Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt – The Telefunken Recordings
CD 1 [66:12] Joseph HAYDN (1732-1809) Symphony No.92 in G Oxford (1789) [22:28]
Antonin DVORÁK (1841-1904) Symphony No.9 in E minor Op.95 B178 From the New
World (1893) [42:57] CD 2 [54:10]
Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) Symphony No.6 in B minor Pathétique Op.74
(1893) [44:28]
Franz LISZT (1811-1886) Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 in D minor S359 [7:34]
Nikolai RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (1844-1908) The Flight of the Bumble Bee [1:30] CD
3 [51:28]
Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Symphony No.9 in C Great D944 (1825-28) [51:17]
NWDR Symphony Orchestra/Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt Sydney Symphony Orchestra/Hans
Schmidt-Isserstedt (Haydn) rec. 1953 (Haydn (live), Dvorák); 1954 (Tchaikovsky),
1959 (Schubert, Rimsky, Liszt)
TAHRA TAH698-700 [3 CDs: 66:12 + 54:10 + 51:28]
Schmidt-Isserstedt was busy in the studios and recorded
for a number of labels — Decca, Telefunken, Capitol, Mercury, Philips. DG,
Odyssey and Electrola amongst them. In the 1950s he made a valuable series
of discs for Capitol and another series for Telefunken. Tahra has released
both in sets of three CDs each.
It still seems rather anomalous for Telefunken to have released the
live recording of Haydn’s Symphony No.92 given that the conductor was heard
on an Australian tour conducting the local orchestra in Sydney. Still, that
rare LP, LB6056, housed the performance and it was a good one. The orchestra
was on solid form, responsive and alert. The first movement repeat is jettisoned
but otherwise this is a well balanced, unsensational reading with an especially
well-moulded slow movement.
I think it’s best to overlook the amazingly over-enthusiastic booklet
note claim on the subject of this recording of Dvorák’s New World Symphony.
The balance isn’t especially favourable and the percussion booms mightily,
whilst there’s a rather brusque quality to the sound — not unlike certain
aspects of the performance, it must be said. The big-boned slow movement drags
in Germanic fashion at the conductor’s misconceived tempo. His favourite Dvorák
symphony, needless to say, was the very much more Brahmsian Seventh. The second
disc carries a straightforward reading of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony,
symphonically speaking much more of a success than the New World. It’s hardly
in the Mravinsky class as an act of dramatic engagement, and the second movement
is a bit lackadaisical, but there is a real sense of power held in reserve
throughout. There are two fillers to end this disc — a roistering Liszt Hungarian
Dance and Rimsky’s Flight of the Bumblebee, which brings out the clean-limbed
and athletic side of the NWDR strings, as almost always on fine form.
The last disc is given over wholly to Schubert’s Great Symphony. As
the companion Fifth showed in the Capitol box, Schmidt-Isserstedt was an excellent
exponent of this composer’s music. He knew how to bring lightness and agility
to the symphonic canon, too, and here in this stereo recording — as were the
Liszt and Rimsky, but nothing else — he proves his credentials again. The
orchestra plays excellently for him, and he paces episodes and paragraphs
astutely, bringing a considered and intelligent view to bear. Of all the performances
in this box, this is the one to which I’d direct listeners keen to hear the
conductor at his best.
The transfers have been well engineered and the booklet is attractively
put together with full colour reproductions of the LP covers. Sami Habra’s
notes are partisan to a fault, but his admiration for Schmidt-Isserstedt shines
through everything he writes and one can both admire, and repudiate, the passion
with which he holds his views, if one so chooses.
Jonathan Woolf
Excellent playing, astutely paced, considered and intelligent.