For many Mahlerites
over a certain age Rafael Kubelik has
always been there, like a dependable
uncle, part of the Mahler family landscape
for as long as we can all remember.
He was one of the first to record a
complete symphony cycle after many years
of performing the music in the concert
hall, and that DG cycle has hardly been
out of the catalogue since the 1970s.
Marc Bridle and I reviewed it in December
2000
Yet it has never quite
made the "splash" those by
some of his colleagues have done. Kubelik’s
view of Mahler is not one that attaches
itself to the mind at a first, or even
a second, listening. Kubelik was never
the man for quick fixes or cheap thrills
in any music he conducted. So in Mahler
not for him the heart-on-sleeve of a
Bernstein, the machine-like precision
of a Solti, or the dark 19th century
psychology of a Tennstedt. Kubelik’s
Mahler goes back to folk roots, pursues
more refined textures, accentuates song,
winkles out a lyrical aspect and so
has the reputation of playing down the
angst, the passion, the grandeur.
But note that I was careful to use the
word "reputation". I often
wonder whether those who tend to pass
over Kubelik’s Mahler as honourable
failure have actually listened hard
over a period of time to those recordings.
I think if they had they would, in the
end, come to agree that whilst Kubelik
is certainly excellent at those qualities
for which his Mahler is always recognised
he is also just as capable of delivering
the full "Mahler Monty" as
everyone else is. It’s just that he
anchors it harder in those very aspects
he is praised for, giving the rest a
unique canvas on which he can let whole
of the music breathe and expand. It’s
all a question of perspective. Kubelik’s
Mahler takes time, always remember that.
In his studio cycle
the First Symphony has always been one
of the most enduring. It has appeared
over and over again among the top recommendations
of many critics, including this one.
Many others who tend not to rate Kubelik
highly in certain later Mahler Symphonies
if they were of a mind to rate his First
Symphony might feel constrained to point
out that the First is, after all, a
"Wunderhorn" symphony and
that it is in the "Wunderhorn"
mood Kubelik was at his strongest. I
don’t disagree with that as an explanation
but, as I have said, I think that in
Mahler Rafael Kubelik was so much more
than a two or three trick pony. In fact
in the First Symphony Kubelik’s ability
to bring out the grotesques, the heaven
stormings and the romance was just as
strong as Bernstein or Solti. It’s a
case of perspectives again.
The studio First Symphony
did have one particular drawback noted
by even its most fervent admirers. A
drawback it shared with most of the
other recordings in the cycle too. It
lay in the recorded sound given to the
Bavarian Radio Orchestra by the DG engineers
in Munich. Balances were close, almost
brittle. The brass, trumpets especially,
were shrill and raucous. There was an
overall "boxy" feeling to
the sound picture. I have never been
one to dismiss a recording on the basis
of recorded sound alone unless literally
un-listenable. However, even I regretted
the sound that this superb performance
had been given. This is not the only
reason I am going to recommend this
1979 "live" recording on Audite
of the First over the older DG, but
it is an important one. At last we can
now hear Kubelik’s magnificent interpretation
of this symphony, and the response of
his excellent orchestra, in beautifully
balanced and realistic sound about which
I can have no criticism and nothing
but praise.
Twelve years after
the studio recording Kubelik seems to
have taken his interpretation of the
work a stage further. Whether it’s a
case of "live" performance
before an audience leading him to take
a few more risks, play a little more
to the gallery, or whether it’s simply
the fact that he has thought more and
more about the work in subsequent performances,
I don’t know. What I do know is that
every aspect of his interpretation I
admired first time around is presented
with a degree more certainty, as though
the 1967 version was "work in progress"
and this is the final statement. (Which,
in fact, it was when you consider Kubelik
first recorded the work for Decca in
Vienna in the 1950s.)
Straight away the opening
benefits from the spacious recording
with the mellow horns and distant trumpets
really giving that sense of otherworldliness
that Mahler was surely aiming for. Notice
also the woodwinds’ better balancing
in the exposition main theme which Kubelik
unfolds with a telling degree more lyricism.
One interesting point to emerge is that
after twelve years Kubelik has decided
to dispense with the exposition repeat
and it doesn’t appear to be needed.
In the development the string slides
are done to perfection, as good as Horenstein’s
in his old Vox recording. Kubelik also
manages an admirable sense of mounting
malevolence when the bass drum starts
to tap softly. Nature is frightening,
Mahler is telling us, and Kubelik agrees.
The recapitulation builds inexorably
and the coda arrives with great sweep
and power. At the end the feeling is
that Kubelik has imagined the whole
movement in one breath.
The second movement
has a well-nigh perfect balance of forward
momentum and weight. There is trenchancy
here, but there is also a dance element
that is so essential to make the music
work. Some conductors seem to regard
the Trio as a perfunctory interlude,
but not Kubelik. He lavishes the same
care on this that he lavishes on everything
else and the pressing forward he was
careful to observe in the main scherzo
means he doesn’t need to relax too much
in order to give the right sense of
respite. There is also an air of the
ironic, a feeling we are being given
the other side of one coin.
The third movement
is one of the most extraordinary pieces
of music Mahler ever wrote. The fact
that it was amongst his earliest compositions
makes it even more astounding. I have
always believed that in this movement
Mahler announces himself a a truly unique
voice for the first time and Kubelik
certainly seems to think this in the
way he rises to the occasion. He has
always appreciated the wonderful colours
and sounds that must have so shocked
the first audience but in this recording
we are, once more, a stage further on
in the interpretation than in his previous
version. Right at the start he has a
double bass soloist prepared to sound
truly sinister, more so than in 1971,
and one who you can really hear properly
also. As the funeral march develops
a real sense of middle European horror
is laid out before us. All the more
sinister for being understated by Mahler
but delivered perfectly by a conductor
who is prepared to ask his players to
sound cheap, to colour the darker tones.
This aspect is especially evident in
the band interruptions where the bass
drum and cymbals have a slightly off-colour
Teutonic edge which, when they return
after the limpid central section, are
even more insinuating and menacing.
Kubelik seems to have such confidence
in the music that he is able to bring
off an effect like this where others
don’t. In all it’s a remarkably potent
mix that Kubelik and his players deliver
in this movement though he never overplays,
always anchors in the music’s roots.
In the chaos unleashed
at the start of the last movement you
can now, once more, hear everything
in proper perspective, the brass especially.
The ensuing big tune is delivered with
all the experience Kubelik has accumulated
by this time, but even I caught my breath
at how he holds back a little at the
restatement. Even though the lovely
passage of nostalgic recall just prior
to the towering coda expresses a depth
and profundity only hinted at in 1967
it is the coda itself which will stay
in your mind. As with the studio recording
Kubelik is anxious for you to hear what
the strings are doing whilst the main
power is carried by brass and percussion.
Kubelik is also too experienced a Mahlerian
to rush the ending. Too many conductors
press down on the accelerator here,
as if this will make the music more
exciting, and how wrong they are to
try. Listen to how Kubelik holds on
to the tempo just enough to allow every
note to tell. He knows this is so much
more than just a virtuoso display, that
it is a statement of Mahler’s own arrival,
and his care and regard for this work
from start to finish stays with him
to the final note.
This is a top recommendation
for this symphony. It supersedes Kubelik’s
own studio recording on DG and, I think,
surpasses in achievement those by Horenstein
(Vox CDX2 5508) and Barbirolli (Dutton
CDSJB 1015) to name two other favourite
versions I regard as essential to any
collection but which must now be thought
of as alternatives to this Audite release.
Simply indispensable.
Tony Duggan
Tony
Duggan's Mahler Pages
Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks/Rafael
Kubelik 