This is not the more familiar stereo Beecham Heldenleben (HMV, 5/61 – nla), but its predecessor of 1947 – a recording of considerable historical significance. It was at once among the early jewels in the crown of the newly established RPO and a significant offshoot of the London Strauss festival staged with the composer’s participation in September of that year. As Norman Del Mar remarks in his definitive Strauss biography (London: 1978), the event caused a stir not least because so many had assumed the composer to be long dead. The work itself was not the popular show-piece it has since become and the 78s helped establish its reputation in the UK. There are several even more venerable performances on the Gramophone Database, but, interpretatively speaking, this one stands up very well indeed. The bad news is that after, say, Mark Obert-Thorn’s transfer of the much older Mengelberg/NYPO version, it sounds distinctly unspectacular. There is fairly persistent surface swish and an unexpectedly narrow dynamic range. I know many listeners actually prefer an ‘authentic’ feel to their historical material; this, however, is not a disc to play to the unconverted. There are smoother but less immediate transfers of the same programme by Obert-Thorn on Biddulph ((CD) WHL056).
Performance-wise, Beecham first time round gives us a light, lithe, fantastical account, less grandiose than his own remake, not to mention Herbert von Karajan’s magnificent but always comparatively remote conception. The opening paragraph strides briskly forth without rhetorical intrusions. Thereafter the orchestra’s woodwind make marvellously characterful critics and Oscar Lampe’s portrayal of the Hero’s wife makes even the garrulous Mrs Strauss hard to resist. On the battlefield one notices the limitations of the recording, of course, but it is only in the Love scene from Feuersnot that the distortion brings such discomfort that one begins to wonder about the state of the source material. No such problems beset Salome whose Dance is wonderfully sharp and alert. While it may be that with Beecham the allure is more convincingly projected than the menace, few will see that as a problem. Listen to the playing ‘through’ the sound and ask yourself how often we hear this kind of clarity and attack today.'