The recordings featured in this 10-album collection audibly illustrate this exceptional conductor’s life and career. Beginning with the first recording for gramophone of Gustav Mahler’s...

The recordings featured in this 10-album collection audibly illustrate this exceptional conductor’s life and career. Beginning with the first recording for gramophone of Gustav Mahler’s “Kindertotenlieder”, which he directed in Berlin in 1928, they continue with the interesting Paris recordings of Hindemith’s “Mathis” Symphony, the Ravel concertos with pianist Vlado Perlemuter through to his collaboration with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, a mutually appreciative relationship to which he brought his accumulated experience. The spotlight shines throughout on the studio recordings made in Vienna and Baden-Baden. Under Horenstein’s baton, the South West German Radio Symphony Orchestra, first nurtured by Ernest Bour and then elevated to the highest European standard by Hans Rosbaud, plays at its very best. In Vienna, where musicians mainly from the Vienna Symphony had come together under the name Pro Musica, he recorded the great European concert repertoire – often including exceptional soloists such as Alfred Brendel and Ivry Gitlis. At the same time, he made important, early recordings of the Mahler and Bruckner symphonies. The programme is rounded off by the recordings with the London Symphony Orchestra from the early 1960s, the live recording of Mahler’s Third under the direction of Jascha Horenstein, recorded for the first time ever, representing a special highlight.

 

REVIEW:

 

From the opening blaze of the horns of this 1961 Mahler’s Third where Summer triumphantly marches in, Horenstein sustains tense drama. The Scherzo is given with an appropriately equal share of humour and bitterness and the expansive Finale has great depth of feeling. Horenstein gives a truly great performance of Mahler’s First Symphony and the sound of this 1953 recording is clear and well-detailed. Mahler is also represented by his Kindertotenlieder; not the expected Horenstein Vox version with Norman Foster but the historic 1928 recording with Heinrich Rehkemper. Although the orchestra has a very dated sound, Rehkemper’s voice reproduces clearly and is suitably balanced. This is a sensitive interpretation of poignant music; Rehkemper’s gentility in the final song is very touching.

 

This Vox Bruckner Eighth recording from 1954 presents an eloquent reading, not quite so clearly recorded as the Mahler but with much weight and power; in particular the performance unifies the many different aspects of the Finale. Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler has a richness of string tone within a rather plain radio recording but the performance shows the conductor’s grasp of music that sounded very modern in its day. A disappointing Strauss Don Juan follows. Things are a little better in Death and Transfiguration where the orchestra plays with appropriate feeling.

 

Apart from displaying Horenstein’s interpretational skills in symphonic music, there are examples of his abilities as accompanist.  A real delight is the excellently recorded 1962 performance of Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy. Odessa-born David Oistrakh and Kiev-born Horenstein join the London Symphony Orchestra to give as ‘Scottish’ a performance of this delightful work as I can remember.

 

Of the many recordings violinist Ivry Gitlis made in Europe those for Vox were in Vienna and here the bright elegant tone of his violin is ideal as he plays Bartók’s Concerto No.2 with flair and precision; he uses a more acerbic tone than usual – entirely suitable for the music. Pianist Vlado Perlemuter  interprets the G-major Piano Concerto with ease and flair. The Colonne Orchestra provides an often-angry accompaniment; the transformation of their themes to whirling piano sequences has a steadying influence in the fierce outer movements. The Concerto for the Left-Hand has a similar pattern but there is relaxation in the slow-fast-slow structure where to their credit pianist and orchestra effectively manage the complex moments where Ravel combines slow and fast music.

 

Accompanied by the French National Radio Orchestra and recorded with more weight than clarity. Claudio Arrau gives an expressive performance of Brahms’s First Piano Concerto.  His relaxed shaping of the melodies is not always echoed by the orchestra.  Horenstein has a more direct approach to Brahms and does not compromise.  In all, a slightly wayward reading involving much freedom of tempo from the soloist.    

 

One of the discs is shared by Stravinsky and Schoenberg; although in the early twentieth-century regarded as ‘modern’ composers both show their romantic side in these well-engineered Sudwestfunk recordings from 1956.  The gentle opening movements of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite are captured atmospherically and the ‘Infernal Dance’ is full of violent detail with clear woodwind and a particularly forceful bass drum.  

 

Horenstein has the Sudwestfunk strings play Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht with ideal warmth.  The music is full of emotion but comforting rather than anxious – it would have been interesting to know how Schoenberg might have developed this rich Richard Strauss-like style had he not moved to the backwater of twelve-tone music.  Next comes Schoenberg’s uncompromising Chamber Symphony No.1; the recording clarifies everything well.  

 

Janáček’s Sinfonietta and Taras Bulba are given majestic performances but the recording of the Sinfonietta lacks impact. 

 

The sprawling Faust Symphony shows Liszt’s predilection for drama rather than form. The 1956 recording allows the Sudwestfunk Orchestra to sound colourful; tenor soloist Ferdinand Koch and the sparingly used men’s choir are well balanced. Horenstein’s interpretations of the Prelude to Lohengrin and the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde sound well – the Bamberg Symphony being given decent sound.

On the final disc is an important reissue of Horenstein’s earlier Vox Beethoven Eroica. The Vienna Symphony Orchestra is given immensely powerful sound, ideally suited to Horenstein’s extremely measured speeds. This is Horenstein at his most dynamic.

 

– ClassicslSource.com (Anthony Hodgson)