Availability Pristine Classical

Alexander von Zemlinsky (conductor)
The Complete Recordings
rec. 1927-1934
PRISTINE AUDIO PASC642 [58:33 + 55:30]

Although it would be an exaggeration to say that the works of Zemlinsky have become part of the standard repertoire, it is undoubtedly the case that his works have become much more widely known over the last 30 or 40 years. Up to the 1970s, he would not even have been a name to the majority of music lovers, but the resurgence of interest in the late-romantic composers has changed that. Works which were held in little better than contempt by the taste-formers of the 1950s and 60s have now had multiple recordings and can be appreciated at their true worth. A quick trawl on Amazon found something like 15 different recordings of Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony, half a dozen of Die Seejungfrau and complete recordings of at least seven of his eight operas plus a host of other pieces, many also in multiple recordings.

As a conductor, Zemlinsky has not been rediscovered to anything like the same extent. The notoriously picky Stravinsky wrote in 1964 that “of all [the conductors] I have heard I would nominate Alexander von Zemlinsky as the all-round conductor who achieved the most consistently high standard, and that is a mature judgment. I remember a performance of The Marriage of Figaro by him in Prague as the most satisfying operatic experience of my life”. Unfortunately, Zemlinsky’s recording career is largely a matter of missed opportunities, with no complete symphonies or larger works, and not a single note of his own music. It is truly depressing that he spent time recording overtures by Maillart, Flotow, Johann Strauss and Rossini, titbits by Weinberger and Dvorak and accompaniments to Verdi and Puccini arias rather than some of the extended masterpieces which were being recorded for the first time during that period. We must be grateful that at least we have overtures by Mozart, Beethoven and Weber and Smetana’s Vltava, but it is slim pickings. With such short pieces, it is impossible to come to a true impression of Zemlinsky’s conducting style, but the very fact that Stravinsly was so full of admiration for him is strong evidence that he came more from the classical, Mendelssohnian tradition rather than the romantic Wagnerian approach of Furtwängler, Nikisch, Fiedler and Mengelberg. There is certainly no evidence in these records of the sort of rubato that these conductors employed, though there is exceptional subtlety and variety in, for example, the moulding of woodwind phrases.

We start with three Mozart overtures, and although we have nothing from the Figaro that so impressed Stravinsky, we do have Don Giovanni and two works which were still comparative rarities in the late 1920s, Così fan tutte and Entführung. The introduction to the Don Giovanni overture is wonderfully atmospheric; the rising and falling violin scales have a remarkable foreboding tension and the allegro is full of vitality. The other two display the same élan and the slow middle section of the Entführung overture is full of detail and character. The Fidelio overture is similarly excellent in its slow introduction with a wonderful contrast in the peremptory string interruptions. The Allegro is truly bracing, and again the word “vitality” constantly sprang into my mind. However, he does not just bulldoze through this section as so many conductors do; there is again great sensitivity in moulding of the woodwind detail.

There are two unpublished performances of the Freischütz overture next - or more accurately of two thirds of it; the first side was either only recorded in one take, or only one has survived. For a nerd and completist like myself this is great news, but in all honesty there is almost no difference between he two takes. It is a marvellous performance. The passage for four horns in the slow introduction is most beautifully phrased and the transition into the molto vivace is superbly handled with real tension. This section is also excellent in comparatively straight style, but the clarinet solo before the entry of the main theme is masterful. The rubato is subtly and sparingly applied but very effective. There is a splendid momentum to the coda.

The slow introduction to the overture to La Gazza Ladra is not as grand as Furtwängler’s almost contemporary recording, but still very fine. The allegro will probably sound rather ponderous and Teutonic to modern ears accustomed to chamber orchestras in this music, but the performance is beautifully moulded in its own terms. The Alessandro Stradella overture seems to be on the lines of a pot-pouri overture (certainly the first half is just an arrangement of the tenor’s aria “Jungfrau Maria”, but I don’t know the opera sufficiently to know about the rest), and is a pretty inconsequential piece, though well performed.

The second CD begins with an even more inconsequential piece, the Dragons de Villars overture by Maillart. It is a minor tragedy that Polydor made him waste his time on this stuff. The following Fledermaus overture is a notch or two up, but still hardly what one wants to hear him conduct. It is a lovely, relaxed performance, and it is interesting to note that there is much more portamento in the string playing than in any other of the recordings. The woodwind detail is again superb, just listen to the section about 4 minutes into the track.

The most substantial of all the recordings is Vltava from Smetana’s Ma Vlast, which comprises three of the four sides he recorded for the very enterprising, though short-lived, Ultraphon company in 1930. The initial tempo is quite brisk, this is a vigorously-flowing river near to its source, but Zemlinsky still manages to give it a beautifully lyrical, inflected quality, as though it is being sung to a specific text. The dance-like section is also flexible, though not as “snappy” as many modern conductors would make it. As with all Zemlinsky’s performances, the transition passages are masterfully handled and the section beginning about five minutes into the track is exquisitely phrased. The fill-up fourth side to this issue was the Polka from Weinberger’s Schwanda the Bagpiper, once a standard concert item, but now almost forgotten. In all honesty, it is no masterpiece, especially, as here, when it is deprived of its fugue.

All the remaining items show Zemlinsky in the role of accompanist to singers. He conducts for Rudolf Gerlach-Rusnak in two Verdi and two Puccini arias (in German, of course). The tenor had a good solid career between the mid-20s and mid-40s, mainly at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, but was never a star. The voice is good, without too much of the Teutonic “kravaten-tenor” quality, with a ringing top, but the interpretations do not have the specificity to make him stand out from the generality. The duet from Nicolai’s The Merry Wives of Windsor is of an altogether higher quality. Gerhardt Hüsch and Eugen Fuchs make a marvellous job of this buffo duet where Ford in disguise is trying to discover from Falstaff the nature of his relationship to Ford’s wife. The two singers have superb diction and comic timing as well as outstanding vocal ability, and Zemlinsky’s conducting supports them at every turn. Kullman’s performance of the tenor aria from Smetana’s Bartered Bride is also very fine; Kullman was a very good American tenor who is unfairly largely forgotten today. For his last commercial recording, Zemlinsky moved label again to Odeon to accompany Jarmila Novotna. She was a Czech soprano who might today be called a “cross-over artist”. She had a substantial operatic career (including Pamina under Toscanini at Salzburg in 1937 and twelve roles at the Met in the 1940s) but also sang a lot of lighter music and appeared in a dozen films. I must confess that I have never been able to find much of interest in her recordings (commercial or live), and can’t help but think her popularity was as much to do with her physical appearance as her singing. She certainly makes some very strange noises at the beginning of the Fibich Poème and neither that nor the vocal arrangement of the Dvorak Humoresque make me change my opinion. There isn’t much for Zemlinsky to do in the Dvorak, but his conducting of the Fibich is superb. This is his only recording of what might be called a “full-on” late romantic piece, and it is gloriously sensuous. Unfortunately, the transfer of these two Odeon sides is disappointing. The sound is very fuzzy, and I can only assume that Mark Obert-Thorn only had a worn copy to work with, as my own shellac copy sounds much clearer.

This nicely brings me on to the transfers. Apart from the disappointing Odeon, they are all superb. Quite often, mid-to-late 1920s Gramophon recordings are rather distant - I think the idea was to give a concert hall feel to them - but as a result they lack the sort of depth and immediacy of the best recordings by HMV or Columbia from the same period. Mark Obert-Thorn has done all that he can with them, and the results are far better than the Koch-Schwann re-issue of 1986 (I have never heard the Archiphon CD). Surface noise is minimal and he has brought the sound forward in a way allows us to listen without any feeling that these are just historical curios.

This is another Pristine issue which breathes new life into largely forgotten recordings, and though one might have wishes for some larger-scale repertoire, they do give us a real sense of what a very fine conductor Zemlinsky was.

Paul Steinson

Contents
CD 1
1. MOZART Don Giovanni - Overture (6:11)
Recorded Autumn 1927 in Berlin
2. MOZART Cosí fan tutte - Overture (4:38)
Recorded Autumn 1927 in Berlin
3. MOZART Die Entführung aus dem Serail - Overture (4:39)
Recorded Autumn 1927 in Berlin
4. BEETHOVEN Fidelio - Overture (6:31)
Recorded January 1929 in the Hochschule für Musik, Berlin
5. WEBER Der Freischütz - Overture (Takes 1-1-1) (9:56)
Recorded Autumn 1927 in Berlin
6. WEBER Der Freischütz - Overture (Takes 1-2-2) (9:50)
Recorded Autumn 1927 in Berlin
7. ROSSINI La gazza ladra - Overture (8:44)
Recorded January 1929 in the Hochschule für Musik, Berlin
8. FLOTOW Alessandro Stradella - Overture (8:01)
Recorded September 1928 in the Hochschule für Musik, Berlin


CD 2
1. MAILLART Les Dragons de Villars - Overture (6:19)
Recorded September 1928 in the Hochschule für Musik, Berlin
2. J. STRAUSS II Die Fledermaus - Overture (8:28)
Recorded Autumn 1927 in Berlin
3. SMETANA Vltava from Má vlast (10:42)
Recorded 15 April 1930 in Studio Wilhelmsaue, Berlin
4. WEINBERGER Polka from Schwanda the Bagpiper (2:24)
Recorded 15 April 1930 in Studio Wilhelmsaue, Berlin
VERDI Il Trovatore
5. Ah, sì, ben mio (3:01)
Recorded 6 October 1932 in Berlin
6. Di quella pira (2:06)
Recorded 6 October 1932 in Berlin
PUCCINI Tosca
7. Recondita armonia (2:44)
Recorded 6 October 1932 in Berlin
8. E lucevan le stelle (3:03)
Recorded 6 October 1932 in Berlin
9. NICOLAI Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor - In einem Waschkorb? (6:07)
Recorded 16 & 18 January 1933 in Berlin
10. SMETANA The Bartered Bride - Každý jen tu svou (4:17) sung in German
Recorded 16 or 18 January 1933 in Berlin
11. FIBICH Poème (3:21)
Recorded February 1934 in Vienna
12. DVOŘÁK Humoresque (2:53)
Recorded February 1934 in Vienna

Rudolf Gerlach-Rusnak (tenor) (CD 2, Tracks 5 - 8)
Gerhard Hüsch (baritone) (CD 2, Track 9)
Eugen Fuchs (bass) (CD 2, Tracks 9 - 10)
Charles Kullmann (tenor) (CD 2, Track 10)
Jarmila Novotná (soprano) (CD 2, Tracks 11 - 12)
Berlin-Charlottenburg Opera Orchestra (Orchester der Städtischen Oper) (CD 1, Tracks 1 - 3 and CD 2, Tracks 5 - 10)
Berlin State Opera Orchestra (CD 1, Tracks 4 - 8 and CD 2, Tracks 1 - 2)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (CD 2, Tracks 3 - 4)
Vienna Concert Orchestra (CD 2, Tracks 11 - 12)
Alexander von Zemlinsky (conductor)
Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn