The specialist German label Audite has already released several recordings from Rafael Kubelik’s years as Chief Conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, including two valuable CDs of concerto recordings featuring Clifford Curzon. Here it turns its attention to Mahler, presenting a live recording from 1981 which complements Kubelik’s commercial recording of the Fifth Symphony with the same forces for DG.

Kubelik took charge of the Bavarian Radio orchestra in 1961, and so this particular performance is a product of the close relationship between conductor and orchestra which had developed over a period of 20 years. The result is a notable reading: Kubelik gets completely inside the music, creating a performance of exceptional drive and intensity. The second movement, for instance, has a truly demonic character. The subsequent Scherzo is equally powerful, and the famous Adagietto is strongly contrasted, with an atmosphere of great repose. Only in the final movement does Kubelik’s intensity start to diminish. Taken as a whole, however, this performance represents a definite development on Kubelik’s earlier studio recording. It places his interpretation strongly within the expressionistic style of Mahler conducting, as epitomized most powerfully by Leonard Bernstein and Klaus Tennstedt.

The Bavarian orchestra plays with great eloquence, commitment and virtuosity, not least in the second movement, which constitutes the emotional core of Kubelik’s stormy view of the work. The only drawback, which does give cause for concern in this particular work but which presumably reflects the conductor’s intentions, is an at times raucous first trumpet.

As was so often the case, the Bavarian Radio recording of a performance in the Herkulessaal is a model of refinement. It presents an excellent overall aural picture, with wide perspective, in which all the strands of Mahler’s complex symphonic argument can be clearly heard without any artificial highlighting.

In sum, this recording, supported by brief but pertinent documentation is a valuable document of Kubelik’s later years, of his relationship with the orchestra with which he worked for the longest period of his whole career, and of a truly memorable interpretation of music clearly close to his heart.

The German firm Audite has given us not only this near complete live cycle of Mahler symphonies (sans 4 or 8), but valuable Kubelik/Curzon readings of four Mozart and two Beethoven concertos. Of particular interest here is 'Das Lied von der Erde', since Kubelik did not record it for DG. Janet Baker fans will welcome a third CD version: and she sounds truly inspired by her conductor. 'Der Einsame im Herbst' may not have the sheer beauty of the version with Haitink but the finale surpasses most on records, with a real sense of the transcendental at the close. Kmentt too makes the most of his words; and the reedy Munich winds suit this score.

Recorded between 1967 and 1971, Kubelik’s DG cycle has been at budget price for some time now and the Audite alternatives of 1, 5 and 7 have been in the shops for months. The NHK-recorded Ninth, made during a 1975 Tokyo visit by the Bavarian RSO, was reviewed in CRC, Spring 2001 (I found the sound unfocused and the brass pinched in sound, but welcomed in particular playing ‘ablaze’ after the visionary episode in the Rondo burleske and a crowning final). No. 1 in DG is widely admired but this 1979 version is more poetic still, wonderfully so in the introduction and trio at (II). There is something of a pall of resonance in place of applause, cut from all these Audite transfers. In No. 7 the balance is more airy than DG’s multi-miked productions, and (as in No. 5) Kubelik sounds less constrained than when working under studio conditions, although rhythm in the opening bars of (II) goes awry and the very opening note is succeeded by a sneeze! The disturbing and more shadowy extremes are more vividly characterized, the finale a riotous display.

Some critics feel that Kubelik gives us ‘Mahler-lite’, which may seem in comparison with, say, Chailly’s Decca cycle or the recent BPO/Abbado Third on DG – not to mention Bernstein’s. But there is plenty of energy here, and the divided strings with basses set to the rear left give openness to textures. However, the strings are not opulent and the trumpets are often piercing. It would be fair to say that Kubelik conducted Mahler as if it were Mozart!

As it happens, in the most controversial of his readings, No. 6, the DG is preferable to the Audite, where Kubelik projects little empathy with its slow movement and where the Scherzo is less cohesive. The real problem is that the very fast speed for (I) affects ail subsequent tempo relationships. Nor does the finale on No. 3, one of the glories of the DG cycle, quite have the same radiance; the singers are the same, the Tölz Boys making a sound one imagines Mahler must have heard in his head, and this performance predates the DG by one month. Nevertheless, these newer issues of Nos 2 and 3 are worth hearing, the ‘Resurrection’ not least for Brigitte Fassbaender’s account of ‘Urlicht’.

Nowadays every orchestra visiting London seems to programme Mahler’s Fifth Symphony as a showpiece, but in 1951 (when Bruno Walter’s 78rpm set was the collector’s only choice) a performance would surely have been uncommon even at the Concertgebouw – Mengelberg was prohibited from conducting in Holland from 1946 until he died that year. Although the start of (V) is marred by horns, this is an interesting, well executed account with a weightier sound, from what one can surmise through the inevitable dimness – the last note of (I) is almost inaudible. The three versions vary sufficiently to quote true timings (none is given by Tahra): (I) 11m 34s/12m 39s/11m 35s (Tahra/Audite/DG); (II) 13m/14m 52s/13m 52s; (III) 15m 56s/17m 54s/17m 23s; (IV) 9m 24s/10m 24s/9mm 44s); (V) 14m 26s/14m 57s/15m 29s. The live Munich version is tidier than on DG; the spectral imagery in (III) is heavier in effect, too; and in the Adagietto the dynamic and phrasing shadings and poetic quality of the string playing also give the live performance the edge. Towards the end of the finale, and elsewhere, the engineers reduced dynamic levels.

Tahra’s booklet comprises an untidily set-out synopsis of Kubelik’s career. Audite’s have full descriptions of the works with text for Nos 2 and 3, and different back-cover colour portraits of the conductor.

Kubelik trug als Chef des Sinfonieorchesters des Bayerischen Rundfunks...

Gut, dass hin und wieder an die Rolle Rafael Kubeliks in der Verbreitung der Werke Gustav Mahlers erinnert wird. Diese Aufnahme ist umso erfreulicher, weil sie uns eine Fünfte beschert, deren Ausdrucks-Spannweite erheblich größer ist als in der Studio-Einspielung bei DG. Diese sorgsam erarbeitete und sehr spontan und intensiv musizierte Symphonie fließt von der ersten bis zur letzten Minute, ohne dass die Spannung und die Kraft der Musik auch nur kurzfristig abnehmen. Das ist leidenschaftliches Musizieren ohne Exzesse, hin und wieder, besonders im ersten Satz etwas grün und frisch, stets erfüllt und, wenn notwendig, auch nachsinnend-ernst. Ein absoluter Höhepunkt ist das hingebungsvoll gespielte Adagietto, zum Sterben schön der Übergang zum Rondo-Finale, das man selten so musikantisch, so voller Charme und voller Poesie gehört hat.

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