Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Symphony No. 8 in E flat major
Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924)
Die Brautwahl (The Bridal Choice) Suite, Op. 45 (BV 261)
Berceuse élégiaque, Op. 42 (BV 252a)
Eine Lustspielouvertüre (A Comedy Overture), Op. 38 (BV 245)
London Symphony Orchestra (Mahler), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Jascha Horenstein
rec. 20 March 1959, Royal Albert Hall, London (Mahler); October 1965 Maida Vale Studios, London (Busoni)
Reviewed as a 24/96 stereo download
High Definition Tape Transfers HDTT23399 [136]

“To the extent that one can date the upsurge of British enthusiasm for Mahler this was the crucial moment.” So wrote Christopher Ford, the music critic for the Guardian.  The “crucial moment” was Jascha Horenstein conducting massed choirs, soloists and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall on Friday March 20^th 1959 in Mahler’s Symphony No.8. On this occasion there were not quite the one thousand performers the work is often titled – just 756(!). This was just the fourth performance of the work in the UK and indeed the very first time that Horenstein had conducted it. The performance only came about because BBC Radio Three were facing an underspend in their annual budget and unless they used it all up before the end of the financial year the following year would see a cut. The simplest solution was to spend all that ‘spare’ cash on the largest most expensive single project – the Symphony of a Thousand. I imagine modern day controllers of the station, fighting for and having to justify every penny, read that and weep.

About 18 months ago I reviewed – and was mightily impressed by – HDTT’s release of Horenstein’s classic studio recording of Mahler’s Symphony No.3 that utilised a previously unheard minimalist microphone array to great effect. Similarly, this live performance of No.8 has been available previously, in a 1998 BBC Legends release which Tony Duggan reviewed with his typical detail and enthusiasm here [I urge reader’s to read Tony’s review.  I have heard this incarnation and it is very good] and then again in 2015 on Pristine reviewed here by John Quinn – which I have not heard. HDTT’s publicity for their version states they have used “a superior tape source, in its first audiophile release” although what this source is and where it came from is unclear.

In many ways a ‘comparative’ review of this performance seems irrelevant because the significant feature here is the sense of event. Of course it is possible to debate elements of the performance both interpretative and executional, but the palpable sense I get from listening to this performance again is just how much goes right. It is a genuine triumph for all involved and the fact that such a significant performance was preserved in sound as fine as this is a major cause for celebration. On paper so much seemed stacked against this success – Horenstein and his performers were never fully assembled in the hall to rehearse before the performance; the BBC engineers did not have an opportunity to get a proper balance in advance of the one-off performance and likewise there were no rehearsal takes that might be able to cover any significant mistakes on the night. But in fact there are few, absurdly few, yet at the same time it is palpable that all the performers are giving everything they have – risks are taken and triumphantly surmounted. 

For a 1959 broadcast the sound is quite superb. HDTT’s John Haley has written an extensive article on their website which I quote at length here; “The recording itself is also remarkable. To fully understand what we are hearing, one must first view the photo of the occasion. Royal Albert Hall is in a large elliptical, domed building, and in the photo we can see the large orchestra seated “down center,” with tightly packed choristers seated both behind it and stretching upward toward the top of the hall on either side, far above the orchestra. Thus, the “stereo image” presented is a large aural canvas with the “orchestral spread” occupying a smaller than usual space on either side of the center line, not extending out to the edges which would normally be presented by the left and right speakers. As seen in the photo, the orchestra and soloists are literally engulfed by the sea of choristers that surround them.

The raw recording suffers from a severe channel imbalance placing almost everything to the right of the center line, but once this issue is corrected, the spread of sound, necessarily captured from fairly far back in the hall to pick up all the performers, does a quite respectable job of providing a realistic sonic spread of what was occurring there. The fact that this early experimental stereo recording relied on coincident, or nearly so, stereo mic placement turns out to be a virtue, avoiding a nightmare of phase incoherence that might have resulted if multi-miking had been attempted.  Despite the distant mic placement, a generous amount of musical detail was captured, including clear audibility and definition of orchestral as well as vocal solos, all of which is enhanced by the new-found clarity of the excellent tape source and the high-resolution dubbing of it. A disadvantage is that the mic placement also captured with great clarity a vast amount of audience noise, including every kind of respiratory noise known to man. We have managed to remove or at least ameliorate a great deal of that audience noise. Other issues involved repairing tape dropouts and correcting the meandering pitch of the original to present the whole recording exactly on pitch, something we believe (without conducting an extensive survey) is probably a first for this recording. Fortunately, a large dynamic range was well captured, which of course we have not compressed; this means that the regular volume level may seem on the low side, so please turn it up, but with an awareness of what is coming at the huge climaxes.”

Having recently enjoyed a series of live (off-air) recordings from the Royal Albert Hall from the 1960’s of quite different repertoire, in purely technical terms this 1959 restoration is an engineering triumph. Direct comparison with the BBC Legends version reveals crisper detail in this new mastering which I think might have been achieved by some judicious EQing – for example at the very beginning the RAH organ seems ‘reedier’. HDTT have very successfully removed the bulk of the audience noise that can still be heard on the Legends disc and there is remarkably little tape hiss or extraneous noise. Great credit too to the original engineering and production team who produced a recording able to cope with the huge scale of some of the climaxes with little or no distortion or even congestion. But at the same time details like the mandolin register surprisingly well. As Haley suggests, the stereo soundstage is relatively narrow but at no point does this sound or feel constricted since the scale and depth of the recording works so well. Even the balance between the solo voices and the orchestra/choir is very effective. The BBC ‘double-teamed’ the soloists knowing that if there was a late withdrawal then the entire project would be jeopardised as few if any singers around the world would know this score in advance. I have little knowledge of singers from the 50’s and 60’s away from the famous names so with the exception of Helen Watts I have to say that I am shamefully ignorant of the soloists here. Yet they all sing with an intensity and conviction that is rather wonderful. Perhaps there are moments of less than wholly beautiful tone or perfect pitch but these concerns fall away as trivial in the context of the whole.

Consider for a moment how unfamiliar this music was for both performers and listeners in 1959. I imagine a handful of the performers might have been involved in the BBC performances a decade or so earlier but no-one really had any performing legacy to hear or study before they took to the stage here. Yet in one single performance they created a standard and style of performance that measures up decades later. Credit for this must, in the main, be given to Jascha Horenstein and his unerring pacing of the whole work. Duggan points to the fact that the opening is not the Allegro Impetuoso Mahler indicates and that Solti and Bernstein would capture with such visceral power just a few years later. I am sure certain online reviewers who consider Horenstein to be vastly over-rated would cite such moments as evidence for their prosecution. However, at that moment, in that hall and that performance the opening pages are still pretty overwhelming whatever 20-20 hindsight might suggest.  More to the point it creates a firm foundation from which Horenstein builds with inexorable momentum and control over the next eighty or so minutes towards the ecstatic visionary conclusion. I found myself swept along by this vision decades later in the comfort of my own home – on the night this must have been a genuinely remarkable “I was there…” moment both for audience and performers. The symphony was given with an interval so the recording has preserved the warm applause at the end of part I and the rapturous reception at the work’s conclusion.

Aside from the artistic and audio quality of this new version, the additional documentary presentation is simply superb and a major bonus. Derek Cooke’s six minute introduction before the performance is included and is a model of insight and information that most current radio presenters could only dream of. More significantly HDTT have reproduced the original concert programme (2 shillings please) where Cooke provides an exemplary detailed analysis of the work. Furthermore HDTT have tracked the performance to follow this analysis which allows the listener to more fully appreciate the genius of Mahler’s composition. The programme listing of the LSO is rather wonderful too; from the leader Hugh Maguire, Neville Marriner principal 2^nd violin, James Galway 4^th(!) piccolo, Roger Lord (husband of Madeleine Dring) principal oboe, Gervase de Peyer principal clarinet, Barry Tuckwell principal horn, Denis Wick principal trombone to name a few. ‘Back-stage’ Horenstein was supported by Berthold Goldschmidt who was primarily responsible for training the choruses and various choir masters who managed to get the massed choral group to sing with fervour allied to accuracy that few ever achieve. The documentation also includes contemporary reviews and commentaries that elevates this release far beyond the normal. In fairness, the BBC Legends release includes its own valuable documentary supplement in the form of an extended interview with Horenstein which is richly rewarding too.

In short this is one of those serendipitous moments when just about everything goes ‘right’ with few if any allowances needing to be made for any aspect of the music or its presentation. Given the ubiquity of Mahler performances now, including those of this mighty work, there is a sense of familiarity that can dilute the potential impact the work was surely intended to have.  Aside from any musical qualities, this performance preserves the sense of occasion and ‘specialness’ that elevates the experience which is why Tony Duggan in his comparative survey placed it as pre-eminent even though that survey was completed before the recent glut of Mahler cycles.

But this HDTT release is not finished there. As a bonus we are given the first commercial release of (mono) studio recordings of music by Busoni for the BBC given by Horenstein with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1965. These are an intelligent coupling given that the two composers were colleagues and friends and indeed the Berceuse élégiaque was featured in the last concert conducted by Mahler before his death. In purely audio terms, these are more obviously historic/archive standard with some allowance needing to be made for the actual sound quality itself. But as is so often the case, the ear soon adjusts and the music-making is again fine and sympathetic. Juxtaposing Mahler and Busoni – even allowing for the very different scale and conception of the works in question – is an interesting and rewarding experiment. At the time of this recording Horenstein had conducted the US premiere of Doktor Faust just the year before – available on a Pristine Audio transfer while  Discogs lists another disc on Roccoco from 1966 again with the RPO so clearly this was a composer he was very engaged with at this time.  No surprise then that these performances are fluent and elegant with that melodic and harmonic elusiveness that characterises much of Busoni’s music. There is over 45 minutes of music here so this is a generous as well as musically valuable ‘filler’ but the interest here is more archival with neither the playing or the recording commanding attention in the way the Mahler performance undeniably does.

On the HDTT site one of John Haley’s blogs is titled “Love Mahler but not No.8? Time to reconsider”. Just so – a historic performance has never sounded so good.

Nick Barnard

Performers – Mahler
Joyce Barker (soprano I) – Magna Peccatrix; Beryl Hatt (soprano II) – Mater Gloriosa; Agnes Giebel (soprano III) – Una Poenitentium; Kirsten Meyer (alto I) – Mulier Samaritana; Helen Watts (alto II) – Maria Aegyptiaca; Kenneth Neate (tenor) – Doctor Marianus; Alfred Orda (baritone) – Pater Ecstaticus; Arnold van Mill (bass) – Pater Profundus
BBC Chorus; BBC Choral Society; Goldsmiths’ Choral Union; Hampstead Choral Society; Emanuel School Boys’ Choir; Orpington Junior Singers; Charles Spinks (organ)