It is good to be reminded so vividly of an aspect of Rudolf Kempe’s mastery that is too easily forgotten: his charm in light music. If we generally think of him as a great interpreter of the central Viennese classics and of German opera, Wagner in particular, we also have to remember that as Beecham’s successor as Music Director of the RPO, chosen by the players, he also had this Beecham-esque gift of finding magic in undemanding music. The title of the disc implies a Viennese occasion, and though composers’ nationalities are varied, that is fair enough when the waltz rhythms, for example, have such a delicious Viennese lilt. That is so not just in Viennese items such as the delightful Josef Bayer suite, Die Puppenfee, but in Gounod too, with Kempe bringing out the delicacy as well as the vigour.
The Bayer (much admired by the great ballerina, Pavlova), with its sequence of dance movements, is sensuous too as Kempe presents it, and so is the Mascagni interlude which opens the recital. Kempe’s use of rubato is often extreme – arguably too much so in the Schubert Rosamunde music – but it never fails to be winning in a very Viennese way, as in the rare Franz Schmidt “Intermezzo”. Even more clearly than the Schubert, the Gluck item may be counted too sweet, certainly by latter-day standards, but it is hard not to capitulate before such persuasive treatment, not just from the Viennese players as an ensemble, but specifically from the principal violin and cello in their solos.
The Ponchielli, once so popular, now neglected, sparkles with uninhibited joy, as does the Offenbach, and it is good to have such a rarity as the Kolo by the Zagreb conductor and composer, Jakob Gotovac, rhythmic and colourful in a sequence of contrasted sections. The recordings were all made in the Musikvereinsaal in Vienna in December 1961, with the superb Testament transfers bringing out a warmth and depth of focus that many a later recording engineer working in that famed hall might envy.'