Dimitri Mitropoulos (conductor)
Sergej Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Romeo und Julia, Op. 64 Ballet Suite
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951)
Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4
New York Philharmonic
rec. November 1957 (Prokofiev) & March 1958. Stereo ADD
Gramola 92007 [83]

This release will to some pundits look like the classical music equivalent of Fantasy Football, combining as it does three favourite pieces in studio recordings conducted by one of the greatest, most exciting and inspirational of 20C conductors and offering the best late 50s sound in the then new technology of stereo. The three composers here were roughly contemporaries, each obviously representing a continuation of the Classical-Romantic tradition while also incorporating progressive, “modernist” elements into their music.

Certainly, these are three of my own “desert island” works; I have produced a survey of the major recordings of the last, credit the first with being one of those “gateway” works which led me as a teenager into my passion for classical music and am always enchanted by Vaughan Williams’ jewel of a fantasia whenever I hear it. Furthermore, this CD offers no less than nearly eighty-three minutes of great music

The wildly discordant chords opening Romeo and Juliet really pin back the listener’s ears. The sound is really extraordinarily immediate. Hiss is minimal to non-existent but there is a wholly appropriate raw edge to the strings; this is not due to any deficiency in the recording but rather to Mitropoulos’ ear for orchestral textures: we veer from vicious, raw blasts from the brass to wavery, spectral riffs passed from one woodwind to another. The contrabassoon is especially characterful but every solo instrument sounds spotlit and is often mesmerising. The second movement in these extracts from the two suites derived from the ballet depicts Juliet; it is hardly as ethereal and skipping as some, because this girl is above all a feisty lass. Mitropoulos then imposes a daringly slow tempo for the concluding saxophone solo, as if she were lying back and falling into a deep sleep. I first encountered this music in celebrated versions renowned for their energy by conductors such as Maazel on Decca and Skrowaczewski on the Mercury label, yet track after track here is so vibrant and engaging that for me it is like hearing this music anew. I am not always be in total sympathy with Mitropoulos’ interpretative choices – for instance, his eccentrically leaden choice of tempo for “Masks” makes the movement far more menacing than festive and so much is highlighted and underlined in the musical equivalent of Technicolor that some listeners might wish for more subtlety. Is the famous love music really sufficiently tender? I think not; this account exudes glaring passion but not romantic rapture; only towards the end of the movement do we touch the stars. Mitropoulos is happier with the surging, thrusting, scurrying “fight music” of “The Death of Tybalt”, which is absolutely thrilling. The second track of love music – the longest, “Romo and Juliet Before Parting” – is again so sensual as to risk sounding earthbound; the way the bank of brass launch into their big tune at 4:20 is positively Wagnerian – but never boring. The sumptuousness of the portrayal Friar Laurence makes him sound more like Falstaff than a holy man, ony that is but a fleeting interlude before we conclude with the Sturm und Drang of the Tomb Scene, in which Mitropoulos really ratchets up the tension, reminding us that he was a superlative conductor of Strauss’ Salome and Elektra.

What wrench it is to turn from that to Vaughan Williams’ pastoral idyll. The orchestral playing is still lovely but the question is, can Mitropoulos find the serenity and spiritual intensity we hear in the classic accounts by Barbirolli and Handley? The first thing to note is that Mitropoulos is typically swift and driven at just under thirteen minutes compared with Handley’s  – just under fifteen – and Barbirolli on sixteen. That is quite a difference in a comparatively short work and for me it inevitably sounds a little too hasty – but I am imprinted with Barbirolli. There is a throbbing fervour to the playing of the soloists in the string quartet; their vibratos are almost fulsomely unrestrained and the climaxes of the orchestra tutti are undeniably moving but still more tellurian than astral – in a way despite the differences of genre, my response to this account mirrors that to the Prokofiev.

So the next question is, does this pattern also apply to the third work? I think it fair to say that Mitropoulos was temperamentally better suited to engaging with the Angst of Schönberg’s psychodrama than the otherworldliness of Vaughan Williams’ nostalgic tribute. I reviewed this recording in the aforementioned survey and found some slight deficiency in the sound but I think it now sounds much better in this new Gramola release than it did on the Sony and Urania labels. Any reservations I have now centre upon the performance; interestingly, when he performed this live six months later in Vienna it was fully six minutes longer, whereas here in New York it is one of the fastest at twenty-five minutes. I quote here my previous assessment with the references to any sonic deficiencies edited out, finding no reason to change my views: “the listener is soon swept up and along by the fierce concentration of Mitropoulos’ reading…the drive of his approach will…be a little off-putting to those whose preference leans towards luxurious digital sound and a more sultry, languid delivery. Having said that, the skill with the conductor shapes and phrases the first big climax six minutes in is really arresting and the orchestra plays with grim intensity, bringing out the nightmarish quality of the music in the stressful second section. Mitropoulos is very free with his variation of tempi, even within a single bar but it never sounds artificial or applied – and the concluding section is beautifully played. Having said that, there are moments here where it can sound on the road to scrambled… for reasons of…its haste, this can hardly be recommended as a first choice but it certainly has its appeal for fans of Mitropoulos and for anyone who wants to hear his novel, more urgent way with this wonderful music.”

In brief, all three recordings here bear the hall marks of Mitropoulos’ driven style and are now conveniently assembled in this neat issue in a slim cardboard slipcase.

Ralph Moore

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