courtesy of Naxos of America
Where new recordings are concerned, the year got off to an unexpectedly imaginative start with the latest release by AUDITE Musikproduktion of live concert recordings from the Lucerne Festival. The album features Karl Böhm conducting the Vienna Philharmonic (VPO) in repertoire that departs significantly from what we tend to expect of him, either operas or the familiar symphonic repertoire of composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, and Johannes Brahms. Ironically, the two selections on the album were both recorded at performances on September 6; but they are six years apart. The earlier recording was made in 1964, a performance of Anton Bruckner’s seventh symphony. This is preceded on the album by the recording made in 1970 of Paul Hindemith’s concerto for woodwinds, harp, and orchestra.
The Hindemith concerto is likely to strike many as the bigger surprise. However, the composer and the conductor were very close contemporaries by birth; and, given how much attention Böhm gave to the operas of Alban Berg, his interest in Hindemith, albeit for symphonic music rather than opera, should not be too surprising. My guess is that Böhm’s interest was piqued by the instrumentation; or possibly he was persuaded by the VPO musicians who had few efforts to shine as soloists. The “beneficiaries” of this concerto were flutist Werner Tripp, oboist Gerhard Turetschek, clarinetist Alfred Prinz, bassoonist Ernst Pamperl, and harpist Hubert Jelinek. What may have “sealed the deal,” though, may well have been the raucous sense of humor that rules over the final (third) movement of this composition. Hindemith composed this music at the time of his silver wedding anniversary, and he seems to have decided to celebrate with an over-the-top loopy mashup of the themes from the wedding music that Felix Mendelssohn composed as incidental music for William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Nothing could be more different in spirit than the Bruckner symphony that follows. For those unfamiliar with this music, it is probably best known for the second movement, which is the longest of the four. Bruckner began work on this movement knowing that Richard Wagner was in poor health and would probably not live much longer. As a result, the instrumentation for this movement includes four Wagner tubas. It also includes cymbals and triangle, more than a little surprising for a composer whose interest in percussion rarely extended beyond the timpani. Those instruments appear at the movement’s climax, supposedly reflecting the fact that Bruckner had just learned of Wagner’s death and chose to depict his “heroic” entry into heaven. (The percussion instruments were actually suggested by Arthur Nikisch, who conducted the premiere performance by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra on December 30, 1884.)
The score that Nikisch used was never published. The first publication was prepared by Albert J. Gutmann in 1885, probably serving as the best possible document of the music as Nikisch had conducted it (including the “extended” percussion parts). However, it also reflected influences by Franz Schalk and Ferdinand Löwe.
By the time that Böhm conducted this music, two further editions had been published. The first of these appeared in 1944, prepared by Robert Haas, who was determined to work from the one autograph copy dating from 1883 and to eliminate all influences due to Nikisch, Schalk, and Löwe. The Haas edition is best recognized for the absence of all percussion in that second movement. Ten years later (in 1954), however, Leopold Nowak published a new edition that basically reversed all of Haas’ “improvements.” His only real change to the Gutmann edition was to put any changes in tempo from the version that was premiered in brackets. For his Lucerne performance Böhm went back to the Gutmann edition.
Many tend to shy away from Bruckner’s symphonies, complaining that his extended durations for most of the movements are excessive. Having listened to this particular symphony both in performance and on recording, I have to say that Böhm seems to have found the “sweet spot” that avoids just about any sense of excess. Mind you, 1964 was when Böhm was closely associated with the Metropolitan Opera’s performances of works by both Wagner and Richard Strauss. The conductor clearly knew how to manage the subjective reaction to extended durations, and his “tool kit” would have served him equally well in managing those durations in Bruckner.
To be fair, however, it is hard to avoiding thinking of Hindemith and Bruckner as “strange bedfellows” on this album; but what is more important is Böhm’s ability to guide the attentive listener through these decidedly different offerings without showing any sign of preferring one over the other.
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