Customer Reviews

Liszt: Faust-Symphony / Bernstein, Riegel, Boston Symphony Orchestra

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I assume since Bernstein made two commercial recordings of this work that it held some special meaning for him. This later version benefits from slightly better sound quality and a more mature interpretation, even though his earlier account with the New York Philharmonic on Sony is also very good. There is some really involving music here, probably some of the best Liszt ever wrote and Bernstein and the BSO take every opportunity to reveal the detail in the score. The sound from Symphony Hall in Boston is very satisfying and this version has been improved by the remastering of the original source tapes to be reissued by DG. It is certainly one of the finest recorded versions of this work.

This must qualify amongst the better recordings avaliable of any orchestral work by Liszt. Bernstein gives an exhuberant, powerful performance, extracting from his Boston players matching prowess. The recording quality serves the approach well, taking full advantage of the superior accoustics of the venue (Symphony Hall, Boston) in a very realistic perspective; you'll hear the BSO grimace, explode in anger, whisper lyrically and change abruptly from one mood to another, in a recording with a very wide recording range that serves this score of extremes very fittingly. Bernstein excelled in this kind of repertoire, he was especially gifted to conduct these romantinc works that explored the full range of emotional writing as well as that of the orchestral capabilities of the day. Liszt's harmonical experimenting and programmatical proposals played a key role in what came after him (Wagner, Mahler) and Bernstein always approached his works with that special quality in mind. So, if you agree with this attitude, you'll like this Faust Symphony, excellently remastered by DG for their "Originals" series.

Liszt's "Faust" Symphony is his greatest symphonic masterpiece. It is too little known for a work which is one of the high points of the romantic genre. It was a great revelation when I first heard it, and continuing familiarity has only increased my respect. The symphony ranges from heartrending lyrical beauty to spine-tingling dramatic force. The theme which binds all three movements is a powerful and simple motif focussed on the motivating force of human will. The choral section which comprises the finale sets an excerpt from Goethe's Faust - and it is fascinating to compare the way Liszt has treated the words set later by Mahler in his 8th Symphony. In this recording Bernstein gives his all, winning a fully committed performance from the Boston Symphony. Every classical music collection should have this wholly satisfying work - a dramatic triumph.

My history in relation to this work is one of searching and hoping for a totally convincing performance - one that makes all the ups and downs of inspiration irrelevant and treats the work as a work of art, no matter how uneven. I think I must have had, at one time or another, every recording made in the last 60 years. Eventually I settled down with Bernstein/New York Phil as closest to "my view", although it was as erratic and uneven as the work itself. The Solti arrived on the scene and blotted it out.Liszt: A Faust Symphony; Dante Symphony; Les Préludes; Prometheus Solti is not all that idiomatic, but a magnificently crafted performance and splendidly recorded. When this second Bernstein reading was relesased, I ignored it. I could not imagine anyone doing a better job than Solti.
But a few weeks ago at last I yielded to temptation. It seemed to me that Bernstein "should" be the right man for Liszt; that at least temperamentally he should have a greater affinity for Liszt than Solti.
So I took the risk, and for once it was amply rewarded.
As far as sheer conducting skill is concerned, he still has to hand it to Solti. But his vision of the work differs very markedly. Bernstein has an uncanny feeling for the value of every note in this work. He slows down and accelerates in a way that makes you understand, suddenly and unsuspectingly, that unevenness, even the drying out of inspiration in some passages, and the laborious padding between the large gestures, carry meaning. It is quite incredible: Bernstein manages to turn those laboured episodes into meaningful passages in a way that you, as a listener, engage with the composer on a search for the right inspiration! This is surely unprecedented. The boring episodes become exciting with anticipation, aspiration, hope, for them to become what they are not! And when they finally blaze out, their conviction and splendour is utterly convincing. Bernstein makes sense of the whole by enlivening the bits and pieces and setting them before you as a panorama, where not the peaks alone, but the troughs as well, as full of interest.
I hesitate to say: this is the version of the Faust Symphony you must own. But where Solti homogenises the work, so that you have the satisfaction of experiencing a musical performance that is honed down to the most perfect finish imaginable, Bernstein leaves all the fissures open, because he wants to explore them with you. This is not likely to be to everyone's taste.
Meanwhile the Boston symphony respond marvellously to their conductor, and DGG's sound is sumptuous and transparent.

But I still find this recording unsatisfactory. The major reason for that is Lenny's bizarre, to say the least, ideas of tempo fluctuations. Now, the method in general is highly commendable; Liszt himself was one of the first modern conductors to champion it and there is no reason to suppose that it would not suit the `Faust' Symphony wonderfully. The problem is that Lenny grossly overdoes it! When he is slow, he is abominably deliberate; certain notes are stretched to the point of tremendous dullness, certain pauses are extended beyond any reasonable limits. Speaking of timings, at 77 minutes Lenny is one of the slowest on record - but here we actually have a fine example that timings are sometimes very misleading. I, for one, like very much slow tempi in `Faust'. My absolutely favourite recording - Muti with the Philadelphia Orchestra (EMI, 1982) - is almost as long as Bernstein's; Inbal's fine rendition on Brilliant is even slower, stretching the work to more than 78 minutes. Yet, both recordings are way superior to Bernstein's in terms of pacing, orchestral detail and subtle building of mighty climaxes. None of them has such jarring tempo fluctuations or indifferent tutti. Not surprisingly, Lenny's best movement is the most homogenous one in terms of pace, `Mephistopheles', but even here he leaves a great deal to be desired: the Devil comes out as very little more than innocuous joker. The concluding choir and Kennet Riegel are both fine vocally, though Lenny, yet again, fails to bring the work to something more than decent conclusion.

The sound doesn't exactly help the matter. It is brittle and harsh, with a decent but hardly spectacular dynamic range, and agreeable but certainly not outstanding clarity of detail. Oddly enough, the recording engineer in this case in Günter Hermans himself, the man with whom Karajan made almost all of his recordings for DG. (And then they tell me Karajan's sound was made by recording engineers!) Since the credentials of the recording engineer are impeccable, and the Boston Symphony is reportedly among the finest American orchestras, it must be supposed that the shoddy sound in general and the timid climaxes in particular are there by Lenny's own insistence. Well, neither suits Liszt's music at all.

I don't quite get the spiritual orgasms of the other reviewers, but, then again, there is no such thing as explanation of taste. For my part, Bernstein's `Faust' on DG is exactly what three stars out of five tell you, mathematically: slightly above the average. At least the sound is better than the one on the DVD, recorded with the same forces and around the same time. The CD makes an interesting listening occasionally, but in terms of power, depth and originality it is no match for Muti, Inbal, Solti, Beecham or Horenstein, to name but a few who manage to bring out the work's greatness. Lenny is charmingly sincere, but that is not nearly enough.

This 1976 performance from Symphony Hall in Bosotn won the Grand Prix du Disque two years later, and one immediately hears why. Liszt's Faust Symphony is vulgarity masquerading as high art, and Bernstein had a gift for taking leaden works of banality (e.g., Shostakovich's Seventh Sym.) and turning them to gold. He accomplishes this by slowing down a great deal--at 77 min. his reading is almost 10 min. slower than either Rattle's or Chailly's--so that a sense of mystery can develop.

In the faster, more bombastic parts Bernstein is sitll comparatively slow, but as the opening to "Mephistopheles" shows, he knows how to add the zing of eeriness in string slides (a la Berlioz in the Witches Sabbath finale of the Symphonie Fantastique). Perhaps the "Gretchen" scond movement is not as tender or played with as much finesse as one hears from Rattle and Chailly. Bernstein's slow tempo is just a bit too lingering here.

DG's close-up sonics can't rival EMI's digital sound for Rattle or Decca's for Chailly, but it's quite good anyway. Rattle and Chailly share the besetting sin of being too restrained at exactly those moments when Bernstein knows how to titillate and excite us. This is a clear first choice for a Faust Symphony in modern sound. (It's also better in sound and execution than Bernstein's earlier Sony recording from New York.)