Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770 - 1827)
Symphony No. 4 in B Flat, Op. 60 (1806) [36:57]
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op.67 (1807) [31:24]
Concertgebouw Orchestra/Willem Mengelberg
rec. live, Concertgebouw, 1940
PRISTINE AUDIO XR PASC 236 [68:23]
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770 - 1827)
Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op.36 (1801) [36:55]
Symphony No. 8 in F, Op.93 (1812)[27:58]
Fidelio; overture Op.72c [6:17]
Concertgebouw Orchestra/Willem Mengelberg
rec. live, Concertgebouw, 1940
PRISTINE AUDIO XR PASC 229 [71:09]
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770 - 1827)
Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op.21 (1800) [25:45]
Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Symphony No.1 in C minor, Op.68 (1876) [47:40]
Concertgebouw Orchestra/Willem Mengelberg
rec. live, Concertgebouw, 1940
PRISTINE AUDIO XR PASC 221 [73:38]
Mengelberg's live Beethoven cycle of 1940 has been reissued a number of times
over the years, principally by Lys, Music & Arts and Philips. The novelty here
lies in the new restoration by Pristine Audio, which has issued the entire
set, and of which I have three discs to review - one of them includes the
Brahms First Symphony.
These are incandescent performances, wilful, full of agogic distortions, rhetorical
in places, replete with rhythmic licence and personalised to the point,
sometimes, almost of caricature. Yet they are also leonine in their way, often
overwhelming, and carrying conviction even when at their most rhythmically
problematic.
The opening of the Fourth has a small amount of distortion but it passes
quickly and becomes nicely clarified. This is one of the most successful of
the performances, though even here subject to certain outsize gestures.
Those famous Mengelbergian baton raps announce the Fifth, an adamantine affair,
with rhythmic latitude and a theatrical sense of projection. The Concertgebouw
cellos and basses are powerfully present in the balance, and though the phrasing
is always unsettled, and there is constant metrical elasticity, the performance
achieves its own sense of outsize monumentality. The Second Symphony is another
big affair - one senses that Mengelberg never lets up in the canon, never
sees any of the even numbered or early symphonies as deserving of less pressing
treatment. And the Eighth is similarly treated, though along with the
Fourth it's also one of the most successful. There’s a full complement
of brio and even if the horns get a little ragged later on, they characterise
with charm. The Fidelio overture in this disc is trenchant and forceful.
There's a live 1943 account of the Brahms symphony and it's not dissimilar
to this 1940 traversal. The late romantic ritardandi are part of a complex
series of outsize expressive gestures and are maximal here, the ebbing and
flowing of the line and its constant fluctuation subject to a martinet
personality with a rapturous sense of line and length.
These performances, as I noted, are all very well known. Pristine Audio’s
restorations sound pretty good to me, boosting definition, mitigating degradation.
Jonathan Woolf
Incandescent leonine performances, wilful, full of agogic distortions, rhetorical
in places, replete with rhythmic licence and personalised to the point
of caricature yet often overwhelming.