Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt made a series of studio
recordings for both Capitol and Telefunken in the 1950s and
Tahra has sensibly decided to devote two three-disc sets to
each of them. This Capitol series, very well transferred and
with delightful and evocative LP cover reproductions in the
booklet, will be of some interest to those who have been won
over by the conductor’s intelligent and sensitive approach to
the mainstream symphonic repertoire.
The first disc begins with a spruce, and most
enjoyable Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Repeats may have been jettisoned
but the NWDR strings are lithely attractive. Haydn’s Symphony
No.94 was, in effect, a remake of the 78 set he’d made in Berlin
in the 1930s, a period when he was in significant demand, not
least as an accompanist to some of the elite instrumentalists
then recording in Germany — most famously perhaps Kulenkampff
in the Beethoven Violin Concerto. Schmidt-Isserstedt’s Haydn
is neither sluggish nor intemperate; rather it’s well argued
and well played. It may lack the élan of Beecham, say, but it
wears its own integrity with commendable lightness. The first
disc also includes Schubert’s Fifth Symphony, in a buoyant,
imaginative reading, full of clean lines, wind detailing and
crisp rhythm. He drives on through the trio of the scherzo to
noticeably advantageous effect.
The second disc disinters a recording of Beethoven’s
C minor Piano Concerto with Ventislaw Yankov. This is a rather
stolid affair, lacking a degree of pianistic energy. The conductor
was an eminent exponent of Beethoven and his cycle of the symphonies
is a just, sane and attractive one. Here he can do little to
help things other than to provide sympathetic support. Things
don’t improve even in the finale. I should note that on my copy,
after the first movement cadenza, there is a ghostly reprise
beginning pp, and then we hear the whole cadenza again. Maybe
this blip afflicts only my review copy. The Brahms Second Symphony
restores equilibrium with a performance of great architectural
surety. One feels in the safest and least doctrinaire of hands.
There are no explosive moments, à la Beecham, in the finale
to ‘jolly the thing along’. Instead the music evinces its own
inexorable sense of development, long-breathed, moving and honest.
The last disc opens with extracts from Rosamunde
in bold and energetic performances. The music is not Schubert’s
most subtle but the conductor and orchestra respond with vigour.
The rest of the final disc consists of Wagnerian chunks, played
with fulsome commitment and, once again, a sure sense of the
music’s direction, its peaks and troughs. They are hardly essential,
in the overall context of the conductor’s discography, but they
sit very comfortably here. Tahra’s commitment to this
conductor’s legacy is admirable. So too are the performances
and transfers.
Jonathan Woolf
Ventislaw Yankov (piano) 