As I observed about a month ago, before undertaking a “broad view” of the CDs in Sir John Barbirolli: The Complete Warner Recordings devoted to performances by the Hallé Orchestra of nineteenth-century composers, I wanted to focus on two of the composers from the end of that century: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Antonín Dvořák. This may raise a few quizzical eyebrows, particularly in the context of Dvořák’s fruitful relationship with Johannes Brahms. Nevertheless, there are a few factors in favor of this grouping.
First of all there is the relative close proximity in age. Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840, followed by Dvořák less than a year and a half later on September 8, 1841. More relevantly, both of these composers had strong nationalist streaks, inspired by traditional source music from Russia and Bohemia, respectively. Both had ties to the United States; and, while he is better known for the time he spent in Spillville, Iowa, Dvořák served as the Director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City from 1892 to 1895. Tchaikovsky was associated with a more enduring New York institution, having been one of the two conductors to preside over opening night at Carnegie Hall on May 5, 1891, where Barbirolli himself would conduct only a few decades later. (The other conductor was the German-born American Walter Damrosch.) Less significantly, both Dvořák and Tchaikovsky tend to be best known for their last three symphonies.
The house in which Tchaikovsky composed his “Pathétique” symphony (photograph by Stoljaroff, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
Those six symphonies make up the “bulk” of Barbirolli’s Hallé recordings of these two composers. The Tchaikovsky offerings are Opus 36 (fourth symphony) in F minor, Opus 64 (fifth symphony) in E minor, and Opus 74 (sixth “Pathétique” symphony) in B minor. There are also a few shorter selections, including the “Romeo and Juliet” “Overture-Fantasy,” the Opus 31 “Marche Slav,” and a string section performance of the “Andante cantabile” movement from the Opus 11 (first) string quartet in D major. I doubt that any readers need to be reminded that, with the possible exception of the string quartet movement, these are all highly emotionally-charged selections.
Fortunately, Barbirolli fully appreciated the dangers of out-Heroding Herod in conducting these compositions. (I suspect we all have our favorite examples of conductors that lacked such appreciation.) Since all of these selections were recorded for stereophonic releases, one can admire the technical fidelity to the wide dynamic range encountered in all of Tchaikovsky’s full-orchestral scores. What is important is that Barbirolli is more interested in the sharp contrasts across dynamic levels, rather than simply pushing those levels to extremes. Thus, for example, when the first movement of Opus 36 involves a series of ascents to loud climaxes, Barbirolli knew how to realize the larger-scale ascent evolving as one climax leads to the next. As a result, these are recordings that capture the full expressiveness of Tchaikovsky’s music without ever devolving into a series of tantrums.
Under the current numbering conventions (as opposed to those in effect when the albums were first released), the Dvořák symphonies are Opus 70 (seventh) in D minor, Opus 88 (eighth) in G major, and Opus 95 (ninth, “From the New World”). Readers will probably notice that this includes the only one of the six symphonies in a major key, and Opus 88 definitely established the most positive rhetoric of the bunch. However, the minor mode is also represented by a recording of the Opus 44 wind serenade in D minor. This also makes a nice complement to the strings-only account of the “Andante cantabile” (which is the only Tchaikovsky selection in the major mode). The Dvořák offerings also include the Opus 66 “Scherzo capriccioso” and the orchestral versions of the fourth, sixth, and seventh pieces in the Opus 59 Legends collection.
Taken as a whole, Barbirolli can work with greater expressive breadth in conducting the Dvořák selections. However, as in his approaches to Tchaikovsky, he knows how to manage a dynamic contour over the full extent of a movement. This can even be appreciated in the Opus 44 serenade, in which the movements are relatively short and depend more on instrumental color than on dynamics. It is also worth noting that the recording of Opus 44 is coupled with music that is not by Dvořák, Charles Gounod’s “Petite Symphonie” in B-flat major. This results in a “side-by-side” presentation of how composers from two different generations (Gounod’s being the earlier) chose to work with writing for a wind ensemble.
More perplexing was the decision by Warner Classics to couple Tchaikovsky’s Opus 74 with Carl Nielsen’s Opus 29 (fourth “Inextinguishable”) symphony. This is the only recording of Nielsen’s music in the entire Warner collection; and my guess is that someone on the production team said, “Well, we have to put it somewhere.” In that context coupling the rhetorical intensity of that symphony with that of Tchaikovsky’s Opus 74 is probably as good a decision as any.
Nevertheless, because Barbirolli’s account of Nielsen is as perceptive and expressive as his recordings of Tchaikovsky, I find that I have a bone to pick with the business side of music history. The recording sessions for Opus 29 took place in September of 1959. This was a time when Nielsen was little known by anyone not living in Denmark, even though his Opus 50 (fifth) symphony had been performed at the 1950 Edinburgh Festival.
Then, in 1962, Leonard Bernstein brought Opus 50 to the New York Philharmonic concert series and made a recording for Columbia. The author of the Wikipedia page for that symphony asserts that the recording “helped Nielsen's music to achieve appreciation beyond his home country” (reinforced with three footnote citations). I remember when that recording was released, and it got more than healthy exposure through classical music radio stations. However, while it oriented me to how the symphony was structured, I was never particularly sold on the piece until I listened to Herbert Blomstedt conduct a performance with the San Francisco Symphony, which pretty much got any connection between Bernstein and Nielsen out of my system! In that context I would say that Barbirolli’s approach to Opus 29 was up there rubbing shoulders with Blomstedt, and the Columbia release had much more to do with balance sheets than about the qualities of the performance that was recorded.
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