Review - Sydney Symphony 75th Anniversary Collection: A Recording Heritage

Sydney Symphony 75th Anniversary Collection: A Recording Heritage
ABC Classics 476 5957 5-CD box set
Performers include: Neville Amadio, Valda Bagnall, Elizabeth Campbell, Birgit Nilsson, Florence Taylor.
Conductors: Otto Klemperer, Eugene Goossens III, John Hopkins, Willem van Otterloo, Patrick Thomas, Charles Mackerras, Stuart Challender, Edo de Waart, Gianluigi Gelmetti.

The prize in this set is its preservation of the earliest of Otto Klemperer’s six extant concert performances of Mahler’s “Resurrection” symphony. Seeking his endorsement as conductor, Klemperer played Mahler the scherzo from an arrangement by Klemperer for two pianos (never published, alas, and subsequently lost during Klemperer’s American sojourn) of the “Resurrection” symphony (the composer remarking “why do you want to become a conductor? You’re an accomplished pianist”). Mahler’s eventual endorsement secured Klemperer his first conducting post and he quickly became one of the composer’s chief acolytes, one of his early jobs being conducting the off-stage band in a performance of the symphony. Klemperer had introduced the symphony in 1935, the first year of his tenure with Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and again in a Carnegie Hall concert subsidised entirely from his own pocket shortly before he was offered guest appearances in Australia. Because of his association with the composer, Klemperer’s Mahler performances are of great value and this, from September 1950 pre-dates by eight months his pioneering LP (now on Vox CDX2 5521) account with the “pool of orchestral players struggling to earn a decent living after the austerities of wartime” that constituted the ad-hoc Vienna Symphony Orchestra, recorded in impossibly tight schedules caused by players notching up often 50-hour or more weeks in variously pseudonymous orchestras. Klemperer appears to prefer brisker speeds in concert; the Sydney performance, like a Concertgebouw performance from July 1951 (on Decca CD 4765762) and featuring Kathleen Ferrier is faster in all movements than the contemporary Vox set. The Sydney performance is available on a single CD (Doremi DHR7759) with sound little better than this present recording (neither are as well preserved as the Decca performance) and both feature a persistent ‘swish’. The original engineers accommodated the very loud passages, a plus over the Vienna performance where they “are little more than noise, and there are moments of bad pitch-wavering throughout” as reported in a contemporary review in the 1955 Record Guide and still evident on CD. In the ABC Classics remastering the pitch sounds consistent while clearest section is the Scherzo [CD1 track 3] where Klemperer, perhaps aware from experience that it will be the most immediately appreciated by an audiences unfamiliar, if the estimation the Record Guide is anything to go by, with Mahler’s “lapses of taste” in this “bran-pie of a symphony.” Literally interpreting the instruction “fliessender” (flowing), he has the orchestra ebbing and flowing in “Siegfried’s Rhine Journey” mode. There are ensemble lapses but the players manage to stay in touch with this, for the time, unfamiliar sound world. Florence Taylor has an old-world British contralto but her enunciation of the words (given here in English translation) has not been well caught and her “Urlicht” song sounds like the Fairy Queen’s invocation from an inter-war recording of Iolanthe.

The two Goossens conducted items derive from the sources used for their commercial releases. The Beethoven Symphony No.2, produced for HMV by their veteran sound engineer Arthur Clarke (who had been joined the firm and worked on Caruso’s famous recordings and later Elgar’s equally famous electrical recordings, including the Cello Concerto with Beatrice Harrison as soloist. It was Elgar, incidentally who had recommended Goossens to HMV as a recording conductor) was the orchestra’s introduction to the world market and was compared favourably, unlike Mahler, in the 1955 Record Guide alongside a Vienna Philharmonic performance and was missing only “the relaxed grace of the Viennese players”. It still sounds good with, perhaps, a relaxed Australian grace unknown to British critics while the remastering clarifies the orchestral textures along with occasional studio noise. The sound for the famous recording of John Antill’s Corroboree Suite is murky but the gusto of the piece emerges to explain why it was so popular. The exoticisms of Antill’s boisterous score appear to extend beyond Aboriginal borrowings; the two inner movements sound at times like Colin McPhee’s Balinese inspired and equally culturally suspect Tabuh-Tabuhan from 1936 (could Antill have known this score?). Overlooking the cultural insensitivity, which precludes revival today without apologies and reservations it is a gutsy performance. The contra bassoon [CD2 track 5, 15 seconds in] alternating with stabbing strings is a scary thing indeed as is the bull-roarer in the finale, which might sound to some as though the recording sound were deteriorating further. The switch to Grainger’s Youthful Suite conducted by John Hopkins in a spacious 1976 recording comes as an aural shock with the brass and percussion rattling out of the speakers. Only in the eccentric "Eastern Intermezzo" does a slight tape hiss bother the hushed introduction. The final "English Walsh" is a gem, the way Hopkins and the players indulge this miniature to the hilt makes one long for EMI to reinstate his Grainger recordings from this time. Mozart’s first Flute Concerto is given another splendidly recorded performance. The soloist, Neville Amadio, is made to sound larger than life.

Willem van Otterloo’s 1974 Symphonie fantastique was briefly available on an RCA LP. The strings in “A Ball” [CD3 track 2] are exquisite and totally together. The sound is very wide-ranging and atmospheric with the timpani [CD3 track 3] rolling menacingly out of near silence. Only the “March to the Scaffold” and “”Dream of the Witches’ Sabbath lack the last degree of excitement in the best rival recordings. As in the third movement, however, the relish van Otterloo takes in the gory details of the “March to Scaffold – the falling of the guillotine, the severed head tumbling away and so on, are like an adolescent boy delighting in horror comics!

CD 4 could have contained the entire Das Lied von der Erde conducted by Stuart Challender. Instead only the final “Der Abschied” is included. It is an intimate reading, sounding almost like a chamber version, the middle section where the soloist is silent, is very evocative and relaxed and good to compare to the struggles with Mahler forty years earlier on the Klemperer disc. The opening concert of the Sydney Opera House brings Charles Mackerras and Birgit Nilsson (the complete concert is available from ABC Classics as a CD and DVD package 476 6440). Singing Brunhilde's "Immolation Scene", Nilsson is on autopilot (her physical and musical gestures were duplicated wherever she sang by this stage of her career) and the orchestral sound is distant, as though the singer and orchestra were in two different halls. It doesn’t sound like a very thrilling experience either, despite the occasion. Edo de Waart is represented by Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben. A great trainer, de Waart’s interpretation sounds plush but faceless, missing individual details for the sake of an impressive overall impression of rhythmic finesse and tonal control. The sound is not as detailed as in the Berlioz on the earlier disc. Pity de Waart’s one time teacher Dean Dixon, who headed the orchestra in the 1960s, is not represented in the set. Gianluigi Gelmetti directs the final item, Debussy’s La Mer. This catches the excitement Gelmetti generated in this sort of music. The recording even captures him [CD 5 track 9, 5’32”] calling out, Beecham style, an instruction to the orchestra as they approach the ending. Like its companion volume of archival Melbourne Symphony Orchestra recordings, this is a fascinating release. Despite their limited sonics the older recordings have an enduring interest and testimonial value and are an interesting sideline to ABC Classic’s activity. If they still exist, the recordings of Stravinsky’s Melbourne and Sydney concerts would be a release with greater overseas currency.

1 Timothy Day, A Century of Recorded Music: Listening to Musical History, 2002, Yale University Press.
2 Day.