal and operatic understanding.
The second disc gives
us Bruno Walter’s 1950 Mozart, somewhat
opaquely recorded with regard to orchestral
detail and as a result muffled but with
his Mozartian generosity intact. Furtwängler’s
Beethoven Eight is certainly marred
by some orchestral imprecision but has
plenty of his trademark ritardandi and
luftpause in this work. The scherzo
is witty – not ponderous – and the finale
rather driven and impetuous. Not preferable
though to Berlin ’53 or to Vienna ’54.
A recording of the rehearsal for the
Leonore Overture No.3 does exist and
in this performance of the concert performance,
from the same evening as the Symphony,
13 November 1948, Furtwängler explores
the drama and contrasts with implacable
drive. De Sabata completes the second
disc with Stravinsky’s Chant du Rossignol
– an intense Introduction, though a
little messy orchestrally, with a good
principal trombone and a languorous
Chant itself. Coming to the third disc
we meet Klemperer’s Brahms Four from
1958, measured and serious, with free
rubati in the second movement, intense
expressive string shading and a relaxed
tempo. The almost hieratic luftpause
in the third movement herald drama and
power and the preparation for the finale
is perfectly judged. Altogether this
is an important adjunct to his commercial
Brahms discography. Schmidt-Isserstedt’s
Siegfried Idyll is clean limbed and
Tor Mann turns in an unusually tautly
conceived and driving Pohjola’s Daughter.
The orchestral balance in Giulini’s
William Tell overture is hardly the
last word in subtlety, nor does the
recording or the transfer of the Horenstein
Schoenberg Chamber Symphony sound well
but one should instead turn to the jewel
of the fourth disc, Fricsay and his
beloved Tchaikovsky Five. This is not
the kinetic Five that some may know
from his commercial recording but then
Fricsay’s way with this work was certainly
not absolute or static, as other recordings,
more measured and far-seeing, amply
show; this performance is splendidly
balanced and cogently directed and it
reveals Fricsay as potentially one of
the great symphonic conductors of his
generation, a hope so cruelly dashed
by his premature death.
Krips brings spruce
rhythm and lightness to Oberon, which
opens disc five. It’s good to find Silvestri
amongst this distinguished group of
guest conductors but though his Brahms
Haydn Variations is well played it rather
hangs fire. I greatly enjoyed Monteux’s
way with Respighi’s Ancient Airs and
Dances – the first suite. Winds are
evocative and there’s a delightful string
veil. Rafael Kubelík might seem
an unusual choice to lead Fauré’s
Requiem. His choir is a big one and
the Introit and Kyrie are full of portent
and very slow. The baritone is committed
in the Offertoire but somewhat hollow
toned and not ideally steady; the soprano
is better but not outstanding in the
Pie Jesu but Kubelík just can’t
get the Agnus Dei to flow properly and
I think it’s best not to stress the
absolutely disastrous performance of
the brass players throughout. Much more
impressive by far is the undersung figure
of Paul Kletzki, increasingly sidelined
by EMI at this period, in Prokofiev.
His fifth Symphony is never over-stressed
or unsubtle. Rather, rhythm is well
sprung and dramatic in the Andante first
movement and there’s considerable elegance
and idiomatic understanding elsewhere.
Herbert Blomstedt makes a welcome appearance
with Alfvén’s delightful tone
poem En skärgårdssägen
in a fine sounding 1977 broadcast –
really evocative and stormy seascape
writing that taxes all departments of
the orchestra (and at points the tape).
This disc
ends with Kertész’s Dvořák Slavonic
Dances – three of the Op.46 set in a
performance from 1970. Never the subtlest
of Dvořákians, Kertesz makes a
real meal of these three.
The last twofer brings
forth august Sixten Ehrling in an attractively
shaped Don Juan from 1964, though the
recording tends to a degree of brittleness
and there is a degree of sectionality
in the conducting. Rudolf Kempe appears
in Bruckner 7 and this is a truly fine
performance. The climaxes are beautifully
judged; the brass is on form, the tempo,
not least in the first two movements,
sounds unerringly right. The lyrical
expansion of the Adagio is matched by
the spring and rhythmic energy of the
finale – not forgetting the expansive
and moulded trio section of the Scherzo.
One for
the shelves, this. Auber’s Gustave III
sees Gennady Rozhdestvensky on the rostrum
and attractive it is as well. Antál
Dorati conducts Dvořák’s Sixth
Symphony and takes it at a considerably
faster clip than, say, Ančerl,
bringing an explicit Brahmsian cast
to it, as other do to the Seventh. Apart
from a passing horn disaster the Adagio
is genial, attractive and not pressed
too hard whilst the Scherzo is bold
and vibrant and the finale well shaped
and spirited. We end this disc and indeed
the set with the most recent performance,
Markevitch’s excellent Berwald Sinfonie
singulière from 1978. The
trio section of the Scherzo is splendidly
realised and the triumphant blare of
the Presto finale is brought out with
great energy and drive by a conductor-composer
who always knew the works from the inside.
There are some exceptionally
valuable performances studded throughout
this box set – Krasner, Jurinac, Klemperer
amongst them – whilst others, such as
the Furtwängler Beethoven have
appeared from other sources. Given the
occasional let-downs some readers may
exercise caution but those interested
in a wide range of material of real
rarity will want to listen.
Jonathan Woolf
IMG RSPO 1000-2 [1001-1008] [8 CDs: 71.04
+ 79.17 + 70.19 + 79.40 + 79.54 + 74.07 + 77.54
+ 78.20]