Comparison Recordings:
Symphony #1: Charles Munch, BSO [ADD]
RCA/BMG 7812-2 RV
Haydn Variations: Antal Dorati, LSO.
[ADD] Mercury Living Presence 434 326
Brahms, like Beethoven,
composed while walking in the woods.
But unlike Beethoven, who plodded determinedly
along kicking rocks and scowling at
the trees for dropping wet leaves on
his head, Brahms ran screaming, howling,
flailing, and frothing through the underbrush
muddying his shoes, ripping his clothes,
and frightening small animals.
To conduct this symphony
the conductor must be able to recreate
with his orchestra the terrified anguished
wail of an animal waking up after the
tranquilliser dart to realise it’s in
a cage — as well as the aborted triumphant
cry of victory when the cage door has
been broken open only to reveal that
the whole world is a cage and death
is the only way out.
In other words, only
a Frenchman can understand Brahms, but
the French generally don’t like Brahms,
perhaps for that reason. Enter Charles
Munch, an Alsatian — half German, half
French. He gets it exactly right. Abravanel,
a Portuguese born in Greece, brought
up in Lausanne and educated there and
in Berlin, does pretty well, also. Abravanel
klempers* a little at times, but, in
general he gets it right. This is a
well balanced, measured performance
with everything where it should be,
the wonderful development sections clearly
revealed as something Beethoven wishes
he could have composed; poor man never
even came close. Brahms had the ability
to built tension steadily and release
it with a single note, something he
learned largely from Mozart.** Only,
even with this great sound, when the
bomb finally goes off, it’s only in
the kiloton range — which means Abravanel
probably can’t quite bring off the Third
Symphony either, but his Second
and Fourth should be something
to watch for, as we are promised a sequential
revelation of the remaining symphonies.
The Haydn Variations
have much less violence in them. They
require only balance, taste, judgement,
intelligence and a little verve, and
hence come off perfectly well here.
This is a stunning performance and,
coupled with fine recording give us
a grand conclusion to this disk.
I don’t mean to disparage
the grand German Brahms tradition embodied
by Weingartner, Furtwängler, Karajan,
Jochum, Harnoncourt, and even Bruno
Walter, only to suggest that a double
shot of cognac or a glass of champagne
would make them the better for it. If
EMI were to release their Eugen Jochum
complete symphony set on DVD-Audio,
they would give Abravanel some stiff
competition.
The way you tell a
good multi-channel recording is not
just that you can hear the echo off
the back wall of the auditorium. It’s
that you can see not only the width
of the orchestra from side to side,
but also the depth from front
to back. And when you close your eyes
you can not tell where the speakers
are no matter how you move your head.
By these criteria, from listening I
suspect this is a two, at the most three,
channel tape that’s been electronically
pumped up. It sounds good, sure, but
there’s one more big step before Parnassus.
*to klemper (v.i.),
said of conductors, to set a tempo that
is slightly too slow and grind along
with it unyieldingly in the face of
all that is decent and sensible. Are
you listening, O.E.D.?
**And what’s the other
big influence on this work? One hundred
points if you said the Mendelssohn Scottish
Symphony. What famous conductor
missed that question?
Paul Shoemaker
Utah Symphony Orchestra/Maurice Abravanel
SILVERLINE CLASSICS 288237-9 [57.50]