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The pretext for this
disc is the famous photograph reproduced
on the cover of Symposium’s booklet.
There stand Bruno Walter, Arturo Toscanini
and Erich Kleiber, smiling with varying
degrees of sincerity and amusement,
and to their left towering over them
like giants are the duo of Otto Klemperer
(grim of visage) and Wilhelm Furtwängler
(cold stare). Has the camera, before
or since, captured their like? They
were all active in Berlin in 1929 and
this disc reflects that to a degree
inasmuch as the Walter, Kleiber and
Klemperer items were all recorded in
the city though the recording dates
range from the late acoustics of Walter
and Klemperer to the 1951 Toscanini-Verdi.
Walter’s acoustic Hebrides
sounds to have some beefy bass reinforcement.
Additionally the string entry points
are rather indistinct and the reduced
complement of strings, as well as their
portamenti and uniform vibrato, gives
an occasionally queasy sound to the
proceedings. As Symposium’s note explains
there’s a difficult side join through
a held note – but they’ve accomplished
it securely and well. I doubt you’d
recognise the orchestra as the Berlin
Philharmonic, even in these circumstances.
The other late acoustic is Klemperer’s
recording of the Adagio of Bruckner’s
Eighth Symphony, this time with the
orchestra of the Staatsoper. Again and
more damagingly we find undermanned
forces and again some doubling. Upper
frequencies suffer most and the strings
playing even half way up the fingerboard
sound particularly starved. Accidents
happen along the way, inevitably, and
examples of poor chording, untidiness
and false entries are there. Still this
is one of the major orchestral documents
of its time, however imperfect, and
if the result sounds disjunctive – as
it does to me – it is a real rarity
and deserves to be in the catalogue
as an example of Klemperer the embryonic
Brucknerian. Symposium dates it as 1923/24
but according to Claude Graveley Arnold’s
‘The Orchestra on Record 1896-1926’
it was recorded in December of the latter
year.
From acoustic Bruckner
to the outrageous Bach-Schoenberg is
covering some ground, especially when
the 1930 sound is so radically improved.
The Prelude and Fugue must clearly have
presented some problems because three
separate recording dates are given,
from April, May and September 1930 but
the results are gloriously infectious.
From the flare and blare of trumpet
and trombone to the juicily full-toned
clarinet Kleiber whips up a storm of
colour and zest. In the Fugue the nasal
winds impart a festive splendour and
a ceremonial drama; the final peroration
is irresistible. Furtwängler’s
Lucerne recording of the Lohengrin enshrines
powerful nobility albeit there’s a bit
of wear on one side and we end with
his nemesis, Toscanini, in the latter’s
1951 La Traviata Preludes. The Act II
Prelude is particularly compelling with
its deeply expressive string phrasing
and subtle portamenti.
Copies used are generally
good; a degree of surface noise has
been retained, Symposium preferring
to retain higher frequencies and not
use too much noise suppression.
Jonathan Woolf
SYMPOSIUM 1340 [68.30] 