WALTER Mahler: Symphonies 1 & 9 (1961) - PASC376

REVIEW Symphony No. 9

Mahler's Ninth Symphony, his last completed work, and undoubtedly his consummate achievement, was presented to the world in Vienna in 1912, the year after his death, by his disciple Bruno Walter. For those who understood Mahler (few enough at that time), it seemed to sum up, not only the soaring aspirations and despairs of this tormented genius himself, but those of a whole civilisation - the pre-1914 world of Vienna and the rest of Europe. And when Vienna fell to the Nazis, one of the last performances given there by Walter, before he left, eventually to settle in the U.S.A., was of the same work; and this, perpetuated by HMV in the form of a 20-side 78 rpm recording - the first ever made of the work - seemed more than ever to be an appropriate memorial to a glorious and irrecoverable past, not least in the imperfections inseparable from a recorded concert performance, which were felt to be part and parcel of a poignant historic occasion . And now it is once more fitting that the eighty-five-year-old Bruno Walter should have rounded off his life's work with a recording of the Ninth which is a superb, definitive realisation of the work, in interpretation, performance, and recorded sound alike.

But even more than looking to the past, and to Vienna, this recording impinges powerfully on the present and the future, and on the world at large. In my experience, this is the first time the full significance of Mahler's Ninth has been revealed; and listening to this performance, with the new understanding gained from our ever-growing familiarity with Mahler's life's work, one realises how far this extraordinary music transcends period and place, and stands revealed as a timeless masterpiece, a tremendous feat of creative imagination and technical mastery, down to the last detail.

Walter has been accused of sentimentalising Mahler, playing up his Viennese charm and haunting nostalgia, and playing down his biting sarcasm and bitter irony; but this opinion will not hold water, as is shown by the present performance. Admittedly, judging from the fascinating "Talking Portrait" on the accompanying bonus disc - a recorded interview with Arnold Michaelis - Walter would seem to have had a closer affinity with Bruckner, and to have taken a rather rosy view of the content of Mahler's music: "In each of his symphonies Mahler was seeking God." This is only half the truth; but we also hear him say how much the "demonic" element in Mahler meant to him. This was no doubt a largely subconscious affinity, since he does not dwell on it; and we notice from the equally fascinating "Working Portrait" on the other side of the bonus disc - snippets from the orchestral rehearsals for the record - that he did not 'interpret' Mahler to the players, but was content to secure perfection of playing. But that the affinity with every aspect of Mahler was there is obvious from the intensity of the performance, achieved, as he himself says, by the "occult power" by which a conductor communicates his feeling of the music to the players, and through them to the audience.

In comparison with Horenstein's largely fine performance and Ludwig's mainly misconceived one, Walter's fundamental superiority lies in his masterly tempo and rhythm - always broad enough to carry the great weight of the expression, but never drawn out for rhetoric to the point of breaking continuity. The vast span of the opening Andante comodo, presenting a life-and-death conflict, offers the most difficult problem, in its appearance of sprawling diffuseness. Ludwig, no doubt afraid that it can only sag if taken at a true andante, achieves flow by a continual pressing forward, which sadly minimises the music's majesty, drama, and depth of expression. Horenstein, splendidly broad, dramatic, and expressive, loses the flow at times; in particular, he so emphatically holds back for each appearance of the big exultant theme (first heard just before fig. 6), that he defeats his own object, failing to make these essential main pillars of the whole structure register clearly for what they are. But Walter unifies in one single unbroken flow the poignant lyricism of the main melody, the anguished agitation of the contrasting material, the full-blooded surge of the big exultant theme, the cataclysmic climax, and the shadowy disintegration of the coda. He leaves one in no doubt that this is one of the most superbly planned and executed large-scale symphonic movements in existence.

In the horrifying negative vision of the two central movements, which pillory the soulless emptiness of the modern age, Walter's affinity with Mahler's "demonic" element is undeniable. The whole point of the second movement is its alternation of dry parodies of popular dance-music - a medium tempo Ländler and a quick waltz - with a genuinely nostalgic slow Ländler. This is entirely missed by Ludwig, who whips away at the start with an impossibly quick waltz-tempo, and treats the whole thing as a jolly affair. Horenstein makes all the points clearly, but rather overdoes the 'clumsiness' asked for by Mahler to the extent of dragging the music in places and getting some rough playing from the strings. Walter prefers to let the music speak for itself: the tempi, and their integration into one another, are dead right; and there is plenty of subtle irony in the phrasing, so that the parodies are no less parodIes for being played as expertly as the genuine article. Moreover, he brings such ineffable beauty to the slow Ländler that the rest of the movement is set off vividly in its true garish colours .

No conductor can fail to make a powerful impact with the fast and frenzied contrapuntal uproar of the Rondo-Burleske; but whereas Ludwig sees only the physical excitement of the music, Horenstein and Walter bl'ing out superbly the livid 'to hell with everything' mood of the movement. Walter makes the music snap and snarl no less viciously than Horenstein, and he also achieves a virtuoso precision and greater impact in many details-notably the sudden fantastic outburst of fury when the main material first returns after the trio-section .

The Adagio-Finale's 'farewell to life' is for many people the outstanding movement of the work - the ultimate musical expression of heartbreak. Here Ludwig rises more nobly to the occasion with a deeply felt performance; but Horenstein again outdoes him in intensity, even if his extremely slow tempo makes the music almost burst at the seams here and there. Where Walter rises above both is in bringing out the other element in the music - the passionate joy in being alive, which is inextricably woven with grief in the noble chorale-melody, and only yields at the very end. Again it is a matter of tempo and rhythm: at a true adagio, and no slower, and with great weight of expression, and no more, he moves the music relentlessly forward until it at last slows down of its own accord and fades into silence.

What we must be just as thankful for is that this realisation of the work's full stature was not obscured by any deficiencies of engineering. The extracts from the orchestral rehearsals are introduced by the Music Director of American Columbia, John McClure, who describes with justifiable pride the concentrated effort which went into the technical side of the achievement. The absolutely lifelike reproduction of every strand of Mahler's complex texture, even in the loudest tutti passages, is an extraordinary feat of recording technique; and whereas Ludwig's performance sounds persistently remote, and Horenstein's persistently close, the present issue has a wide dynamic range, rising from a really hushed pianissimo to a really full-blooded fortissimo. Those with stereo equipment are especially lucky, for the unusually vivid separation will enable them to savour Mahler's fantastically intricate web of criss-crossing counterpoints to the full.

Deryck Cooke, The Gramophone, September 1962

 

REVIEW Symphony No. 9

[Mono issue review]
It is no doubt understandable that Bruno Walter, for one of his last recordings, should have chosen this work, for it was the first piece of Mahler that he ever heard, and he fell in love with it at first hearing. But all the same, one wishes that he had chosen the Third, Sixth, or Seventh, since he never recorded these at all, whereas he had already made a very fine recording of the First - the Philips issue listed above. Of course, this is also a fine performance, as we should only expect, and being different from the earlier one, it allows the Mahler-lover the fascinating experience of studying Waiter's changing approach to the music; but I feel that I shall personally stick to his earlier recording. There are certain gains here; the first movement works up to a much more gripping culmination, owing to a rather steadier tempo at figure 26 and a consequently more far-reaching accelerando to the end of the movement. Also the trio of the Scherzo is taken a shade more deliberately with a considerable deepening of the expression, and the two different sections of 'popular' music in the Funeral March are well differentiated by the adoption of a slightly quicker tempo for the second one (this drags a little on the earlier record).

However, there are also certain losses which for me outweigh the gains. The rhythm of the Funeral March is nowhere near as steady and relentless as in the previous version, and in the trio-section (which Walter originally handled with utter simplicity, as indicated by Mahler) the tempo changes all the time in the interests of an extra expressiveness which I find makes the music less moving instead of more. Another strange thing is that at the end of the Scherzo, each time, Walter no longer carries out the accelerando marked by Mahler; this may help the horns to cope with their murderous task, but it takes a great deal of excitement out of the music. But it is in the finale that the greatest difference lies. I particularly admired Walter's previous recording for the really fast tempo he adopted for the main stormy music - he was the only conductor who made the stream of quavers on .the strings sound like the wind howling, not like a fussy chattering of separate notes. But here he has broadened considerably, and although this allows him to get great weight into the music, it gives the violin line just that fussy effect which spoils all the other conductors' performances. Also, it takes the wildness of youth out of the music, and replaces it with the mature Mahler of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies; this music is surely one headlong mad rush or nothing. The whole movement is treated more deliberately, in fact, and although this makes for a really tremendous culmination, it means that the Funeral March has had to be split across two sides - the only case of this happening in any recording of the symphony. This is a large price to pay for the rather dubious expansion of the finale, and is the chief reason why I prefer to stick to my old recording.

The sound in mono is fine, and is superior to that of the earlier Philips record in that there is a greater perspective, which makes the strings much more mellow; but on the other hand the Philips gives a clearer account of the extremely important first trumpet, which is rather too backward on the CBS disc. I still await the stereo version.

...

[Stereo issue review]
At last the stereo version of Mahler's First Symphony that we've been waiting for - a really lifelike recording which takes the heaviest climaxes without flinching. I was less enthusiastic about the mono last month because the performance as such by no means replaces Walter's own earlier mono version, but it is of sufficient stature to dwarf all competitors in the stereo field. Apart from the same slight deficiency as in the mono - a rather too reticent treatment of the important first trumpet part - the only snag is that the third movement is split across the two sides.

Deryck Cooke, The Gramophone, March 1962 (mono) & April 1962 (stereo)