When Handel composed his Judas Maccabaeus in 1746 he had brought to an end his activity for the (Italian) opera in London and begun a second career as an oratorio composer, which at first got off to a very successful start but then soon experienced a decline, for which there had been various causes. Judas Maccabaeus is the evidence that Handle had recovered from this setback, and to this day the work is considered one of his most successful. Rafael Kubelík relies, without ifs and buts, on the Handel Edition by the North German musical scholar Friedrich Chrysander that appeared in the second half of the 19th century and represents a monument of the scholarly musical historicism that probably could appear only in Germany and not in England, Handel’s artistic home. Apart from the old-fashioned German translation, most astonishing is the drastic cuts that Chrysander made. This historical live recording from 1963 presents Fritz Wunderlich as Judas together with Agnes Giebel, Julia Falk, Naan Pöld and Ludwig Welter.

Germany’s oldest Mozart festival celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2021. The present jubilee boxed set presents previously unpublished treasures from the archive of the Bavarian Broadcasting. All live recordings from the Baroque Imperial Hall at Würzburg Residence are digital remasters.

Mozart’s Don Giovanni is a staple of operatic repertoire. The two-act opera is tenth on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide. Don Giovanni is based on the legends of Don Juan, a fictional womanizer and seducer, and has a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. This release is a recording from 1985, conducted by Rafael Kubelik. One of the last century’s most revered conductors, Kubelik only made a few complete opera sets, and this opera is the only Mozart among them. Alan Titus performs as Giovanni. Opera magazine praises him as he “generates lively spirit in his scenes with Rolando Panerai, a Leporello into in 60s but still able to inflect his lines with verbal point as well as expressive colour: the Catalogue aria is quite masterful in its slightly seedy relish.”

In the summer of 1968, a few days after the brutal suppression of the Prague Spring, the exiled Czech Rafael Kubelík conducted a gripping concert in his adopted home of Lucerne: a vital Haydn symphony and a passionately glowing Fourth by Tchaikovsky framed Schoenberg's Piano Concerto. Kubelík takes up the cause of the Tchaikovsky symphony as if it were a declaration of the victory of the spirit, of freedom over all the forces of fate, was the verdict of a critic at the time on the closing concert of the Lucerne Summer Festival in 1968. The historical parallels to the current situation with the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine are unmistakable: A few days before Rafael Kubelík's performance, the socialist reform movement in Prague had been brutally crushed by the tanks of the Warsaw Pact. Kubelík, a Czech in exile who had chosen to live in Lucerne, not only pleaded for a break in artistic relations - a call that musicians such as Arthur Rubinstein, Yehudi Menuhin and Igor Stravinsky joined. He had also asked the Lucerne concert-goers for support for his "Foundation for Czechoslovak Emigrants after August 21, 1968".

Kubelík's dramatically sharpened reading of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony captivates the audience with strikingly abrupt changes in tempo and tone, and heightens the orchestral virtuosity in the finale to a furor. He had opened the guest performance of the New Philharmonia Orchestra, as the Philharmonia Orchestra temporarily called itself after a secession and refoundation, with Haydn's Symphony in E-flat Major Hob. I:99. Another highlight: Schoenberg's Piano Concerto with John Ogdon as soloist, who never recorded this work. With an unerring sense of the abruptly shifting characters of this music and its ongoing variational processes, Ogdon and Kubelík succeeded in producing a textually accurate, gripping interpretation. All three live recordings are first releases.

The visiting Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra opened its concert at the 1967 Vienna Festival with a high-octane performance of Dvorák’s patriotic overture The Hussites. In the Brahms Violin Concerto, the elegant soloist Henry Szeryng and the conductor Rafael Kubelík entered into a musical dialogue that was both subtly sensitive and quick-witted. This release has been digitally mastered from the original tapes for optimal sound quality, and is sure to delight a whole new generation of listeners.

REVIEWS:

Some recordings need merely seconds to make their mark, especially when taken from memorable concerts. One such occurred on June 11, 1967, when the Bavarian RSO under Rafael Kubelík were joined by Henryk Szeryng at the Vienna Konzerthaus for a performance of Brahms’s Violin Concerto, music-making that exhibited a degree of elasticity and intellectual elevation that is typical of both artists (it’s newly reissued but was originally released by Orfeo in 2017).

Try the first movement’s big central tutti at 8’38”, Kubelík’s natural brand of rubato and the strings’ soaring tone, winding down to Szeryng’s meditative re-entry soon afterwards. And there’s the superb oboe solo at the start of the Adagio, the perfect preparation for Szeryng’s angelic solo. Rarely have I heard a reading that captures the music’s rhapsodic spirit as tellingly as Szeryng and Kubelík do here, tracing the line’s ever-shifting expressive focus with an uncanny musical instinct. And the bustle of the finale, crisp and upbeat, its gypsy inflections unmistakable from the off, its lyrical central section returning us to the songlike aspects of the first two movements.

But it’s the disc’s opening track that in many respects proves a prize among prizes, Dvořák’s Hussite Overture, music originally intended as part of a dramatic trilogy on the Bohemian religious leader Jan Hus. The principal theme is more famous for its use in Smetana’s Má vlast but Dvořák knits it into a 13-minute panoply of dramatic events that Kubelík and his players respond to as if their lives depended on it. There have been fine commercial recordings but none that fans the flames quite as effectively as this one. The stereo recording wears its years lightly. Unmissable!

-- Gramophone

After an excellent Hussite Overture from Kubelik and the orchestra, the conductor shapes Brahm’s tutti well, working up quite a storm and not relaxing too much for the lyrical theme. Szeryng’s entry is imperious; he produces lovely lyrical playing for the quieter passages.

-- The Strad

The stereo sound is quite good, and not just for the time—it is vivid and full, making for an enjoyable listen. I feel a touch of regret at having missed out on Szeryng this long, but in the spirit of better late than never, this is a memorable recording that deserves high praise.

-- Fanfare

Known as St Cecilia Mass, Haydn’s fifth Missa is the longest and most complex setting of the Latin Mass text. Rich in elaborate contrapuntal interweaving and with a duration of more than one hour, it reveals Haydn the opera composer. The present recording of a concert, performed in 1982 in the Ottobeuren Basilica with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir under the baton of Rafael Kubelik, is still considered a reference recording of the work. Niccolò Jommelli’s Mass in D major and his Te Deum were both written during his time at Charles Eugene’s Württemberg court, where he is said to have held the highest paid musician post in Europe. The Württemberg court loved French music and at the same time the virtuoso Mannheim school. These, together with Jommelli’s Italian roots, also shaped the composer’s stylistically diverse sacred oeuvre. The Te Deum with a brief length of not even a quarter of an hour, was frequently played even up until the early 19th century.

This shouldn’t be your only recording of this fine work, but if you do without Wunderlich, you are missing a great deal.

This 1962 production of Xerxes was based on Rudolf Steglich’s 1958 version, which is distinguished by close reference to the autograph, preserved in the British Museum, and by a new German translation; the roles of Xerxes and Arsamenes, originally written for castrato sopranos, are here set for tenor. As regards the orchestra, Kubelik favors a rather objective string sound, completely avoiding the monumental, with discreet vibrato, and adopts Baroque terraced dynamics and tempo relationships that avoid extremes. In today’s view his interpretation turns out to be, therefore, midway between those productions based on Oskar Hagen’s arrangement, which was frequently committed to a romantically-colored understanding of the Baroque, and the modern original-sonority versions. The cast starring Fritz Wunderlich, Naan Pöld, Hertha Töpper, Jean Cook, Ingeborg Hallstein, Carl Christian Kohn und Max Pröbstl makes clear how high a level an opera production could attain at that time.

REVIEW:

Maestro Rafael Kubelik’s rendering of Xerxes–albeit auf Deutsch – is practically “enlightened”. No lengthy ritards at the close of arias, very little vibrato from the strings, some embellishments from the singers. No, we cannot unhear the remarkable “HIP” readings by McGegan, Bolton, Mackerras, and others, but Kubelik’s is entirely valid–sort of.

The roles of Xerxes and his brother Arsamene were written for a castrato and female contralto, and here we get two tenors, the first of whom, I’d guess, was part of the raison d’être for the recording. Fritz Wunderlich, just into his 30s, had taken the German opera houses by storm. With Frankfurt, Freiburg, and Stuttgart already under his belt, he sang Strauss’ Die Schweigsame Frau at the Salzburg Festival in 1959 and scored a brilliant success.

He had never sung Xerxes prior to this recording, although he was familiar with “early” music and had sung in Bach’s Passions. Kubelik immediately found him astonishing–the voice utterly beautiful, diction perfect, mastery of both legato and coloratura. Please, hear for yourself: this is such stunning singing that the vague antediluvian-ness of it all is not bothersome.

The rest of the cast is better than we have any reason to hope for as well: Unknowns to me are American soprano Jean Cook, a sweet Romilda, but nothing to write home about, and Naan Pöld, a fine German oratorio tenor as Arsamene. Ingeborg Hallenstein’s Atalanta has plenty of passion, and her flights into the vocal stratosphere–a high-F at one point–dazzle. Amastre is mezzo Hertha Töpper, so familiar and so routine from endless German recordings from the ‘60s. Karl Christian Kohn and Max Proebstl are fine as General and Comic Servant to Xerxes.

Sound is remarkable for its time. No, this shouldn’t be your only recording of this fine work, but if you do without Wunderlich, you are missing a great deal.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Robert Levine)

Questions of editions and orchestration aside, Modest Mussorgsky's penetrating, powerful and potent four-act Boris Godunov, arguably the greatest Russian opera of the 19th c., requires no less than a figure of towering stature to portray this late 16th - early 17th c. Russian Czar. This 1958 Covent Garden performance led by Czech conductor Rafael Kubelik, in his last year as the Royal Opera House music director, has such a figure in Boris Christoff, a bass of considerable vocal and acting talent. Josephine Veasey, Geraint Evans and Regina Resnik, among other cast members, prove no less formidable.

A congenial coming together of kindred spirits.



MOZART Piano Concertos: No. 22, K 482; No. 23, K 488 • Daniel Barenboim (pn); Rafael Kubelík, cond; Bavarian RSO • BR 900709 (58:48)


Twenty-eight year old Daniel Barenboim and the esteemed conductor Rafael Kubelík are heard here in two of Mozart’s most profound and appealing piano concertos. Twenty years later, in 1990, Barenboim recorded these concertos with the Berlin Philharmonic, this time as both pianist and conductor. Between these years, Murray Perahia in his early 30s, as both pianist and conductor, recorded these concertos (in the mid 1970s) with the English Chamber Orchestra, and elder statesman Rudolf Serkin recorded them (in the mid 1980s) with Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra. Barenboim, while continuing a busy schedule as a pianist, eventually became principal conductor or music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and later of the Berlin Philharmonic. Perahia continues, on occasion, to conduct chamber orchestras from the keyboard. Serkin never, to my knowledge, served as conductor. These facts are a source for interesting performance comparisons of these concertos. I am wary of the practice of conducting from the keyboard when the orchestral demands are equal to those of the piano or of any other keyboard instrument, and these two concertos make such equal demands.


The first and third movements of the E? concerto (K 482) on this CD are played at rather fast tempos, producing an inappropriate tension and a consequent masking of detail, robbing the listener of the ability to savor the beauty of Mozart’s creation. The exception is the andantino cantabile middle section of the third movement, where the tempo is suitable. The second-movement variations, however, are exceptionally well played, but the thrilling effect of the right-hand C Minor against the left-hand C Major (starting at the legato at bar 13 from the end) in the final variation is not discernible. Barenboim’s 20-year-later effort as pianist-conductor is much more successful, principally because of his more relaxed tempos. The C Minor/C Major effect in the final variation, however, remains hidden. Perahia as pianist-conductor produces a more satisfying K 482 than either of Barenboim’s efforts by using not only relaxed tempos but more effective phrasing. The C Minor/C Major effect in the final variation is no longer hidden at Perahia’s command. Unfortunately, Perahia’s decision to use Hummel’s cadenzas in the first and third movements was not a wise one. The Serkin/Abbado K 482 is still my favorite because of its very many virtues. Serkin’s characteristically deliberate tempos benefit this concerto by allowing the listener to hear detail not easily discovered, even in Perahia’s fine account. Abbado’s ability to allow inner part-writing to be clearly heard matches Serkin’s attention to detail. The C Minor/C Major effect in the final variation is crystal clear, and as a result an ecstatic experience. Bars 181–182 (shortly before the andantino cantabile ) in the final movement pass unremarkably from both Barenboim and Perahia, but Serkin plays them with an agogic that allows accenting of the first note of each of the four occurrences of four 16th-note groups. The result (at 4:00 in the Serkin recording) is magic.


The A-Major Concerto (K 488) fares better than its companion concerto under Barenboim/Kubelík and under Barenboim-“squared.” The more relaxed first-movement tempo of Barenboim-squared is initially preferable to that of Barenboim/Kubelík, but the latter has the distinct advantage of more discernible orchestral detail. But Barenboim’s more relaxed tempo in his dual role eventually becomes a bit sluggish. The plaintive F?-Minor Adagio has Barenboim at his best in both recordings, but Kubelík’s independence as conductor produces a more convincing emotional effect. The final movement is a Barenboim/Kubelík triumph in terms of the exuberance demanded by the music and the orchestral detail provided by the conductor. Especially noteworthy are the important bassoon passages, which are never masked, and the three appearances of the passage borrowed from the first movement of the B?-Concerto (K 456), which are gloriously bouncy. The final movement under Barenboim-squared is too subdued—too square, as it were. My preferences for the A-Major Concerto are Perahia-squared (but never square) and Serkin/Abbado. The former is the master of phrase shaping and the latter the master of attention to detail.


This is a disc worth having because Barenboim and Kubelík have something unique to say about these concertos. My preferences may lie elsewhere, but hidden details like bassoon passages and C Minor/C Major superposition are revealed enough by familiarity with the music to free them from complete hiding.


FANFARE: Burton Rothleder


Barenboim first collaborated with Kubelík when the pianist was sixteen. That encounter was in Australia. And K488 was the first concerto he played in public, back when he was eight. The conjunction of that concerto and the Czech conductor comes in this release from BR Klassik, which presents a collaboration made in June 1970 in Munich where Kubelík was music director of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

This was a compatible meeting of minds. Barenboim is on record as having admired the older man for his seriousness and vitality, and it certainly sounds to have been a congenial coming together of kindred spirits. Kubelík ensures that the string weight in K488 is not too saturated but remains clarified, if not exactly spruce. Meanwhile Barenboim is characteristically attentive in his exchanges with the wind principals – the warmly supple dialogue with the first flute is a case in point. The first movement cadenza is conspicuously well played but contains melancholic introspections that are fully realised in the central movement – the veiled anticipations lead with inexorable logic to the deepening expression that follows. What remains laudable is that this expression comes at no cost to the architectural continuity of the music making. Instead the clarinets offer reprieve in their flowing episodes and the grandeur of the melancholy is adroitly realised by a confluence of soloists, alert orchestral colours and detailed etching of rhythms and contours from the conductor. Released from this spirit, the finale explores more bucolic emotions – bubbling lower winds, clarity and rounded ebullience from Barenboim and if the recording somewhat favours, as so often, the soloist - meaning that some winds writing can be swamped - this deficiency doesn’t materially limit one’s appreciation of a fine traversal, a unanimous one moreover, expressively and intellectually.

These features apply equally to the companion concerto performed here, the Concerto in E, K482. The Military-Janissary quality is welcomingly celebrated by Kubelík, the crisp chording having more than a touch of imperial majesty about them. Barenboim evokes something of his hero Edwin Fischer’s simplicity of expression. His excellently conceived cadenza playing impresses and so too does the austerity and interior expression of the slow movement. The reminiscent reverie cultivated in the central panel of the finale attests to the probing introspection of these collaborations.

Naturally Barenboim’s concerto cycle with the ECO will be the first port of call for collectors of the commercial discography from around this time. But these almost contemporaneous live traversals are of lasting value given the assured and sensitive direction of Kubelík.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

A superb collection of very early Kubelik recordings, including numerous world premieres.

This is an excellent collection honoring Rafael Kubelík. The two jam-packed CDs of live 1940s broadcasts include his central repertoire, works he championed very early on, and indeed multiple world-premiere recordings. Not least is the first-ever recording of Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, a live concert dating from December 1946; we also get a live reading of Dvorak’s Piano Concerto with Rudolf Firkusny, from the first-ever Prague Spring festival, and, although the booklet doesn’t identify the premiere recordings, I’d be surprised if any earlier performances of the Martin? Fourth Symphony or Memorial to Lidice, or Dobiás’ Stalingrad Cantata, exist.
 
The collection begins with Dvorak’s Eighth, in quite constricted sound - turn up the volume more than normal - but glittering with the kind of brilliance Kubelík brought to the piece for his entire career. Aside from a prominent trumpet flub in the finale, it’s a highly accomplished live reading by the Czech Philharmonic, revealing they and the conductor were masters of the symphony even in the besieged year of 1944. The piano concerto, in sound which suggests that the orchestra is playing somewhere very far away, nevertheless powers forward with energy and vigor. Firkusny plays the old “revised” piano part, with the absolute command which explains why he has long been associated with this piece. Luckily for us, the recording of his piano is much better than we’d expect from the murky-sounding orchestra. Firkusny’s cadenza is especially fine, although more recent interpreters - Aimard with Harnoncourt, say - are more to my liking in the poetic slow movement with its beautiful opening horn solo.
 
Shostakovich’s Ninth - the first recording of the work - is given a performance unlike any since. The outer movements are remarkably speedy affairs, with some live sloppiness but a lot of spirit and neoclassical sharpness; by contrast the second movement sprawls over ten minutes, the slowest I’ve ever heard it. Compare 10:33 to Vasily Petrenko’s 8:46, Leonard Bernstein’s 8:10, or indeed Rudolf Barshai’s 5:43. The scherzo is rather languid, too. All in all a fascinating account of how different it is from the way the symphony is performed today, and it’s worth overlooking the constant audience noise. What may cause distress is the fact that distortion in the tape results in the entire symphony sounding like it is being performed in E rather than E flat!
 
Bohuslav Martin?’s Fourth, a celebratory masterpiece inflected with joy, energy, and inner peace, receives a great performance here (1948). It’s hard to imagine a more thrilling scherzo than Kubelík’s, whirling forward in a great rush of excitement, but by contrast he really milks the gorgeous romanticism of the slow movement, unafraid to play up the different moods - doubt at the beginning, something very like love after 6:00. Belohlávek’s recent recording on Onyx with the BBC Symphony may be preferable in the finale, where the new account’s freer tempos underscore the triumph of the ending, which Kubelík - maybe intentionally - leaves more ambivalent. The recorded sound is sufficient to give the orchestral piano its place, although you will miss some bass lines and timpani and the incredible colors of the opening pages. Supraphon engineers have, as elsewhere, used technology which removes the hisses and pops but at the expense of a slightly constricted acoustic.
 
The disc is rounded out with Martin?’s Memorial to Lidice - a moving rendition which goes more slowly and tragically than many, although Eschenbach’s reading on Ondine is the most anguished I’ve heard - and a novelty, the Stalingrad Cantata of Václav Dobiás. Written in 1945, the cantata for baritone, male chorus, and orchestra is an eleven-minute paean to the Soviet forces, or at least I’m assuming so, because the sung texts are not provided. The music sounds a bit like a ramshackle Nevsky Cantata, with the same wildness and raw masculine energy but without the tunes or distinction. It counts as a welcome rarity, though, because recordings of Dobiás are otherwise basically non-existent.
 
These are valuable historical broadcasts all around, then, from the world premiere recordings of Shostakovich’s Ninth and probably a few other works too, to the Dvorak concerto from the first Prague Spring festival. Rafael Kubelík’s conducting is consistently superb and insightful; his Martin? is energetic but powerful, his Shostakovich like nobody else. This can all be had in more modern recordings - the Dvo?ák symphony from Mackerras or Kubelík himself, the Martin? from Belohlávek or Thomson - but as a two-disc monument to Kubelík’s superb work with the Czech Philharmonic, this can’t be beaten. For a one-CD tribute to that pairing of great artists, though, we must remember the unforgettable Smetana concert they gave after the end of the Cold War.
 
-- Brian Reinhart , MusicWeb International

The principal champion pre-Colin Davis of Hector Berlioz's neglected 19th c. masterpiece Les Troyens was Rafael Kubel�k. This Milan 1960 recording - now back in the catalog - is a remarkable sound document. The sound is basic; there are cuts; and it's in Italian rather than the original French. But it also makes for electrifying listening. Kubel�k conducts with intensity and dignity. Featuring a cast that includes Mario Del Monaco, Giulietta Simionato and the under-represented on disc Nell Rankin, it's essential listening for anyone with an interest in Berlioz. - The Guardian, 2012.

PENTATONE’s third release from Rafael Kubelik’s acclaimed Beethoven cycle of symphonies in its Remastered Classics series is his commanding reading of the sixth, seventh and eighth symphonies performed by the Orchestre de Paris, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra. Sometimes known as the “hymn to humour”, the genial eighth symphony sits as an intriguing gem between the imposing seventh and stupendous ninth symphonies. In a performance described as “light-footed and bristling with energy” (AllMusic), Kubelik captures the work’s essentially irreverent spirit with vibrant and colourful playing from the Cleveland Orchestra. Rafael Kubelik recorded his cycle of Beethoven symphonies in the 1970s for Deutsche Grammophon, each with a different orchestra, earning widespread praise. Although recorded in multi-channel sound, these unmissable performances have previously been available only in the conventional two-channel stereo format. Using state of the art technology which avoids the need for re-mixing, PENTATONE’s engineers have remastered the original studio tapes to bring the performances to life as originally intended: in compelling and pristine multi-channel sound. Other releases from PENTATONE in the Kubelik Beethoven cycle are the Symphonies 1 & 4 (with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra) and Symphonies 2 & 5 (with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra).

Dating from the 1970s, Rafael Kubelik’s incisive and acclaimed reading of Beethoven’s second and fifth symphonies is the latest release in the Remastered Classics series from PENTATONE, performed with panache by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. For a work that was written during an unhappy period of his life, Beethoven’s second symphony nevertheless bristles with infectious humour and vitality. Its striking innovations startled contemporary audiences, from the imposing opening to the capricious scherzo and the witty, energetic finale, but Beethoven’s indebtedness to the classical symphonies of Haydn and Mozart are still quite apparent. Goethe described Beethoven’s turbulent fifth symphony as “very great, quite wild; it makes one fear that the house might fall down.” Its visceral energy is announced right from the start with its famous opening notes whose hammer blows drive the development of the symphony – from the dark, brooding drama of the opening movement to the spectacular and radiant outburst in the triumphant final movement. It’s one of Beethoven’s most riveting and compelling works and one of his deservedly most popular. These recordings form part of the acclaimed cycle of Beethoven symphonies Rafael Kubelik made for Deutsche Grammophon in the 1970s, each symphony performed by a different orchestra.

Moura Lympany (1916-2005) was the last of the major Matthay pupils. In 1938 she shot to international fame when she finished second to Emil Gilels in the Queen Elisabeth competition. A brilliant technician, she made the first complete recording of the Rachmaninov preludes in the 1940s and gave the western premiere of Khachaturian's piano concerto and subsequently recorded it. The HMV recordings presented here emphasize her virtuoso credentials and feature many of the piano's most fearsome warhorses. This is repertoire she excelled in and her performances of, for example, the toccatas of Ravel and Prokofiev, have rarely been equaled.

Rafael Kubelik's excellence in Mahler can almost be taken for granted. In general, his live performances offer a higher degree of risk-taking than his studio efforts, which show more care for balance and proportion (generally with no loss of excitement, it must be stressed). The pattern holds here in this live Ninth, recorded in Japan in 1975. A horn bobble here and there notwithstanding, the Bavarian orchestra plays with fire and conviction, and somewhere along the line it has acquired a decent sounding tam-tam, which does wonders for the first movement's dramatic final collapse. The performance resembles Kubelik's Deutsche Grammophon recording in most respects. His "live" tempos are a bit more contrasted in the Rondo:Burleske, and he gets punchier accents from the muted brass in the first movement, resulting in creepier quiet interludes. The finale still moves along at a flowing tempo, rising to a positively incandescent principal climax. NHK Radio's sonics make the BRSO strings sound thinner than they do on DG, but surely closer to an actual concert experience since in all other respects the balances faithfully reproduce the dynamic nuances of Mahler's score. Kubelik's way with this composer certainly was special, and no Mahlerian will want to miss this chance to hear him conduct the Ninth live. --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This great and popular series continues from Audite. This performance is taken from the Bavarian Broadcasting Company tape of a concert in Munich on October 8, 1982. Other titles in this series are Symphony No. 1 (Audite 95.467), #5, (Audite 95.465) and # 9, (Audite 95.471). This series will sell. Check now and make sure you have at least one in stock in each store.

MICHAEL RABIN, VOLUME 2 • Michael Rabin (vn); Zino Francescatti (vn);8 Brian Sullivan (ten);10 Rafael Kubelík, cond;1 André Vandernoot, cond;2 Charles Blackman, cond;3 Alfred Wallenstein, cond;4 Thomas Schippers, cond;5 Dimitri Mitropoulos, cond;6 Thomas Scherman, cond;7 Donald Voorhees, cond;8–13 Lothar Broddack (pn);17,18 Chicago SO;1,2 Natl O Association;3 Los Angeles PO;4 Berlin RSO;5 New York PO;6 Little O Society;7 Bell Telephone Hour O8–13 • DOREMI 7951, mono (3 CDs: 240:53) Live: Ravinia 11/3/1967;1 7/11/1968;2 New York 5/7/1950;3 4/29/1954;6 3/19/1962;7 4/28/1952;8 5/16/1955;9,10 12/17/1951;11–13 Berlin 10/17/1961;14,15 12/17/195117,18 Broadcast: Santa Barbara 1953;4 6/5/19695

BRAHMS Violin Concerto.1 Contemplation (arr. Heifetz).11 PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 2.2 WIENIAWSKI Violin Concerto No. 1: Movt. 1 (2 versions).3,4 BRUCH Violin Concerto No. 1.5 MOHAUPT Violin Concerto.6 CRESTON Violin Concerto.7 BACH Violin Concerto, “Double”: Vivace.8 MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto: Mvmt. 3.9 MASSENET Elégie.10 KREISLER Caprice viennois.12 SAINT-SAËNS Introduction and Rondo capriccioso.13 PAGANINI Caprices: No. 5; No. 9; No. 13; No. 14; No. 17; No. 24.14 YSAŸE Solo Violin Sonata No. 3.15 SPALDING Dragonfly.16 MILHAUD Saudades do Brasil: Tijuca.17 SZYMANOWSKI La fontaine d’Aréthuse18


DOREMI’s collection of live recordings by Michael Rabin includes notes by Anthony Feinstein, whose book, Michael Rabin—America’s Virtuoso Violinist , Amadeus Press, was published in 2005. Feinstein, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, managed to blend biographical narrative with creditable analysis of Rabin’s purely violinistic accomplishments and, ultimately, difficulties; and he does the same thing, though in brief, in his excellent notes. Rabin’s work, as he points out, falls naturally into two periods. Collectors will have already acquired the recordings he made in the studio during his early years for Columbia (Sony Masterworks Heritage 60894, 23:2) and for Angel (“Michael Rabin, 1936–1972,” EMI 64123 15:5)—and DOREMI has released a volume of live performances, including Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 8 and Fauré’s Violin Sonata No. 1, both from October 30, 1962, and Paganini’s 17th Caprice from August 7, 1950 (7715, 24:1). After that golden period, Rabin’s career collapsed (I tried to hear him several times, but he didn’t make his engagements, being replaced once by Roman Totenberg), only to be resurrected several years later. That’s what Feinstein calls the “controversial” period, citing conflicting opinions of Rabin’s reappearance by Henry Roth (who considered it unprepossessing) and Arnold Steinhardt, who discerned healthy vigor in the new Rabin.


Rabin stated, according to Feinstein, that if he were to have resumed his recording career, he’d have liked to begin with Brahms’s and Beethoven’s concertos. DOREMI’s opening of the first disc with a live performance of the Brahms Concerto from 1967 therefore seems particularly appropriate. Extraordinary noise from an overhead aircraft seems eerily significant in light of the discussion in Feinstein’s book of Rabin’s love of flying, which extended even to making model airplanes. Rabin does sound stronger and more hard-edged in this performance than listeners to the mellifluous concerto recordings from his years at EMI might have expected. Yet there’s plenty of warmth to balance his appealing incisiveness and clarity of definition (in addition to the rapt lyricism with which he returns with the orchestra after the cadenza). In this combination of steely strength and ingratiating warmth, he seems to have found a complement in both the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and in Rafael Kubelík. Though Heifetz may have been Rabin’s idol, the votary’s reading of Brahms remains a far distance from the Master’s in propulsive energy; and it seems even more focused than Heifetz’s taut readings had been on structural clarity rather than on Romantic atmosphere. Feinstein points out that though Rabin didn’t program 20th-century works regularly, he championed Prokofiev’s Second Concerto. In his performance of the work from 1968, Rabin’s hallmark appears more clearly identifiable than he may seem to be in Brahms’s work. Surely the first movement’s soaring second theme and the almost transcendentally ethereal song that opens the second movement provide just the kind of opportunities that Rabin found in Wieniawski’s concertos for a display of sumptuous lyricism of a kind that identifies his playing with Elman’s brand of tonalism (if not his penchant for waywardness), as well as with Heifetz’s searing intensity. Despite some occasional roughness in the first movement’s motoric double-stops, Rabin also generally succeeds in pressing his own electrifying technical command into service in creating spiky intensity in the agitated passages in all three movements. The notes might have pointed out that both Brahms’s Concerto and Prokofiev’s Second had also been Heifetz specialties. Feinstein suggests in his book that Zino Francescatti’s relationship with Rabin had been somewhat complicated by what readers might interpret as an interplay of Rabin’s adoration and Francescatti’s more straightforward admiration. Nevertheless, their collaboration in the first movement of the Bach “Double,” with each interweaving his distinct personality with the other’s, should make listeners wish that they had played the whole work that day. Mischa Elman’s famous exclamation to his accompanist, Joseph Seiger, upon hearing Rabin play Wieniawski’s First Concerto on the radio, that that ’s the only way to play it, makes his early live performances of the work of special interest. The one included in the first disc, from 1953, of the first movement, lacks some of what one of my students once described as the “Slavic ardor” that infuses his studio recording, but the technical passages have a freshness and lightning dexterity that seem even to surpass what he’d achieve in his reading with Boult and the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1957 (the first movement in that performance lasted almost a minute longer than this one’s 11:04, which includes an almost 10-second spoken introduction). The noise at the beginning shouldn’t detract from the sparkling appeal of this performance for Rabin’s followers. (Cuts in the orchestral part parallel those he made in the studio.)


DOREMI’s second disc begins with short pieces, the first three from 1951 for the Bell Telephone Hour: a seductively rich reading of Heifetz’s transcription of Brahms’s Contemplation ( Wie Melodien zieht es mir ), in which Rabin mimics Heifetz’s dashing manner to a T, and two pieces, an orchestrated version of Kreisler’s Caprice viennois (a piece he’d later record again, with Felix Slatkin and the Hollywood Bowl orchestra in 1959, with similar warmth and congeniality) and Saint-Saëns’s showpiece, Introduction and Rondo capriccioso , a Heifetz favorite that Rabin would also record in the studio—in fact, twice: once with Galliera in 1956 and again with Slatkin in 1959. Rabin made more of the work’s Spanish flavor (especially in the central episode) than Heifetz seemed to allow himself to indulge, yet he achieves a similarly electrifying effect overall. Performances of the third movement of Mendelssohn’s Concerto and Massenet’s Elégie come four years later, also for the Bell Telephone Hour. The announcer states that Rabin had made his debut with the orchestra in August 1950 with the same Mendelssohn; he’d record it in the studio two years later with Boult. This reading sparkles without Rabin pushing the tempo unduly (Ysaÿe’s famous reading seems, by comparison, headlong though dynamic) and exhibits some of the elegant portamentos that characterized his playing at this period, as does his contribution to Massenet’s Elégie . Two performances from a Berlin broadcast with Lothar Broddack (which also included the Beethoven and Fauré Sonatas mentioned above) from 1962 display Rabin in piquant and allusive moods; it doesn’t seem as though his apparatus had begun to deteriorate. Two concerto recordings follow. The first, a complete reading of Wieniawski’s First Concerto that took place on April 7, 1950, just a bit less than a month from Rabin’s 14th birthday, seems particularly remarkable because of the violinist’s youth. Wieniawski wrote the Concerto at 17, and a listener can’t help wondering whether Wieniawski himself could have played it as well at 13. Rabin doesn’t sprint in this performance, as he did through the later one from 1953, and, overall, the first movement makes the same stunning impression as (with fewer orchestral cuts) the later recorded version—enhanced, if anything, by the fact that Rabin still had seven years to go before the studio recording. Only the slightly cooler reading of the second theme sets this version apart from the famous collaboration with Boult. Otherwise, the double-stopped chords ring with the same resonance and the passagework displays the same winning panache, though Blackman and the National Orchestra Association don’t provide the same sympathetic support as did Boult and the Philharmonia Orchestra; still, they certainly allow the soloist more dance-like verve in the finale alla polacca . Rabin had chosen to record Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy in 1957, but not the more popular First Concerto. As Feinstein notes, when he played that First Concerto with Schippers in Berlin in 1969, his recording career had ended. Rabin still possessed some of the old-fashioned charm that he had brought to the Scottish Fantasy about a dozen years earlier, but, as in the Brahms Violin Concerto, he gave evidence of greater clarity, with less tendency to luxuriate in his seductive sound—even though the first movement’s most winning passages and the slow one’s melting lyricism still can haunt the listener’s imagination with echoes of Rabin’s past. But there’s excitement, too, conspicuously absent from the reading of the finale of Tchaikovsky’s Concerto on the Bell Telephone Hour (from VAI’s video 4215), which seems so much blander than Ricci’s on the same disc.


The third disc begins with solo performances. Rabin had recorded 11 Paganini caprices in 1950 for Columbia and the whole set in 1958 for Angel. So these readings, from 1961, represent the latest word we have, and they’re authoritative, with what seems more Italian lyricism, more of Francescatti’s dash (listen to the octaves in No. 17 or to the first variation in No. 24), and less simple cut and thrust (though equal attention to detail)—and, what’s more, they’re live! Alone, these should justify the entire price of DOREMI’s set. Rabin’s studio performances of Ysaÿe’s Third and Fourth Solo Violin Sonatas appeared in 1955, so this live performance of the Third from 1961 represents, again, somewhat later thinking—as did Oistrakh’s performance, it crackles with an authority that never struck me in Angel’s version. Albert Spalding’s Dragonfly (a study in arpeggios for solo violin that crosses the finale of Bartók’s Solo Violin Sonata with Locatelli’s Labyrinth ) provides fodder for Rabin’s technical cannon. Richard Mohaupt’s Concerto, which, according to Feinstein, Olin Downes considered a vehicle for a violinst but dry (I believe that Downes called Stravinsky’s Concerto a “futile thing”), sounds pretty exciting and very accessible in this reading—and, particularly in the first movement, as interesting as several of the concertos written for Heifetz (need I specify which ones?). That first movement, Capriccio, combines cinematic breadth with virtuosity, and Rabin plays it with high drama. In fact, it may be rather a shame that it hasn’t received any other recordings, unlike Creston’s Second Concerto, which also bears a strong connection to Rabin, its dedicatee and first performer. The first movement of that work seems a combination of Bartókian dissonance in the violin part (also characteristic of the cadenza in the second movement, which tests even Rabin’s accuracy) and a sort of ethnic American idiom (especially evident in the middle section of the long second movement, Andante). This kind of work didn’t offer Rabin the kind of lush melodic arches that his chosen repertoire enabled him to project, yet he makes a strong impression. The notes state that the archival material seems damaged at the opening, but, aside from the relatively poor quality of the recorded sound in general, it’s not disturbing in itself. But these two performances—of fresh works by Mohaupt and Creston—help complete the portrait of the artist that’s been disfigured by rumor and tragedy.


Any Rabin aficionado—and who isn’t one?—will have to acquire this set, but so will others who simply wonder about what became of the promising young talent who seemed to disappear from the world stage so suddenly. My impression from these recordings (I’d asked DOREMI’s Jacob Harnoy several years ago about the availability of live performances from the later years) seems more like Steinhardt’s than like Roth’s. Rabin had acquired a strength that made his performances sound somehow more modern, yet without the anonymity that often accompanies stripped-down playing. The recorded sound, perhaps generally worse in the earlier recordings, always seems adequate in view of what we’re listening to. Besides the Heifetz “Original Jacket Collection,” it’s hard to think of anything that could deserve a stronger, more urgent, recommendation, except, perhaps, for Rabin’s studio recordings (and maybe Feinstein’s book, which I also enthusiastically recommend), if they weren’t already available.

FANFARE: Robert Maxham

The latest release in the Remastered Classics series from PENTATONE is Rafael Kubelik’s sprited and acclaimed reading from the 1970s of Beethoven’s first and fourth symphonies, performed with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Delightful, infectious and witty, Beethoven’s first symphony is a paean to the classical symphonies of Haydn and Mozart shot through with very Beethovenian touches, such as the opening Adagio which starts in the wrong key and the final movement which struggles to get started at all. These peculiarities taken with the felicity and inventiveness of his writing make this a happy and evergreen work. Overshadowed by the monumental third and the dramatic fifth symphonies, Beethoven’s cheerful and optimistic fourth has been described as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” for its mix of engaging melodies, lurching rhythms, pungent dissonances and its vigorous orchestral writing. While structurally and harmonically more complex than the first symphony, it too is cast in the classical mould with a palpable nod to Haydn in the rousing final movement. Rafael Kubelik recorded his acclaimed cycle of Beethoven symphonies in the 1970s for Deutsche Grammophon, each with a different orchestra to dazzling effect. Although recorded in multi-channel sound, these unmissable performances have previously been available only in the conventional two-channel stereo format. Using state of the art technology which avoids the need for re-mixing, PENTATONE’s engineers have remastered the original studio tapes to bring the performances to life as originally intended: in compelling and pristine multi-channel sound. Further releases from this memorable cycle are planned this year in the Remastered Classics series: Symphonies 2 & 5 (October) and Symphonies 6, 7 & 8 (November).