Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Symphony No.1 in B flat, Op.38 ‘Spring’ (1841)
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
The Damnation of Faust (extracts): I. Hungarian March II. Dance of the Sylphs III. Dance of the Will-of-the-Wisps (1846)
Leningrad Radio Symphony Orchestra (Schumann), Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra (Berlioz)/Karl Eliasberg
rec. c.1959 and first released on Melodiya D 06205-06
Maestro Editions ME135 [46]
It’s fair to say that the LPs produced by the Soviet label Melodiya in the 1950s and 1960s didn’t enjoy the highest of reputations. Contemporary reviewers pinpointed both their frequently harsh and strident sonics and, even more damningly, the poorly made physical product that often augmented the music with an unwanted assortment of clicks, hisses, swishes and bumps. It was perhaps fortunate, then, that Melodiya’s parallel failure to develop an effective retail distribution network meant that not that many consumers outside the Eastern bloc actually got to hear the LPs themselves.
Nevertheless, just as modern technology can often retrieve fine performances from old European and American 78s that had previously been regarded as unlistenable, it can equally reveal that the USSR’s engineers were rather more skilful at recording music that their colleagues were at reproducing the results on physical discs. The welcome ability to restore those old Soviet (and other Eastern European) recordings to a standard that’s acceptable to 21st century listeners is especially significant given the fact that many of the artists on Melodiya’s impressive roster were never allowed to record in, or even travel to, the West. While there is the odd exception to that rule – most notably the two Evgenis, Mravinsky and Svetlanov – the likes of such conductors as Boris Khaikin, Aleksandr Melik-Pashaev, Samuil Samosud, Konstantin Ivanov and Nikolai Golovanov, to name but a handful, thereby remain in relative obscurity, each remembered, if at all, on the basis of a few recordings that may in fact give an entirely unrepresentative impression of the scope and quality of their art.
Karl Eliasberg is yet another little-known conductor whose work is, in practice, very difficult to assess. Indeed, his death in 1978 passed by with so little notice, it seems, that John L. Holmes’s definitive study Conductors on record (London, 1982) was still unaware of it four years later. Still, at least Mr Holmes had allocated Eliasbergan entry, picking out as worthy of mention – in spite of all the clicks and hisses – his recordings of the Brahms double concerto (with Oistrakh, Kushnevitzky and the Leningrad Radio Symphony Orchestra), Schumann’s Manfred overture (with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra), the Grieg piano concerto (with Murailev and the USSR State Symphony Orchestra), Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the animals and Liapunov’s Solemn overture on Russian themes (both with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra). The observant reader will have noticed that none of the material on the disc under review was included in Holmes’s selection.
Such an observant reader will also be aware that this newly-released CD has recently been reviewed on MusicWeb’s pages by our own expert on historical reissues, Jonathan Woolf. Like him, I rather enjoyed these performances. The Leningrad Radio Symphony Orchestra, Eliasberg’s own, gives an especially lively and nimble account of Schumann’s Spring symphony, effectively teasing out its fresh, youthful qualities. Indeed, the whole performance offers a convincing demonstration of expertly executed command of orchestral balance and dynamics, with a particularly attractive account of the second movement Larghetto, the finely sculpted opening of which exhibits an almost chamber music quality. While Jonathan wasn’t too fond of what he termed the “sinewy-scrawny” string section, I actually thought that its lighter sound brought some welcome orchestral transparency while also suiting the early-Romantic musical idiom rather better than, say, the sonically-overpowering massed fiddles of Karajan’s Berlin Philharmonic. At the same time, Eliasberg keeps a tight rein on his brass players and completely eschews the harshly strident style of playing favoured by Soviet orchestras at that time. The Berlioz excerpts, played by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, were recorded in a more resonant space that generates a rather different – though not necessarily less attractive – sound. The Hungarian march is delivered in a decidedly forthright, even heavyweight, manner and marks a complete contrast with what’s gone on before, but Eliasberg once again demonstrates his expert musicality with the two subsequent tracks – a delicate Dance of the sylphs that’s winningly fleet of foot and a skilfully crafted Dance of the will-of-the-wisps.
If you have read Jonathan’s review, you will see that, notwithstanding its attractive and historically interesting performances, he ultimately ruled this release out of court on the basis of its sound quality. Unfortunately, it transpires that MusicWeb had originally and inadvertently been sent a copy of the disc that had been made before Maestro Editions’s engineer Chris Brereton had completed the final stage of sonic restoration – and one that was consequently still heavily characterised by what Jonathan delightfully describes as Melodiya’s characteristic “ticks and chuffs”. While I have not been able to make comparisons by listening to Jonathan’s flawed copy, I am assured that the one that I have been listening to is the final version that is now on sale. Its sound is certainly serviceable – not as rich, perhaps, as the likes of DGG (as it then was), EMI, Decca, Philips or RCA were producing in the West at that time, but still clear and attractive. There are, it’s true, still one or two issues worth mentioning. The Soviet recording engineers’ balance can sometimes be a little disconcerting, for instance, with some unexpected orchestral spotlighting and even the odd exaggerated pizzicato pop or two emerging unexpectedly out from the speakers. Meanwhile, a few of those chuffs – mechanical swishes in the first and last movements of the Schumann – seem to have proved beyond elimination. Even so, anyone who’s interested in rare historical performances is unlikely, I’d imagine, to find them more than a slight drawback to this interesting and valuable release which is, the brief booklet note informs us, only the first of a projected series of other intriguing Eliasberg recordings.
Rob Maynard
Previous review: Jonathan Woolf (November 2023)
Availability: Maestro Editions
