BLECH 150th Anniversary Album: Beethoven, Schubert (1919-1932) - PASC627

This release commemorates the 150th anniversary of the birth of Leo Blech (21 April 1871- 25 August 1958), a conductor perhaps most associated with the operatic works of Richard Wagner, but heard here in a symphonic program devoted to Beethoven and Schubert.

Blech’s most well-known Beethoven recording is his December, 1926 accompaniment to Fritz Kreisler in the Violin Concerto. A month later, he began a series of overtures, leading with those to Egmont andFidelio, continuing later that year with the Leonore No. 3 and concluding with Coriolan in the following year. Although he never recorded a complete Beethoven symphony, he did set down two movements during the acoustic era: the finale of the Fifth, and the Funeral March from the “Eroica” heard here. Pre-dating the earliest complete recording of the work, this was only the second time any music from that symphony had been attempted on disc. Blech’s tempi here are rather faster than what listeners are used to; but whether this is due to the performance practice of over a century ago or to the necessity imposed by fitting the music onto four ten-inch sides is unknown.

Opening the Schubert portion of our program are two transcriptions from piano works. The first, an arrangement of six short German dances interspersed by da capo repeats of the first dance, was the surprisingly straightforward work of Anton von Webern, which the composer had completed only the year before this première recording. (The violin solo at the beginning of the fifth dance is most likely played by Szymon Goldberg, the Berlin Philharmonic’s concertmaster from 1930 to 1934.) The Liszt arrangement which follows is a more flamboyant recasting (including tambourines and cymbals) of the composer’s two-piano original, which seems at least as much Liszt as Schubert.

During his long recording career, Blech only set down five complete symphonies: Haydn’s 88th (acoustically) and “Surprise” (three times); Tchaikovsky’s Fifth (on Pristine PASC 181); and the three Schubert works presented here. The Fifth and “Unfinished” are fine performances in the solid German tradition; but the Ninth is, to say the least, unlike any other on disc. It was the first complete* recording of the work, beating Harty’s version (PASC 282) by two months; and Blech seemed determined to challenge its reputation for “heavenly length”. It was appropriate that he should have recorded it with Albert Coates’ usual ensemble, the LSO, as they were used to lightning-fast tempi and willful interpretations. Some modern critics have been harsh in their assessment of the performance; but it remains sui generis, an exhilarating (if, for purists, maddening) roller coaster ride through Schubert’s most expansive symphonic score.

*(Almost complete – there is a cut in the Scherzo’s da capo repeat to get it to fit on two sides.)

Mark Obert-Thorn