Masur’s Late Nineteenth-Century Repertoire

I have now traversed the full extent of late nineteenth-century music accounted for in the Warner Classics 70-CD box set of recordings made by conductor Kurt Masur. Had I realized how many recordings this would entail, I probably would have taken the same approach I took with the Dmitri Mitropoulos anthology and separate the music of Tchaikovsky as a separate category, as I had already done with Masur’s Brahms recordings.

Masur is definitely more thorough than Mitropoulos had been. He accounts for all six of the numbered symphonies, as well as the Opus 58 “Manfred” symphony, all performed with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. On the other hand his New York Philharmonic recordings include all three of the piano concertos, all performed with pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja. There is also a second recording of the first concerto, Opus 23 in B-flat minor, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Cécile Ousset as the soloist.

Finally, there is an album entitled Pas de Deux: Famous Waltzes. I have to confess that I found this one more than a little gratuitous. As anyone that knows more than beans about the ballet will quickly recognize, there are no pas de deux selections on the album. The waltzes come from a variety of sources, not just the ballets but also the Opus 24 opera Eugene Onegin, the last two symphonies, the Opus 48 serenade for string ensemble, and the incidental music composed for a production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. All of these waltzes are gems in their own respective rights, but enough is enough!

In terms of quantity, the music of Antonín Dvořák comes in at a distant second. The only symphonies are the two most popular, Opus 88 (the eighth) in G major and Opus 95 (“From the New World”) in E minor. There are samples of shorter works, including three of the Slavonic dances. More interesting is the trilogy of overtures collectively titled Nature, Life and Love. These are Opus 91 (“In Nature’s Realm”), Opus 92 (“Carnival”), and Opus 93 (“Othello”). Opus 93 is a rather odd candidate for “love;” but, since it receives so little attention, one can appreciate its presence in Masur’s repertoire. Finally, there is a New York Philharmonic performance of the Opus 53 violin concerto in A minor with Maxim Vengerov as soloist.

Vengerov also appears with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in a performance of Max Bruch’s Opus 26 (first) violin concerto. This is the only Bruch selection in the collection, but it gets a second performance by Sarah Chang with the Dresden Philharmonic. Somewhat more generous is the share for two symphonies by Anton Bruckner, WAB 104 (the fourth in E-flat major) and WAB 107 (the seventh in E major). Both of these were recorded with the Philharmonic, and that was probably as much as the New York audiences could take of Bruckner. The only other composers to be allotted an entire CD are César Franck, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and early compositions by Gustav Mahler. Max Reger and Modest Mussorgsky have to make to with sharing their respective albums with other composers, not necessarily making the best of company.

Thus, while there is much to appreciate in Masur’s accounts for this impressive diversity of repertoire, one might have argued for a better balance of the contributing composers.