Paul van Kempen = BRAHMS: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 83; TCHAIKOVSKY: Romeo and Juliet–Fantasy Overture; MAHLER: Symphony No. 1 in D Major – Wilhelm Kempff, piano/van Kempen cond. – Tahra (2)

by | Nov 8, 2010 | Classical Reissue Reviews | 0 comments

Paul van Kempen = BRAHMS: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 83; TCHAIKOVSKY: Romeo and Juliet–Fantasy Overture; MAHLER: Symphony No. 1 in D Major – Wilhelm Kempff, piano/Besancon Festival Orchestra (Brahms)/ Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam (Tchaikovsky)/ RAI Turin Orchestra (Mahler)/Paul van Kempen

Tahra TAH 714-715 (2 CDs), 66:54; 54:44 [Distr. By Harmonia mundi] ****:


Embroiled in political controversy after 1946, conductor Paul van Kempen (1893-1955) bequeathed us a small but potent legacy of his musical art that extends before and after World War II. Having played violin in the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Willem Mengelberg, Kempen inherited that flamboyant conductor’s taste for Mahler and Bruckner, a dictatorial attitude, and a penchant for vivid readings marked by often extreme variations of tempo and dynamics. Although cleared of allegations of collaboration with the National Socialists, Kempen still found vilification by the Communists, and in 1951 several scandalous concerts resulted in open demonstrations against his public appearances with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.  Despite the hostilities, Kempen and the Concertgebouw worked together to produce significant readings, of which the Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet (17-18 July 1951) comprises a special place.

For collectors of the great German pianist Wilhelm Kempff (1985-1991), this set comes as a revelation, since Kempff never commercially inscribed a Brahms B-flat Concerto. The two men had worked together in Kempen’s Dresden years, and their survey of the complete Beethoven concertos remains a classic. The collaboration with Kempen 
(1 September 1955) from the Besancon International Music Festival reveals a grand leisure, that especial monumentality of gesture that Claudio Arrau claimed defined the Brahms style. The hard-driven first movement conveys a stern fixated sensibility, plastic and stentorian at once. Particularly spellbinding is the transition to the recapitulation, with Kempff’s ethereal runs juxtaposed against startling colors in the woodwinds and ubiquitous French horn. A thunderous coda invokes an explosion of applause. The D minor Scherzo proves no “wisp,” but an impassioned dialogue in darkly exalted colors from the principals. More applause from the auditors upon the last chords, intense and demonic as they had been.

The B-flat Major Andante’s broad spectrum–the rich cello obbligato and the music’s hazy meanderings into F-sharp Major–well indicate the kind of regal Brahms symphonies Kempen might have bequeathed us had the record companies so ordained. The tempo increases significantly–no self-indulgent dawdling–so as to heighten the contrast with the serene vistas of the adagio sections. Kempff the boulevardier seems active in the last movement, a flamboyantly debonair Allegretto grazioso that exhibits both floated elegance and feral vehemence when required. Pearly glitter and clarion incantations mark the last pages, which quite sweep us to a peroration that ignites an already avid crowd into paroxysms of appreciation.

Years ago on his radio program “The Record Shelf,” Jim Svejda paid tribute to Kempen’s incendiary performance on Philips of Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien from 1949. The B Minor Fantasy-Overture on Romeo and Juliet receives no less gloriously refined treatment, the breadth and clarity of the opening pages reminiscent of a live performance I heard by the Moscow Symphony under Kitaenko in Atlanta. The Concertgebouw cello line deserves an essay to itself. When the titanic familial struggles for dominance of Verona ensue, hang onto your hat! Again, the Concertgebouw cellos and basses make their vocal throes dramatically poignant prior to the introduction of the love-theme, diaphanous strings and harp invoking the magical luster of a Renaissance tryst by night. The sense that erotic desperation collides with an ineluctable fate moves through this supercharged performance like a Greek Fury, converting a concert stale into an epic experience of the first order.

Kempen liked to program two of Mahler’s symphonies, the First and the Fourth, whenever he went on tour. The D Major included in this set derives from a public concert in Turin, 20 May 1955. Despite an occasionally ragged insecure ensemble, the Mahler style finds a firm adherent in Kempen, who balances the calls to Nature with a simultaneous mysticism and rustic earthiness. The trumpet work proves exemplary in several passages, even virtuosic, as Kempen maintains a firm vocal line that heralds his vision of a wounded paradise. The laendler trio section of the Scherzo enjoys a leisurely lilt of uncommon beauty and pantheistic serenity. A thrilling eeriness marks the “Frere Jacques” polyphony of the third movement, the pre-Kurt Weill irreverence of its own counter-theme infused with savage irony. The invocation of the last entry from Songs of a Wayfarer invokes a chamber music affect, intimate and melancholy. The storm and stress of Mahler’s finale alternately basks and writhes in its self-immolating convulsions, ecstatic in bliss as it is in anguish.  Mahler devotees will do well to acquire this rare document, beautifully restored by the ever-conscientious Tahra label.

— Gary Lemco

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