AVAILABILITY
www.tahra.com
I reviewed
the second of this three-volume
tribute to the Dutch-born conductor
Paul van Kempen. I’ve now had the chance
to catch up with the first, a nicely
programmed conspectus with the Berlin
Philharmonic. Though he played in the
first violins in the Concertgebouw under
Mengelberg, van Kempen managed to avoid
the older man’s musical spectre, certainly
in the later years. There are hints
of Mengelbergian influence in the Liszt
however – some strong portamenti and
an exciting sense of drive accompanied
by a ration of shellac hiss but which,
in its turn, is overridden by strong
frequency response on the 1937 Polydor.
The Beethoven is the meat of the first
CD – another top quality Polydor, this
time from 1940. The performance is superior
to his later Philips remake. Here things
are fresher, more verdant, more related
in fact to the Pastoral if anything
– there’s a buoyancy that’s very appealing,
even if there’s not room for the first
movement exposition repeat (it fitted
neatly onto six 78 sides). The Mendelssohn
is strong and lithe and the Rossini
features some delightful wind principals
in addition to the fine cellist.
The Berlioz gets a
very convincing performance, maybe not
quite in Munch or Monteux’s class but
nevertheless thoroughly convincing,
though the sound is a bit brazen and
there are occasional pitch slippages.
We end the set with a performance of
the Brahms Second Concerto with Adrian
Aeschbacher whose wartime broadcast
with Furtwängler will be well known
by many. In that earlier performance
Aeschbacher splashed about unmercifully
and the performance frequently veered
off the rails. His was not the most
adamantine of techniques and it was
one that could splinter in the stress
of a concert, as indeed it does from
time to time with van Kempen – this
is a studio broadcast from 1952; only
the Liszt and Beethoven are commercial
recordings, everything else derives
from studio broadcast conditions. There
are plenty of smudged runs and van Kempen’s
orchestral handling can be slightly
pedantic now and then, though we do
get to hear details otherwise submerged,
such as the inner voice pizzicati in
the opening movement. And in the main
van Kempen keeps his sometimes wayward
soloist in check. I wish the soloist
had varied his voicings with more nuance
in the Allegro appassionato. I’ve been
listening to the almost contemporaneous
Myra Hess/Bruno Walter off-air recording
and that, so noble and humane, seems
far away sometimes. The cello solo in
the slow movement is unusually sentimental
in phrasing and tone but the main problem
here is pitch slippage on the tape that
is quite poor, from about 7.00 onwards.
I liked the finale, skittish and animated.
This is another good
slice of van Kempen’s commercial and
studio discography. If Tahra can correct
those pitch problems this will stand
alongside that second volume of their
salute.
Jonathan Woolf
Volume II
Adrian Aeschbacher (piano) 
