New Mengelberg/Beethoven on Pearl
samir ghiocel golescu
That much about my jazz-culture (-:
I meant Armstrong, of course...
samir ghiocel golescu
For the last week, besides fighting, as always, the battles of Don
Quixote, I delighted myself in a much-awaited CD-album, the
Pearl Gems 0074 (3 CDs), containing the quasi-integrality of the
Beethoven recordings made by Mengelberg and Concertgebouworkest for
Telefunken, between 1937 and 1942. Included are Symphonies no. 1, 3,
4, 5, 6 and 8, as well as The Creatures of Prometheus (ballet
music)--Overture, Allegretto and Finale, quite a collector's item.
The transfers are invariably excellent. Only mint "78s" appear to have
been used, and Mark Obert-Thorn has seemfully chosen, for the better, to
*preserve* that minimal surface noise which, when completely erased,
murders the true color of the sound as well. The Third Symphony (1940)
benefited enough from the good Philips transfer (LP and CD), in the past,
but the present transfer does even better justice to one of the best
Telefunken "war" recordings. The 5th, 6th, and 8th, previously published
by Teldec in their 1988 series, sound much better here--the thin,
scratchy, "false chamber music"-like Teldec sound was felicitously
substituted, on the Pearl album, by realistic corporality, the
expected richness of the Concertgebouw sound. This album will remain IMO,
for a good while, *the* choice for these recordings.
I said before that Furtwangler and Mengelberg are The Beethoven conductors
without whom I could not live, even if for individual symphonies I have
many other favorites, from Pfitzner to Strauss and Walter, from Erich
Kleiber to Klemperer and Koussevitzky. I remind that when I compare the
two (WF and WM), I do not try to suggest that they "outdid" each other in
some way, only to enlighten better what I like about each and about both.
Among what I consider to be misconceptions, "preconceived" notions, is the
cliche that makes out of Furtwangler the "moderately Romantic" conductor,
opposed to Mengelberg, the "extravagantly Romantic" one. First of all, I
wouldn't use the word Romantic at all.
Historically (generationally), it is meaningless--which is the "Romantic"
generation? The conductors born in 1880s? 1860s? 1890s? All of them? Are
Toscanini or Weingartner or Kleiber or Karajan part of the so-called
Romantic generation? What about Bruno Seidler-Winkler and other
mediocrities? Etc. etc.
Aesthetically, it has to do with the '50s--'60s critic cliche, a most
deleterious one, of a "Romantic" style of conducting, opposed either to:
a "Classic" one
or to an "objective" one (that lets the music speak for itself)...,
both furtively fraudulent notions. Will not stop more, Simon Roberts has
fought with good reason an untiring battle with this conceptual residua,
still amazingly palatable to some, as far as one could notice.
Now back to Furtwangler and Mengelberg's Beethoven. If there is any
justifiable concept of "stylistic purity", which I very much doubt, then
the "purist" should be considered Mengelberg, more than
Furtwangler--futile to specify, without any judgment of values involved.
Compare F. and M.'s Beethoven Fifths and Brahms Firsts. Furtwangler's
palette varies on the same coordinates in the two symphonies, of
course with amplified parameters in Brahms, while Mengelberg's range of
colors, within the two pieces, could pertain to two different
conductors--crispness and limpidity in Beethoven, broadness, compactness
and organ-like magnitude in Brahms!!
Mengelberg's Beethoven is, of course, extremely individualized, but
somehow more naive, more Schillerian, more historically consistent and
locatable than Furtwangler's (everything within the given context, of
course). Furtwangler's Beethoven is the music made by a conductor who
makes no secret out of the fact that knew and loved and lived Brahms, that
knew and loved and lived Bruckner, and is not afraid to encapsulate this
unavoidable knowledge, and others, in his way of conducting Beethoven.
Furtwangler's Beethoven Symphonies are, generally more than
Mengelberg's, INTERPRETIVE ESSAYS of a man who has strong convictions
about *music in general*, about Beethoven's greatness, a man that
accesses some numinous musical essence, very much transcending (which
is not "improving" upon but "imprinting" on) *what Beethoven himself knew
about himself*. Furtwangler does not hesitate to apply these convictions
to another composer's music, an- and anti-historically, un- and
anti-objectively, par excellence, with prejudices-defying splendor, with
aristocratic and authoritative assumption of his "rights".
I am not as obsessed with Beethoven's metronome notations as other people
are, but Mengelberg is more often than not much closer to them. The tempo
in itself is not always revelatory but, in the case of the Sixth, for
instance, Furtwangler's very much slower (than Beethoven's) tempos are
obviously transmuting the healthy rusticity encased in (or suggested
by?) the score into a mystic, pantheist, (w)holist hymn to universal
integration toward a higher order--the perception of the Numinous in the
perennial Nature, if I may say so, a kind of luminous counterpart of
Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde.
Furtwangler's Ninth could as well be Bruckner's Tenth Symphony, as
causality-wise absurd this may seem. I always suspected that one of the
reasons Furtwangler was approaching (grosso modo speaking) Bruckner at a
very fast pace was that he couldn't see the Symphony (with capital, to
him) "progressing" after Beethoven -- Bruckner was more of a parallel,
worthy universe, not a continuation, nor a "development" of what was, for
Furtwangler, "ultimate"--Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Furtwangler's Eighth was, again, much slower than what Beethoven intended
(as far as we could assert what B. did intend),(again) elating Beethoven's
last symphonic homage to Haydn toward a completely unexpected dimension of
monumentality, with the laughs of the Titans shaking the Earth in an, as
(almost) always with Furtwangler, wondrous, "spiritually filled and
fulfilling", lentor.
So: how is it that instead of writing about Mengelberg, I keep talking
about Furtwangler's Beethoven? Because, to this listener, the two
interpretive approaches, very different on the surface, ideally
complement each other and, most importantly, possess in common:
the "orchestral singing" blessing--more than any other conductor
in German repertoire
the intensity of delivery, within Schlegel's ideal of
"unseparated flame of Nature and Culture", of Schelling's Soul
that is not contradicted (as with Klages) by Spirit, but
enriched and rendered even livelier by it, the intensity of
delivery brought by two individuals that captured the imperishable
essence of the human race, adapting it to the rhythm of their own,
unique, precious, God-guarded, heart-beat
the innate idiomaticity -- even when they are doing (in principle)
"weird" things, there is some inadvertent righteousness in their
intercourse with German music, that eludes analysis; they
are the only conductors I know that have, to this degree, the kind
of unforced intimacy with Beethoven a popular rhapsode has with his
song, or a Duke Elington with his trumpet, quasi-unbeknownst to
themselves, as if their mothers sang to them Beethoven, in their
cradle, and made Beethoven's melos part of their respiratory
system, a sublime and ever-enriching toxine, never to be expurged
until the death do them part.
I'll write about some striking details present in Mengelberg's rendition
of Beethoven Symphonies--without forgetting that, as significant as such
details may be, they do represent nothing if not related to the whole,
the grasp of which is not expressible in words but, as Wagner said
about Beethoven, may be the privilege of the one that can fell into the
sin of adulation, without fearing ridiculousness.
1st Symphony
it was a first for me--this particular recording, I mean. One of the 4 or
5 Mengelberg recordings I've never heard. Among Mengelberg's three, is the
best, I believe, better played than the live Philips and more imaginative
and humorous than the 1930 NYPSO recording.
4th Symphony
who doubts what I wrote about Furtwangler's and Mengelberg's Beethoven is
free to compare this 12/'38 Telefunken with Furtwangler's 1943 live
recording (the most impressive I know). Mengelberg seems "classicizant" by
comparison, the "becoming" of the exposition is rendered within relatively
square coordinates, with the same expressive *potential*, but much more
restrained, in terms of lentor, tension and (with those three As that
become from root of the A Major chord, third of the F Major dominant
seventh chord--how could Beethoven extract so much from a "primitive"
modulation?!) explosiveness. The most savoury, typically Mengelbergian
detail, comes in the second movement, with the clarinet solo, where the
conductor amplifies unexpectedly the importance of the seventh diminished
arpeggios in the strings, transmuting them from "accompaniment" into
something more important than that. The Finale is taken at a most balanced
pace, on the slow side, with the benefit of the unmost balance and
precision of articulation, as well as the creation of the time frame that
allows the cantabile passages to breathe and to sing. Mengelberg
hence avoids the slightly ludicrous "perpetuum mobile", race feeling that
impairs other performances, cheapening the ethos balance of the whole
symphony. And both the bassoonist and the bass player must have prayed God
for Mengelberg's health...
5th Symphony
I have to confess that this particular masterpiece is the only one in
which I find a value discrepancy between Furtwangler's and Mengelberg's
interpretations. Mengelberg conducts it anyway as well or better than many
other conductors, but I believe Furtwangler somehow understood it much
better. He, in a way, "owned" it. Romain Rolland commented upon the
"skeleton" appearance of this music--a perfect, most impressive
skeleton, but bones only, no flesh, no skin. I believe that a rendition
that focuses on rhythmic obstinacy only is less than adequate, because it
accentuates the already obvious. Take the second theme, for instance. The
violin, flute etc. play "si mi re mi fa do do si" while the lower strings
(in recap they alternate with timpani) play the fate motive "si si si mi".
I always felt that I already had enough of that motive in the zone of the
first theme, and I was grateful to Furtwangler for actually obscuring the
potential percussiveness of the accompaniment, blending it, by playing the
motive softer and *willingly* foggy, into the contrasting lyric atmosphere.
Also Furtwangler brings out the big harmonic heart of the movement better.
Mengelberg's seems a bit too much on the stubborn side-perhaps the Philips
live recording represents him better in this case.
That doesn't mean that Mengelberg doesn't bring, as usual, his insights:
I don't remember having heard the oboe solo in the recap played so
beautifully--with Mengelberg you know that "sol fa mi re mi re do re
fa mi re" is a reminiscence of the Eroica's Funeral March (the second
part of the first theme, the one obsessively used by R. Strauss in his
haunting Metamorphoses). Also Mengelberg's second movement is never
overcharged, a truly subtle and gentle approach. The transition from the
third to the fourth mvt., instead, nobody ever played it as Furtwangler did.
To the indignation of some less inspired, if very respectable nonetheless,
colleagues (I remember Gunther Wand commenting negatively on that),
Furtwangler prolonged the G Major seventh dominant chord, from four bars,
as written, to anywhere between six and eight (!) bars (the longest, I
believe, being in the live 1947 BPO versions). Furtwangler also
demonstrated, by conducting *once* that chord as written (in the 1954 VPO
studio version), that he can communicate the same sense of inevitability
and titanic amplification of power, within the time prescribed by
Beethoven... but prolonging it underlines better the cosmic crucialness of
the moment.
6th Symphony
Conductors know this is, in many ways, the most difficult symphony.
Furtwangler chose to conduct it along a very slow basic tempo, with
organic tempo shifts that guaranteed the "arching" of the form beyond
slowness. His approach worked best, I believe, in his live 1944 BPO
(recorded in the Berlin Opera building) version and worst in his two
studio recordings, both VPO. Notably, Furtwangler considered this
symphony extremely challenging and generally avoided conducting it
other than with BPO and VPO, after an unfelicitous experience in Budapest,
when the orchestra simply couldn't give him what he wanted, in *this*
piece, and he operated a last-minute program change.
I particularly enjoy Mengelberg's way(s) with this symphony, basically
similar in the live 1940 and in this studio 1937 recordings. Brisk tempos,
wonderfully varied articulation. Here it should be said that Furtwangler
privileged very long phrases, not-too-varied strings articulation, a kind
of "generally applicable", if varied according to the musical context,
"expressive sonority", obtained in part by asking for continuous
vibrato in the strings and bowings on the long-side, while Mengelberg was
adept of alternating non-vibrato, little vibrato and (only as an
exception) molto vibrato passages, with more emphasis on portamento and
short bowings, varieties of accents and species of staccato, spiccato
etc.
The most outstanding feature in the second movement is Mengelberg's daring
textual modification that substitutes the 4 sixteen notes rhythm,
written by Beethoven to be played on the eight notes 11 and 12 (out of
12), with a sui generis quadruplet, to be played instead of the eight
notes 10, 11 and 12!! Why that? I asked him in my dream, and he told me(-:
"When I tried to choose a tempo for this movement, I faced the following
dilemma: if I conduct fastishly, the "si do re do do si" in the violins
sounds rushed and unexpressive, if I go slowishly, in accordance to the
expression I deem necessary for that motive, everything seems dragged
and, between "si do re do do si" and "si do re si si la", an eternity
seems to pass. With *my* option, I have time to "sing" the violin motive,
playing underneath the "si fa fa sol fa fa mi re re do si si" at a
not-boringly slow tempo. More, my coming with the "si do re do do si" on
the tenth eight-note instead of the eleventh makes the beat (the fourth
compounded beat) clear, allowing me to underline Beethoven's lovely
"off-beat" structure of the accompanying motive:
"si fa ^ fa sol fa ^ fa mi re ^ re do si" without distorting, in the
listener's perception, the meter, beyond recognition.
I know that 50 years after I will be dead, acrisia--afflicted people will
still show indignation in front of my "sacrilege", but to tell you the
truth, young lad, I don't give a Scheisse, my audience loves this movement
when I conduct it, it never seems long or repetitive under my baton,
because I also know how to bring a new color within each modulation and
how to underline the new elements that appear--a flute ascending arpeggio,
a viola sixteen-notes figuration and so on! Beethoven would have been
pleased with my interpretation, because he was dead and, more, I am a
better conductor than he was!"
Third Symphony
I can not rush discussing this absolutely gorgeously and masterfully
interpreted, conducted, played and recorded 1940 version of Eroica--I
shall say, for now, that this is the best Eroica I've ever heard
(forgetting some even deeper-those "Tiefe"-touches!- in Pfitzner's 1930
recording). It is the most precious item in the album as well. Everything
is calculated to perfection, IMO, and never structural pertinence and
emotional depth were so perfectly blended as in this interpretation.
Furtwangler's Vienna 1944 version comes close to it but I prefer
Mengelberg's acuity in rendering the smallest detail with (more than
Harnoncourt's) meticulousness, while diversifying the resulting colors, in
the same time, even more than Furtwangler. I hope that an esteemed r.c.m.r
contributor, whose opinions I cherish very much, Mr. V. B., will change
his opinion on Mengelberg, by listening to this recording, that
outstandingly marries modernity and tradition, in a perfect
interpretation, if there ever was one.
regards,
Samir Golescu
__________
"Performing decently a musical masterpiece requires enormous patience,
great skill, and years of painful practice. Still, performing decently a
musical masterpiece is nothing more than insufficient and little more
than obscene."
samir ghiocel golescu
On Sat, 19 Feb 2000 rkha...@adnc.com wrote:
> Thanks for the report. I now see that my set has been shipped and
> should be here any day. Do you prefer the 1940 Eroica over the NYPSO
> one? (sound issues aside, I mean)
Very much yes! I find the much-famed 1930 NYPSO Eroica excellent by anyone
else's standards (I also believe it was the first recording to observe the
repeat of the exposition), but, for Mengelberg's own standards, prosaic.
(If there is any competition, is with the live CO recording, that has many
superb moments, and a more "inspirational" second mvt, not with the
NYPSO.)
Overall, adding the superb recorded balance of the Telefunken recording,
this is the one that is my favorite.
regards,
SG
rkha...@adnc.com
samir ghiocel golescu <gol...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
<<I hope that an esteemed r.c.m.r contributor, whose opinions I cherish
very much, Mr. V. B., will change his opinion on Mengelberg, by
listening to this recording, that
outstandingly marries modernity and tradition, in a perfect
interpretation, if there ever was one. >>
Last time I checked, Vadim's mind was pretty well set.
Thanks for the report. I now see that my set has been shipped and
should be here any day. Do you prefer the 1940 Eroica over the NYPSO
one? (sound issues aside, I mean)
Ramon Khalona
Carlsbad, California
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
rkha...@adnc.com
> > should be here any day. Do you prefer the 1940 Eroica over the
NYPSO
> > one? (sound issues aside, I mean)
>
anyone
> else's standards (I also believe it was the first recording to observe
the
> repeat of the exposition), but, for Mengelberg's own standards,
prosaic.
I reached the opposite conclusion upon hearing the Eroica on the
complete cycle issued by Philips, but I must say that the low quality of
the CD transfers may have had something to do with it. Just two days
ago I found a mint Philips 2-LP set of the Ninth and the Fifth that
sound MUCH better than what Dutch Masters offers on CD. The 7th in that
CD release sounds particularly horrible.
C'est la vie Mengelbergienne!
RK
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
Personally, my current favorite performance of that piece is the 12/8/52
Furtwangler. I prefer it to the 1944 VPO recording. To me, the slower tempos
are used in a way to both bring out more beauty in the smallest detail and
also to build the most tremendous and constant building of tension leading to
all the more dramatic climaxes. Barry
samir ghiocel golescu
On Fri, 18 Feb 2000, Tag Gallagher wrote:
>
>
> samir ghiocel golescu wrote:
>
> 6th Symphony
>
> >
> > I particularly enjoy Mengelberg's way(s) with this symphony, basically
> > similar in the live 1940 and in this studio 1937 recordings.
>
> Is this a third recording, different from the January 1938 performance on
> Teldec 243.728 (with Meistersinger prelude)?
No, it's the same--one of the CDs must have been misdated.
regards,
SG
Wasday
compare the Orchestras?
rec.music.classical recordings
samir ghiocel golescu
> I reached the opposite conclusion upon hearing the Eroica on the
> complete cycle issued by Philips, but I must say that the low quality of
> the CD transfers may have had something to do with it. Just two days
> ago I found a mint Philips 2-LP set of the Ninth and the Fifth that
> sound MUCH better than what Dutch Masters offers on CD. The 7th in that
> CD release sounds particularly horrible.
> C'est la vie Mengelbergienne!
Please tell us if between the 198x Philips CDs and the Dutch M. you
noticed any difference. I had, from the old(er) CD bunch, the 1+2, the
4+5, the 6+Fidelio and the 9th. A collector copied for me the *7th*, after
the *LP* and it sonded damn' good!!!
Deryk Barker
:
: On Sat, 19 Feb 2000 rkha...@adnc.com wrote:
:
: > should be here any day. Do you prefer the 1940 Eroica over the NYPSO
: > one? (sound issues aside, I mean)
:
: Very much yes! I find the much-famed 1930 NYPSO Eroica excellent by anyone
: else's standards (I also believe it was the first recording to observe the
: repeat of the exposition)
And the last, IIRC< until de Sabata's in 1947. Mengelberg's 1940
Telefunken doesn't observe it.
--
|Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept. | Music does not have to be understood|
|Camosun College, Victoria, BC, Canada| It has to be listened to. |
|email: dba...@camosun.bc.ca | |
|phone: +1 250 370 4452 | Hermann Scherchen. |
samir ghiocel golescu
On Tue, 22 Feb 2000, Deryk Barker wrote:
> : Very much yes! I find the much-famed 1930 NYPSO Eroica excellent by anyone
> : else's standards (I also believe it was the first recording to observe the
> : repeat of the exposition)
>
> And the last, IIRC< until de Sabata's in 1947. Mengelberg's 1940
> Telefunken doesn't observe it.
It is true. This avoiding repeat, combined with faster tempos, made
possible for the 1940 recording (sauf erreur!) to be contained in 5 "78"
discs, as opposed to *6* "78"s for the 1930 NYPSO! Not a very musical
argument, I have to agree.(-:
I generally don't care that much about repeats (the contemporaneous mania
of taking, everywhere, alll the repeats is a disease--especially in
Symphonies like Brahms Second). I affirm that the keyboardist able to take
all the repeats in Goldberg and to sustain my interest for 90 minutes
wasn't born yet. (Others may feel differently, of course. I trust the
audience from the recent Murray Perahia concert where he played
conscientiously Goldberg with ALLLL the repeats, for about 90 minutes.
Half of the public was literally falling asleep, you could hear an amazing
polyphony of snorings!).
However, in Eroica, the formal balance (the sheer numbers of bars
allocated to exposition, development and coda) kind of requires the
exposition's repeat... Nonetheless, I dare say Mengelberg's 1940
Telefunken makes bountifully up for that sin, if sin it is...
regards,
SG
Peter T. Daniels
> I generally don't care that much about repeats (the contemporaneous mania
> of taking, everywhere, alll the repeats is a disease--especially in
> Symphonies like Brahms Second). I affirm that the keyboardist able to take
> all the repeats in Goldberg and to sustain my interest for 90 minutes
> wasn't born yet. (Others may feel differently, of course. I trust the
> audience from the recent Murray Perahia concert where he played
> conscientiously Goldberg with ALLLL the repeats, for about 90 minutes.
> Half of the public was literally falling asleep, you could hear an amazing
> polyphony of snorings!).
I heard of an album of 78s that included an instruction to play side X
again in order to hear the repeat the way the composer intended ...
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@worldnet.att.net
samir ghiocel golescu
Even more than one, I believe. What I remember for sure is that this was
the case for Mengelberg's Telefunken 1943 (not 1942, it seems) Schubert
Ninth.
regards,
SG
Thomas Deas
http://www.cdparadise.com/ser/serdsp.asp?shop=1&isbn=GEMS74&DB=620
£20.49 + £2.04 postage in UK. I haven't yet received it, so I can't speak
for the quality of service.
samir ghiocel golescu
On Tue, 22 Feb 2000, samir ghiocel golescu wrote:
> It is true. This avoiding repeat, combined with faster tempos, made
> possible for the 1940 recording (sauf erreur!) to be contained in 5 "78"
> discs, as opposed to *6* "78"s for the 1930 NYPSO! Not a very musical
> argument, I have to agree.(-:
And error it was! *7* "78"s as opposed to *6*!
SG