Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 5, No. 5 (1931-02)

157 February, 19.31, VoL V. No. 5 of high-flown romanticism Tchaikowsky finds at moments a penetrative force and expressiveness that rise far above the orthodoxy of his plan and idiom. Discount the sweetness of the lyrical second theme as you will, there still remains a poignancy and tenderness that is indeed not incomparable to those of Romeo’s unforgettable invocation to the “faithful night.” And surely the breadth and passion of the re-statement of the theme, toward the end of the third record side of the present recording, rank indisputably with the finest pages from Tchaikowsky’s pen. The music has been anathema to me since the week in which I heard it played three times within as many days and by three different conductors. But lately the obviousness and frenetic- ism of so many of its pages repell me less strongly, and in this compact, clean-cut, beautifully planned performance by Men- gelberg I begin to see it in better perspective. This is by all means the way in which Tchaikowsky should be played: his emotionalism curbed by a firm yet sympathetic hand, and his frantic outbursts transformed into disciplined dynamic force- fulness. Stokowski did well with the overture (Victor M-46, the first recording to be made of the work), but Mengelberg does better. His greater terseness and surer grip keep the music within four record sides instead of five, yet a fine scheme of contrasts is maintained, and the luminous esctacy of the purest moments is retained with admirable delicacy and restraint. Following the records with the miniature score .one. gets a sharp insight into the means by which Mengelberg disciplines and exploits the possibilities of his orchestra. One might ask for greater warmths from the strings in their upper registers, but for little else. The famous ostinato horn passages (that with many conductors become positively revolting in their lugubrious and repetitive insistence) are effective here, and even more so the splendid orchestral writing on such, pages as 55 and 56 of the Eulenberg score with the contrasting timbers of brass and wood wind choirs above syncopated octaves on the violins and the marcato statement of the Friar Lawrence theme on the horns—an admirable example of exciting tone coloring obtained with the strictest economy of means. Note also the effectiveness of the recording, with a happy touch of reverberance, in the passages for wood winds on page 20, etc.; the literal pianissimos, even in the timpani rolls; and the felicitous reproduction of the ostinato timpani passage at the beginning of the coda. The measures here for wood wind alone also come off beautifully, and the closing heavy chords as well as can be hoped for, although I strongly agree with Tchaikowsky’s friends that these fortissimos make a fussy and impotent ending. The many concert goers who profoundly lament Mengel- berg’s passing from the American musical scene will find this release a happy memento of one of his finest performances, admirably recorded, and worthy companion to his memorable Columbia recordings of the fourth and fifth Tchaikowsky sym- phonies. Two Sonatas Beethoven : Sonata No. 26 in E flat, Op. 81a (“Lebewohl” or “Les Adieux ”), played by Wilhelm Kempff. Brunswick 90123-4 (2 D12s, SI.50 each). Chopin: Sonata in B flat minor , Op. 35 (seven sides), and Waltz in E minor, posthumous (one side), played by Ser- gei Rachmaninoff. Victor Musical Masterpiece Set No. M-95 (4 DIO, Alb., $6.50). Two major sonatas make February a red-letter month for the piano record collector. Both have been recorded before (although the original Poly dor pressing of the Kempff pre- ceded Godowski’s Columbia version by a year or more), but the standing and personalities of all the pianists involved gives each version its individual distinction and raison d’- etre. I had hoped that the new releases might be reviewed by Mr. Nicolas Slonimsky, whose comments on the Godow- s ky “Lebewohl” and Carnaval and other large scale piano works gave so original and penetrative a light on these re- cordings, but he has been on tour with his chamber orchestra in a stimulating program of unfamiliar works ranging from Mozart’s first symphony and “A Musical Joke” to pieces by Charles Ives and Charles Ruggles. My notes will be of much less value than Mr. Slonimsky’s would have been, but the study of these discs—the first major piano solo sets I have heard carefully for review for several years—has been of lively interest to me, and it is with mixed . feelings that I compare my personal reactions with those to the orchestral, concerted, and chamber recordings which have formed the bulk of my phonographic fare. I have not Godowsky’s Columbia set of the “Lebewohl” at hand for comparison, but Professor Kempff’s sound technical equipment and strongly masculine interpretative powers en- able him to bear comparison with the foremost giants of the keyboard. Kempff is a Prussian organist and pianist, born in 1895, known also as a composer and as an improviser of re- markable attainments. The appearance of a series of Bee- thoven sonata recordings from Polydor over two years ago was one of the first major manifestations of the ability of the electrical process to redeem piano discs from the banjo- xylophone qualities and often insignificant musical fare with which they had been so closely associated before. The pres- ent sonata is the first to be released under American labels, but it and its companion releases have had a considerable sale in the imported pressings. Brunswick does well to make them more generally available in this country. The recording, hailed as epoch-making several years ago, is still to be ranked with the best, although the Brunswick- Poly dor Brailowsky series and the Columbia Godowsky and Marguerite Long releases have since made further refine- ments. Kempff’s performance is close-knit, vigorous, and in- telligently planned. I like the firmly leashed vigor of the allegro, the snap and punch to the accents, the care with which the upper parts are balanced to prominent bass pas- sages, and the manly reserve of feeling in the andante. (It is andante; the indication “mit gehender Bewegung” is scrup- ulously observed.) Scrupulosity indeed is the prime charac- terization of the performance as a whole,—musicianly meticu- losity. saved from academic taint by the invigorating vitality with which Kempff’s playing is so wholesomely endowed. Per- haps Godowsky adds a more sensitive poetic sense to com- parable qualities of intelligence and athleticism, but regard- less, the Kempff records qualify for an honored place in any record library. (For notes on the sonata itself, reference should be made to Mr. Slonimsky’s description on page 23 of the October P. M. R.) After the sturdy masculinity of Beethoven and Kempff even Rachmaninoff’s Chopin betrays a feminine instability and perversity of temperament. The B flat minor sonata has been thrice-recorded previously, by Percy Grainger (Colum- bia), Arthur de Greef (H. M. V.), and Robert Lortat (French Columbia). None of these are ideal Chopin men; Grainger is the most successful, but his cold brilliance and stereotyped rhythmical mannerisms are less effective in this work—despite the unusual intensity he brings to it—than in the B minor sonata and his larger Brahms and Schumann works. Rach- maninoff’s austerity has mellowed of late years. His old Slavic zeal is not missing from the present performance, but the sweetness and light in which he bathes Chopin’s pretty melodiousness is somewhat incongruous in so close proximity to the dynamic manifestations of what Hunker termed the “greater” Chopin, a characterization that has led a good many pianists—but not Rachmaninoff—to confound greatness with noisiness. Of the four Chopin sonatas one is for piano and ’cello and another an early work that is seldom played. The B flat minor shares popular honors with that in B minor, and while the latter is perhaps more generally preferred, the former has been the more discussed and apotheosized. G. C. Ashton Johnson calls it a “tone poem, a reading of life on earth, even such a lifq as that of Chopin himself.” And indeed in France it is usually referred to as the “Poeme de la Mort,” not merely because of the presence of a funeral march, but because of the organic relationship of all four movements into a single poem of life and its ceaseless, hopeless struggle against the inevitability of death. Chopin had it in his power to give us a great human as well as musical document. There are moments of true greatness in the frantic, jerkily propulsive turbulence of the first movement; and again in the devil-may-care jesting of the scherzo and the restless and meaningless activity of the finale (which Rachmaninoff plays as Kullak would have it, “gloomily, and with self- absorbed expression.”) But always the contrasting episodes