These are parlous times for classical recording in America, what with the major labels scaling back or canceling longstanding commitments to the major orchestras. Even such respected ensembles as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra and Philadelphia Orchestra are now without recording contracts. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and New York Philharmonic record on a per-project basis, as do the orchestras of Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Other ensembles are finding that the easiest, cheapest and often most artistically rewarding way to maintain their market profile is by releasing recordings of live-performance material from their archives. The Chicago Symphony has led the way throughout the CD era with its series of historical albums. This fall the Boston Symphony will toast its centennial by issuing a 10-CD set of archival performances and two commemorative books.
Meanwhile, the CSO has released its second CD omnibus, “Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the Twentieth Century: Collector’s Choice,” a boxed set of 10 CDs containing 32 works in performances spanning 63 years of the orchestra’s life. More than 150 performances, most from WFMT radio broadcasts from Orchestra Hall and Ravinia, were auditioned by a five-person committee. The committee members, including CSO Association president Henry Fogel and radio broadcasters Norman Pellegrini and Don Tait, did their job well. They have given us a significant, endlessly instructive document for anyone who values the orchestra, its history and its music.
As Fogel points out in his introductory essay, it is the “remarkable consistency of quality” that ties together these live performances, despite variable sound. The roster of conductors represented, many of whom exerted a profound shaping influence on our orchestra, reads like a “Who’s Who” of major maestros active in the postwar era: Ernest Ansermet, Daniel Barenboim, Fritz Busch, Carlo Maria Giulini, Erich Leinsdorf, James Levine, Jean Martinon, Pierre Monteux, Charles Munch, Seiji Ozawa, Fritz Reiner, Artur Rodzinski, Georg Solti, Leopold Stokowski, Klaus Tennstedt and Bruno Walter.
Save for one selection, the first two CDs focus on the Germanic repertory that is the bedrock of the orchestra’s musical tradition. The earliest selection is the “Festmarsch” from Wagner’s “Tannhaeuser,” broadcast from the Century of Progress Exposition in 1933, with Frederick Stock leading an augmented CSO of 100 players and an elephantine chorus estimated at 2,500 voices. The excerpt, recorded on a transcription disc from the radio broadcast, is grainy and the choral singing (“Hail, bright abode”) is off somewhere in the haze. Still, the historical importance of this selection justifies its inclusion.
Included, too, are three Beethoven symphonies, each performance with something vital to offer. Busch’s brisk, forthright account of the First Symphony, from 1949, and Stokowski’s 1962 WGN-TV reading of the Second–finely graded in dynamics and wholly without affectation–are valuable additions to these conductors’ discographies. The best-sounding of the lot is Hungarian conductor Janos Ferencsik’s Beethoven Symphony No. 7 (1979), a rendition of tensile strength and judicious balance.
Both of Bruno Walter’s selections–Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony (1958) and Schumann’s “Manfred” Overture (taped for television two years earlier)–refute the widespread notion that he became a soft, mawkish maestro in his later years. Certainly no one could accuse his contemporary, the flamboyant and unpredictable Charles Munch, of sentimental indulgence. “Le beau Charles” here turns in stunning readings of the Roussel Third Symphony, taped during his final appearances with the CSO in 1967, and the charming suite from Rameau’s “Dardanus” as arranged by Vincent d’Indy. The latter is taken from a 1963 Munch/CSO WGN concert that was recently released on video as part of the CSO historic telecasts series on Video Artists International.
More music not recorded commercially figures throughout the set.
Reiner’s Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony, heard in excellent WBAI-New York broadcast sound from 1957, has some tempo eccentricities and is notable more for its tightly disciplined playing than idiomatic feeling. Hans Rosbaud, the Austrian conductor best known for his work in Mahler and the Second Vienna School, proves surprisingly effective in excerpts from Strauss’ “Bourgeois Gentilhomme” Suite, from another WGN telecast, in 1960. But the best of the lot is a complete performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony, in its 1967 CSO premiere under Martinon. Full-blooded, dramatic and persuasively paced, this account–taped but never aired by WFMT–disappoints only in the recording balance, which renders Bud Herseth’s offstage posthorn solo barely audible.
A pity that all that survives of Paul Hindemith’s 1963 CSO performances of the Bruckner Symphony No. 7 is the first movement. They proved the CSO to be a superb Bruckner band years before Barenboim and Solti “taught” our orchestra the Bruckner symphonies. You can compare Hindemith’s steady, unadorned treatment of the Allegro moderato movement to Tennstedt’s more warmly flexible approach, part of a complete performance of the Bruckner that occupies most of Disc Six; significantly, Tennstedt adds two minutes to Hindemith’s timing. Since EMI curiously never got around to making a commercial recording of the Seventh with Tennstedt, his visionary live reading is especially worthwhile.
In a collection that features “20th Century” prominently in its title it’s good to have music from the last century so well represented. Performances include Debussy conducted by Ansermet (1968) and Leinsdorf (1986); a turbo-charged Prokofiev Third Symphony under Kirill Kondrashin (1976); Vaughan Williams’ “London” Symphony under Malcolm Sargent (1967); and Bartok’s Two Portraits, led by Solti (1987). Absolutely essential are the American 20th Century works–notably William Schuman’s magnificent Third Symphony with Leonard Slatkin conducting (1986); Elliott Carter’s Variations for Orchestra, one of the signal successes of the Solti years (1982); and Ralph Shapey’s “Rituals”–Varese meets Schoenberg, and not for the aurally timid — with the composer conducting (1966).
It’s shocking that a collection titled “The CSO in the Twentieth Century” overlooks principal guest conductor Pierre Boulez, the 20th Century’s foremost modernist guru. Another disappointment is that Rafael Kubelik, music director from 1950 to 1953 and a beloved guest conductor during the 1980s, is nowhere to be found in the set. I would have bumped Hindemith’s Bruckner in favor of something by Kubelik–his own “Symphonic Peripeteia,” for instance.
There is so much listening fascination in this 12-hour set, however, that anyone is bound to find something to enjoy. The digital remasterings are superb, while the annotations and packaging–five double-CD wallets enclosed in a red cloth slipcase, with 64-page booklet–are the best of any CSO anthology released to date.
The boxed set ($225) is available only at the Symphony Store for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 220 S. Michigan Ave. To place a phone order, call 312-294-3345.
If you are inclined to trip down the archival lane with the CSO but balk at the stiff price tag of a 10-CD set, you might wish to investigate the two latest releases in the VAI historical video series, both well worth acquiring. Volume Six has Hindemith conducting the Bruckner Seventh, plus his own “Concert Music for Strings and Brass” and the Brahms “Academic Festival Overture.” Volume Seven is the second in the VAI series featuring George Szell as guest conductor.
Hindemith never really came into his own on the podium, at least in America, but he was a very fine conductor–and not just of his own music, as this April 1963 concert, broadcast by WGN from Orchestra Hall, demonstrates. His “Concert Music” makes a wonderful showcase for the orchestra’s fabled brass section, even if the Brahms sounds more academic than festive.
The Szell concert, broadcast in December 1961, features a patrician account of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 (“Turkish”) by the Austrian-born American violinist Erica Morini, one of the very few women fiddle soloists to reach an international plateau. Szell makes a properly no-nonsense partner and he also leads clear-eyed readings of the Mozart “Marriage of Figaro” Overture and third Beethoven “Leonore” Overture. Good camera work and sound, especially on the Hindemith video. Snap these up while you can.
