Decca Original Masters 475 7747 (5 CDs). 71:56; 69:05; 66:58; 78:24; 74:37 (Distrib. Universal) ****:
The career of Spanish conductor Atualfo Argenta (1913-1958) was tragically brief, cut short by misadventure, his suffocating by carbon monoxide in his house garage. A protégé of pianist Winifried Wolff, Argenta sojourned to Germany for studies at the Kassel Conservatory and mentorship with Carl Schuricht. A fine keyboard performer, Argenta won an appointment as house pianist with the Orquesta National in Spain. By 1948 he was conducting full time, and five years later he contracted with CBS Spain to record his most ambitious project, some 50 zarzuelas with Teresa Berganza and Pilar Lorengar. Argenta befriended Ernest Ansermet, who allowed Argenta to work extensively with the L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
A fine colorist, with an obviously natural penchant for Spanish music, Argenta made a solid handful of inscriptions of decidedly Romantic repertory, his last being the Berlioz Symphonie fantastique, made just two months prior to his untimely demise. The 1957 inscription offers excellent response from the Paris Conservatory Orchestra string and woodwind sections, with clear articulation of the bass pulsations as the idee fixe begins its multifarious transformations in the persona’s consciousness. High energy and a strong sense of architectural symmetry mark the performance. Elegant poise and delicate eroticism for the Un bal movement. A grand, sensual leisure suffuses the gorgeously paced Adagio movement, Scene aux champs. Ominous tympani rolls take us to the demonic, terrifying Marche au supplice, of which Argenta takes the repeat. Great bassoon. The Witches’ Sabbath is rousing, gooseflesh music, right out Coleridge and Poe. If someone were to pass this rendition off as Munch or high-voltage Martinon, I’d believe it. The Turina three Fantastic Dances (rec. 1953) enjoy a fervent, impassioned reading, rife with atmosphere indebted to Debussy. The Ensueno movement brings individual, waltzing touches to Ravel cross-fertilized by Falla. Orgia offers a panoply of Spanish elements by way of Respighi – Technicolor pageantry.
Excellent accompaniment and lightning response to American virtuoso Julius Katchen for the two Liszt concertos from January 1957. The 1955 Liszt inscriptions prove just as volatile, with Les Preludes showing off the richly textured Suisse Romande, an elegantly flexible, bombastic response that well rivals the Fricsay inscription which remains my personal favorite. On an entirely grander scale is Liszt’s Eine Faust-Symphonie in its original version, without tenor solo and chorus (available on EMI’s Great Conductors of the 20th Century 5 75097). The brisk energy of the Faust movement easily recalls its two major acolytes, Beecham and Horenstein, with an extraverted emphasis on the cello line and trumpet declamations. Intimations of magic, alchemy, and sorcery suffuse the liquid surface of the reading, a virtuoso realization of the first order. Gretchen moves rather briskly, but with splendid, interior ensemble and liquid strings, a precursor of Schoenberg’s Verklaerte Nacht. Argenta relishes the volcanically polyphonic Mephistopheles section, its ironic inversion of the Faust motifs, and its whiplash effects for strings, winds, and horns.
The two Tchaikovsky inscriptions include, first, the late December 1956 Violin Concerto with Alfredo Campoli (1906-1991), a delicate, even precious rendition of the work which some collectors may find mannered. Not that the realization is unmusical, but it often verges on sentimentality of phrase, an effeteness, despite the high gloss and ease of Campoli’s execution, especially his flute tone. Though the playing of the LSO consistently achieves a virtuosic level, injudicious cuts in the score do not help matters. Campoli plays the cadenza in the manner of an Ernst etude. Maybe the Decca producers asked Campoli to out-Heifetz Heifetz. A more nasal tone from Campoli for the Canzonetta, performed in salon style. The Allegro vivacissimo fares better, if you like Tchaikovsky by way of light-handed Paganini. Argenta’s contribution is to make the LSO into a suave ballet ensemble.
The Tchaikovsky Fourth comes from Geneva, October 1955, again with Ansermet’s orchestra. Argenta begins well, the trumpets and expository material ardent, fluent, nicely graduated: a Spanish Koussevitzky, like Eleazar de Cavalho. The development section, the interplay of strings, flute, and tympani, impresses with its noble sincerity. Each of the succeeding movements proceeds with the same grand style, passion, and acuteness of orchestral articulation to warrant this Fourth being accorded a place among the special inscriptions of this oft-mounted war-horse. Along with the thoroughly idiomatic readings of Rimsky-Korsakov, Granados, and Debussy that grace Disc 1, there is assembled here enough musical testimony to identify Argenta as one who bore a star on his brow.
One of the included liner-note photos, incorrectly labeled as Argenta with Jean Cocteau, is actually a shot of Argenta with veteran pianist Alfred Cortot.
[Audiophile collectors and vinyl fans may recognize the first four selections listed above as one of the most spectacular of the early Decca stereo LPs, titled “Espana,” which was also reissued on London/Decca CD. I recently reviewed the $30 xrcd24 reissue of this classic album at the same time the Argenta 5-CD set arrived, and compared the first disc of this set with the xrcd. It showed what strides have been made in the enhanced mastering and pressing of standard CDs that I could hear no difference between the CD and the xrcd. Both were of the highest fidelity…Ed.]
— Gary Lemco
