Not, by any means, the most promising start. After all, when
a disc is issued by a label called Forgotten Records, the instinctive
and inevitable response is to ask why any recording would have
been forgotten unless it wasn’t any good in the first place.
Neverthless, I wasn’t entirely bereft of hope for, as I pointed
out in my review of a performance by Charles Munch (see
here), the 1950s and 1960s were something of a golden age
for the Franck symphony on disc when conductors and orchestras
seemed far more familiar with and sympathetic to the composer’s
idiom and, as a result, more confident in their approach. I
was also cheered by the fact that the Polish conductor Artur
Rodzinky (1892-1958) was at the helm on this reissued recording.
Successively music director between 1929 and 1948 of the Los
Angeles Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York
Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony, he is surprisingly often
overlooked today, although his talents were well showcased some
years ago on a pair of discs in the IMG Artists series “Great
conductors of the 20th century” (7243 5 75959
2 6 – see my colleague John Quinn’s very positive review here).
What had stuck most firmly in my own mind from that IMG release
had been Rodzinski’s performance of Rossini’s William Tell
overture, an account with an immensely thrilling final galop
that takes the Columbia Symphony Orchestra on an unforgetable
hell-for-leather ride. But, playing that track once more before
turning to this new disc, I was equally struck by the very careful
and notably intense way that Rodzinski shapes the preceding
prelude, storm and ranz des vaches episodes where
some conductors merely go through the motions on auto-pilot
in their eagerness to push on to that crowd-pleasing Lone
Ranger climax.
That same degree of carefully directed intensity is to be found
in this performance of Franck’s symphony. The very good quality
recording - digitally re-mastered from a Westminster label LP
- and the flattering acoustics of the Mozartsaal allow us fully
to appreciate Rodzinski’s characteristics as a conductor: a
finely crafted orchestral balance, a wide dynamic range and
judiciously selected but flexible tempi. The opening
pages of the symphony are done especially effectively, achieving
a healthy balance between organic growth and increasing tension.
The succeeding allegro non troppo avoids overweightiness
and is pleasurably brisk and purposeful – though the contrasting
episodes of dreamy reflection are also given full room to breathe.
The allegretto second movement sets off with a definite
end in view but still has time to digress into some beautifully
phrased and delicate ruminative byways. Rodzinski’s expertly
applied wide dynamic range is especially striking. The finale
also sets off at a fair lick. That sometimes puts the strings
under pressure and they can sound a little scrawny in one or
two places – but that actually helps preserve the overall textural
clarity that is one of this account’s most attractive features.
There is plenty of rubato in evidence, but it is judiciously
applied throughout the movement. The passage from about 7:01
offers an excellent illustration of the superb balance obtained
by the conductor and Westminster’s engineering team: for once
we hear clearly what the strings are doing whereas too many
other accounts submerge them beneath the brass. A thrilling
– but not overblown - climax ends this excellent and individually
shaped performance.
I confess that my only previous encounter with Franck’s symphonic
poem Le chasseur maudit was on an RCA LP where – if memory
serves me right - it was played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
under Charles Munch and accompanied their superb account of
the Chausson symphony. Munch presented it as an extrovert showpiece
and, while the results were undeniably exciting, failed to suggest
that there was any great depth to the score. Rodzinski’s conception
focuses, on the contrary, on its many elements of intense, darkly-hued
drama. He encourages his Vienna players to delve deep and produces
a very “Lisztian” account that could hardly be more different
from that of Munch. After a markedly stately opening where both
the hunting calls and the tolling church bells drip with atmosphere,
the orchestra builds up steam for its beautifully recorded “pursuit”
passages. Indeed, the quality of Westminster’s recording seems,
surprisingly, far better than that I recall given to Munch and
his Bostonians by RCA. Having previously had no particular inclination
to return to this score, Rodzinski’s account made me listen
to it with fresh ears and question my precious assessment.
These recordings were made at a time when the conductor’s career
– thanks to the onset of serious illness – was at a low ebb.
I suspect that, had they originally appeared on a more prestigious
label, they might not have been so “forgotten” for the past
fifty-odd years. Sadly, the fact that Forgotten Records offer
no notes at all on either the music or the performance – but
instead direct purchasers to the Wikipedia website – means that
we cannot learn how they themselves rediscovered this lost gem.
Rob Maynard
Vienna State Opera Orchestra/Artur Rodzinski 
