This second article about the performances offered in Sony Classical’s Dimitri Mitropoulos: The Complete RCA and Columbia Album Collection will focus on composers active during the first half of the nineteenth century. This is a period in music history that often has many serious listeners cringing over the prospect of another same-old-same-old performance. More often than not, I tend to be one of those listeners; but it did not take long for me to appreciate that Mitropoulos was not one to follow the beaten path of others.
I suppose that the portion of this repertoire that had the greatest impact on my listening practices involved the music of Felix Mendelssohn. Just about any Mendelssohn performance I have experienced, in concert as well of on recordings, has left me with the impression of an interpretation that was skilled but glib. This has definitely been the case in past encounters with the symphonies, only two of which are included in the Mitropoulos anthology. One of these, however, has two different performances, one with the Minnesota Orchestra and the other with the New York Philharmonic. This is the Opus 56 (“Scotch”) symphony in A minor. On the Philharmonic album it is coupled with the Opus 107 (“Reformation”) symphony in D major.
All three of these recordings convey a sense a sense of urgency in Mitropoulos’ intense (but never over-the-top) approaches to tempo. These are interpretations that leave the serious listener on the edge of his/her/their seat. However familiar the score may be, one attends to the recording intently, wondering what Mitropoulos will do to each successive episode in the score. To some extent that urgency also arises in his approach to conducting the Opus 64 violin concerto in E minor with Zino Francescatti as his soloist.
The “seeds” of Mitropoulos’ rhetoric also emerge in his Minnesota recordings of Robert Schumann symphonies. These account for Opus 61 (the second) in C major and Opus 97 (the third “Rhenish”) in E-flat major. Recordings from this period also include Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 11 (first) piano concerto in E minor, as well as Carl Maria von Weber’s “Jubilee” overture. These recording also hold the attention, but the grip is not as compelling.
After his move to New York, Mitropoulos shifted his recording attention to Hector Berlioz. Once again, this involves placing the all-too-familiar Opus 14 “Symphonie Fantastique” in a refreshingly new perspective. Most important is that Mitropoulos brings to light ventures into unconventional instrumentation that were clearly intended by the composer but are often “smoothed over” by too many conductors. Mind you, this may well have involved a first-rate working relationship between the conductor and his engineering team; but the results are eyebrow-raising, however they came to be!
That relationship also surfaces in his recording of the Opus 17 “Romeo and Juliet.” Probably because of limitations of space, the album consists only of the orchestral score, meaning that the vocal movements have been elided. Having listening to Opus 17 in its entirety in concert, I cannot complain about those elisions. There is something disheartening about watching vocalists (particularly favorite vocalists) just sitting there twiddling their thumbs over most of the course of the evening!
On the other hand the one remaining album features soprano Eleanor Steber. It includes the Opus 7 “Les nuits d’été” (summer nights), followed by a selection of songs with orchestral accompaniment. This is definitely a satisfying approach to music that deserves more attention than it tends to get. The one problem is that the sleeve for this CD only includes the texts for the Opus 7 songs (and those are barely legible). The accompanying book has the information about the remaining songs on the album, but no texts are provided anywhere.
Finally, on the Minnesota recording of Mendelssohn’s Opus 56, rather than coupling the symphony with another symphony, there is a performance of the Opus 22 Capriccio Brillant in B minor. The solo pianist is Joanna Graudan. The final track of the album is then devoted to Mendelssohn’s own orchestral arrangement of the Scherzo movement from his Opus 20 octet in E-flat major. The tempo for this movement is Allegro leggierissimo, and Mitropoulos is particularly impressive in how he can elicit that leggierissimo from a full ensemble. To some extent that effect arises from his almost breakneck pace, making this performance as stunning as the original setting for eight strings (if not more so).
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