Almost three months after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia
the Brno Philharmonic was touring the West. The Státní
Filharmonie Brno had first toured abroad in 1956, the year in which
it arose from the merger of the city’s Radio Orchestra
and the Brno Region Symphony Orchestra. The great Břetislav
Bakala was the first conductor of
the newly constituted orchestra but he died a couple of years
later, and Jaroslav Vogel
took over for a few years before
Jiří Waldhans assumed directorship from 1962 until
1978. He was to die in 1995.
This
performance is as much a tribute to him as to the orchestra,
though its greatest tribute is owed to the composer of a work
that must have been largely unknown to British audiences when
the Brno orchestra brought it to London on 13 November 1968. Its sorrowing mien could not have been entirely lost however
on the audience, and therein lies a special frisson.
That
then is the background to what is the only recording of Asrael
by Moravian forces known to me. It was recorded in the notoriously
dry acoustic of the Royal Festival Hall and is presented here
for the first time. Let’s say straight off that it’s a splendid,
often thrilling performance. The bright sound of the hall,
allied to the excellent recorded set up by engineer Geoffrey
Terry, has ensured that certain moments register as seldom
if ever before. Take the percussion in the first movement
which can be heard in searing, fearsome immediacy; one can
almost feel the skins’ tremor. The wind statements are finely
balanced, with every strand audible, and the Straussian surge
of the strings equally so. The Brno brass is on fine form, with their very personal tonal qualities
still intact; they don’t drown the strings in the fortes of
the opening Andante sostenuto. Throughout Waldhans
exercises gripping control.
He
brings out the Mahlerian writing implicit in the score – most
particularly in the second movement Andante where the sense
of unease, as much as a sense of space, is palpable. The orchestra’s
leader takes a fine solo in the central Vivace – note too
the eloquent contributions of the other principals, not least
the clarinet and viola. Great care has been taken to ensure
sectional balance and between sections in the tricky moments
of this movement. Dynamics are layered and the reading is
full of nuance. Waldhans keeps the tempo moving in the penultimate
movement and brings passion, precision and bright, tight string
tone to the corporate playing in the overwhelming finale.
The
great merits of this performance include the fieriness and
tensile quality of that central Vivace – which Waldhans takes
faster than almost all of his Czech compatriots – along with
the wide arching control he exercises from first note to last,
and indeed the immediacy of the recording.
There
are a few coughs – but surprisingly few – from the audience.
There are also a few tape glitches but they are passing and
of no real significance. There are many recordings of Asrael
from which to choose. Of them the first ever, the Talich [Supraphon
SU 3830-2 212] is a classic, of course. Kubelik’s 1981 performance
is, like this Waldhans, live [Panton 81 1101-2] and it is
truly wrenching, not least in the awesome expansion of the
opening and the powerful but slow Vivace. Neumann’s 1983 reading
[Supraphon SU 3864-2 034] earns a central recommendation by
virtue of its transparent sense of proportion. Bělohlávek’s
reading on Chandos [CHAN 9640] and Pešek’s on EMI 2068 732
are fine; Svetlanov [RDCD 1011] takes standard tempi, perhaps
surprisingly. Of the more recent entrants I’ve not heard Flor
[BIS SACD 1776] or Ashkenazy [Ondine SACD ODE 11325] but it’s
not surprising they were SACD entrants. This is a work that
embraces sound.
This latest entrant
takes a worthy and high place in the pantheon of recordings
of this masterwork.
Jonathan
Woolf
Brno Philharmonic
Orchestra/Jiří Waldhans 
