BERLIOZ: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14a; BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15; R. STRAUSS: Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, Op. 28 – Geza Anda, piano/ Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Lorin Maazel – Orfeo C821 102B, (2 CDs) 48:49; 33:40 [Distr. by Qualiton] ****:
The Salzburg Festival concert 24 August 1963 marked the first appearance of conductor Lorin Maazel (b. 1930), the former wunderkind who had to replace the recently deceased Ferenc Fricsay, who would have given a Mozart cycle had not a tragic illness claimed him in February. In this particular evening, Maazel replaced an indisposed Georg Solti in that master’s complete program, opening with a febrile account of the Berlioz Fantastic Symphony.
A palpable tension permeates the first movement of the Berlioz, an invocation of dream and reveries that move in uneasy motion and seethe in emotional cauldrons hot enough to blister paint. Still, Maazel prides himself on the Toscanini tradition of fierce tempos and crystal clarity distilled through an objective aesthetic distance, so the effect can simulate cold fire. Un bal receives a fluidly quick transparent reading, allowing the idee fixe to waltz or careen as her evolving character dictates. Seen through the distorted lens of opium or smitten feelings, the Beloved hardly appears in anything except hyperbolic form, the harps and high winds the very flavor of intoxication.
The lazy countryside opens her colors and romantic impulses at first grudgingly under Maazel, the counterpoints unfolding in diaphanous folds in an attempt to create a natural mysticism that Beethoven achieves in the third movement of the Ninth Symphony.
If the tympani at the last pages of Country Scene were not bodings enough, demonism returns with a vengeance for the March to the Scaffold. Sudden outbursts, gasps, invectives, imprecations, and curses saturate the martial motifs of the protagonist’s self-styled martyrdom for love that culminates with those pizzicati strings of his head guillotined.
Chords worthy of Macbeth’s Act IV apparitions open the Witches’ Sabbath, the Beloved now having become the Whore of Babylon, a dervish whirling to the strains of the Day of Judgment. A kind of grisly brass motet and fugato ensue, an emotional chaos instigated by the Romantic Dream’s having become the ultimately ferocious nightmare, born of the realization that they had always been intimately connected.
Poised against the thunderous ovation pursuant to the Berlioz, the Beethoven C Major Concerto stands in chiseled relief, with aristocratic keyboard master Geza Anda (1921-1976) in the solo part. The Maazel ego suddenly subsumes itself to a higher calling in Beethoven’s aristocratic vision, with Anda’s measured virtuosity alternately fleet and poetic. A colossal finish and transparency of tone mark every bar of the first movement, the piano and orchestra having found some perfect symmetry of dynamics and colorful repose. Commentator Erik Werba stated that the second movement Largo’s intimacy “belongs among the most beautiful minutes spent at the Festival this August.” The unbuttoned brio of the Rondo employs various sorts of dynamic derring-do, Maazel and Anda each tossing splendid bolts of color at each other in a spirit of genial spontaneity. The audience applause erupts, and for all I know, still continues.
Maazel has cultivated the music of Richard Strauss, and his rendition of Till Eulenspiegel bears the energy, wit, and savoir faire of one who remains the connoisseur of life’s impetuous journey, where even death inspires a chuckle. The violin (Willy Boskovsky) captures Till’s flirtatious nature, and the rondo proceeds with wily mischief to the next prank. Lay and clerical folk find themselves the butts of Till’s jejune humor, until his darker antics command his arrest for blasphemy. Excellent work in the French horn and D clarinet make for compelling listening. The mock heroics inspire a truly electric reading from Maazel, as heart-pounding as it is rife with brilliant irony.
–Gary Lemco
Sir Thomas Beecham conducts Rimsky Korsakov, Saint-Saëns – SOMM
Three mid-century concerts
