Rattle’s Heldenleben
shares with his recent recording of the first Piano Concerto
of Brahms (see review),
indeed much of his recent work, a tendency to highlight certain
passages. The result is a draining away of symphonic tension.
There’s something almost defiantly sentimental about his use
of this kind of sculpting that proves, in the long run, provocatively
unsatisfying. It’s this promotion of incidental beauty over
tensile strength and intellectual sinew that leaves me uneasy.
It’s not necessarily the lingering in itself, rather it’s the
feeling that such moments are being unduly drawn to our attention
as epiphanies in themselves.
In a garrulous and
cocksure work such as this these kinds of elasticities are not
really necessary. Kempe may seem to underplay the opening movement,
The Hero, but his recording grows, as a result, in cumulative
power. That said, his is not a first recommendation of mine
despite its many felicities. Amongst Rattle’s predecessors both
Reiner (RCA - see reviews)
and Beecham (EMI – not currently available so far as I’m aware)
show how to shape and control Heldenleben without tinkering
with it. The Hero’s Adversaries lacks Beecham’s rapier
incision and the subsequent swooning is not convincing – Rattle
seeming to operate almost on a binary level of response, never
quite pitching the feeling correctly. The swooping melodrama
at 2.17 sounds to me self-regarding.
The Battle
scene is fine however, Rattle generating considerable heat,
more so than Beecham in sheerly visceral terms. I am still left
feeling that, for all the opulence of Rattle’s response and
for all the showy drama, the ominous character of this scene
is the better conveyed by a practised Straussian such as Beecham
or indeed Reiner. The final scene seems curiously detached,
and lacking in feeling. Beecham conveys expressive warmth without
ostentation. Reiner proves as ever a master of structure and
long terms goals. For all the sheen even Karajan makes more
of it.
None of this is
helped by the recording. The piece was taped in concert and
the result is a mess. The acoustic is very swimmy. The balance
is askew at important points. Even when things are going well
on the rostrum, as in much of the Battle scene, things
are not well in the control room – there’s a crucial lack of
definition throughout. It’s hard to mitigate the problems.
The coupling is
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. The pressure is off for this
facetious if affectionate piece of near neo-classicism. With
a smaller band and a reasonably balanced piano the myriad recording
afflictions of the companion work are not so apparent, not least
because this is a studio recording. The playing is stylish and
neat and when things run smoothly, as in Lully’s Minuet,
they run ravishingly. It makes one wonder why they can’t run
like this more often especially when The Fencing Master
suffers a bout of Rattle-isms, those rubato-rich moments that
don’t add up.
The playing time
is right to the limit, eighty-two minutes. But with a very problematic
recording and a performance to match I’d direct you, in a very
crowded field despite the coupling, to the performances already
noted. There are plenty of contemporary readings to choose as
well, Jansons to the fore, but Reiner has recorded both (available
separately). A master Strauss conductor such as he is a guide
for the decades.
Jonathan Woolf
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Guy Braunstein (violin)
