The Sunday Evening concerts in San Francisco in question
were sponsored by Standard Oil and had a rather limiting proviso.
There would be no advertisements but in return no single work was
to last longer than twenty minutes in length. This was pretty strictly
adhered to. The Franck Symphony proves to be an exception but excellent
note writer Arthur Bloomfield suggests it may have been a birthday
present from the sponsor (Monteux was then seventy-one). As for
Beethoven's Fifth, that is a composite performance comprising movements
taped three years apart. The survival of these discs is fortuitous,
not least in assembling a goodly amount of otherwise unrecorded
Monteux material. He is on fractionally more intense form - sometimes
considerably more intense form - than in his commercial recording
of the same work, insofar as comparison allows. The sound is generally
unproblematic. The recordings seem to have been made on acetate
discs and the surface noise is usually unobtrusive. Some of the
earlier material is in rather dim sound but despite some muddied
frequencies here and there these are really excellently preserved
archive recordings and, with Monteux in charge, deserving of the
widest possible recommendation.
There are over twelve hours of music-making here so I will only
begin to scratch the proverbial surface but hope by doing so to
show the weight of Monteux's achievement, his endless trouble
to secure sonorous clarity, and the generally idiomatic and affirmatory
nature of his conducting. The first disc is devoted to Beethoven;
an elegant and precise Consecration of the House Overture, not
recorded commercially, followed by a problematic performance of
the Fifth Symphony. It's problematic not just for the reasons
noted above - it's a composite - but also because of the tough
and unattractively driving persistence Monteux adopts in the opening
movement. There's a little untidiness orchestrally - and in the
conception as well - even though the slow movement really is con
moto and sharply etched and the Allegro third movement commanding.
In the finale the balance favours the brass over the strings and
again it's powerfully and insistently, but in the end not very
convincingly, done. The Prometheus adagio allows us to hear some
of the orchestral principals and most attractively they phrase
as well, whilst Egmont receives a reading full of acute sensitivity
and finesse. From the rising wind figure and powerful trumpet
line this is a performance of style and finesse. It's also flexible
and deigns to rush in that prosaic crowd-pleasing way, whilst
exposing inner part writing with a degree of transparency that
was one of Monteux's hallmarks as a conductor. He builds to the
climax with powerful ascents and strong accents but nothing is
inflammatory or needlessly outsize in scale. Leonore is in somewhat
more constricted sound, unusually since this dates from 1952.
There a few trivial sounding scuffs on the acetates - otherwise
a good performance in moderate to good sound.
The second disc is mainly Mozart and Haydn, with a little Gluck
for good measure (and these discs are notably good measure interpretatively
and also in terms of timing). I wasn't really taken by the Don
Giovanni overture; it seemed a bit soft and loose - but the Haffner
Symphony that follows is a different thing altogether. Ebullient,
vivacious and in somewhat constricted sound once again this is
a most impressive performance and a compound of sensitivity and
robustness. The Andante is taken at a fine tempo, with crisp accenting
and legato phrasing and subtle affection informs the Presto finale
notable for ringing percussion and a strong forward motion. We
have a tantalising torso of K414 with William Kapell as soloist,
the only soloist in fact in this set of discs. Arthur Bloomfield
likes the two movements rather more than I do. The tempo is leisurely
in the Andante, Monteux's shading expert and whilst Kapell is
reasonably fluent, his cadenza strikes me as unduly aggressive
and the Allegretto only so-so. I did like the graceful clarity
of the Die Zauberflöte overture - it's not freighted with
Masonic gloom - and whilst the sound in the overture to Die Entführung
aus dem Serail is nothing special (it dates from 1945) it's rather
held back, it is also very stylish. Monteux brings discerning
nobility to the Gluck, the San Francisco orchestra phrasing with
elegance, and in Haydn's Symphony No 88, he is commandingly robust
with the horns, encourages some rather individual wind fillips
in the Largo and presides over a most sensitive Minuet and trio.
It's remarkable to think that Monteux recorded so little Strauss
because on this showing he's absolutely first rate. In fact only
Ein Heldenleben and Tod und Verklärung were commercially
recorded and the latter was released posthumously. Don Juan is
passionate and eager, flexible and intensely poetic - try the
oboe's passages - all the while maintaining superb clarity. Tod
und Verklärung is equally discerningly conducted. It's considerably
quicker than his much later 1960 commercial disc and also more
intense and dramatic. Til Eulenspiegel is not conventionally quick
but is full of vibrant colour, played up for all its considerable
extravagance will allow and suffused in playfulness. The Rosenkavalier
Suite is beautifully modulated, rhythmically acute and has a degree
of elegance in the string pointing. As with Strauss, so with Wagner.
Monteux was tagged a French specialist - he resigned from the
Met because Rudolf Bing refused to let him conduct German repertoire
- and so the world didn't clamour to hear his Wagner. Precious
little was committed to disc so once again these are valuable
survivals. The Parsifal extracts are powerful, strong on solemnity
but not portentousness, with some marvellously hieratic brass
and prayerful strings. Monteux brings out, as few others do, the
yearning inner voices (he was of course a violist) but his Parsifal
is a cooler affair than the central Europeans, the woodwind textures
delineated with the utmost clarity and skill. The Prelude to Act
I of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is grand but as ever
with Monteux textually aerated, the winds chattering with vocality
and Monteux broadening marvellously into the peroration. The Overture
to Die Fliegende Holländer is bold and driven but not without
some sensitive phrasing along the way whilst the eloquence and
plangent depths of the Tristan Prelude and Liebestod are obvious
without in any way cloying into sentimentality.
The fifth CD is more Wagner and some Liszt. The winds take on
the role of baritone soloist in Wotan's Farewell and the Magic
Fire Music. The undoubted grandeur of these extracts never becomes
saturated; strings are plangent, textures are clear, harmonic
implications unclothed. The avian enchantment of the Forest Murmurs
from Siegfried is delicious whilst Monteux cultivates great depth
in Siegfried's Rhine Journey. I even liked the Rienzi overture
- so full of earnest phrasing, yearning middle voices, noble and
jaunty, and no hint of vulgarity. His Liszt is of a piece with
his Wagner; Les Préludes has suspensions of great charm
and elegance as well as sharply etched lines and a panoply of
orchestral nuance and the Hungarian Rhapsody builds up a head
of steam with its chattering drive intact. When we arrive at Berlioz
we reach a Monteux specialty and he doesn't disappoint though
the repertoire is a little disparate. The Carnaval Romain overture
is good, despite a few little scratches, and the sound is noticeably
forward but it's not quite in the Beecham class. The extracts
from L'Enfance du Christ are beautifully moulded, the first flautist
especially eloquent. The Damnation of Faust extracts are, despite
the colour, the wit and the bite, desperately in need of being
aurally "opened up". This is a boxy recording and it
could do with some air. The longest extract here is from Romeo
and Juliet taken from the same concert as the Damnation of Faust
and features an absolutely delicious Fête at the Capulets
as well as sovereign articulacy generally. The Corsair Overture
ends the Berlioz disc - exciting, tremendous sense of the spaces
between the notes and a superbly judged peroration.
After an entertaining Fingal's Cave we are plunged into a fast
and furious first movement of Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony.
It just so happens that I've been listening for review purposes
to Beecham's commercial CBS recording made at around the same
time that Monteux was recorded here and can only say that Beecham
sounds like sanity itself after Monteux. I once heard a live Cantelli
recording and that was even more absurd. Unfortunately the Monteux
never really recovers - lack of room for proper articulation with
the relaxation into the slower sections sounding forced and sectional
not organic. The slow movement sounds unsettled, stern and unyielding
and the moderato third movement lax. Even the kinetic power and
intensity of the finale can't save a performance that seems entirely
badly judged. We are on much better ground when we move to the
splendid account of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet. This is a
moving and eloquent performance. I can perhaps imagine some of
the entry points being better executed and indeed perhaps better
prepared but in the context the wholehearted abandon is a marvel.
Sectional discipline is tight, Monteux once more showing us his
rhythmic flair, colour and instinct for pathos tempered by nobility
and elevation of utterance. The Eighth CD is a bits and pieces
affair and no less entertaining for all that. The Rossini gets
a fizzing and high spirited reading, beautifully balanced and
subtle. He shows once more how cogent and noble a Brahmsian he
was with a fine performance of the first movement (only) of the
First Symphony; he's sheerly delightful in Thomas's Mignon Overture,
waggish in the Dukas. He approaches the Messiaen with just the
right weight of brassiness. His Sibelius Valse Triste is unusually
spectral but the Brahms Tragic Overture is stern and powerful.
More lollipops and charmers attend the ninth disc. The Borodin
is Beecham territory once again and Monteux scores highly for
delicacy and restraint, whilst verdant is a not inappropriate
adjective for his Rimsky Christmas Eve Suite. I quite enjoyed
the Russian Easter Overture though the solo violin (Naoum Blinder,
otherwise excellent) is strangely fallible here. Elsewhere the
strings are on top, appropriately slick form for the Capriccio
Espagnol whilst the sun flecked and romantic Glazunov ballet is
liltingly done by the one time conductor of the Ballets Russe.
There are only two movements here of Rachmaninov's Second Symphony
and they exude a gripping but noble lyricism - the dynamics in
the third movement can be searing but they're not inappropriately
so. The last disc is devoted to Franck. I don't suppose many would
want too often to listen Gabriel Pierné's orchestration
of the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue but I found it fascinating and
quite moving. I'm sure Elgar did as well, at least the piano original,
because I've seldom heard anything so redolently anticipatory
of Elgar. His Redemption is surging and passionate and the Psyché
Suite, which is frequently grave in spirit, rises to a passionate
and beautifully shaped climax. As for the centrepiece of this
disc, the Symphony in D, I can strongly recommend it as an interpretation
every bit as good as his three commercial recordings. It's fiery
and passionate, malleable and evocative, and conducted with the
kind of eye and ear that Franck needs. All section principals
are on excellent form and this is certainly, as a performance,
more extrovertly etched than, say, the Chicago recording and certainly
more obviously powerful and dramatic.
Many of the smaller pieces are new to the Monteux discography,
much of the Strauss and Wagner as well; of the remainder these
are no mere ancillaries to his known recordings. Many are tighter
and more emotive, more powerful and only a few poor performances
intrude on the exceptionally high quality on display here. The
sound as I say is generally good, exceptions noted, and the repertoire
broad ranging despite the time limitations imposed on it. Twelve
hours with Pierre Monteux is no time at all, so zestful, so clear,
so deft his musicianship and so sympathetic his conducting. The
ten CDs are priced as eight and, frankly, that's a bargain no
admirer of Monteux and of great conducting could easily forego.
Jonathan Woolf
San Francisco Symphony
Orchestra/Pierre Monteux