Bruno Walter on Columbia: Beethoven

Bruno Walter on the cover of a Sony Classical reissue of the “Hollywood” recording of Beethoven’s Opus 125 (from the Amazon.com Web page)

In Bruno Walter: The Complete Columbia Album Collection, released by Sony Classical about two month ago, the amount of attention given to the music of Ludwig van Beethoven is only a little bit less than that accorded to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph Haydn combined. However, this is one of those cases where numbers can be deceiving. There is far less diversity among the Beethoven recordings due to considerable repetition.

Each of the nine symphonies was recorded at least twice, once on the East Coast with either the New York Philharmonic or the Philadelphia Orchestra and once in Hollywood with the “West Coast version” of the Columbia Symphony Orchestra (probably involving members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic). Indeed, three of the symphonies, Opus 55 (“Eroica”) in E-flat major, Opus 67 (fifth) in C minor, and Opus 125 (“Choral”) in D minor, were recorded twice In New York (although in the case of Opus 125 it appears that only the final movement was recorded a second time). The same can be said of the Opus 61 violin concerto in D major. However, in this case the soloist in New York was Joseph Szigeti, while the Hollywood recording was made with Zino Francescatti.

To be fair, multiple recordings of the same composition can sometimes be informative. This may be the case if one approaches these sessions with a highly-refined attention to detail. However, most listeners are unlikely to detect much difference; and one reason that may be is that Walter may well have performed these selections using the scores that Gustav Mahler, whom Walter had assisted in Vienna, had annotated.

Readers may recall that I made a similar suggestion regarding the recordings of the music of Mozart and Haydn. This was part of my cautionary observation that one should not expect “historically informed” performances from Walter. Rather, his interpretations of Beethoven are consistently rich and full-blooded; and even the “historical purists” would do well to sit up and pay attention to his approaches to phrasing and tempo. Nevertheless, I have to confess that I was disappointed that a recording of the Opus 123 Missa solemnis in D major was not made in either New York or Hollywood. Fortunately, I have the resources to give further thought to how “post-Walter” conductors have approached this problematic composition!