The Naxos Historical series continues in great style
with this reissue of two wartime studio recordings by one of the greatest
conductor and orchestra partnerships in musical history - Willem Mengelberg
and the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. Mengelberg became Chief
Conductor of the orchestra in 1895 when he was just 24 and he stayed
with them until 1945 when only apparent associations with the Nazis
drove him out. This was perhaps the greatest musical dynasty of them
all in a lost age of great musical dynasties. By the time these recordings
were made the relationship between them must have been almost like that
between Queen Victoria and the British Empire. Surely no one in the
orchestra, by then, could remember a time when Mengelberg was not Chief
Conductor.
In his lifetime Mengelberg championed the music of
Mahler and Strauss especially. Both men were personal friends and both
held him in highest regard with Strauss even dedicating "Ein Heldenleben"
to Mengelberg and the orchestra. Alas there is precious little Mahler
left on record by Mengelberg and the orchestra. Just a studio recording
from 1926 of the Fifth Symphony’s Adagietto and a "live" radio
recording of the complete Fourth Symphony from 1939. A stomach bug robbed
us of a "live" "Das Lied Von Der Erde" under Mengelberg
from the same year. But there is much more Strauss of which these two
recordings are perhaps the best, even taking into account the fact that
wartime deprivations must mean we are not hearing the orchestra at what
must have been their supreme best in the 1920s and 1930s. On the other
hand, even their wartime best is formidable and recordings made in the
1930s would not have sounded as good as this. So it’s a question of
swings and roundabouts. To hear this orchestra playing in their great
hall is a thrilling experience and Mark Obert-Thorn’s restoration of
the sound taken from commercial shellac discs delivers all the body
of both orchestra and hall that could be hoped for. There is some degree
of surface hiss but you should soon forget this if you concentrate on
the music making. The German Telefunken Company, who were recording
the orchestra at that time, had a high reputation for recorded sound
and were only let down a little by their use of shellac. No matter.
The bottle is three quarters full not one quarter empty.
"Ein Heldenleben" is the principal work on
the CD and bearing in mind the dedication this recording is of major
historical importance. I think it is more important than Mengelberg’s
earlier recording of the work with the New York Philharmonic in 1928
on Pearl (GEMM 008). Apart from its historical importance it is also
simply a great performance; not how the work tends to be performed today
but deeply rewarding and enlightening. Notice the precise articulation
of the strings in the opening presentation of the hero. Immediately
this is an example of orchestral discipline and sheer experience by
both players and conductor. There is thrust and swagger along with an
unmistakable grandeur that conductors today might balk at. The critics
who arrive immediately after also reflect a performance from another
era. Today the impression is that conductors take the arrival of the
carping woodwinds as a signal to really send up the scribblers. Perhaps
using the passage as an opportunity to ridicule them themselves. Not
Mengelberg. He shows more imagination and the result is a very musical
passage that doesn’t stick out too prominently. The spacious hall acoustic
helps in this and the fine engineering also makes the two bass tubas’
contribution truly memorable. The love scene has tremendous line and
great ardour though there is chivalry here also with a very well controlled
use of string portamenti, entirely appropriate as well as of
its time. Only the violin solo of Ferdinand Helman disappoints just
a little. His portrayal of the hero’s partner, in fact Strauss’s wife,
is suitably shrewish, but there is vibrato that takes some getting used
to. I am one of those people who will put up with this for the fact
that I know this is how it would have sounded had I been fortunate enough
to have been in the audience for a performance.
The trumpets are superbly and precisely in unison to
announce the arrival of the battle and, as with the critics, Mengelberg
plays the battle differently from the way we might hear it today. He
never loses sight of the fact that this is a musical battle and never
drives the music too hard, never accentuates the sharper edges, never
gives us virtuosity for the sake of it. The deeper structures are taken
care of too. In fact throughout this is a top to bottom orchestral sound.
In the battle you really can hear the bass end of the orchestra grinding
away in the deep acoustic. After the battle is won, no one can recall
the hero’s "works of peace" better than Mengelberg does. In
fact I have always found it is the older generation (Beecham, Barbirolli
and Böhm) who in their respective recordings really have gone to
the trouble of trying to identify which works of his own Strauss is
quoting. This is a key moment in the whole piece and can be an acid
test as to how fine an interpretation it is. Notice also the reedy woodwinds,
so different from today, adding an air of distinction. The long sunset
of the work follows and listen to the exquisite unanimity of the strings
as they bring the story to an end. Playing like this only comes about
after the kind of drilling that a conductor like this one has submitted
this orchestra to for all those years and the dividends are clear in
their confidence in their own playing and in their ability to allow
their conductor to control every detail.
Mengelberg did control every last detail of his performances.
Sometimes he used this control to make a few "changements"
to what the composer wrote. But that went with the era he lived in.
The 1928 New York recording cuts a more virtuoso dash than this from
Amsterdam and the orchestra is technically more assured. The players
have a different, more "out front" tradition and Mengelberg
was younger. However, I feel that this 1941 recording reaches deeper
into the body of the score and there is that acoustic to glory in. The
ideal is to own both.
"Tod und Verklärung" receives an equally
passionate performance that, in the final fight against the onset of
death, achieves an extraordinary level of desperation at the end. But
there is also regret and, at the close, aching nostalgia too. It remains,
however, a triumphantly symphonic interpretation where the line is never
lost or ignored. Always surprising when you remember that, like "Ein
Heldenleben", this recording would have been achieved in bursts
lasting around four minutes. The recorded sound is just a little less
atmospheric than "Ein Heldenleben" but is still well up to
the standard we would expect from this source. Notice the precise and
clear timpani strokes at the opening. Listen to them carefully and you
might be in the hall with the player.
Both these performances capture Mengelberg and the
Concertgebouw Orchestra at the height of their powers and can serve
as examples of what has made this partnership such a legend. Great sweep
and grandeur is contrasted to warmth and directness of utterance. More
importantly everything is always sincerely felt. There may be example
after example of stunning virtuosity and sheer efficiency in the playing,
but never are these at the expense of the human side of music making.
A great partnership from a past era delivers two stunning
performances in remarkable sound.
Tony Duggan
see also review
by John Phillips
Concertgebouw Orchestra
of Amsterdam/Willem Mengelberg