Customer Reviews

Liszt: Orchestral Works / Works for Piano and Orchestra - Michel Béroff / Gewandhaus-Orchester Leipzig / Kurt Masur

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

 

 

Before he became the embattled leader of the New York Philharmonic, Kurt Masur made a name for himself by making brilliant recordings with the Gewandhaus-Orchester Leipzig, these Liszt Orchestral Works foremost among them. It is delightful to have these recordings in print again, and for them all to be collected on seven discs in an inch-thick paper box set is even better. Masur's performances of the "Tone Poems" in particular rank among the best of all-time, along with Haitink and Golovanov in my opinion (see my review of the latter on his "Great Conductors of the 20th Century" title). Also included in this set are the works for Piano and Orchestra, and while Michel Beroff's renditions don't quite measure up to my favorite accounts by Arrau, Cliburn, Janis, Katchen, Richter or Zimerman, they are certainly first-rate. Oddly, my only complaint is that EMI seems to have taken the "slim" out of slim, paper-sleeved box sets with their latest batch of releases. Both this title and the new "Yehudi Menuhin - The Violinist" box are noticeably thicker than previous EMI sets featuring a similar number of discs. A minor point, but us serious classical collectors need every centimeter of space on our increasingly crowded CD shelves.

Many of these performances are new to me. That is the beauty of being 59 years old and still learning. My knowledge of classical music is based on what moves me. While others talk about all the other versions and other conductors, I just want to let other people know that these recordings give me great pleasure. While some may find Michel Beroff to be less than adequate, I enjoy his renditions of the piano concertos. I have heard other renditions and find that they all have their places. These concertos move me a great deal. That is my only criteria.

With new Liszt collections coming this century from Naxos' stable of conductors and the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda, it seems incredible that Masur's more than quarter-century old collection of the composer's tone poems and other music is still the best there is. But, compared to the other sets, his is still the best collection in terms of completeness and uniform playing and interpretation.

For those coming anew to the orchestral side of piano virtuoso Franz Liszt (1811-76), he was -- in addition to being the greatest keyboard virtuoso in history -- the creator of the tone poem format perfected in the romantic era by the likes of Dvorak, Tchaikovsky and others. Liszt, a visionary and revolutionary composer, expressed his religious and philosophical ideas about art in the tone poems.

Some, like Les Preludes, which presage what Liszt called the preludes of life, or From the Cradle to the Grave (Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe), express ideas about human existence. Others, like What One Hears on the Mountain (Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne) and Ideals (Die Ideale) demonstrate more of a philosophical bent. Literary and nationalist topics like his native Hungary (Hungaria), the Battle of the Huns (Hunnershclacht), Orpheus and Hamlet, show the broad spectrum of Liszt's emotional and artistic ideas conveyed through the tone poems.

The composer never wrote a true symphony. The two included in this package -- the so-called Faust and Dante symphonies -- are just as much tone poems as any other. These show Liszt's extension of sonata format, where devleopment sections can go on, seeemingly, forever and codas can be manipulated to essentially become secondary development sections. It all sounds like a rambling wreck whilen you're getting used to it but the looseleaf style succeeds in the more direct works like Les Preludes, Mazeppa, Battle of the Huns and Prometheus. The longer, more philosophical tone poems may take longer for an unitiatited listener to warm to. And some, like the various tone poems on death, are pretty deadly to everyone's ears.

Kurt Masur recorded this music around 1981 for EMI and these recordings have had many iterations through EMI and Musical Heritage Society, an American subscription service where I first became aware of Masur's mastery over this repertoire. To state succinctly why he succeeds where many others fail, I believe Masur's tendency to underplay the bomast and use relatively quick tempos works all the time. Conductors like Noseda, whose style is to blow up slow and fast sections at twice marked tempo, can inadvertently show off the sometimes latent (and sometime blatant) banality in the music. Under Masur, Liszt almost always sounds musical.

Depending on the version you acquire, the sound may seem a tad dated and you may need to fiddle a little with your controls to hear everything the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra has to offer. As the oldest orchestra in the Western world, this group has been around since the beginning of this music and they play well for Masur. The various vocal performers in this set also help out greatly. Anyone looking for a relatively complete overview of Liszt's historic tone poems can't find a better set than this one.

The lavish praise on these nearly legendary recordings really baffles me.

As I keep repeating myself, Kurt Masur is entirely unfit by temperament to conduct Liszt at all. The man has absolutely no sense of drama, let alone the sweeping Romantic passion a solid dose of which is essential for interpreting Liszt's orchestral music. Besides, his musicianship is open to very serious debate. His tempi are almost always ridiculously fast, and monotonously so indeed; his dynamic range is worthy of a chamber orchestra, at best, and his climaxes are virtually indistinguishable from the rest; he often brings into prominence details of Liszt's orchestration which only makes his compositions look much the worse for them. Everybody who listens to Masur's box set and forms an opinion of Liszt as a really trashy composer has my complete sympathy and understanding. So far as I know there are at least three other complete recordings of Liszt's symphonic poems (Haitink, Joo, Noseda), and none of them does these marvellous works full justice. Yet each one of them is greatly superior to Masur's incoherent orchestral rambling. But enough vague ranting. Let's take a closer look to the performances on these seven discs which are rife with examples.

Masur's ''Faust'' Symphony may well be the worst I have ever heard on record. To say that it is preposterously fast would be a gross understatement; ''Gretchen'' is indeed a pure travesty. The first part (''Faust'') sounds so much like a parody itself that it is very difficult to see that the third part (''Mephistopheles'') is intended to be its (first part's) parody; the tenor and the choir are no improvement, either. It is an excellent example of what is typical for Masur's conducting in the whole set: vapid, tepid, timid, unimaginative, insensitive, exasperatingly incompetent and excruciatingly tedious performance. The man does not appear to have even the slightest idea of how to sustain a melodic line or build a dramatic climax, let alone conveying anything of the philosophical depth of the work. Despite his fast tempi, Masur somehow manages to be way more difficult to listen to in toto than interpretations more than 10 minutes longer. Even Bernstein's rendition with the Boston Symphony on DG, which is far from my first choice, is infinitely superior to Masur's mess. Any comparison with Muti, Inbal, Solti, Beecham and Horenstein, or even Sinopoli, Barenboim, Chailly and Rattle, is just out of question.

The ''Dante'' Symphony fairs better, but not much better. At least the brass is sufficiently well presented. But I-am-missing-the-plane tempo makes the famous opening sounds like a soundtrack of a third-rate horror movie. Masur continues in the same lame and shoddy manner right until the Magnificat, which is at least well sung, if not well played. The truth is that Liszt's ''Dante'' Symphony, like pretty much all of his symphonic works but a little more than most, requires from a conductor what I would call a ''subtle grandeur'', if you forgive the oxymoron. Masur definitely lacks sensitivity and subtlety, almost completely indeed; he certainly has nothing grand or Romantic in his make-up. Even rather mediocre recordings like those under the batons of Haenchen, Lehel or Conlon capture something of the infernal yet lyrical spirit of this work. Masur captures nothing but mindless noise. Certainly, he is not in the league of Sinopoli on DG or Barenboim on TELDEC.

As far as the 13 typical symphonic poems are concerned, Masur scores some mild success with the most lyrical of them, most notably ''Orpheus'' and Liszt's last work in the genre, ''Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe'', where his weird ideas of orchestral colour may on occasion even be insightful. Unfortunately, almost all of Liszt's poems rely of sharp contrasts between serene, tranquil lyrical passages and highly-charged dramatic ones. And here Masur's renditions are simply pathetic, especially considering his next to non-existent brass. ''Mazeppa'' and ''Tasso'' are pure abominations, light years away from Karajan's stupendous recordings with the Berliners; and so is ''Les Preludes'', for that matter. ''Prometheus'' cannot stand any kind of comparison with Solti's impassioned rendition with the London Philharmonic, either. Needless to say, Masur's mad rushing completely ruins a grave funeral march such as ''Heroide Funebre''. It is indeed difficult to find anything redeeming in any of these recordings. Despite Masur's absurdly fast pace, the longer poems such as ''Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne'', ''Festklänge'', ''Hungaria'' or ''Die Ideale'' always sound much too long, too sketchy and too amateurish. They don't under the baton of Arpad Joo, not even under the batons of Haitink and Noseda who, though largely missing the Lisztian point, still manage to capture more of his spirit than Kurt Masur at his best does.

The rest of the symphonic works in this collection receive the same messy kind of treatment. Masur's First and Second Mephisto Waltzes sound more like Hungarian rhapsodies; a Mephistopheles as a kind of cheap Gypsy trickster, again. ''Der nächtliche Zug'' is surprisingly fine, though; for once, to some extent at least, Masur is free of his appalling mannerisms of tempo and phrasing. It might be that the monstrous oblivion this piece has fallen into - it is almost never recorded - helps Masur, too; even that, however, can't save his Second Mephisto Waltz, which is even rarer on record indeed. Fortunately, Arpad Joo recorded all three works for Hungaroton as ''bonus tracks'' to his complete recording of the poems; despite the inferior sound, musically he is infinitely superior to Masur in every way.

Speaking of sound, for recordings made for EMI in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the sound is remarkably unbalanced. How much of that is due to Masur's (mis)interpretations, how much to the recording engineers and how much to the orchestral players themselves, I really do not know. What I do know, however, is that the strings are gloriously recorded here, rich and sonorous, with tremendously effective bass, whereas the woodwinds are scratchy and the brass is almost uniformly dismal. What's more, the last two groups of instruments are often victims of truly unbelievably sloppy execution - something one is right not to expect in a supposedly world-class orchestra.

The last two discs contain a fine selection of Liszt's works for piano and orchestra with the dependable Michel Beroff as a soloist. The best about these recordings is that they include many under-recorded rarities such as Liszt's wonderful orchestration of Schubert's ''Wanderer Fantasie'', his remarkable work for piano and strings known as ''Malediction'', and even his Great Fantasy on Motives from Berlioz's ''Lelio''. In addition, both concertos, the ever-popular Fantasia on Hungarian Folk Melodies and ''Totentanz'' are also included. Despite its charming comprehensiveness, any of these works has been served much better elsewhere on record. Leslie Howard, for one, has recorded the complete works for piano and orchestra on Hyperion; although his orchestra accompaniment is nothing special, it is still better than Masur's. Jorge Bolet has recorded outstanding renditions of the ''Fantasia'', ''Malediction'' and ''Totentanz'' on DECCA with Georg Solti and Ivan Fischer; the two concertos he recorded splendidly for another label, though together with the Masur-like David Zinman on the rostrum. Louis Lortie and Nelson Freier on Brilliant make another more or less complete set which is musically and technically superior to Beroff and Masur, too.

Why two stars then? Yes, I was wondering about that, too. Partly because Masur's dedication to Liszt, despite his sincere yet painful inability to conduct his works, is really very touching for everybody who cares about Liszt's symphonic oeuvre. Furthermore, this set includes many rarely performed works which, regrettably, remain neglected even today, some thirty years after these recordings were made. It is surely unreasonable to be angry with Masur for his lack of musicality or Lisztian temperament, but I am not sure it makes much sense listening to his recordings - even if you can find them cheaply.

Haitink on DECCA/PHILIPS, timid as he is too, is a great deal finer musician than Masur, and he is better served in terms of recording quality; his set lacks any bonus tracks save the First Mephisto Waltz, though. Noseda on Chandos is wonderfully musical and well recorded but dramatically weak and sonically dull. Despite several shortcomings, Arpad Joo on Hungaroton/Brilliant remains my first choice for a complete recording of Liszt's symphonic poems together with a fine selection of ''bonus tracks''. Unfortunately, yet expectedly, the sound of his set, though digital, is rather inferior in terms of dynamics and sonority to anything that DECCA and Chandos offer; but it is much better balanced than EMI's bizarre stuff. In short, Kurt Masur's box set looses on all fronts: sonic, artistic and financial!