Interest in Gerhard Taschner has grown in recent years.
Born in Jagerndorf in 1922 his early training was fascinating – early
studies with his grandfather were followed by two years with Hubay in
Budapest (from 1930-32) and then time in Vienna with Huberman. He’d
already given his debut in Prague in 1929 as a wunderkind seven year
old playing a Mozart Concerto. In 1932 at the ripe old age of ten he
gave a full-scale standard prodigy trio of Concertos assisted by a doubtless
wary Felix Weingartner and the Vienna Symphony. Unusually peripatetic
he went briefly to America to chance his arm but returned to Germany
and thence to Brno where he took a position at the second desk in the
Theatre Orchestra. Here, aged seventeen, he was heard by Herman Abendroth
who was duly impressed and later on by Furtwängler who encouraged
him to stay in Berlin. During the War it was Taschner who along with
Siegfried Borries (the Philharmonic’s previous leader) and Erich Rohn
provided the leader-soloists to promote the concerto literature – supporting
such acknowledged stars as Georg Kulenkampff. Taschner had some significant
successes during these years, not least in the dedication of Fortner’s
Concerto but in later years he turned more to teaching, chamber music
and jury serving. He formed duos with Gieseking and Edith Fernadi and
was a member of the Taschner-Hoelscher-Gieseking trio. He died prematurely
in 1976 at the age of fifty-four.
As Tahra’s notes suggest Taschner has suffered because
he wasn’t signed to a major recording label. Enough recorded evidence
of his playing does exist however via German radio broadcast recordings
(100 are said to exist though others have been destroyed over the years).
A couple of the items on this slimline double – the Chaconne and Zigeunerweisen
- were part of the broadcast recordings looted by the Russians at the
end of the War and only returned in March 1991. Let’s hope that Taschner’s
broadcasts of the Tchaikovsky, Symphonie Espagnol and the Bartók
Sonata do turn up.
What we have here in this attractively designed set
is a collection of radio recordings dating from 1943-47. The sound throughout
is good; no real allowances need be made bar minor incidental problems
and even then it is of no concern to the specialist. The Chaconne opens
the set from 1943 (it was his calling card to Furtwängler). The
recorded ambience is chilly and there is consequently no bloom to the
sound. Taschner is sometimes idiosyncratic in matters of phraseology
with some brusqueness in the line at a fairly slow tempo. It strikes
me as the performance of a sober and serious young man. Transitions
are not ideally smooth and there is a lack of projection. A resinous
intensity is reserved for moments of climactic phrasal power or expressive
heightening. This is the earliest performance here and is followed by
the Devil’s Trill sonata, a recording made with Herbert Giesen. His
vibrato is hardly opulent but it is varied with skill though his trill
not of the electric variety. There are not too many slides either. He
employs some expressive romanticized phraseology early on but some self-consciously
heavy and emphatic playing intrudes somewhat later. Taschner’s intense
concentration can sometimes come adrift as just before the cadenza where
there is a little intonational buckle but Giesen ends with a florid
little flourish.
It’s once more unfortunate that the recording catches
something of the coldness in Taschner’s tone in Zigeunerweisen – nice
cantilena though with expressive finger changes (and intonational slips
along the way in the heat of the moment). The lack of tonal opulence
and a degree of rhythmic rectitude ultimately downplays the abandon
though. Taschner is joined by Walter Gieseking for the Franck Sonata,
one of the trickier in the repertoire. Occasionally Gieseking’s piano
sounds clangy and Taschner sounds rather more sinewy in the first movement
than he does elsewhere – the chewier tone he cultivates in the lower
strings contrasts forcibly with the metallic E string – which can be
inclined to be shrill. Still there is much to admire here, from the
expressivo playing in the third movement and the sense of ensemble with
Gieseking to the linearity of their conception and execution of it.
The second disc consists of Brahms and Khachaturian.
The Brahms Sonata is intriguing. Taschner employs quite a lot of portamenti
and a degree of elasticity in the line in the Allegro first movement
– his rubati are strong and the sense of impeding and onrushing is pervasive.
It’s often quite abrupt playing as well. His vibrato is not fast in
the second, slow movement – and equally there is no great depth of tone
to pour over the music like a sauce. He employs shades of colour but
not opulence and sometimes could do with more vibrato usage. He does
however certainly employ genuine diminuendi and a huge luftpause in
the course of a movement that in their hands certainly takes a leisurely
route. The brief scherzo-like movement is engagingly done but in the
finale Taschner seems to come under strain (was he tiring?) with a couple
of split notes. He continues to lack optimum vibrancy in the higher
positions and there is some gabble at the end of the work (mainly from
Gieseking). An example of Taschner the Concerto soloist comes in the
form of the Khachaturian Concerto with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra
conduced by the veteran Arthur Rother. He was one of the few German
violinists to evince much enthusiasm for Slavic and Nordic works; the
Hanseatic Kulenkampff was always drawn to them but Busch spurned them.
Taschner is quite sleek and quick spicing his playing with little inflective
devices to keep the line bristling with aural interest. His bowing is
good, the first movement cadenza well-negotiated, if occasionally he
can be a little "scratchy." He is sensitive in the Andante
sostenuto however – reducing bow weight with sensitivity – and still
employing some delightful portamenti and imparting some colour to his
playing.
This is an attractive set of two discs with a useful
booklet note filled with vintage photographs and drawings of the violinist.
If on the evidence of the works presented here Taschner ranks somewhat
below the Legendary Virtuoso of Tahra’s promotion he is still a most
worthy subjective for disinterment, especially when done as well as
it has been here.
Jonathan Woolf
Gerhard Taschner (violin)