NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. RCA, recorded live in Carnegie Hall, Nov. 9, 1951
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras, cond. Telarc, recorded in Usher Hall, Edinburgh, January 1997
Gerhart Hetzel, violin; Vienna Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded live in the Musikvereinssaal, Oct. 3, 1981
by Ken
It's not that complicated a story, and by no means an especially profound one, I'm trying to tell here, about this searingly beautiful movement we heard in Sunday's preliminary "post tease" ("How do we -- or maybe I mean how did Brahms -- get to this from this?"). I thought, though, that we could use an additional round of teasing before we get to it, and so we've started by rehearing our not-exactly-mysterious "mystery" Adagio sostenuto, in three performances that are about as different -- not just in pacing but in outlook and texture and tone -- as I could throw together on short notice.
FOR THE RECORD, I'M KEEPING ONE "TEASE" PROMISE
I said we would be hearing in full the grand 1981 Bernstein-Vienna performance of our Andante sostenuto from which we heard excerpts. And I think you'll agree that, as I wrote, "it's, um, something": by a good measure the most gradual performance of the movement (and probably of the symphony it comes from as a whole) I've encountered. For deliberate contrast -- with regrets for the three decades' worh of technological evolution that separates them -- I've tapped that old record-catalog standby the 1951 Toscanini-NBC recording, a sample of what we might call "Fifties Toscanini": quickish, tonally unnuanced, longer on forward movement than contemplation. (Note that it's not just a matter of tempo. The Bruno Walter performance we heard in the Sunday "tease" is just a few seconds longer, but the sense of movement is different.)
In between the Toscanini and Bernstein versions I've placed the interesting Mackerras-Telarc version, the product of an effort to rehear Brahms's symphonies in terms of the kind of orchestral and musical world he was familiar with. Note, most obviously, that it's the Scottish Chamber Orchestra we hear here. (In addition, Telarc offers a reconstruction of an earlier version of this very movement, certainly an interesting thing to hear, though it's a piece of a very different story: not any kind of "authenticity" but the way Brahms's mind brought him to continuously finer levels of imagining.) It's all interesting stuff to think about, and even (up to a point) to hear. It's just not entirely surprising that the persuasiveness of the performances is mostly a separate issue.
SAY, WHAT DO WE SUPPOSE COMES NEXT?
Isn't this something you're wondering, isn't it? Where do we go after this interlude of luminosity Of course we don't have to "suppose." We can hear what comes next. Why, we can hear it from the very same forces.
BRAHMS: Un poco allegretto e grazioso
NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. RCA, recorded live in Carnegie Hall, Nov. 9, 1951
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras, cond. Telarc, recorded in Usher Hall, Edinburgh, January 1997
Vienna Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded live in the Musikvereinssaal, Oct. 3, 1981
Well, that's, er, something too. One thing I can tell you is that this is the shortest symphonic movement Brahms composed -- and we are dealing hear with the two middle movements of a four-movement symphony. I think both middle movements' contexts will become much clearer once we hear the symphony as a whole. I just wanted to introduce us to the idea of this pair of movements as, you know, a pairing. What made the composition of this symphony -- was figuring out what kinds of components Brahms wanted to go into it to collectively create the kind of whole he himself was working so hard to imagine.
Maybe it would help if we could listen to them more or less consecutively. Through the miracle of cut-and-paste, we can do just this.
Toscanini
Andante sostenuto
Un poco allegretto e grazioso
NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. RCA, recorded live in Carnegie Hall, Nov. 9, 1951
Mackerras
Andante sostenuto
Un poco allegretto e grazioso
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras, cond. Telarc, recorded in Usher Hall, Edinburgh, January 1997
Bernstein
Andante sostenuto
Un poco allegretto e grazioso
Gerhart Hetzel, violin; Vienna Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded live in the Musikvereinssaal, Oct. 3, 1981
How was that? (I won't be able to tell for myself till I post this. As a reminder -- and I know it's not your headache -- thanks to Google's last round of revision to the Blogger software I haven't found any way of seeing a version of any post with playable audio clips until I post it.) Now I think we're ready to move forward.
#
"After-post: As promised, here's a proper quick-sampling of the three Brahms piano quartets" [5/10/2021]
By Borodin Trio et al.: 3 perfs each of 1st mvmt of all 3 Brahms piano quartets (+ Schoenberg orch. of No. 1)"Even if Brahms's new work-in-progress was going to be a piano concerto rather than a symphony, he still had to create forms for it" (aka Part 2 of "More 'pre-post' than 'tease' ") [5/9/2021]
Brahms & Beethoven mini-clips. Perfs A-B-C of Brahms Piano Cto No. 1 = Fleisher-Szell-Cleveland, Curzon-Szell-LSO, Serkin-Szell-Cleveland; bonus perfs = Curzon-van Beinum, Serkin-Ormandy"More 'pre-post' than 'tease': If our sights are set on Brahms's First Symphony, why are we listening to his First Piano Concerto? (Part 1)" [5/6/2021]
"Perfs A-B-C" (+ 2 bonus perfs!) of i. Un poco sostenuto"Just a bit more teasing before we get to the main post . . ." [5/4/2021]
Perfs of 2 Mystery Movements (Brahms 1: ii. Andante sostenuto, iii. Un poco allegretto e grazioso) by Toscanini, Mackerras, Bernstein"Post tease: How do we -- or maybe I mean how did Brahms -- get to this from this?" [5/2/2021]
Start and finish of Mystery Movement (Brahms 1: ii. Andante sostenuto). Perfs by Walter, Herbig, Barbirolli, Furtwängler, Celibidache, Toscanini
#
No comments:
Post a Comment