Tahra Les Grand Interpretes TAH 641, 65:05 [Distrib. by www.tahra.com] ****:
Czech-born violin virtuoso Gerhard Taschner (1922-1976) enjoys a bit of resurgence on records these days. Trained by Hubay, Bak, and Huberman, Taschner eventually (1941) became concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic under Furtwaengler, with whom he played the premier of the Wolfgang Fortner Violin Concerto. Having played duos with Walter Gieseking, Taschner and he joined with cello virtuoso Ludwig Hoelscher (who would work with Elly Ney) in 1947 to form a powerful trio. A musician of passion and temperament, Taschner had beguiled conductor Hermann Abendroth at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig with the Brahms Concerto. In 1943, Taschner married the beautiful Gerda Nette-Rothe, a pianist sixteen years his senior. In 1944 in Helsinki Taschner performed the Sibelius Concerto, much to the composer’s approval. Though the Khachaturian Concerto had been written with David Oistrakh in mind, Taschner obtained a photocopied score and adapted the piece for his own use, sometimes utilizing an expanded version of the first movement cadenza. Though there exists a 1947 inscription of that concerto with Taschner, the 1955 reading is the superior in sound and musical vision.
In his liner notes, Rene Tremine traces the etiology of the (supposed) collaboration of the Berlin Philharmonic and their new concertmaster Taschner in the Dvorak Concerto from an RRG broadcast of 26 November 1942, the second of only two times the concerto appeared on the BPO programs between 1941 and 1945. Since Wilhelm Furtwaengler was away on tour in Scandinavia, it seems Croatian maestro Lovro von Matacic (1899-1985) substituted at the helm; and, if grant this document authenticity, then this is the only Dvorak Concerto we have with Taschner as the soloist. Rather a driven, aggressive performance, the style may well remind auditors of that other German master of this piece, Georg Kulenkampff and his recording for Telefunken with Eugen Jochum. Taschner posits some sympathetic and lyrical playing in the Adagio ma non troppo, where his rasping urgency alternates with a musing, fluttering approach of elastic tenderness. It is the first notes of this movement that are engraved on Taschner’s tombstone in the cemetery of Berlin-Friesnau. Nervous vitality and militancy mark the last movement, the tympani as prominent as the solo violin. During the otherwise sweet trio section, Taschner demonstrates his deft change of registration with fierce fluency. The last pages, interlocking violin, harp, and flute, then an inflamed tutti, bring a noble peroration to the Slavic energies so pungently captured in this striking document.
The Khachaturian Concerto from May 1955 under Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (1900-1973) is the same inscription offered on the MDG CD (642 1508-2; distrib. by Koch) that includes the Sibelius Concerto under Herbert Sandburg and a gritty, feisty performance of the Sarasate Carmen Fantasy with the Bamberg Symphony under Fritz Lehmann. Tachner plays the Khachaturian for its angular, often luxuriant, Eastern colors and tender eroticism. Isserstedt has no trouble upping the musical voltage, asking for a frequent, waspy dervish of sound from his brass. The thin, reedy tone Taschner elicits is not particularly nasal; it resembles a vocalist’s chest tone, and its raspiness certainly betrays a Huberman influence. The sonorities become feverish, surreal, a Hollywood-fantasy about Ali Baba with Cornell Wilde. For the first movement coda, both Taschner and Schmidt-Isserstedt double the ante and throw musical scimitars into the air. The sultry languor of an Armenian Scheherazade in the Adagio sostenuto proceeds to the quick tempests of the Allegro vivace, where violin solo and high reeds and winds combine for oriental perfumes amidst diaphanous fireworks, rapid passages and tricky metrics mother’s milk to the versatile Taschner. Very impressive; and the two discs – the Tahra and the MDG – complement each other beautifully.
— Gary Lemco
