A decade ago, the EMI Classics/IMG Artists Great
Conductors of the 20th Century series provoked some
spirited debate as it included or excluded particular individuals.
Just to take the first batch of releases, who would have anticipated
the appearance of Nikolai Malko? Or that of Nikolai
Golovanov, a cult figure to some but, thanks to his Soviet
recordings’ sonic deficiencies, little appreciated by
a wider audience? What about Ataúlfo
Argenta, definitely something of a wild card, you might
have supposed, amidst the likes of Ferenc
Fricsay, Serge
Koussevitsky and Bruno
Walter?
Although his prolific output of zarzuela
recordings kept his name alive in his Spanish homeland, Argenta's
wider reputation following his tragically early death in 1958
largely rested on a couple of discs of colourful orchestral
showpieces. Collected together on CD in 1995 under the title
España (Decca 443 580-2), they included Chabrier’s
eponymous tour de force, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capiccio
espagnol, Andaluza by Granados, Moszkowski’s
Spanish dances and Debussy’s Images. It’s
a disc for any castaway on that proverbial desert island, so
full of joie de vivre that it would buck one up even
as the tide came in while a hungry shark started circling the
shoreline. There’s also a de Falla disc on Medici..
Significantly enough, Decca issued España in a
series entitled The Classic Sound. They were, to be fair,
entirely justified in doing so, for the quality of those 1957
recordings was by any standards superb. Decca engineers Gordon
Parry and Roy Wallace worked sonic miracles: for conclusive
proof, just sample the in-your-face trombones and oom-pahhing
tuba in Moszkowski’s addictively foot-tapping dances.
As a result, those tracks have, quite rightly, provided demonstration
material for audiophiles ever since. But, in majoring on the
“classic sound” angle, that 1995 reissue rather
unfairly took the focus off the conductor. It’s also CD2
in the big 50-CD Decca
Sound box issued last year.
Decca more than made up for that in 2006 when it issued a five
disc box set as one of its Original
Masters series - AtaúlfoArgenta: complete
Decca recordings 1953-1957. As well as the “Spanish”
tracks itemised above, the contents included Liszt’s Faust
symphony, Les Préludes and the two piano
concertos with Julius Katchen as soloist; two works by Tchaikovsky
- the fourth symphony and the violin concerto with soloist Alfredo
Campoli; the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz, a greatly
underestimated recording that had been previously issued in
1996 as another Classic Sound CD; Albeniz’s Iberia
suite and Turina's Danzas fantasticas.
The contents of the box indicate how, in spite of some ambitious
projects in the offing - recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic
and possibly the succession to Ansermet at the Suisse Romande
Orchestra - at the time of his death Argenta’s recording
career had not yet taken off fully. To some extent he had clearly
been pigeonholed as a specialist in lighter repertoire and in
“Spanish” music - whether genuine or pastiche -
and he was still only beginning to work with top-flight orchestras.
Even the appearance of the box hints at a career that was not
yet in full gear. Its cover photograph shows Argenta in rehearsal
and is almost identical to the cover picture on the EMI/IMG
release. Perhaps Decca’s publicity department hadn’t
yet got around to taking the varied promotional shots typically
accorded to a star performer?
This new disc is of particular interest because it features
recordings of Argenta performing some repertoire that he never
recorded commercially. The orchestras involved are, it has to
be conceded, demonstrably not of the first rank. The first,
the Orquesta Nacional de España was Argenta’s own
band: he had risen from the ranks, where he was their keyboard
player, to become principal conductor in 1947. The second, the
Suisse Romande Orchestra, was recording prolifically in the
1950s and many of its discs are still well regarded - but that,
in honesty, owes more to the input of its long-term conductor
Ernest Ansermet than to that of the players. I have been unable
to confirm the provenance of this CD’s third orchestra,
the “Gran Orquesta Sinfonica”, but I suspect, both
because of its rather vague and geographically-unspecific name
and for other reasons indicated below, that it might have been
a radio station ensemble.
These are described as concert performances. Audience discipline
- and bronchial health - leaves something to be desired and
is occasionally a little distracting in the Eroica. Both
the Beethoven and Smetana end with quickly faded audience applause.
The Gran Orquesta Sinfonica’s zarzuela tracks,
on the other hand, are more clearly recorded and noticeably
cough-free and applause-free, perhaps confirming my supposition
that these were radio concerts broadcast from a studio without
an audience. Unfortunately, the booklet notes are silent on
the circumstances of all the performances.
What of those performances themselves? I enjoyed the Eroica
very much indeed. It is a vital, driven account that blows away
the cobwebs, especially in a briskly memorable account of the
marcia funebre. The Bartered bride overture -
a regular favourite in the 1950s when orchestral lollipops were
still staple recording fodder - is brought off jauntily and
with a compellingly attractive swing.
Zarzuelas were something of an Argenta speciality and,
according to Donald Rosenberg’s booklet notes, he recorded
no fewer than fifty of them in full. For anyone unfamiliar with
the form, Wikipedia's detailed and very useful entry defines
zarzuela as “a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that
alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating
operatic and popular song, as well as dance”. Such references
to other music are found at once in the first piece here, the
prelude to Chapi’s Música clásica,
where we briefly encounter familiar passages from Beethoven’s
Pastoral symphony and Mendelssohn’s incidental
music to A midsummer night’s dream. Those unanticipated
interpolations are, in themselves, quite enough to bring a smile
to the face. In fact, though, all five zarzuela extracts
are, while relatively simple and unsophisticated pieces of music,
immediately appealing, full of rhythm and orchestral colour
and quite delightful.
While not challenging other better recorded and better played
accounts of the standard repertoire pieces, this new CD is still
a valuable one. Ataúlfo Argenta’s recorded legacy
- those fifty zarzuelas aside - is all too small. Making
any extra material - especially when recorded at the height
of an artist’s powers - more widely available is a useful
service, either in confirming our existing impressions or in
offering new insights. For so doing on this welcome release,
ICA Classics deserve our thanks.
Rob Maynard
Masterwork Index: Beethoven
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Orquesta Nacional de España/Ataúlfo Argenta (Beethoven)
