Much if not all this
material will be very familiar to Mengelberg
admirers. Most of the music derives
from a performance given on 17th
April 1939 and the well-chosen additions
give us the commercial Columbia recording
of the Double Concerto and the wartime
Air from the Third Orchestral Suite.
The virtues (and otherwise) of Mengelberg’s
approach to Bach have been well rehearsed
down the decades but I think this issue
may do something to mislead the innocent
ear of the conductor’s supposed marmoreal
and cavernous approach.
Of course Mengelberg’s
was an idiosyncratic and weighty approach
but comparing this transfer of the Second
Suite with that on Michael G Thomas’s
Mengelberg Edition series one notices
immediately that there is a thick and
saturated bass line in the Archipel
which is artificial and unattractive
and has a real lack of clarity. Thomas’s
transfers are hardly ideal – one can
hear the stylus hitting the groove and
minimal restoration has been carried
out with a number of ticks and pops
part of the aural tapestry – but there
is much more detail and definition and
Mengelberg’s sonority emerges as sounding
entirely different. From the same concert
the Keyboard Concerto with Agi Jambor
sounds better and roughly comparable
to the Thomas transfer though perhaps
not quite open and aerated enough. The
1942 Air has been sourced from better
copies and sounds well. The Double Concerto
features two of the prestigious orchestral
leaders of the Concertgebouw in harmonious
consort under their conductor. This
has been released by Pearl in recent
years in a miscellaneous programme that
also includes Schubert’s Unfinished,
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and excerpts
from the Damnation of Faust amongst
others - and Biddulph should soon be
re-releasing their transfer as well.
The Wedding Cantata showcases the very
capable and expressive (fine diminuendi)
Dutch soprano To van der Sluys. The
sound is not as saturated as in the
Second Suite but it should be lightened
and properly equalized.
Given the relative
cheapness of Archipel’s discs one could
seek out this disc for the Double Concerto
and the freely expressive portamenti
of its leader-soloists; but one could
also seek out the Pearl. Thomas’s transfers
are superior to Archipel’s in the instances
I have sampled but the Mengelberg Edition
has withered since Thomas’s death. Collectors
should otherwise treat this one with
a fair degree of caution.
Jonathan Woolf
To van der Sluys (soprano) recorded 17 April
1939 