WALTER NBC Vol. 1: Bruckner, Mozart, Schubert, Tchaikovsky (1940) - PASC628

Bruno Walter (1876-1962) had a long and distinguished career behind him when he arrived in the United States in late 1939. He had worked in Vienna with Gustav Mahler, premiering several of Mahler’s compositions, and served as music director of the Bavarian State Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. His German positions ended abruptly in 1933 when the Nazis barred him from performing due to his Jewish heritage. Settling in Austria Walter became artistic director of the Vienna State Opera and featured regularly at the Salzburg Festival. The Anschluss between Germany and Austria in 1938 further restricted Walter’s career and after a year in Paris he left Europe for the United States in late 1939.

Walter had performed in the United States many times before his permanent re-settlement, including a period conducting the New York Symphony Orchestra in the 1920s. In the Spring of 1939 he was asked by his friend Toscanini to conduct the NBCSO in five concerts, and the following year returned to conduct five more concerts. Walter concentrated on the core classical repertoire with Haydn, Mozart, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann and Tchaikovsky all featuring. Unlike many others who conducted the NBCSO, Walter chose not to conduct a single piece of 20thC music in these concerts. This release allows us to appreciate Walter as performer of music he knew extremely well. As we might expect for someone who spent so much time in Vienna and Salzburg Walter was a noted Mozartian and would become the Met’s conductor of choice for Mozart’s operas during the war. In the case of the Bruckner there is a clear musical lineage from Walter to Mahler and then to Bruckner himself. Reviewing this Bruckner broadcast Olin Downes, music critic of the New York Times commented ‘Walter did his audience a noble service in revealing the utmost of the vision and splendor of this music.’

Walter was a prolific recording artist and a recent ‘complete’ CD issue (that actually omits his pre-war recordings in Europe) runs to 79 discs. The works by Mozart, Schubert and Bruckner in this release all have commercial alternatives but this Schubert 5^th and Bruckner 4 ^th are his only live recordings of those pieces. While studio recordings try to capture the note-perfect version, there is something about the excitement of a live performance that the studio really struggles with. The Tchaikovsky 5^th is a real treasure since Walter never recorded it commercially and there seems to be no other live performance that has been preserved.