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Though Schumann’s is not a name
that springs to mind when listing Beecham’s musical affinities
his identification with Manfred was notable. Though he subjected
the work to his characteristic rewritings and interpolations on
the Beechamesque grounds of "cheering the thing up" – a process
he’d begun with a staged version back in 1918 – this recording
proves an eloquent and moving one. It’s as well to note the idiosyncrasies
now: there are insertions behind some of the narrations, No. 11’s
final twelve bars are excised and used instead to finish the second
part; Beecham has orchestrated some keyboard miniatures, from
Album für die Jugend and the last Abendlied from the Duets
Op. 85, and spun them seamlessly into the score - appositely they
were written fairly contemporaneously with Manfred; he also doesn’t
stick strictly to the score order. I have to say that I found
all such matters almost entirely persuasive and that they were
exercised for reasons of expressive consonance and romantic spirit.
It was a work that, for all his tomfoolery, clearly laid siege
to Beecham’s Romantic self - solitary and Byronic as it clearly
could be.
This dramatic poem – a monologue
in the conductor’s word – finds the orchestra subservient to the
verse drama. The concentrated power accumulates to the final death
scenes with invincible and provoking sensibility. The interpolations
are Beecham’s solution to the need for constant but subtle romantic
continuity and flux. Right from the overture, recorded incidentally
two years later after the rest of the set, we are aware of a sense
of mutability, of unease, of dislocation – qualities Beecham unerringly
finds. The weight of the performance falls on Laidman Browne,
a role once also taken by Valentine Dyall, The Man in Black of
radio fame. Browne is an actor of striking personality, sometimes
a wee bit stagy (if you want to hear the word evil stretched to
the farthermost possibilities of vowel elongation, listen to Browne
in the First Act) and sounding somewhat older than I imagined
would be the case (unlike I suspect the academic and eminence
grise of the Marlowe Society recordings, George "Dadie" Rylands,
who took part in many performances around this time but didn’t
make the recording and would have lacked Browne’s oratorical fervour).
David Enders is excellent as the Chamois hunter, suitably rustic
in delivery and Raf de la Torre is sinuous and convincing as the
Nemesis.
The Entr’acte that opens Act II
is played with glorious freshness and open heartedness and that
behind Manfred’s Act III monologue Glorious Orb! Is one
of the most cherishable things in the whole work, no less than
the Abendlied itself later in the same Act. It’s only in Music
No. 14 that the brass bray balefully and only at the very end
the chorus intones Manfred’s passing. Otherwise it is left to
Beecham to mould and control the flow of this static philosophic
drama with touches of greatness – colour and shade and shadow
and moving understanding at the end. It’s a work for special moments,
as he understands only too well.
The Sony transfer is excellent
enough to preserve those evocative studio noises, bows on music
stands and shuffling shoes – the ambience is especially noticeable,
but only listening with headphones, behind Manfred’s Act II monologue
Daughter of Air. If you have the transfer on Beecham 4
issued in 1991 you might notice that their transfer is fractionally
more immediate than Sony’s with fine and clear sound. But it’s
wonderful news that this Manfred is available once more because
for all its quirks it still has the power to move.
Jonathan Woolf
Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham 
