59.00 PLN

CD:

Nr kat.: BBCL4235
Label  : BBC Legends

Lushy-realized scores by Weber, Tippett, and Brahms mark this assemblage of studio (Weber, 11 April 1971) and live concert (Royal Albert Hall, 14 April 1971) performances under the direction of the capable Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (1900-1973). The opening Euryanthe Overture from the BBC studios at Maida Vale reveals the lyrical flexibility Schmidt-Isserstedt could elicit from a responsive ensemble: alert, articulate, idiomatic playing. It had been in 1965 that Decca engaged this conductor for the first stereo cycle of Beethoven symphonies on records. Of particular note is the luxurious work by Sir Michael Tippett, a string-orchestra fantasia that certainly takes its cue from Vaughan Williams, but perhaps no less so from Addison and Ernest Bloch. The original Corelli tune acquires an entirely new resonance and romantic luster via Tippett’s doubling of parts and the application of modal harmonies. The two violins and cello form a concertino that often interrupts the flow of the tutti, several times in contrary motion to the ripieno line. The fugal writing suggests Bartok as well as Bloch, the feverish lines driven hard as the BBC celli and bassi weave a serpentine line underneath the churning figures of the three soli. The brooding, melancholy episodes might be construed as written by Martinu, Einem, or Bax. Musical biographer John L. Holmes traces the Tippett connection to Schmidt-Isserstedt as far back as the conductor’s Darmstadt days that began in 1931 and ended only when National Socialism banned “radical” music from German concert halls. The Brahms Fourth holds a special meaning for Schmidt-Isserstedt: it was the last major work he conducted, a week before his death in May 1973. He moves this 1971 performance rather briskly, the horn and woodwind sound looming large over the 
tango-esque figures in the first movement strings. A sonic cross between the romantic tradition in Walter and the more streamlined, objectivist school of Kertesz, the conveys a definite middle-European cast, a warm affection that does not degenerate into self-indulgent broth. The attack at the beginning of the music’s second-period group proves startled, refreshed, and compelling, ending with a vividly realized transition to the recapitulation. Feverish, manic stretti bring the convulsive coda to a strong-willed, decisive close. After gorgeously balanced, melodic contours in the E Major Andante, I relished the ensuing Scherzo (Allegro giocoso), a muscularly virile –even headlong–rush, indeed, brightly colored and driven, except for a bucolic moment in the trio. The Royal Festival Hall audience, too, can taste the post-Victorian ceremony of the last movement passacaglia: a palpable grandeur suffuses the air, plastic, expansive, the continuity an unbroken caravan of Bach figures romantically harmonized. Grand musicianship! — Gary Lemco