Mengelberg and the Concertgebouw
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Hector Berlioz, Alexander Borodin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Schubert
Label: Pearl
Magazine Review Date: 3/1996
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 76
Mastering:
Mono
ADD
Catalogue Number: GEMMCD9154

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Concerto for 2 Violins and Strings |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Ferdinand Hellmann, Violin Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Louis Zimmerman, Violin Willem Mengelberg, Conductor |
Serenade No. 13, "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
(Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Willem Mengelberg, Conductor Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
(3) Marches Militaires, Movement: D |
Franz Schubert, Composer
(Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Franz Schubert, Composer Willem Mengelberg, Conductor |
Symphony No. 8, 'Unfinished' |
Franz Schubert, Composer
(Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Franz Schubert, Composer Willem Mengelberg, Conductor |
(La) Damnation de Faust, Movement: ~ |
Hector Berlioz, Composer
(Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Hector Berlioz, Composer Willem Mengelberg, Conductor |
(La) Damnation de Faust, Movement: Menuet des Follets, 'Will-o'-the-wisp' |
Hector Berlioz, Composer
(Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Hector Berlioz, Composer Willem Mengelberg, Conductor |
In the Steppes of Central Asia |
Alexander Borodin, Composer
(Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Alexander Borodin, Composer Willem Mengelberg, Conductor |
Composer or Director: Maurice Ravel, Zoltán Kodály
Label: Mengelberg Edition
Magazine Review Date: 3/1996
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 70
Mastering:
Mono
ADD
Catalogue Number: ADCD115

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Háry János |
Zoltán Kodály, Composer
(Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Willem Mengelberg, Conductor Zoltán Kodály, Composer |
Variations on a Hungarian folksong, '(The) Peacock |
Zoltán Kodály, Composer
(Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Willem Mengelberg, Conductor Zoltán Kodály, Composer |
Daphnis et Chloé Suites, Movement: Suite No. 2 |
Maurice Ravel, Composer
(Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Maurice Ravel, Composer Willem Mengelberg, Conductor |
Author: Michael Oliver
And then you turn to Hary Janos, and the mind boggles. Not only does this seem like a different conductor (and a different orchestra, with its solo viola biting deep into the strings, its first oboe sounding like a folk instrument), it is a conductor doing something quite different with the music in front of him, immediately recognizing the individuality, the modernity, the Hungarian-ness of Kodaly’s orchestra and remaking the Concertgebouw in its service. It is the same with his Ravel: it isn’t merely a question of knowing that French and (say) German orchestral sound are different, but that Ravel’s diction is personal to him, that there is reticence even to his most refulgent pages, that the word ‘luscious’ wasn’t in his vocabulary. There were not many conductors in 1942 (there aren’t many now) who realized how coldly menacing, vicious even, are Berlioz’s will-o’-the-wisps.
Mengelberg’s Bach comes into the ‘interesting’ category: why! a piano continuo! But isn’t that infinitely flexible long-term rubato, though a wonder to listen to, just a trifle mannered, as though Mengelberg thought we would be bored without it? His Peacock Variations, apart from the interest of being a ‘creator’s recording’ (he commissioned the work and gave its premiere two years before this performance), has the sort of eloquence, vigour and vibrant colour that can easily change your mind if you’ve ever dismissed the piece as about ten minutes too long.
The sound on the Pearl disc is hoarse and acid in Bach and Mozart, better elsewhere. Archive Documents’ live recordings – although someone at the time had a nervously twitchy hand on the volume control, and there are one or two brief patches of heavy surface – are very good indeed.'
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