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George Szell Plays and Conducts Mozart
The Cleveland Orchestra
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No Chocolate Sauce...,
By
This review is from: George Szell Plays and Conducts Mozart (Audio CD)
"There is a difference between the chaste sensuality of Mozart or Haydn and the lascivious sensuality of Richard Strauss. One cannot pour chocolate sauce over asparagus." George Szell
Sony's Original Jackets series continues with this release of the music of Mozart featuring (with a few exceptions) conductor and pianist George Szell. This is the second Original Jackets issue dedicated to Szell. The other, featuring Beethoven's Symphonies is also highly recommended. Sony has changed the format somewhat. Whereas the series initially rigidly adhered to the original LP programming, most of the CDs here are generously filled with bonus tracks. So much the better. It must have taken some arm twisting on Szell's part to get Symphonies K. 200 and K. 319 recorded, as neither were repertoire staples in the 1960s (they still appear relatively rarely). Kudos to both Szell and Columbia for undertaking the project. Many of the other works here have been issued multiple times. As with nearly everything else they recorded, the Szell/Cleveland combination brings forth performances of common sensibility and uncommon balance. The tempos and phrasing for each work and movement seem inevitable, and the performances are stripped of all phony Gemutlikeit. The various choirs of the orchestra are balanced with chamber-like precision, so that each voice is heard in proper perspective. This is even evident in the monaural recordings of three of the Symphonies, which are a tad more flexible than their stereo counterparts. Szell, a co-pupil of Rudolf Serkin, was also a fine pianist. Szell's arrangement of Richard Strauss' Till Eulenspiegel (featuring sound effects from his cuff-links) is legendary. Both the Violin Sonatas and Piano Quartets show Szell as a sympathetic collaborator who was comfortable with ceding the spotlight to his partners. Szell was also an excellent collaborator in Concertos, as the Clarinet Concerto K. 622 with Robert Marcellus and the Piano Concerto K. 503 with Leon Fleischer demonstrate. Unlike, say, Toscanini, Szell did not feel the need to steamroll a soloist into complying with his own conception of a piece. A few of the items here do not feature Szell as either pianist or conductor. The Leinsdorf conducted performance of the Minuet K. 409 - - charming, fluid, and transparent - - belies the notion that the Cleveland Orchestra was a second rate band until Szell came along. Likewise, Louis Lane, who was solidly in the Szell tradition of conducting, leads a superb performance of the Divertimento, K. 334. There are many in Cleveland, including myself, who feel Lane would have been a more appropriate successor to Szell than the eccentric Lorin Maazel. The sound in the stereo items, recorded at Severance Hall, is greatly improved over previous issues. The location for the mono items is not documented, but to my ears it sounds like they were recorded at nearby Masonic Auditorium. The mono sonics are acceptable, if a bit boomy. Dynamics, which were constricted, have been opened up. The strings have lost their aggressive edge and have a sweeter, more natural character. It's well worth replacing the earlier issues of these recordings, and a must if you don't have them already.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Astonishing remasterings, what a difference!!,
By SwissDave (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: George Szell Plays and Conducts Mozart (Audio CD)
I'll admit it, my ideal in Mozart conducting is lively, detail-oriented, uplifting, anti-soggy - e.g. Peter Maag, his earlier London recordings especially (or sidereal moments in recorded history like Erich Kleiber's Figaro). Even so, Szell's Mozart doesn't strike me as charmless (find a copy of his 1970 Tokyo concert, and you'll come to the conclusion the man was apparently in control of everything, high spirited music-making included if it pleased him - even the more striking perhaps realizing he was then already terminally ill, and aware of it).
I recently happend upon a sealed copy of this box in a leftovers bin in a local store. I had contemplated it (dallied over on my wish list) for years, and could now kick myself for not having bought it earlier. These new remasterings make these recordings sound so much better!! God, how I hated Leon Fleisher's flinty piano tone on the earlier CD releases! Those who've heard him live (or own early pressings of the original LPs - which these CD remasterings surpass sonically speaking, however) know better than to accept those early remasterings for gospel - lo and behold, here he is, back in splendid sonority. Wow! The same is true of all the stereo recordings, by the way. Seriously, there literally IS unheard-of interpretive depth coming to the fore in these latest remastering (sound IS music to great extent!), and the mono items all sound very acceptable. All right, I paid next to nothing for my copy of this set, but let's see what the truly indispensable amounts to here: some of, possibly the greatest recordings of Symphonies Nos. 35 "Haffner", 39 (the earlier 1947 interpretation of Symphony No. 39 actually strikes me as livelier, more spontaneous, despite similar track timings a true alternative to the acclaimed stereo remake), 40 (like Szell's 1970 Tokyo live version as much or better, though) and 41 "Jupiter"; one of the finest, perhaps still my favourite interpretation/recording of the Piano Concerto No. 25 (especially now that one is finally able to appreciate the subtleties and sonic splendor of the great piano playing, too, adding life, lift and sparkle to Szell's wondrously stern reading); one of the finest recordings each of the "Kleine Nachtmusik" and "Posthorn" (also check out Maag's!) Serenades. Apart from these, I'm not sure I want nor need a better recording of the Serenade for Winds and Orchestra K.131, nor Louis Lane's K.334 Divertimento, if they exist (I wouldn't know). There's still more, but these recordings alone would have justified the (full!) price of admission - what the heck was I thinking postponing this all these years, nearly missing this release?! (Right, I already owned so much of what's contained here and wasn't aware the improved sound quality would make so much of a difference - audiophile not least, but musically, even interpretatively, but given the latest - the ones held in orange - reissues from Sony's Great Performances series, I could have guessed.) Symphonies Nos. 28 and 33 again have to compete with Maag (old and new), although in the former the recording/sound quality and orchestral (ensemble) playing are so much in Szell's favour that minor interpretive pluses and minuses in such (less popular, let's face it) repertoire will do little to tip the scale. Everything else here, such as the earlier 1955 mono versions of Symphonies Nos. 40 and 41, is just a bonus. True, the fairly good (nothing here is less than that) Clarinet Concerto (with Marcellus) can't hold a candle to Maag's (with Gervase de Peyer) 1959 reference version, and I obviously prefer Oistrakh father and son's Sinfonia Concertante (both 1963 and 1972) to the (again, rather impressive) recording here with Druian and Skernick. To hear Szell at the piano, partnering concertmaster Druian in some Violin Sonatas, and with members of the Budapest String Quartet in two Piano Quartets, is more than just academic pleasure, by the way - you'll risk being impressed, just like me. Of course there is Shaw's "Lacrimosa" that makes me fall asleep (do yourself a favour and find a copy of Scherchen's complete Requiem!), and Leinsdorf's Minuet K.409 - well, who cares? The set's a bargain! Greetings from Switzerland, David.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Szell's Moazrt,
This review is from: George Szell Plays and Conducts Mozart (Audio CD)
No one has conducted MOzart the way Szell did. And this album has some of his best recordings with the Cleveland Orchestra. Not to be missed!
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