When I was an impressionable
young schoolboy, with a mania for both
music and for second-hand bookshops,
I picked up (in 1967, I see) "The
Orchestra Speaks", a rather famous
study of some of the conductors who
were around in the 1930s by Bernard
Shore, long-serving principal viola
of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. A few
of them – Boult, Barbirolli and Sargent
– were still very much with us. Others
– Beecham and Toscanini – were, in a
sense, living presences still, for their
records dominated the catalogue. Others
again – Koussevitzky and Mengelberg
– were legendary names that were always
quoted when conducting was discussed.
But Albert Coates, born in St. Petersburg
in 1882 of an English father and a Russian-born
mother of English parentage, was a virtually
forgotten figure. Yet what Shore had
to say about him certainly sounded interesting:
"A man of
immense proportions and commanding
person; with the drive and power
of a superman … his intense, warm-blooded
temperament gives an unmistakable
character to his performances …
Russian music … takes on a vivid
and arresting character in his hands,
with restraint cast off and pent-up
feelings allowed to run riot … the
performance will have an intense
feeling and grip that only a Russian
can effect … Yet he is capable of
exquisite tenderness and extreme
delicacy … Half-tones and half-measures
are not found in him … No music
he plays will ever be dull. Everything
will be intensely alive, and shot
through with emotion and fire …"
(Bernard Shore: The Orchestra Speaks,
Longmans, Green & Co. 1938,
pp. 77-82).
Occasional attempts
have been made to revive his recordings,
of which he made a great many in the
1920s and 1930s (for reasons not fully
explained he faded out of the recording
scene and ended his days in South Africa,
where he died in 1953), especially his
famous Wagner extracts, but this is
my first opportunity to explore his
art, and it has been fascinating to
find that Shore’s words have completely
stood the test of time.
First of all, though
on paper his claims to be Russian may
be thin, his manner when conducting
Russian music is firmly in line with
that of, say, Mravinsky, with a similar
ability to stretch the orchestra to
its limits and beyond (far beyond, I’d
say, considering how lacklustre the
LSO could sound at this epoch) with
fanatically brilliant string playing
(only in Tod und Verklärung
are there some dodgy moments), screaming
wind and no-holds-barred brass. Yet
at the same time he could coax exquisite
poetry from his woodwind soloists and
wonderfully pliant expressiveness from
the strings (but be prepared for at
least as much portamento as with Mengelberg).
All the Russian pieces here are superbly
involving, but it was cunning to start
the programme with Oberon since
its tenderness, delicacy and wit (as
well as vitality of course) immediately
counter any idea that Coates’s music-making
might prove gutsy and energetic but
not particularly subtle.
Coates was also remembered
as the conductor who perhaps recorded
more Wagner than any other in the days
when a recording of a complete opera
by that composer was still only a pipe-dream.
The Tristan extract, in spite of being
pieced together (very well) from two
sessions and venues, still shows what
savage cuts had to be accepted those
days, but it also shows what a powerful
surge of emotion Coates could create.
All the Wagner extracts make their mark
with mighty climaxes and gentle poetry,
and much the same can be said of the
Humperdinck and Strauss pieces. My only
reservation concerns the Ravel, too
intensely Russian in concept and lacking
those Viennese inflexions of which André
Cluytens above all knew the secret.
But never mind, this
is just one track and the rest will
surely stimulate a desire to hear more;
his Pathétique, for instance,
or his Beethoven 3 and 9. The recordings
are as good as can be expected of their
dates and anyone with any curiosity
about past styles (though, apart from
the portamento, there is nothing stylistically
dated about any of these performances)
will rapidly forget the sound as they
get caught up in some thrilling music-making.
Christopher Howell
Great
Conductors of the 20th Century
Berlin State Opera Orchestra (first part of
Tristan extract), London Symphony Orchestra
(all others)/Albert Coates