For those of you
who jaded by Tchaikovsky's Pathétique, this is a recording to restore
your faith in it. It's an interesting exercise speculating just
why the great German conductor Wilhelm
Furtwängler
actually found sympathy in Tchaikovsky's music, and no-one will
ever know, but this recording demonstrates an exceptional
willingness to take Tchaikovsky on his own terms.
Many conductors take the first movement as a series of episodes
and emphasize each as it comes, to the detriment of the music. Not
Furtwängler. The symphonic development of the music is always
firmly in his grasp. For some his treatment of the lyrical second
theme will prove too much, too moulded, but it sounds beautiful
and never maudlin, and always sincere.
Few
others, too, have achieved the feeling of an organic growth in
this symphony the way he manages to. True, the tension in the
start of the movement is somewhat lacking in some desks of the
orchestra, but like a live performance, the orchestral players
slowly respond to his music-making and by the time we reach the
dramatic trumpet fanfares that herald the fugal section the
tension is palpable. For Furtwängler the emphasis of the
symphony is firmly in the last movement, for he underplays the
drama of the first movement somewhat, though in no way does it
become light fare. I wonder what conception Furtwängler had of the
music; to me it sounds as if he thought of it as somewhat of a
fantasy than as an outright drama that others respond to it as.
The second movement, with
its five-four time waltz is characterized by agogic tempo
shifits. Furtwängler must have thought long and hard about this -
the music blooms naturally, sounding totally natural. His
transitions are also notable for the beauty - they sound natural
always and never forced. There is nothing sinister about this
reading; Furtwängler obviously thought of it as an interlude, if a
rather serious one, still he keeps a sharp eye on the long line
and it lacks nothing in intensity.
The third movement is a rather straightforward, standard
performance of the work - quite fleet and full of the high-jinks
that are associated with this Scherzo. It isn't until the bridging
passage before the coda that the performance becomes suddenly
malevolent and trenchant. The slamming on the brakes in the
last passage in the coda before he negotiates the accelerando to
the end, much like in his 1953 Vienna recording of the Beethoven
Seventh finale, albeit in a shorter time span, turns the music
suddenly defiant and even hysterical. It is simultaneously
thrilling and upsetting.
Performances
of the Pathétique live or die on the their last movements.
Furtwängler, together with Mengelberg, deliver the most
intellectual performances I have ever heard. Superficially,
Furtwängler performance sounds instinctive and intuitive, but
closer listening reveals his response to the structure, again, of
the music, while Mengelberg remains cerebral to the end. Both are
affecting in their different ways.
The climax of the movement is notable for its volcanic power and
anger. In this performance, Furtwängler clearly rejects the notion
that the Pathétique is at all self-pitying; a resignation
associated with a composer battling with a society that did not
understand him is instead the picture that we get from listening
to this performance. The coda is nevertheless chilling and the
strings bring mournfulness to a different existential plane.
Orchestral playing from the Berliners is at its best, though
comparing them to the best orchestras nowadays invariably show
them at a disadvantage. The current transfer is the best I have
heard, other than a difficult-to-get EMI Japan transfer which I
heard once. An A/B comparison with the EMI on the Tchaikovsky
Historical set shows improvements, though hardly startling. Still
at the super-budget price that Naxos gives, why not listen to the
best?
Listening to the Prelude und Liebestod from Tristan right
after is a heavy experience; certainly it isn't as luminous an
experience as the later performance (in the full Tristan, now on
Naxos), still it is in very good sound for the time and
perfectly paced and played, lyrical yet dramatic. Having the
Liebestod performed right after the Prelude is such nonsense that
it should be banned, but if you want to listen to it, there's no
better man for it than Furtwängler (though performances by
Toscanini run a close competition. The Liebestod here is in turns
tender, then passionate and in the end achingly nostalgic.
An urgently recommended performance, for all interested in
Tchaikovsky performance practices beyond the Russian school,
and Furtwängler.
