Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957)
Symphony in F sharp, Op 40 (1947-52)
Two performances, one a piano version played by Korngold
Erich Wolfgang Korngold (piano)
Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana/John Mauceri
rec. c1952-54, Electro-Vox Studios, Los Angeles (piano) and 11 December 1997, Palazzo dei Congressi, Lugano
Supertrain Records SR062 [2 CDs: 92]
It’s always exciting when a previously unknown private recording emerges from a composer’s archive. When Korngold died he left his recordings to his son George and when George died in 1987 they were inherited by his son, Korngold’s grandson, Leslie. In 1994-95, amidst the many recordings he went through, Leslie discovered one of Korngold playing his Symphony in F sharp. That is what Supertrain has now released in its gatefold twofer, coupled with an unedited performance of the Symphony given in 1997 by John Mauceri with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana.
Korngold made commercial recordings back in the 1920s. He’d recorded music from ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ with violinist Robert Pollak for Homochord and the better-remembered sides with Toscha Seidel which have been reissued on CD (I don’t believe the Pollak sides have ever been reissued). However, he also recorded privately. Some of these private recordings were intended as guidance discs for conductors. For example, he recorded the Symphonic Serenade as guidance for Furtwängler’s Viennese première after the War. Conjecturally, the Symphony recording was made between 1952-54 in Los Angeles at the studios of Electro-Vox, probably as guidance for potential conductors. As Leslie Korngold relates in his portion of the booklet notes, it’s known that Walter, Reiner, Mitropoulos and Golschmann were interested in performing the work but there’s no indication that the discs were ever shared with them, nor did any of them conduct the Symphony.
The recording preserves Korngold’s pianism in music that is frequently volcanic. He announces the movements as he plays them and the first movement, in particular, offers an insight into his tempo changes and use of rubato but above even these indications to potential performers, there’s the tumultuous, almost volcanic – indeed barbaric – intensity of the playing which at points is truly overwhelming. Korngold retained his technique, as we know from other live performances that fortunately exist – there’s a particularly entertaining example in 1951 where he runs through some of his film scores with Ray Heindorf – but even he seems temporarily almost unhinged at some places in this movement. No orchestral recording could hope to replicate the visceral intensity Korngold conveys.
In the Scherzo he stops at a couple of points, announces the pages to which he is turning, in English and also in German. This way the Scherzo is reduced by half but Korngold’s playing is again febrile and taken at a tempo unplayable by an orchestra. It is an index of his identification with the music but also a mark of the way he must have wanted the symphony to sound. That’s true of the threnodic Adagio, its increasing agitation, as well as its fitful reflectiveness. The hard-won victory enshrined in the finale is music of more optimistic slant but not wholly so. Korngold’s piano recording has obvious sonic limitations. It will also appeal only to those for whom such a skeletal conductor-friendly version offers insights into the way Korngold wanted the symphony to be interpreted. However, it does prove a remarkable document, not merely because it’s survived but because it is so visceral.
Mauceri heard the recording before he made his live recording in 1997. He would also, I’m sure, have been aware of the première recording by Rudolf Kempe, which was produced by George Korngold for RCA. Mauceri is more intense in the first movement than one of my reference versions, Edward Downes, with the BBC Philharmonic on Chandos, who sounds rather metrical and watchful, when heard alongside Mauceri, who certainly finds fugitive lyricism amidst the glowering landscape of Korngold’s first movement. Again, in the Scherzo, Mauceri digs deeper, and finds something of the frantic intensity Korngold clearly indicates, though without downplaying those moments of lyricism that exist. If the slow movement is an anguished threnody, Mauceri is equal to its demands, though he takes it very slowly (at over 17 minutes), as is his well-drilled orchestra and the triumphal finale, with its joyful affirmations and its ‘looking back’ panel is just as successful. For a wide-ranging look at the symphony see Ian Lace’s feature review of the nine available recordings at the time, and his review of John Wilson’s more recent recording with the Sinfonia of London, which I agree is fast and, in my own view, rather superficial. Strictly in terms of interpreting the symphony’s structure, Mauceri’s approach most approximates that of James DePreist (Delos DE3234) with the Oregon Symphony Orchestra.
It’s best to see the Korngold piano performance as the principal reason for acquiring the disc with Mauceri’s fine recording as ancillary interest and it can be supplemented by the Kempe, or the Downes or any other of the good recordings the Symphony has received. The booklet is full of fascinating detail, lucidly presented, and individual ‘chapters’ have been written by Leslie Korngold, John Mauceri and Richard Guérin.
Jonathan Woolf
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