This
significant box should not be confused with a previous Berlioz-Munch
compilation from RCA. That was an eight-disc set but this ten-disc
set goes two better in including both recordings of the Symphonie
Fantastique and of Roméo and Juliette. In this way contrasting
performances can be analysed and, more importantly, this cache
of eminent recordings can be consolidated in one box.
And
eminent is very much the word. Though there will be residual
reservations concerning some enshrined performances there can
be little doubt that Munch was one of the greatest Berlioz conductors
of his century, let alone his generation. Let’s look at La
Damnation de Faust. Munch has a good and badly underrated
tenor in David Poleri, whose occasionally odd French is only
a mild inconvenience. His choir makes a favourable impression
(Munch was not always so lucky with his Berlioz choirs as other
recordings attest) in their brisk boldness in Les bergers
laissent. Tricky questions of balance in this 1954 recording
have clearly been thoughtfully addressed, as one can verify
in the Part II’s Easter Hymn (Christ vient de ressusciter)
where tenor, choir and, especially, winds are held in appropriate
focus. To sample Munch’s control at its most sovereign try to
listen to Assez! Fuyons ces lieux and the passage onwards.
The lyric cantilever is impressive enough but Munch builds up
and relaxes tension, brings up bass pointing, and contours the
music with unflinching command. Maybe the Ballet des Sylphes
is not quite on this exalted level of conducting but we can
savour the crisp trumpets in the conclusion to Part II as well
as the operatic aeration of Que l’air est étouffant! Munch
certainly had something of a reputation as a speed merchant
in Berlioz. I have to say that I find his tempo relationships
for the vast majority of times perfectly judged. If one had
to draw attention to examples of vitesse perhaps one could cite
Autrefois un roi de Thulé which is certainly on the quick
side. If one thinks that, then perhaps the corollary is that
in a passage such as Part IV’s Ride to the Abyss his
faster than usual tempi pay rich and tangible emotive rewards.
The music sounds energised and dangerous, as it should. The
whole remains a substantial achievement, recorded over two days,
and a lasting legacy of Munch’s command both of detail and broad
scope.
L’enfance
du Christ shows comparable virtues.
His grip on structure, both paragraphal and beyond, is definitive
in such as Qui vient? from Part I. The music swells to
a flexible peak, neither too static (a danger in this work)
nor too precipitant. He has the advantage of Giorgio Tozzi,
whose Les sages de Judée is mightily impressive. Less
well-known than Tozzi is the contralto Florence Kopleff; try
to hear her O mon cher fils which is sung with uncommon
understanding and intelligence, as well as voice; she reminds
me a touch of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Munch always brings out
the warmth of the Boston
strings, not that they needed much bringing out, and also the
clarity of the wind section, a perfect example being the overture
to Part II. The choir’s contribution is affable but it’s Munch
who rewards the listener the most with a tempo in Entrez,
entrez, pauvres hébreux that is objectively brisk but that
still manages to allow room for phrases to breathe and phrase;
a masterly piece of symphonic-operatic conducting. Such also
is the moving peroration; the women’s voices are the particular
highlight of the choral contribution and this is still, interpretatively
speaking, one of the most moving of all recordings of this work.
The
Requiem differs in a number of ways from the BBC recordings
with Richard Lewis and Beecham, which was recorded in the same
year as this Munch directed performance, 1959. Here we do find
deficiencies in the recording detail for Munch, none of them
attributable to the conductor. Lack of definition and detail
is perhaps inevitable in a recording made at this time and shouldn’t
be allowed to obscure the very real virtues of the interpretation
and playing. Thus whilst the chorus tends to be somewhat occluded
the brass and percussion are well - and mightily - to the fore
in the Dies Irae. Munch finds the right tempo, and importantly
the right “tone” for Quaerens me. But the most remarkable
moments to me are in the Lachrymosa and Offertorium.
In the former the brass waves are like some huge Arnoldian
or Homeric ocean-surge. The diminuendi to the end, after the
earlier blaze, is rapt and measured magnificence. In the Offertorium
listen from 5.50 onwards to some truly magnetic lyricism,
heart-strainingly wondrous. Simoneau is the tenor soloist in
the Sanctus and he is vigorous in the higher registers,
as is Lewis for Beecham, and launches a molten, heraldic climax.
And so in the consoling moments of the Agnus Dei we can
still also feel the implacable, inevitable Munch rhythm driving
one with galvanic direction to the glorious ending.
Roméo
and Juliette (1961) features a fine
mezzo, Rosalind Elias, and a tenor – Cesare Valletti – whose
vocal flexibility is matched by rhythmic nuance. Munch takes
a fluid tempo for Part II’s Romeo alone but as we have
seen often enough is a master of flexible lines and so allows
quite enough for the lyric curve to sound natural and unstressed.
Observers will note he’s rather faster here than in the earlier
1953 recording included in this boxed set. The bronzed cantilever
of the Love scene in part II is especially heady with
its youthful highlights and somewhat, again, to be preferred
to the earlier recording’s more leisurely appraisal. That earlier
recording does pale in comparison and should best be viewed
almost entirely in the light of the later, more successful recording.
The 1953 chorus is not especially convincing and the acoustic
is dull, featureless and flat, if not stale and unprofitable.
There’s no real glow to the sound, no burnish, and that’s especially
unfortunate at, say, the start of Part II. Yi-Kwei-Sze as Friar
Lawrence does make a mark and should be noted as one of the
successes of the earlier set, very much more so than Margaret
Roggero, who is disappointing. So whilst I might prefer the
outline of Part II’s Festivity scene one can hardly prefer
the acoustic accorded to it.
Harold
in Italy features the famous Primoroso
(Toscanini’s Italianate appellation for William Primrose). The
Koussevitzky-Primrose recording, which Toscanini jeered, featured
the violist in his “pre-Heifetz” days – warmer, mellower. With
Munch that defiantly alto-ish tone, with its quicker, more intense
vibrato is always evident. Munch is brisk here, with punchy
brass in Harold in the Mountains. I find the March
of the Pilgrims especially bracing; doubtless Primrose did
as well, since he wasn’t renowned for turning down a sporting
challenge when it came to speed and clarity of articulation.
Koussevitzky is the warmest of the three Primrose performances
here and the Beecham the most jerky, rhythmically speaking.
Munch is actually slower than Beecham in the concluding Orgy
of the Brigands. As to preferences a Primrose fan will want
all three for the light each successive recording sheds on his
own playing; warm and expressively toned for Koussevitzky, in
transition somewhat for Beecham and alto-ish and more tightly
coiled for Munch. I’m a Koussevitzky man, if push comes to shove.
There’s
a degree of consistency in the two recordings of the Symphonie
fantastique though the differences in detail are
fascinating. Broadly speaking he evinces a rather greater degree
of structural rectitude in the later, 1962 recording than he
had eight years before. Then again in that 1954 traversal there
are moments of unrepeatable heat and tension that just aren’t
quite summoned up later on, though one will notice, as a corollary,
that sectional discipline isn’t quite as tight as in ’62. Both
recordings sound splendid for their time – and the 1954 disc
was a very early, I believe, experimental stereo set up, so
there should really be no concerns on that score. If you get
the chance try to compare and contrast the opening Rêveries
movement where Munch’s earlier self is full of linear drive,
his older self just that fraction slower and less intensely
inflected. It’s true that there are passages and indeed pages
where the 1962 recording scores more heavily. Let’s not choose
– we have the luxury of both.
Les
Nuits d’été appears in the classic
de los Angeles recording. Taped in 1955 we can
appreciate the infectious brio and charm she brings and her
technical surety in conquering the demands of the tessitura
in Au cimetière. Being super critical one might find
her on occasion too undemonstrative, maybe too under-inflected
(in Le spectre de la rose for instance) but that’s
a matter very much of apposite colour and a taste for the more
extrovert features of the cycle. It’s undeniable that her command
is powerful, the singing and the accompaniment in perfect synchronicity.
Of
the smaller items Le carnaval romain gets a warm and
leanly moving performance whilst Le corsair (1958) is
in the accustomed brisk style cultivated by him (Colin Davis’
RCA recording is a full minute and a quarter slower). In these
and the other overtures – we get both the 1949 and the 1958
Overture to Béatrice and Bénédict – we find a compelling
drama and urgency, qualities masterfully harnessed to an operatic
sense of breadth and paragraphal control. The Royal Hunt
and Storm Music is an adrenalin surging rush of blazing
excitement and colour. None of this, though, can be equated
with superficial excitement, which is sometimes a phrase one
hears used with Munch. He may be fast – but there’s almost always
a good reason for his tempi.
The
box set comes with a rather slim booklet. There are no texts
so any Berlioz neophytes will be definitely struggling. I’m
sure that BMG gauges that the box will appeal to the conductor’s
admirers who will want to cement and consolidate their collection.
All of these performances are special and this box is the most
comprehensive evidence yet of Munch’s status as a Berlioz conductor.
Jonathan Woolf
