GOOSSENS Cincinnati Symphony, Vol. 3 = GRIEG: Peer Gynt Suite No. 1; CHABRIER: Joyeuse Marche; R. STRAUSS (arr. Dorati): Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59; RESPIGHI: Fountains of Rome; Pines of Rome – Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/ Eugene Goossens – Pristine Audio PASC 712 (74:30) [www.pristineclassical.com *****:
Producer and Restoration Engineer Mark Obert-Thorn completes his project involving British conductor Eugene Goossens’ recorded legacy with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra with the studio performances, 1945-1946. Goossens (1893-1962) possessed an acute ear for sonic detail, and he favored richly colored scores whose interior voices he elicits with lavish affection. The opening selection, Grieg’s well-familiar Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 (25 February 1945) shimmer with fine sonority from horn, winds, and strings in the “Morning Mood.” The simple, string lament “Ase’s Death” proceeds in a series of three-note tropes whose tension never breaks nor does the line suffer any devolution into mere sentimentality. “Anitra’s Dance” projects a suave, exotic lilt and charm, the textures woven of the same magic that informs similar venues invoked by Rimsky-Korsakov. The ineluctable, manic energy of the concluding “In the Hall of the Mountain King” shows off the CSO bassoon and bass fiddles before the pizzicato strings urge the momentum to a voluptuous frenzy, tutti, the battery in full throttle.
Chabrier’s1885 Joyeuse March (rec. 25 February 1945), originally a filler for the Goossens reading of Stravinsky Le Chant du Rossignol, projects a brash, irreverent aplomb, the CSO brass in fine fettle. The blatantly virile approach rivals that of Dimitri Mitropoulos, who likewise favored the piece consistently as an encore. Each of the major cadences in the piece receive a thunderous sonority.
Fellow conductor and arranger, the Hungarian maestro Antal Dorati, created an arrangement of the Richard Strauss 1910 opera Der Rosenkavalier as an orchestral suite, incorporating the whole of the Act III introduction, a rarity in recordings, to be found only here and in those led by Dorati himself. The opening flourish by Goossens (again, from 25 February 1945) waxes colossal in huge, swooping gestures, the invocation of a past age of court refinement and pageantry. The sense of Viennese lilt suffuses the orchestral textures, offset by the presence of derisive irony. The fact that the possibility of real love persists through the several plot machinations testifies to librettist Hofmannsthal’s faith and commitment to a humanist ethic we find prevalent in Mozart. The Cincinnati ensemble realizes the many colors – especially the brass work – alternately soft and acerbic. With smooth felicity. The allure of bustling, comic, court intrigue contrasts with the anachronisms of the waltz sequences, which succeed of their own, intense sincerity on a par with those “home-spun” renditions by Clemens Krauss, Erich Kleiber, and Herbert von Karajan. The palpable fire of human yearning and the incandescent exultation of romantic bliss no less shine forth in this potent, visceral performance.
As Obert-Thorn remarks in his notes to this album, Goossens’ recording of Respighi’s Fountains of Rome (14 February 1946) did not appear at all on 78 rpm records, making its first incarnation in a limited LP edition. Goossens enjoys his patented, sonic sheen and luster, rendering a tone-poem of extraordinary nuance, a reading matched only by that of Victor de Sabata in 1947. The CSO woodwinds achieve a wonderful homogeneity of transparent color in “The Pines of the Villa Borghese,” soon complemented by the horns of “Pines Near a Catacomb.” Even more intense, “The Trevi Fountain at Noon” basks in a sustained aura of translucent colors. The quality of sonic restoration proves startling in the instrumental definition. The segue to “The Villa Medici Fountain at Sunset,” seamless in execution, brings an extraordinary, crepuscular hue the occasion, a fusion of nature sounds in pantheistic bliss.
Goossens led the first of Respighi’s Roman Trilogy (February 14, 1946) with the purpose of eventually recording the complete triptych for RCA. The first of the symphonic poems, Pines of Rome (1924), proceeds in quick, broken chords in a succession of major keys, depicting children at play in the garden of the Villa Borghese. The swirls of intoxicated joy that open the piece soon resolve into jaunty folk songs, in which horns and tuned percussion reign. The modal colorings add a dimension of antiquity to the energies, which suddenly break off as Goossens transitions to the more somber “Pines Near a Catacomb.” Gregorian modes announce a sense of psalmody, with legato trumpet and strings from a hazy distance. A sense of dark, militant power rises in crescendo, insistent and dire, as if some fierce revelation were at hand. Lower register strings, in tandem with flute and bassoon, take us deeper into the caverns of Italy’s religious past.
A moonlit scene marked by the clarinet’s pentatonic theme alerts us to Respighi’s idiosyncratic pantheism. The “Pines of the Janiculum” vibrate with nostalgia, a pedal having been established in the low string line. This music approaches Wagner’s Forest Murmurs for Nature’s mysticism. After solos by the cello and oboe, the piano a soft percussion instrument, then solo clarinet that invites a recorded nightingale to bestow the ultimate blessing on the scene, and the entire orchestral patina sounds like Delius or the Hollywood version of outdoor ecstasy. The last section of the score, “The Pines of the Appian Way,” invoke Roman Italy’s past militancy, obsessed by marching feet. The dominance of the F major tonality sets an optimistic sensibility, despite the old Roman saw at a Triumph that all such glory is fleeting. Has Respighi’s orchestration studies with Rimsky-Korsakov inspired this garish splatter of martial energies to imitate the last movement of Scheherazade? The effect, pompous and urgent to rival Richard Strauss, likely had Mussolini’s foot tapping. This performance did appear on 78 rpm shellacs as DM-1309. Welcome back.
—Gary Lemco
More information through Pristine Audio
