Visceral Bruckner from the baton of Jascha Horenstein (1989-1973), here leading the BBC Northern Symphony (3 July 1963) from the Cheltenham Festival. The vigor of the first movement proves quite compelling, given Bruckner’s penchant for alternating periods of motoric, driving sound and moments of floating repose. The tremolando strings set an aura of mysticism over which horns and tympani sweep forth. The trick to all this is to establish an inner pulsation that unites the varying episodes without disruption. The five-note chorale pattern set by the BBC brass becomes feverishly insistent by the end of the recapitulation, a kind of Wagnerian evocation of a Roman triumph. The last chord lands with an explosive thud, after which the audience stirs restlessly.
A great yearning permeates the Adagio even as it maintains a liquid transparency in the parts. The cello line enjoys a suave extension, while the basses and muted horns urge a stately chorale. The various allusions to Wagner motifs proceed without particular histrionics, even as the interior lines retain a febrile luster. The Scherzo opens with the softest swirl of sound, only to explode into pounding surf, a sea of heroic gestures. The secondary subject swaggers with the Austrian countryside. Aerial, muscular and delicate at once, the da capo punches forward, a frothy radiance that leads directly to the eddies of the final Allegro. The second subject trips a sensuous combination of laendler and Schubertian mysticism. Horenstein’s thorough assimilation of the Austro-Hungarian tradition remains entirely idiomatic, spoken without an accent. The frenetic coda, to my ear, is a poor moment in orchestral transition on the composer’s part; let the acolytes accuse me of heresy. Horenstein, nonetheless, drives the music forward despite the lulls in the text to a fiery conclusion, the tympani and brass just this side of Bedlam. A conclusive thud, and the audience is off to the races.
Horenstein championed the music of Busoni, and he leads (9 May 1966) the homage a Johann Strauss, the Tanzwalzer, for a special set of concerts for the centenary of the composer’s birth. A slow introduction and four waltzes ensue, later used in the Parma scene of the opera Doktor Faust. The RPO woodwinds chirp in fine tune for the second of these lightweight and ironic jests–texture without melody–at the form, more of Richard than of Johann Strauss. Another delightful addition to Horenstein’s otherwise limited recorded legacy, each item immediately conferred cult status.
— Gary Lemco
