If you’ve ever spent much time reading through a CD review site or magazine, you’ve probably picked up on the notion of depth in a record review—i.e., speaking from having heard many recordings of the work in question. Presumably a review by somebody who has heard many renditions bears more weight than a review by somebody without that experience.
All things being equal—i.e., that both the “deep” and “shallow” reviewers are equally adept musically, that neither reviewer has an agenda, that neither reviewer is receiving kickback, that both reviewers are reasonably familiar with the music being recorded as well as the performers involved, that both reviewers are listening to the recording on comparable equipment—I can see how “depth” might add to a review. (I can also see how all things are very rarely equal.)
And I can also see how that “depth” could prove disastrous. Hearing a lot of recordings of one piece can result in a person’s becoming very, very weird about the whole shebang. We humans are programmed to form fierce alliances, it would seem. I have read reviews in which a conductor is consigned to eternal hellfire for taking an un-notated ritard, or a performer hanged, drawn, and quartered for skipping a repeat. I recall shaking my head ruefully when a reviewer referred to one such perceived shortcoming as unforgiveable.
Oh, come on, fella. Unforgiveable is a word you use about murdering somebody’s child, not when the harpsichord continuo on a Haydn symphony recording is too florid for your taste.
With that in mind, I spent some time recently listening to twenty-seven separate recordings of the finale of Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major. I was interested in exploring our general attitudes towards tempo and the “common wisdom” regarding both period-instrument groups as well as old-versus-new recordings. Mozart 39 struck me as a likely candidate given its rhythmic regularity and obvious need for a reasonably peppy tempo, if not an all-stops-out sprint. My comparisons are based almost entirely on tempo for this particular exercise.
The oldest recordings I consulted both came from the later 1920s, Erich Kleiber conducting the Berlin State Orchestra and Toscanini leading the La Scala band. The newest is René Jacob’s outing with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, so new that the digits are still damp.
I would classify four recordings as HIP, or “historically-informed performance”, i.e. original instrument groups. That would be Jaap der Linden/Mozart Academy Amsterdam, John Eliot Gardiner/English Baroque Soloists, Thomas Fey/Mannheim Mozart Orchestra, and the aforementioned Jacobs/Freiburg.
Six can be described as chamber-orchestra: Daniel Barenboim/English Chamber Orchestra, Jeffrey Tate/English Chamber Orchestra, Neville Marriner/Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Charles Mackerras/Prague Chamber Orchestra, Jane Glover/London Mozart Players, and Leonidas Kavakos/Camerata Salzburg.
Thirteen come from the world’s champion big bands—three from the Berlin Philharmonic, two each from Cleveland, New York, and Vienna, with other A-list groups such as the Royal Concertgebouw and the London majors—London Symphony, Philharmonia, and Royal Philharmonic.
I also included a group from worthy-but-not-as-famous orchestras, such as the BBC Symphony, Berlin State Opera, Milwaukee Symphony, La Scala Orchestra, and the deservedly obscure Moscow RTV Symphony.
Conductors ranged from the near-mythical (Wilhelm Fürtwangler, Arturo Toscanini, Erich Kleiber, Felix Weingartner) through the celebrated (George Szell, Bruno Walter, Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan); from the fine solid folk (Neville Marriner, Jeffrey Tate, Josef Krips, Karl Böhm, Daniel Barenboim) through the period specialists (René Jacobs, Thomas Fey, John Eliot Gardiner, Jaap der Linden) to the lesser-known (Leonidas Kavakos, Andreas Delfs, Jane Glover).
A few simple observations from the data I amassed:
- It simply isn’t true that modern performances of Mozart tend to be faster than older ones. The single fastest performance clocked at a breathtaking quarter note = 150, and that came from Bruno Walter conducting the BBC Symphony in the 1930s. Herbert von Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic nipped Walter’s heels in 1949 with a tempo of 147, while the older of the two Szell/Cleveland recordings I had, from 1947, came in at 146.
- However, there is some evidence in favor of the “glacial slowdown” mentioned by Harold C. Schoenberg, in that a significant portion of relatively recent performances are slower than the older ones. Of the 140+ tempi I measured, over half came from pre-1950 recordings, but several speedboats are of quite recent vintage, including Andreas Delfs in Milwaukee (2005) and Maazel in New York (2006). So obviously the slowdown isn’t across the board. We must also consider the possibility that those older recordings were fast in order to squeeze the movement onto a single 78 RPM side.
- It also isn’t true that the HIP groups tend to be speedier than the big bands, at least not in this sampling. Not a single HIP recording measured speedwise amongst the top third. Fastest was the new Jacobs/Frieburg at 138, while the others all ranked below the median tempo, from 133 (Fey/Mannheim), to 130 (Gardiner/English Baroque), and coming to a stop on a quite leisurely 128 with Linden/Mozart Academy.
- However, off-the-scale wacky interpretative choices tend to come from the HIP groups: both Jacobs and Fey have some real surprises up their respective sleeves. On the other hand, Jaap der Linden seems devoid of ideas altogether.
- The actual range of variance isn’t all that much on the whole. The median hovered in the mid-130s, with a small subset in the 140s and an even smaller group in the high 120s.
- Whatever you do, stay away from the Denon Essentials disc of the late Mozart symphonies, no conductor listed but the Moscow RTV Symphony (whatever that is) as the ensemble. I have never heard such dismal, uncommitted, soggy and sluggish playing from an orchestra, and I’ve heard some real stinkers, believe me. Their tempo was a glacial 110, perhaps suitable for sightreading but not much else, and the performance utterly lacked the slightest nuance, warmth, or life.
- The relationship of period groups to repeats held up. In my sampling, not a single HIP group failed to take the long development/recap repeat, although that’s true of only Bernstein’s late Vienna Phil outing amongst the big bands, and Mackerras in Prague amongst the chamber groups. Most performances skip it, a wise choice in my humble opinion.
- Performances taken from “sets” were no more or less interesting than singles. Of those from complete-symphonies sets, I really loved Marriner/St Martin, Tate/English Chamber, and Mackerras/Prague, while Jaap der Linden/Amsterdam left me cold. My two absolute favorites were “singles” (more on that below), and the absolutely hands-down worst was also a single (also see below.)
- Certain stereotypical notions I have about individual conductors ran true. I have always considered Daniel Barenboim to be a distinctly solid, almost stolid, conductor and pianist. His tempo of 128 with the English Chamber Orchestra seemed very Barenboim-y to me, just as Karl Böhm’s 127 in Berlin seems very Böhm-y as well. I must admit that I wasn’t expecting to find Fürtwangler’s 1943 performance amongst the speedier renditions, however.
- Every multiply-represented conductor slowed down as he aged. Herbert von Karajan started from a high of 147 in 1949, through 132 with the Philharmonia in 1955, landing on 130 in the 1970 Berlin recording. Ditto Josef Krips, never particularly lithe to begin with, at 132 in 1947 with the London Symphony then a rather leisurely 128 in 1973’s Amsterdam recording. Ditto Bruno Walter, from a high of 150 in the 1930s to a bang-on average 135 in 1953. And ditto George Szell, at 146 in 1947 followed by 141 in 1960, both in Cleveland.
- The middleground for this movement seems to be quarter note = 135. I was not at all surprised to find that the English tend to hew to that midway point: Neville Marriner, Jeffrey Tate, and Jane Glover differed only marginally from the median.
So: out of all these recordings, all these conductors and orchestras spread over eighty some-odd years, did I emerge with any clear favorites?
Well, yes, now that you mention it. I’m quite surprised to find that they are both older monophonic issues. So, may I have the envelope please…
Best Performance by a Recording in a Leading Role (Tie):
George Szell conducting the Cleveland Orchestra, 1947
Herbert von Karajan conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra, 1955
Miss Congeniality Award, a.k.a. The Recording Least Likely to Offend Anyone, to:
Neville Marriner conducting the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 1986
Most Challenging Recording, a.k.a. The Oh-So Quirky Recording That I Enjoy But Would Never Recommend:
René Jacobs conducting the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, 2010
And a few raspberries:
Worst Orchestra:
La Scala Orchestra conducted (herded?) by Arturo Toscanini, late 1920s
Golden Turkey Award (By a mile!):
Some understandably unidentified person conducting the Moscow RTV Symphony, date unknown