It is unfortunate that for a lot of people Hans Swarowsky
may be better remembered for the achievements of others. Let me explain
what I mean. For many years Professor Swarowsky was head of the famous
conductors class at the Vienna Conservatory. In his years as a much-admired
teacher he was responsible for the early nurturing of many talented
students, among them Zubin Mehta, Claudio Abbado, Giuseppe Sinopoli
and Mariss Jansons. So you can perhaps see why he may go down in history
better regarded as a teacher rather than as a conductor in his own right.
However he did enjoy a long career with some good, though not outstanding,
posts with orchestras and opera houses away from his life as a teacher
and mentor. He emerged from the great golden tradition of Austro-German
music making.
He was born in Budapest in 1899 and died in 1975. He
first studied Psychology and History of Art at Vienna University. Later
as a musician his teachers included Busoni and Rosenthal in piano, Schoenberg
and Webern in theory, Weingartner and Franz Schalk in conducting in
addition to lessons with Richard Strauss and Clemens Krauss. He would
later succeed Krauss as Professor of Conducting at the Conservatory
and act as uncredited collaborator on the libretto for Strauss’s Capriccio
with him. So that is some pedigree. Odd, therefore, that he never quite
made it to the top of his profession as a conductor and be celebrated
in the way that so many of his contemporaries were. He made few recordings
either, so it isn’t as if he might be "rediscovered". Those
recordings he did make were often for smaller labels. For example he
recorded a complete studio "Ring" cycle in 1968 in Munich
which you can sometimes pick up for a song. There are also a couple
of Mahler Fourths knocking about. This is his only other Mahler recording
I’m aware of and even this is from archives of Austrian Radio, not meant
for issue, even though it was made in the studio with the orchestra
of which he was Principal Conductor just after the WWII until Karajan
took over in 1947. In fact Swarowsky had been one of the two native
conductors (Moralt was the other) allowed to conduct at the first post-war
Salzburg Festival whilst the likes of Karajan and Bohm were still under
a political cloud.
In this recording of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony the first
movement stresses darkness and tragedy even to the extent of reining
in the outburst of frantic passion that Mahler drops into the middle
in order to set out his stall of extremes being mapped and that costs
the movement some variety. Certainly the tone that Swarowsky adopts
is impressive in itself, and impressively delivered, but ultimately
I found this approach inappropriate. There are still some highlights,
though. Notice the way the cello line is given special care in the funeral
march passages and the vivid way the funeral march itself returns following
that central. This over stressing on Mahler’s dark world in the first
movement is continued in the second. This begins with one of the most
impressive deliveries of the opening bars I have ever heard: cellos
and basses really testing their bows to breaking point. The problem
is that Swarowsky’s tempo is a mite too underpowered to really propel
the music forward with the kind of headlong onslaught it needs in the
fast passages. There seems to be too much pull from the dark abyss of
the close of the first movement and there are passages of the second
that should sound as though this is trying to be thrown off. Swarowsky
is well aware of Mahlerian colouring, however. So, as with the first
movement, the second is impressively done but too much stress is laid
again on the darkness with no idea that behind it there is light trying
to break through. The overall underlying tempo also tends to make this
most difficult movement sprawl rather. The chorale-led climax is a bit
too grandiose to be convincing and the ending is certainly too loud
though this may be a fault of the engineers.
Clocking in at 19.12 this recording has one of the
longest accounts of the third movement I have heard. I know Mahler feared
conductors would take this movement too fast but I think there are limits.
Also, when presented like this in such a steady way, the music tends
to being uninvolving. As though one were being presented with a map
of a landscape rather than an aerial photograph of it. Too little attention
gets paid to the little highways and byways that are down there. The
playing of the orchestra’s soloists is certainly splendid but they need
a stronger baton to really shine and banish that lingering dark tone
that still seems to cast its shadow over the one movement that has to
let the light in to complete the emotional world of the work. This means
that by the arrival of the Adagietto fourth movement I feel Swarowsky
had largely missed any chance of delivering the multi-faceted nature
of the work. I was not surprised that his Adagietto was beautiful, romantic
and dark-grained. Again very well done by not really serving the wider
picture. The fact that Swarowsky takes a spacious view of the last movement
need be no bad thing, however here what emerges is too Autumnal, resigned
and elegiac to really lift the spirits and completely counterbalance
the first movement.
Well-balanced recording and fine playing make this
too grave and too dark recording of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony worth seeking
out for the view of a conductor largely overlooked.
Tony Duggan
Tony Duggan's
Comparative review of Mahler 5 recordings
Wiener Symphoniker/Hans
Swarowsky