I think we all know the type: a big guy (usually middle aged) who explains things to everybody in loud, bombastic, tedious detail. Who sternly informs you how you aren’t doing it right. Who is the only person who KNOWS ABOUT EVERYTHING and never lets up. The blowhard, the bully, the obnoxious bossy type.
Which I’ve been thinking about after grimacing through Dimitri Mitropoulos and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra doing just that in their 1941 recording of the Schumann Second Symphony. I haven’t been this sternly lectured to in a good long while. Everybody is pointing everything out, emphasizing everything, making sure we understand that THE PHRASE IS DIRECTED TO THIS POINT AND NO OTHER and that THIS INNER VOICE MUST BE HEARD and that THIS IS A REPEATED PASSAGE AND THEREFORE MUST BE VARIED FROM THE ORIGINAL.
Sweet it ain’t. Gentleness has no place here. This is the Schumann Second shouted out, punched out, not so much played as commanded. It’s not a performance to listen to. It’s a performance to cringe to. Maybe a performance to salute. Yes, sir Mister Mitropoulos sir!
But more likely, a performance to be heard once and then put away with a sigh of relief. Just like getting away from that obnoxious blowhard and all of his stern directives and drill-sargeant pronouncements.
Along with that, I also heard a later Mitropoulos performance of the Tchaikovsky Capriccio italien, this time with the NY Phil and in stereo. Not so punched out, fortunately. But grim. Rigid. Broad-shouldered. Mean-spirited. How can you make the Tchaikovsky Capriccio italien vaguely unpleasant? It takes some doing, but Mitropoulos does it.
One of my litmus tests for any particular conductor: “do I want to hear this person leading a performance of the Brahms Third?”
With Mitropoulos the answer is: Oh, God, no no no. Fortunately I don’t have to even consider the possibility since on the giant Sony complete set of his recordings only a St. Anthony Variations is present for Brahms. None of the symphonies. A few Beethoven overtures, a rushed and impatient Pastoral, and one concerto as accompanist. Not a whiff of Mozart. (Good.) No Schubert. (Also good.) No Wagner. No Bruckner. A bit of Mahler. A harshly-lit, driven Debussy La Mer that lacks even the faintest whiff of nuance, spat out by that grumpest of orchestras, the 1950s New York Philharmonic that even Bruno Walter couldn’t completely tame.
This is a guy who specialized in contemporary music — meaning that he wasn’t much of one for the traditional repertoire. It shows. God, how it shows.