BRAHMS: Serenade No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11; Serenade No. 2 in A Major, Op. 16; Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80; Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 83;
5 Part-Songs, Op. 17; SCHUBERT (arr. Brahms): Jaeger, ruhe von der Jagd, D. 838 – Robert Casadesus, piano/New York Ladies’ Choir/New York Philharmonic/Arturo Toscanini
Guild Historical GHCD 2337/8 (2-CDs), 2:26:17 [Distrib. Albany] ****:
Suave, unhurried Brahms from The Maestro, Arturo Toscanini (1867-1954) from New York, 1935-1936 in very good sound for the period. Toscanini always had his own ideas about any music, but his gestalt for Brahms derived from Fritz Steinbach, with the possible influence of Artur Nikisch. The D Major Serenade (7 April 1935) has the New York Philharmonic principal flute and first French horn earning their salary, with excellent string tone and melodic flexibility in all parts. The Adagio receives a particularly warm, generously vibrant treatment, without that clipping of end-phrases that could plague many of Toscanini’s later interpretations. Rustic charm for the Menuets, while the Scherzo has a muscularity–real hunting-horn spirit–we will not hear again in symphonic Brahms until the B-flat Concerto and the E Minor Symphony. The final Rondo emanates a Haydnesque athleticism–despite some crackly acetates–even as its figures receive pungently crisp articulation over elfin strings not far from Mendelssohn and Beethoven‘s C Major Symphony.
The A Major Serenade (31 March 1935), of a dark and moody cast, begins deliberately under Toscanini, the lyric impulse set over a resonant bass that plucks its way through the lower strings and culminates in a variant of Beethoven’s Fifth. Nice oboe work in latter part of the opening movement, accompanied by some sweet flute aerobics. The Scherzo flies high–given the absence of first violin–peppy and aerial, though the undercurrent ostinati are ever present. The Adagio under Toscanini seems much closer to the D Minor Piano Concerto than the companion serenade in the tonic major. Modal and anguished, it hints at some of the longings we hear in the Adagio of the D Major Symphony. The Quasi Menuetto proceeds rather gavotte-like to my ear, but the woodwinds’ serenade elegantly courts our patrician sensibilities and leads directly to a most spirited, unbuttoned Rondo, with Toscanini’s whipping some real froth out of his French horn and clarinets. Shades of Beethoven as undercurrent do not darken the skies beyond lyrical redemption from oboe and violas.
Aggressive C Minor for the opening of the Academic Festival Overture (15 March 1936), which Toscanini takes as a bravura showpiece his seamless ensemble, the French horns a real treat. Pesant and measured, often threatening, the realizations seems less about frothy tuition than young masters of the universe. Momentary wow and shatter in the shellacs does not inhibit our awe at Toscanini’s ferocity prior to the horn and string two-note riffs prior to the recap of the main theme, forte, and the cascading torrents of sound prior to the frenzied march that ensues once more. The Gaudeamus igitur plays like punches from James Cagney in City for Conquest.
The announcer tells us Mr. Robert Casadesus (1899-1972) will play the B-flat Concerto, and he does–as he will many times–as a classically conceived showpiece in which the piano may be subordinate to or enmeshed within the symphonic tissue. Some pitch dropout at six minutes, but the first movement achieves a compulsive momentum, Casadesus’ restraint notwithstanding. At the segue to the plastic runs with woodwind antiphons, Casadesus plies a pungent non-legato that breaks out into torrential arpeggios along the B-flat scale. The entire first recap is cut from one piece of illuminated cloth, the tempo quite brisk, perhaps not Herculean as with Horowitz nine years later, but just as fixated on a preconceived end. The audience applauds vigorously at the coda, and well they might. No frills for the scherzo, Allegro appassionato, just direct business, with Casadesus whipping through the broken scales and occasional legato with silken certitude. When Toscanini’s tutti emerges, it exhales brassy grandeur, a D Major oracle. Wicked last bars bring more applause. That Toscanini enjoys a good song becomes evident from the first cello position for the third movement Andante, taken at a walking pace but floridly gracious, with old-school, sweeping gestures at the ends of phrases. Casadesus’ temper and trills are both fiery and elegant at once, often converting the Brahms filigree into a Bach etude. A measured canter for the Allegretto grazioso, sunny lightness, with moments of seismic bravura from all principals. The audience has already passed into paroxysms of appreciation long before the last notes have sounded.
We end with some Brahms part-songs (30 January 1936) from Op. 17, conceived when he directed a women’s chorus as a burgeoning conductor. Osian’s Fingal is a sweet piece, set in four-bar strophes after Beethoven‘s 7th , with strings, harp, and horn accompaniment; it segues to “Weep on the Rocks,” harmonically audacious. Eichendorff’s The Gardener opens with a motif taken from the slow movement of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. “Come away, come away, death,” despite the distant sound carries a morbid kind of beauty, the sentiment from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Sir Walter Scott provides the text for the final entry, Ellen’s second song from The Lady of the Lake, hunting horns announcing of a kind of wedding march. Fascinating moments of rare Brahms repertory from Toscanini, who, along with Henschel, Gericke, and Stokowski, helped make the music of Brahms an American staple.
– – Gary Lemco
