English Columbia marked the centenary of Beethoven’s
death with a first-ever electrically recorded symphonic cycle, adding
some chamber works and concertos. This is the sequence of recordings
now being released by Pristine Audio under the title ‘The Columbia
Beethoven Centennial Symphony Series’, of which this is volume
two. The first four symphonies, as noted by Mark Obert-Thorn, went to
British or British-resident conductors - George Henschel (naturalised)
who directed the First - once on Past Masters LP - Beecham, who had
an erratic way with No.2 - and then the subjects of this release, Henry
Wood and Hamilton Harty in the
Eroica and No.4 respectively.
The remainder went to that colossus of rectitudinous symphonic conducting,
Felix Weingartner.
Wood and Columbia had received a bit of a critical drubbing for their
earlier significantly cut acoustic recording of the
Eroica. Made
in 1922 on six 78 sides - the electric took 14 sides. This isn’t
something that the notes go into in any depth, invariably, since they’re
concerned with the recordings under discussion, though Obert-Thorn rightly
refers to that earlier recording in passing. It was, in fact, the first
substantial recording of the
Eroica; following it we find Oskar
Fried (on 12 sides) in 1924 on Polydor, Frieder Weissmann on Odeon in
1924-25. Individual movements came from a few diverse sources, notably
one of Fritz Busch’s first studio recordings made when he was
director of the Württemberg Opera House Orchestra.
Wood’s acoustic effort was disparaged not for what remained of
the score, which was played with his characteristically robust, direct,
musically intelligent flair, but for what was missing. At a time when
Columbia was beginning to release substantially uncut chamber music,
and when other companies were experimenting with the symphonic repertoire
in large-scale recordings - notably Wood’s British contemporary
Landon Ronald for HMV - the 1922
Eroica seemed retrogressive
in principle and self-defeating musically in practice. No such problems
attended to this late 1926 recording. In days of yore, when the corpus
of Wood’s recordings had not been reissued or, if they had, people
tended to listen with their eyes and not their ears, this recording
would have elicited the critical epithet ‘bluff’. As in
bluff, muscular, no-nonsense - with a hint that they really meant unsubtle.
In point of fact, Wood was an eminently sane conductor whose raft of
recordings shows a strongly directional musicality. This symphony recording
is no exception. There are no expressive exaggerations, the slow movement
maintaining a noble straightforwardness and rhythmic steadiness. The
only curiosity - and it must be intentional - occurs in the use of a
large quotient of slides in rapid succession at around 11:40 in the
slow movement. It’s unusual in the context of the symphony as
a whole, where Wood doesn’t encourage the strings of his New Queen’s
Hall Orchestra to do the same. The orchestra is well drilled - doubtless
the conductor had recourse to his famous tuning fork - and performs
splendidly.
I once had a long correspondence with a man who assured me that he had
seen test pressings of another of Wood’s Beethoven centennial
recordings, that of the Violin Concerto with Albert Sammons but that
set, along with another eyeball-popping collaboration of Wood and Ignaz
Friedman in the
Emperor concerto, was never issued. For what
it’s worth the set was apparently last seen in Manchester in the
1960s. That city’s local orchestra, the Hallé, was recorded
in the Fourth Symphony with their conductor Hamilton Harty. There was
no pioneering to be done in this case. Hans Pfitzner had beaten English
Columbia to it in Berlin in 1924, followed soon after by the semi-ubiquitous
Weissmann (what about a Weissmann series?) and then the youthful George
Szell and the Grosses Symphonie-Orchester in 1925.
I only know of one other CD transfer of the Harty - though doubtless
there are already 300 Japanese transfers - and that’s an indifferent
effort on Phonographe PH5015 coupled with Solomon’s recording
of the Tchaikovsky Concerto. This Pristine transfer effortlessly and
embarrassingly outclasses that one. It captures all the subtle nuances
enshrined in Harty’s romanticised manipulation of tempi and string
tone. The Hallé strings slide much more consistently and slowly
than Wood’s NQHO and thus there’s more overt expressivity,
corporately speaking, and perhaps more character, not least from the
Hallé’s famous wind principals. There are some unusual
tempi on display - the finale is especially motoric - but it’s
all well sustained and ensemble is in no way imperilled.
The remainder of this series will be devoted to the Weingartner recordings,
but let me send an enthusiastic plea for people to scour attics and
basements, and studies and cobwebbed drawing rooms, to see if that elusive
Violin Concerto can yet be found.
Jonathan Woolf
Masterwork Index: Beethoven
Symphony
3 ~~
Symphony 4
