GHCD 2337/38 - Johann Brahms (1833-1897) – Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) NYPO- CD1 – Serenade No. 1 in D major, Op. 11- 7/04/1935 – Serenade No. 2 in A major, Op 16 31/03 1935 – 75:27 - CD2 Academic Festival OvertureOp.80 – 15/03/1936 - Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 82 - 30/01/36– Robert Casadesus piano (1899-1972) – 4 - Partsongs for female voices, two horns and harp (Gesänge für Frauenchor) Opus 17 (1859-60)– 31/03/1935– 68:27
Arturo
Toscanini Conducts
Johannes BRAHMS
(1833-1897)
Serenade No.1 in D major Op.11 (1857-58) [41:59]
Serenade No.2 in A flat major Op.16 (1857-60) [32:33]
Academic Festival Overture in C minor Op.80 (1880) [10:30]
Piano Concerto No.2 in B flat major Op.83 (1881) [42:55] ¹
Four Part Songs; Gesang aus Final; Wein’ an dem Felsen der brausenden
Winde Op.17 No. 4; Der Gartner; Wohin ich ger’ Op.17 No.3;
Lied von Shakespeare; Come away, come away, Death Op.17 No.2;
Schubert arranged by Brahms; Jäger, ruhe von der Jagd D838 – sung in
English [14:50] ²
Robert Casadesus (piano) ¹
New York Ladies’ Choir ²
New York Philharmonic Orchestra/Arturo Toscanini
rec. New York 1935-36. ADD
GUILD GHCD 2337/38 [76:48 + 69:26]
The caveat to
this remarkable two-disc set must be the recorded sound. It’s boxy and limited
and given the off-air recording date of 1935-36 that’s only to be expected.
Nevertheless persistence is called for because the performances are formidable
and interpretatively cut from the finest cloth.
The most important things here are the two Serenades, which Toscanini programmed infrequently and never recorded commercially. Given the magnificence of the performances one can mark this as a decided loss. The performances were given a week apart at the end of March and the beginning of April 1935. The D major is lyrically buoyant and superbly eloquent. The lusty drones of the opening movement are balanced by the refined liquidity of the wind playing; the tempo is not over-pressed. And the sinewy directional command of the slow movement – a rapt Adagio non troppo – has commanding, graphic proportions. By the finale the winds are in tremendous form, the whole performance in fact attests to their warmth and incision.
The companion Serenade fares equally well. Its slow movement is the highlight, warmly moulded and nobly unfolded, albeit with some sectional imprecision – which hardly matter given the outstanding and communing depth of the playing. The warm joviality of the Rondo, with its complement of hunting horns, and sturdy rhythmic profile runs it a close second though. Toscanini was taped live in this with the NBC in 1942 but this earlier inscription is the warmer, more malleable and preferable, albeit in worse sound.
The second disc opens with a sonorous and yet yielding Academic Festival Overture and continues with the Second Piano Concerto. The commercial recording Toscanini made with Horowitz is a well enough known artefact but this Casadesus survival, though once out on LP, much less so. The uneasy partnership between the conductor and his son-in-law Horowitz is reflected in their recording, which I’ve always disliked. Casadesus’s performance is a different matter. He’s lithe, lean, light on the pedal, and drives into the drama at the heart of the first movement with enviable determination. The slow movement is warmly textured, poetically inflected by the French pianist and if not the last word in expressive penetration still finely nuanced. Altogether this is the better performance, and casts the irascible and uneven Horowitz recording in a different light. As a rather unexpected bonus we have some big-boned Part Songs sung by the New York Ladies’ Choir and recorded in January 1936.
One must reiterate the question as to the recorded sound but reinforce the superiority of the performances. The Serenades in particular are a joyful example of Toscanini’s mid thirties way with Brahms – in fact the set, well annotated and presented, is bursting with important things. Jonathan Woolf
Audiophile Audition Published on June 02, 2008
Philharmonic/Toscanini - Guild
Suave, unhurried Brahms from The Maestro, Arturo Toscanini
BRAHMS:
Serenade No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11; Serenade No. 2 in A Major, Op. 16; Academic
Festival Overture, Op. 80; Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 83;
5 Part-Songs, Op. 17; SCHUBERT (arr. Brahms): Jaeger, ruhe von der Jagd, D. 838
- Robert Casadesus, piano/New York Ladies’ Choir/New York Philharmonic/Arturo
Toscanini
Guild Historical GHCD 2337/8 (2-CDs), 2:26:17 [Distrib. Albany] ****
Suave, unhurried Brahms from The Maestro, Arturo Toscanini (1867-1954) from New
York, 1935-1936 in very good sound for the period. Toscanini always had his own
ideas about any music, but his gestalt for Brahms derived from Fritz Steinbach,
with the possible influence of Artur Nikisch. The D Major Serenade (7
April 1935) has the New York Philharmonic principal flute and first French horn
earning their salary, with excellent string tone and melodic flexibility in all
parts. The Adagio receives a particularly warm, generously vibrant treatment,
without that clipping of end-phrases that could plague many of Toscanini’s later
interpretations. Rustic charm for the Menuets, while the Scherzo
has a muscularity--real hunting-horn spirit--we will not hear again in symphonic
Brahms until the B-flat Concerto and the E Minor Symphony. The final Rondo
emanates a Haydnesque athleticism--despite some crackly acetates--even as its
figures receive pungently crisp articulation over elfin strings not far from
Mendelssohn and Beethoven‘s C Major Symphony.
The A Major Serenade (31 March 1935), of a dark and moody cast, begins
deliberately under Toscanini, the lyric impulse set over a resonant bass that
plucks its way through the lower strings and culminates in a variant of
Beethoven’s Fifth. Nice oboe work in latter part of the opening movement,
accompanied by some sweet flute aerobics. The Scherzo flies high--given
the absence of first violin--peppy and aerial, though the undercurrent ostinati
are ever present. The Adagio under Toscanini seems much closer to the D
Minor Piano Concerto than the companion serenade in the tonic major. Modal and
anguished, it hints at some of the longings we hear in the Adagio of the
D Major Symphony. The Quasi Menuetto proceeds rather gavotte-like to my
ear, but the woodwinds’ serenade elegantly courts our patrician sensibilities
and leads directly to a most spirited, unbuttoned Rondo, with Toscanini’s
whipping some real froth out of his French horn and clarinets. Shades of
Beethoven as undercurrent do not darken the skies beyond lyrical redemption from
oboe and violas.
Aggressive C Minor for the opening of the Academic Festival Overture (15
March 1936), which Toscanini takes as a bravura showpiece his seamless ensemble,
the French horns a real treat. Pesant and measured, often threatening, the
realizations seems less about frothy tuition than young masters of the universe.
Momentary wow and shatter in the shellacs does not inhibit our awe at
Toscanini’s ferocity prior to the horn and string two-note riffs prior to the
recap of the main theme, forte, and the cascading torrents of sound prior to the
frenzied march that ensues once more. The Gaudeamus igitur plays like
punches from James Cagney in City for Conquest.
The announcer tells us Mr. Robert Casadesus (1899-1972) will play the B-flat
Concerto, and he does--as he will many times--as a classically conceived
showpiece in which the piano may be subordinate to or enmeshed within the
symphonic tissue. Some pitch dropout at six minutes, but the first movement
achieves a compulsive momentum, Casadesus’ restraint notwithstanding. At the
segue to the plastic runs with woodwind antiphons, Casadesus plies a pungent
non-legato that breaks out into torrential arpeggios along the B-flat scale. The
entire first recap is cut from one piece of illuminated cloth, the tempo quite
brisk, perhaps not Herculean as with Horowitz nine years later, but just as
fixated on a preconceived end. The audience applauds vigorously at the coda, and
well they might. No frills for the scherzo, Allegro appassionato, just
direct business, with Casadesus whipping through the broken scales and
occasional legato with silken certitude. When Toscanini’s tutti emerges,
it exhales brassy grandeur, a D Major oracle. Wicked last bars bring more
applause. That Toscanini enjoys a good song becomes evident from the first cello
position for the third movement Andante, taken at a walking pace but
floridly gracious, with old-school, sweeping gestures at the ends of phrases.
Casadesus’ temper and trills are both fiery and elegant at once, often
converting the Brahms filigree into a Bach etude. A measured canter for the
Allegretto grazioso, sunny lightness, with moments of seismic bravura from
all principals. The audience has already passed into paroxysms of appreciation
long before the last notes have sounded.
We end with some Brahms part-songs (30 January 1936) from Op. 17, conceived when
he directed a women’s chorus as a burgeoning conductor. Osian’s Fingal is a
sweet piece, set in four-bar strophes after Beethoven‘s 7th , with strings,
harp, and horn accompaniment; it segues to “Weep on the Rocks,” harmonically
audacious. Eichendorff’s The Gardener opens with a motif taken from the
slow movement of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. “Come away, come away, death,”
despite the distant sound carries a morbid kind of beauty, the sentiment from
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Sir Walter Scott provides the text for the
final entry, Ellen’s second song from The Lady of the Lake, hunting horns
announcing of a kind of wedding march. Fascinating moments of rare Brahms
repertory from Toscanini, who, along with Henschel, Gericke, and Stokowski,
helped make the music of Brahms an American staple.
- - Gary Lemco
KLASSIK COM Sunday May 4th 2008
Es gibt CD-Veröffentlichungen, bei denen man sich lange fragt, ob man ein gutes Haar an ihnen lassen sollte oder es bedauern muss, dass sie – trotz herausragender Leistung namhafter Interpreten – auf drei nicht schnell genug in einer unauffindbaren Ecke der Archive verschwunden sind. Ein Fallbeispiel ist die zweite Folge der ‚Toscanini Broadcast Series’ auf dem Label ‚Guild Historical’. ‚Historische Aufnahme’, das lässt einen freilich sogleich die Ohren spitzen. Restriktive Tontechnik alter Zeiten ist nun mal dem heutigen Ohr gleichsam wesensfremd. Gleichwohl kann die heutige Technik aus alten Aufnahmen außerordentlich zufriedenstellende Restaurierungen produzieren, falls das Ausgangsmaterial dies überhaupt zulässt. Falls. Und damit ist das Manko dieser ‚Toscanini Broadcast Series’ formuliert, denn die Radioaufnahmen der Jahre 1935 und 1936 mit Toscanini und dem New York Philharmonic Orchestra sind in der Ausgangsqualität bereits derart unzureichend, dass etliche Rezensionsparameter nicht greifen können. Umso untröstlicher stimmt dies, weil diese Doppel-CD mit Toscanini-Aufnahmen von Brahms’ Serenaden, der Akademischen Festouvertüre, dem zweiten Klavierkonzert mit Robert Casadesus und vier Frauenchorliedern die enorm interpretatorische Qualität nur erahnen lassen.
Die Klangfolie dieser Archiv-Veröffentlichungen ist nämlich nicht die Musik, sondern das Rauschen, Knacken und Leiern der alten Bänder, die bei allem restauratorischem Aufwand nicht hinwegzurestaurieren waren. Da ist es fraglich, ob alles, wirklich alles, wohin des Maestros Hand jemals seinen Taktstock wandte, unbedingt den Weg auf die CD finden muss bzw. ob hier lediglich um des Archivierens willen archiviert wird. Hinter dem Knacken, Rauschen und Leiern wird der Hörer zumindest eines Hauchs einer Ahnung für die Spannkraft, die Toscanini dem New York Philharmonic Orchestra aberverlangt, gewahr. So es die Blechkastenakustik zulässt, erkennt man das symphonische Gepräge, das Toscanini den Serenaden angedeihen lässt, erkennt man die packende Dramatik, mit denen Robert Casadesus seinen Solopart im zweiten Klavierkonzert kernig abzirkelt oder wie der New York Ladies’ Choir die Chorlieder von Brahms auf Toscaninis Geheiß homogen abrundet. Ob die Musik in Transparenz oder Dichte oder in dynamischer Tiefenauslotung interpretiert wird, ist ebenfalls lediglich zu erahnen, denn mehr gibt die Tonqualität nicht her. Immerhin können diese Aufnahmen als Studienmaterial für jene dienen, die Toscaninis konsequente und fruchtbare Beschäftigung mit der Musik von Brahms zu einer Zeit, in der Brahms erst ‚en vogue’ wurde, erleben, besser: ‚erhören’ wollen – in welcher Tonqualität auch immer. Eirk Daumann
NEW CLASSICS TUESDAY APRIL 01 2008
Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) was considered by many critics, fellow musicians and contemporary audiences to be the greatest conductor of his time. Born in Parma, Italy, he studied cello at the local music conservatory before joining the orchestra of an opera company, with which he began his career as a conductor at the age of 19. He went on to conduct the world premieres of Puccinis La Bohème and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, and as well as being resident conductor at La Scala, Milan, he conducted to great acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, at Bayreuth and at the Salzburg Festival. This double-album of historic broadcasts by New York Philharmonic conducted by Toscanini is devoted entirely to the music of Brahms - a composer whose work was central to Toscanini’s repertoire throughout his career. Toscanini was thirty years old when Brahms died. Although they never met, Toscanini regarded Brahms as a contemporary. This exciting album includes the only available versions in the best possible modern sound of major works by Brahms which the great conductor never recorded commercially, or hardly ever. Principal amongst these is the first disc containing Brahms’s two Serenades for Orchestra, Opus 11 and Opus 16, which Toscanini never recorded commercially. The second CD contains rare performances of the Academic Festival Overture and the Second Piano Concerto with Robert Casadesus as soloist. Toscanini again never recorded the Overture commercially and the Concerto just once. As an intriguing bonus, the CD is completed by four of Brahms’s part-songs, three from his Opus 17 set and one an arrangement by Brahms of a famous song by Schubert (Toscanini again never recorded these works commercially). This rare set of recordings will be hugely welcomed by all collectors of great conducting, especially of the Maestro renowned for his brilliant intensity and restless perfectionism.
This new issue by Guild is arrived. The most important thing is the program. Serenades n.1 (April 7th 1935) and n.2 (March 31st 1935), Academic Festival Ouverture( March 15th 1936), Piano concerto n.2 (R.Casadesus, January 30th 1936), Four Part Songs (January 30th 1936).
The sources are provided by Claudio von Foerster, who has written part of the notes. The sound is not outstanding, and suffers of a quite intrusive noise due to either the radio broadcasting or the noise reduction software, but the value of these really rare recordings overcomes the sound quality (the recordings are complete, with apparently no gaps or patches). In the last lines it is noticeable that Mr. von Foerster (probably of German origin, but actually living in Buenos Aires) speaks about a "new series of recordings on the Guild Historic label", that I hope means that more recordings will be available in the future, recovering a long gap after the apparent divorce of Mr. Caniell from Guild.
The
performances are very interesting (all with the New York Phyl). Maybe the fact
that the A.F.O. and the concert have a comparison in the subsequent recordings
with the NBC and (in the concert) with W. Horowitz, can give more arguments of
discussion in the approach to these Brahms' works. But IMHO the most evident
differences are in the Ouverture, less "serious" the in the late NBC approach.
About the concert, I have to admit that sometimes I prefer this performance to
the later one (Horowitz is too much "eroic"; and, more, I prefer, particularly
in the adagio, the Furtwangler+Fischer approach). The sweetness of the 4th
movement is really involving, with more relaxed reading than the nervous
Horowitz
(to my ears, of course).
The serenades show a fine orchestral ensamble and a beautiful approach, probably very important to have a better idea of Toscanini's Brahms in the '30s. The songs, though not an absolute chef-d'-oeuvre, are another aspect of Toscanini work with little orchestral and ensembles. Ezio
Page revised Wednesday June 25th 2008