Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Les Troyens, H.133: Prelude to The Trojans and Royal Hunt and Storm (1856-58)
La Damnation de Faust, H.111: Hungarian March (1846)
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Tannhäuser, WWV70: Overture and Venusberg Music (1845)
Parsifal, WWV 111: Good Friday Music (1862)
Götterdämmerung, WWV86D: Siegfried’s Rhine Journey (1874)
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, WWV96: Prelude to Act I (1867)
Oxford Bach Choir
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
rec. Royal Festival Hall, London, 7 May 1955 (Berlioz) and 17 December 1958 (Wagner)
The Beecham Collection; Live Recordings
SOMM Recordings BEECHAM35 [72]
There are two separate elements to this disc. The first comes from a concert on 7 May 1955 at which Beecham conducted Lalo’s Symphony in G minor, Delius’ Sea Drift, Debussy’s Nocturnes and the three pieces by Berlioz selected for Somm’s release. The second comes from a Franco-Wagnerian programme in December 1958, the first half of which was devoted to Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Gounod and, once again, Berlioz. Both were given at the Royal Festival Hall in London and are preserved in mono sound, though the Wagner examples from 1958 are preserved in clearly superior sonics to the earlier concert.
The three Berlioz pieces are the Prelude to The Trojans and Royal Hunt and Stormfollowed by a rip-roaring Hungarian March from La Damnation de Faust. The Prelude is terse, taut and brass-laden (occasional imprecisions from them) and, inevitably, very reminiscent of his December 1954 recording for Philips. The rights for this now lie with Sony and is one of the many recordings therefore unavailable to Warner. Who knows if Sony will reissue their Beecham material given the disheartening news of the effective destruction of their classical specialist team. The Royal Hunt and Storm, with an effective vocal contribution from the Oxford Bach Choir, is vivid and exciting, the whole conception very similar to the commercial LP made the previous year and to be found in CD 19 of the Warner Beecham set. That Hungarian March is spicily directed, a vibrant example of Beecham’s concert virility and if not perhaps the tidiest example, certainly a captivating one which receives rousing applause.
The four Wagnerian extracts reveal, in improved sound, the lyric impulse he inevitably brought to this music. Yes, he may have been temperamentally unsuited to Parsifal, which he never conducted in the theatre, as Nigel Simeone reminds us in his customarily excellent and well-researched booklet notes, but he could draw out the Good Friday Music with practised awareness of its nuances. It’s also noticeably lither and faster than the December 1953 recording he’d made for Philips (now Sony and once again marooned in limbo), the live concert galvanising him. Tannhäuser’s Overture and Venusberg Music occupy 22 minutes – the overture is vivid and intense, and the unidentified off-stage women’s voices make their mark in the Venusberg music. Siegfried’s Rhine Journey is taken at a tempo familiar from his mono LP recording of April 1940 and offers a first-class example of Beecham’s vivacity and energetic ratcheting of tension. His Prelude to Act I of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg tended to be consistent throughout the years. His pre-war LPO recording of 1936 lasts 9:11, and the recording of 1959 in the Warner box is almost the same – as is this concert performance, a superbly eloquent, lyrical reading, not at all bombastic but enshrining richness and excitement.
Somm’s series continues to give great pleasure, not least when buttressed by Lani Spahr’s transfers and Simeone’s notes.
Jonathan Woolf
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