Dvořák Symphonies Nos 8 & 9, ‘From the New World’

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Rafael Kubelík

DG 447 4122GOR (78' · ADD · Recorded 1972) Buy from Amazon

These accounts are quite magnificent, and their claims on the allegiance of collectors remain strong. Their freshness and vigour remind one of what it was like to hear these symphonies for the first time. The atmosphere is authentic in feeling and the sense of nature seems uncommonly acute. Kubelík has captured the enthusiasm of his players and generates a sense of excitement and poetry. The playing of the Berlin Philharmonic is marvellously eloquent and, as is often the case, a joy in itself. The woodwinds phrase with great poetic feeling and imagination, and all the departments of this great orchestra respond with sensitivity and virtuosity. 

The recording has great dynamic range and encompasses the most featherweight string pianissimos to the fullest orchestral tutti without discomfort. The listener is placed well back in the hall so that the woodwind, though they blend beautifully, may seem a little too recessed for some tastes, though it should be said that there’s no lack of vividness, power or impact. The balance and the timbre of each instrument is natural and truthful; nothing is made larger than life and Kubelík has a natural warmth and flexibility. This will remain high on any list of recommendations for it has a vernal freshness that’s wholly reviving.

Mahler Symphony No 1. Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau bar Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra / Rafael Kubelík

DG 449 7352GOR (67' · ADD · Recorded 1967) Buy from Amazon

Rafael Kubelík is essentially a poetic ­conductor and he gets more poetry out of this symphony than almost any other conductor who has recorded it. Although he takes the repeat of the first movement’s short exposition, it’s strange that he should ignore the single repeat sign in the Ländler when he seems so at ease with the music. Notwithstanding a fondness for generally brisk tempi in Mahler, Kubelík is never afraid of rubato here, above all in his very personally inflected account of the slow movement. This remains a delight. The finale now seems sonically a little thin, with the trumpets made to sound rather hard-pressed and the final climax failing to open out as it can in more modern recordings. The orchestral contribution is very good even if absolute precision isn’t guaranteed. 

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s second recording of the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen has worn rather less well, the spontaneous ardour of his earlier performance (with Furtwängler and the Philharmonia) here tending to stiffen into melodrama and mannerism. There’s much beautiful singing, and he’s most attentively accompanied, but the third song, ‘Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer’, is implausibly overwrought, bordering on self-parody. By contrast, Kube­lík’s unpretentious, Bohemian approach to the symphony remains perfectly valid. A corrective to the grander visions of those who conduct the music with the benefit of hindsight and the advantages of digital technology? Perhaps.

Schumann Symphonies Nos 1- 4. Manfred, Op 115 – Overture  

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra / Rafael Kubelík 

Part of 'Rafael Kubelík Conducts Great Symphonies' – Sony 88697 884112 Buy from Amazon

It’s hard to understand why Kubelík’s wonderful cycle failed to make an impact when it was first issued. His sensitivity to detail, his refusal to bully Schumann’s vulnerable structures and his ability to penetrate occasional thickets of orchestration make these especially memorable. Just listen to the cheeky bassoon backing clarinet 1'44" into the Spring Symphony’s fourth movement or the to-ing and fro-ing between first and second violins in the last movement of the Second. Only the first movement of the Fourth seems a ­little heavy-handed, but then the poetry of the Romanze and the exuberance of the finale more than make amends. First-movement repeats are observed and the playing throughout is rich in felicitous turns of phrase. The sound, though, is a minor stumbling-block: violins are thin, brass a little fuzzy and the whole production less focused than Sawallisch’s set. But Kubelík’s insights are too varied and meaningful to miss, and there’s much pleasure to be derived from them. What with a stirring Manfred ­Overture added for good measure, they also constitute exceptional value for money.

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Smetana Má vlast

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra / Rafael Kubelík

Supraphon SU1910-2  (78' · DDD · Recorded live 1990) Buy from Amazon

Smetana’s great cycle of six tone-poems, Má vlast, celebrates the countryside and legendary heroes and heroines of Bohemia. It’s a work of immense national significance encapsulating many of the ideals and hopes of that country. What a triumphant occasion it was when Rafael Kubelík returned to his native Czechoslovakia and to his old orchestra after an absence of 42 years and conducted Má vlast at the 1990 Prague Spring Festival. Supraphon’s disc captures that live performance – not perfectly, since the sound is efficient rather than opulent – but well enough to show off what’s arguably the finest performance on record since Talich’s early LP set. 

You’d never imagine that Kubelík had emerged from five years of retirement and a recent serious illness, such is the power and eloquence of his conducting. He takes a lyrical rather than a dramatic view of the cycle, and if there’s strength enough in more heroic sections there’s also a refreshing lack of bombast. Kubelík’s intimate knowledge of the score shows time and time again in the most subtle touches. Even the weakest parts of the work are most artfully brought to life, and seem of much greater stature than is usually the case. ‘Vltava’ flows beautifully, with the most imaginative flecks of detail, and in ‘From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields’ there are vivid visions of wide open spaces. The orchestra rewards its former ­director with superb playing.

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Suk Asrael, Op 27

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra / Rafael Kubelík

Panton 81 1101-2 (64' · ADD · Recorded 1981) Buy from Amazon

To use large-scale symphonic form for the purging of deep personal grief carries the danger that the result will seriously lack discipline. In 1904-05 Suk’s world was shattered by two visits from Asrael (the Angel of Death in Muslim mythology): he lost his father-in-law (and revered teacher) Dvořák, and his beloved wife, Otylka. Forgivably, Suk does perhaps linger a little too long in the fourth movement’s gentle, mainly lyrical portrait of Otylka, but elsewhere the progress is as satisfying psychologically as it is symphonically. Much of the music has a concentrated dreamlike quality; at the extremes, spectral nightmare visions merge with compensatory surges of lyrical ardour. Set Kubelík’s reading alongside any of the other modern versions and one is immediately aware of a wholly compelling imaginative intensity and interpretative flair that betoken a true poet of the rostrum. Kubelík’s control throughout is awesome and he conjures up playing of enormous expressive subtlety from his fine Munich orchestra. No other recorded performance – not even Václav Talich’s legendary 1952 Supraphon account – succeeds in conveying the intensely personal nature of this music with such devastating emotional candour. Technically, too, one need have no qualms about this Panton disc – the Bavarian Radio engineers secure most truthful results.

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Verdi Otello

Ramón Vinay ten Otello Gré Brouwenstijn sop Desdemona Otakar Kraus bar Iago John Lanigan ten Cassio Raymond Nilsson ten Roderigo Noreen Berry mez Emilia Marian Nowakowski bass Lodovico Michael Langdon bass Montano Forbes Robinson bass Herald Royal Opera House Chorus and Orchestra, Covent Garden / Rafael Kubelík

Royal Opera House Heritage Series mono ROHS001 (140’ · ADD · Recorded live 1955) Buy from Amazon

This Otello of 1955, issued at long, long last, marked Rafael Kubelík’s accession as music director and the first staging by the company of Verdi’s tragedy. Excitement and expectation were high, and the performance was electrifying; after more than 50 years, does it still sound as impressive? 

Indeed it does, thanks not least to Kubelík’s superb conducting. Even today he remains underrated as an opera conductor. Here he combines the dramatic drive of Toscanini with the more yielding approach of Serafin. While never losing an overview of the score, he brings out the myriad detail with an unerring ear for what matters: the two big ensembles are nicely contrasted with the plangent intricacies of Desdemona’s Willow Song and ‘Ave Maria’.

Vinay’s Moor is an overwhelming interpretation – a terrifying portrayal of love, jealousy and anguish, sung in that peculiarly pained tone of his; Vinay’s timbre tears at the heart so that one shares in his pain of the soul. Brouwenstijn is a most womanly and vulnerable Desdemona. In the love duet she is not quite at her best but in the devastating Act 3 duet she sings with tremenedous passion, and her Act 4 scena is notable for sweet tone, musical accuracy and, in the ‘Ave Maria’, a lovely cantabile and an exquisitely poised high A flat at its end. 

At the time there was disappointment that the announced Iago, Tito Gobbi, was sacked by Kubelík because of his failure to turn up for rehearsals. He was replaced by the estimable house baritone of the day, Otakar Kraus, who brings an insinuating tone and plausible manner based on obedience to the text. From his singing alone one can almost visualise the bright-eyed, scheming villain. John Lanigan, the company’s young lyric tenor of the day, provides a debonair Cassio. The rest are more than adequate.

The mono sound is dim at times and one would like a broader perspective, but one soon forgets these limitations in the immediacy of the performance. As well as any of its successors, it fulfils the exigent demands Verdi places on his cast and Vinay here surpasses even his own high standards.

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Wagner Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg  

Thomas Stewart bar Hans Sachs Thomas Hemsley bar Beckmesser Sándor Kónya ten Walther Gundula Janowitz sop Eva Brigitte Fassbaender mez Magdalene Gerhard Unger ten David Franz Crass bass Pogner Kieth Engen bass Kothner Horst Wilhelm ten Vogelgesang Richard Kogel bass Nachtigall Manfred Schmidt ten Zorn Friedrich Lenz ten Eisslinger Peter Baillie ten Moser Anton Diakov bass Ortel Karl Christian Kohn bass Schwartz Dieter Slembeck bass Foltz Raimund Grumbach bass Nightwatchman Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra / Rafael Kubelík 

Arts Archives 43020-2 (4h 32' · ADD · Recorded 1967) Buy from Amazon

There could be no more fitting memorial to Kubelík than the appearance of this, probably the most all-round satisfying Meistersinger in the era of stereo. It was recorded in 1967 by Bavarian Radio to mark the work’s centenary the following year. Kubelík conducts an unforced, loving interpretation, showing a gratifying grasp of overall structure. As a whole the reading has an unobtrusive cohesion achieved within flexible tempi and dynamics. Everything proceeds at an even, well-judged pace with just the right surge of emotion at the climaxes. All this is conveyed unerringly to his own Bavarian Radio forces.

Stewart’s Sachs is certainly his most successful performance on disc. He offers a finely moulded, deeply considered reading that relies on firm, evenly produced, mostly warm tone to create a darkish, philosophical poet-cobbler. Kónya is simply the most winning Walther on any set, superseding Sawallisch’s excellent Heppner by virtue of a greater ardour in his delivery. Kónya pours out consistently warm, clear tone, his tenor hovering ideally between the lyric and the heroic. Nor are there many better Evas than the young Janowitz, certainly none with a lovelier voice. Franz Crass, a less pompous Pogner than some, sings his part effortlessly, with noble feeling. Hemsley, though singing his first Beckmesser, evinces a close affinity with the Town Clerk’s mean-mindedness, and his German is faultless. Unger is a paragon among Davids, so eager in his responses and finding just the right timbre for the role. His Magdalene, again perfect casting, is the young Fassbaender. With a characterful Kothner in Engen, the requirements for a near-ideal Meistersinger ensemble are in place. As the recording doesn’t betray its age, this would undoubtedly be the first choice among stereo versions.