By the late 1950s
the once-illustrious career of Dmitri Mitropoulos at the helm
of the New York Philharmonic had run into trouble. The conductor’s
own essentially gentle, non-combative attitude to music-making
did not earn him the respect of the hard-bitten NYPO musicians
of the time. He was neither an orchestral trainer nor a martinet
of the podium à la Szell. His dedication to contemporary
music and his unconventional approach to programme-building
was not reflected in support from the notoriously conventional
Carnegie Hall audiences. He was the subject of regular and
frequently personal attacks in the New York press. As Mitropoulos’s
star waned, that of his erstwhile protégé Leonard
Bernstein was in the ascendant, providing New York audiences
with the glamour and glitz which were absent from the Greek
conductor’s make-up. Small wonder that Mitropoulos, his health
seriously affected by the stresses of the last few years, looked
to Europe to continue the music-making that was so important
to him.
A
series of memorable performances in Salzburg, Vienna and elsewhere
consolidated his reputation on that side of the Atlantic. The
current disc brings together three separate studio performances
with the Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester from this
period.
Mitropoulos had
performed and recorded these Mendelssohn Symphonies in 1953
in New York, but these German recordings are better in terms
of both sound and performance. The Scottish Symphony
recording dates from 24 October 1960, just a week before Mitropoulos
memorable performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony with the same
forces, and ten days before his death while rehearsing the same
work in Milan. The opening movement is energetic, with imposingly
dramatic playing and dynamic contrasts. The Vivace non troppo
is a delight, performed faster than is customary, creating a
riot of sound and colour. The Adagio is marked by heartfelt
cantabile playing from the whole orchestra, followed by a suitably
energetic finale.
The Reformation
Symphony dates from a 1957 concert and shares the virtues of
energy and commitment that distinguished the Scottish.
The transition in the finale from the simplicity of the chorale
melody on flute to the jubilant allegro vivace is extremely
well handled, and the music’s many contrapuntal strands are
effectively highlighted. Mitropoulos brings the symphony to
a suitably affirmative close.
The Couperin transcription
by Darius Milhaud provides a good example of the breadth of
Mitropoulos’s repertoire. In the same 1954 concert he conducted
Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto with Louis Krasner as soloist.
The music sounds not dissimilar to the contemporary arrangements
of Bach by Stokowski, Ormandy and others in its unashamed use
of full orchestral forces. The opening minuet is treated to
lush phrasing before a more energetic march-like allegro.
This rounds off this valuable disc in fine style.
In all these pieces
Mitropoulos is skilled in balancing the structural aspects of
the music with its dramatic, expressive side. All provide further
evidence, if any were needed, of this great conductor’s total
absorption in music-making, and fully justify the high reputation
he enjoys today.
Ewan McCormick
Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester/Dmitri
Mitropoulos 
