The latest King International release to come my way is this
two-disc release which presents Vaclav Neumann in his native repertoire in
Tokyo with the city’s NHK Symphony.
Má Vlast was taped
in December 1978 whilst the
Slavonic Dances followed in November
1990, offering a slice of Czech music that, whilst hardly in any sense rare,
is at least rarely heard on disc from Tokyo. Whether that is much of an
inducement presumably depends on one’s attitude to live performances
and to multiple recordings of familiar works by an eminent musician.
The NHK
Má Vlast is variably attractive. Neumann had
already recorded the work at least twice to my knowledge, the first in
Leipzig, which performance I have never much liked, and in 1975 with the
Czech Philharmonic, a recording that I have always enjoyed. It’s clear
that the Tokyo performance gets better as it goes along, but that means that
the first two movements, and they are, with the fourth the best known and
the best, musically, are not always convincing.
Vyšehrad is a
bit stiff and rhythmically unyielding and I can’t help feeling
nervousness in the air. Neumann hustles it a bit more than I have ever heard
from him. Added to this, the sound throughout is not especially well
balanced. The brass is cutting and the body of string tone relatively weak.
The woodwinds are good. Percussion is over prominent. Thus there’s no
real warmth in this recording. I don’t hear much structural insight in
Vltava, nor any real excitement - listen to Jeremiáš, any
Talich cycle, or Kubelík, not least in his part-complete 78s set.
From Bohemia’s Forests and Meadows stabilises things
rhythmically, but its Big Tune goes missing, a victim of unbalanced
sectional work. Greater confidence follows for the rest of the cycle. Whilst
there are attractive things here and Neumann’s conducting is, on
balance, better and more convincing than in his better played Leipzig cycle,
I can’t offer any special recommendation for this Tokyo performance.
Both sets of
Slavonic Dances followed many years later on 9
November 1990. I’m a big fan of these Dances, but not even I would sit
through both sets in one evening, not unless Talich himself, or some other
member of the elite Czech conducting dynasty were to preside. I’d have
preferred the
Scherzo capriccioso, Op.66 and a tone poem or two to
balance things. Still, I concede that on disc this is not a problem and many
great recorded performances have been thus harnessed. My own greatest loves
are Kubelík and his Bavarians, though I know that some stern critics
find them too suave by half, and the great Karel šejna’s epochal
1959 set with the Prague Philharmonic which I (heretically) prefer to
Talich’s own slightly earlier sets.
These 1990 Neumann performances are good, better played and
balanced, by far, than the Smetana of 1978. I don’t have many
complaints other than to note that his tempo for the
Allegretto
scherzando of No.6 in D major from the Op.46 set is rather laboured and
at his tempo the last of the Op.72 is a touch sluggish. There aren’t
the distinctive rhythmic stresses that Czech orchestras possess or the ease
of rubati, but these are sprightly readings. Still, again, no one would seek
out this Tokyo performance in preference to his 1972 Teldec sets reissued on
Warner Apex, with the Czech Phil, or the 1985 or 1993 sets he made, though
I’ve always thought them somewhat lacking in spontaneity when measured
alongside the 1972 recording.
Annotation is only in Japanese and both discs are filled almost to
the foaming brim. The audience, except for moments of clapping, is very
quiet.
So, it all comes down to a keenness - or not - to experience Neumann
in unfamiliar geographical circumstances in ancillary recordings of canonic
Czech repertoire.
Jonathan Woolf
