In a ranking of the 20th century’s great violinists, Gioconda de Vito (1907–1994) would probably not be among the top 10, possibly not even among the top 20. Yet record collectors, being the odd lot we are, sometimes manage to create feeding frenzies over this or that artist’s recorded performances, not necessarily for their musical value, but because of their relative rarity. The reason I say this with regard to de Vito is that many, if not most of her recordings—even those that originally appeared on 78s—have been transferred to CD and are readily available at rational retail prices. Yet the irrational craze for de Vito’s recordings in their original LP pressings is such, especially in Japan, that one can pay hundreds of dollars for one of her albums in mint condition on eBay—in spite of the fact that she had a very limited repertoire, never appeared in the U.S., retired at the age of 54, never to pick up a violin again, and was not critically acclaimed as one of the great virtuosos of her day, unless one gives special credence to the commendation accorded her by Mussolini. Perhaps the novelty, which is hardly a novelty nowadays, is that like her exact contemporary, Erica Morini (1904–1995), de Vito was a woman on a stage dominated by men. With players today like Julia Fischer and Hillary Hahn, to name just two, that scene has greatly changed.

De Vito never aspired to be a great international star. She was born in a small southern Italian town to a wine-making family, and for much of her life preferred home to the touring circuit. Her break came in 1948, when she made her London debut under Victor de Sabata playing the Brahms Concerto, which led to appearances with Menuhin and Stern at the Edinburgh Festival and to a number of concerts under Furtwängler. Though invited to the U.S. by Toscanini and Charles Munch, she declined. The Brahms Concerto became a de Vito specialty and her signature piece. Reportedly, she studied it for 11 years before playing it in public, and then proceeded to record it numerous times. Her first go at it on a recording was a live performance in 1941 on 78s with Paul van Kempen and the Berlin State Opera Orchestra. In another live performance from 1952, she recorded the Concerto with Furtwängler and the Turin Radio Orchestra, and again a year later with Rudolf Schwarz and London’s Philharmonia. All of these recordings can be had on CD, or, if you prefer, you can shell out ridiculous sums of money to purchase them on LPs that are still circulating on Internet auction and collector sites.

De Vito’s Brahms may not make a believer out of an atheist as, rumor had it, her Mendelssohn did of one listener, but this studio recording from 1951 under Ferenc Fricsay leading the RIAS Symphony Orchestra—better known today as the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin—may afford us perhaps the best portrait there is on record of the violinist’s vision of this work. I say this because the recording itself is exceptionally good, with balanced, detailed sound, excellent dynamic range, and a luminescent halo that seems to surround the soloist. De Vito draws from her instrument a pure and extremely sweet tone, and her playing remains unforced and unperturbed even in the Concerto’s most technically taxing passages. Not even a heart of stone could fail to be moved by her performance or fail to acknowledge her artistry.

That said, I am not prepared to accord this top honors among Brahms Violin Concerto recordings, and here is why. Fricsay and de Vito are not of similar minds and hearts as to how this score should go. He wants to press forward; she wants to hold back. He runs a tight ship, steering a straight and steady course; she takes shore leave to sightsee at every port. His is a classically structured reading; hers is as romanticized as they come. Fricsay, of course, is too much the professional to allow the performance to become a catfight or a contest of wills. He accommodates de Vito at every turn, but one hears in the tutti passages where Fricsay would take things if he didn’t have to defer to his soloist. Though I haven’t heard the violinist’s recording with Furtwängler, my suspicion is that he was probably a better fit for her temperamentally than was the more business-like, more closely adherent to the score Fricsay. Clearly, de Vito’s many warmly received appearances with Furtwängler speak to a more closely shared musical bond.

Nothing could reinforce this observation more than Fricsay’s reading of Brahms’s D-Major Symphony on this disc. Also a studio recording, dating from 1953, this is one of the more forward-pressing performances I’ve heard. There is no rubbernecking to ogle the roadside scenery, not even the slight slowdown that many conductors take at the appearance of the first movement’s second theme. But, while Fricsay may be highly disciplined, he’s not matter-of-fact. One does not sense for a single moment that this is a routine run-through or that either conductor or orchestra is disengaged. Not surprising for a recording of this vintage, the first movement exposition repeat is bypassed, but in every other way, this is as modern a performance of Brahms’s Second Symphony as you are likely to hear. And if the recorded sound on the Concerto was exceptionally good, the recorded sound in the Symphony is nothing short of fantastic.

In past reviews, I’ve held up Bruno Walter’s mono studio recordings of the Brahms symphonies with the New York Philharmonic as a benchmark. Walter’s Second was recorded the same year, 1953, as Fricsay’s. Walter, who is by no means a slowpoke, delivers the score in 38:36. Fricsay, at 37:47, is faster still by almost a minute. But beyond tempo variances, if I had to describe a difference in interpretive approach, it would be to say that Fricsay is Walter, but without the Gemütlichkeit.

Whatever place Gioconda de Vito occupies in the history of violin playing, hers was a unique voice, and I can’t imagine it being heard in better form or captured in better sound than it is here. Fricsay was also one of the 20th century’s great podium masters, and it should be incumbent on every serious collector to hear him at the top of his game. Audite is to be commended for the superb job they’ve done in remastering and transferring this material. This release gets my strongest recommendation.

Recorded in 1966, Solti’s studio Seventh from Vienna originally appeared on a pair of London LPs, where it was coupled with a Siegfried Idyll in the original chamber music version. I kept that set on my shelves for many years, solely on account of the Wagner until replacing the latter with Klemperer’s more sensitive reading (now on EMI as a filler to the Klemperer/Philharmonia Bruckner Fourth). My chief objection to Solti’s Seventh is its unrelenting sameness of expression. Despite the mighty presence of the VPO and great recorded sound, Solti’s reading largely misses the senses of ardor and ecstasy that are such essential components of Bruckner’s score. This is most especially noticeable in the Adagio, where Solti’s stolidly even tempos and generally monotone phrasing make the music sound boring rather than sublime. All in all, this release will appeal primarily to fully committed Solti admirers.

Strictly in terms of execution, Böhm’s live Bruckner Seventh is a fine display of well-intoned strings, perky woodwinds, and generally solid brass-playing. So it’s with more than a little regret that I cannot recommend this one either. That’s simply because the Bavarians are up against two superior accounts from Böhm himself: his excellent 1976 studio version with the Vienna Philharmonic (65:48 on DG) and a slightly quicker and even more persuasive live 1976 Vienna concert reading (63:04 on Andante). While all three of those are similar in interpretive profile, Andante’s recording emerges as the most genial and spontaneous. Both Vienna Sevenths were recorded in the warm and spacious acoustics of Vienna’s Musikverein and sound more pleasing to the ear than Audite’s disappointingly colorless taping from the Herkulessaal in Munich.

Böhm’s Bruckner is most distinctive for its solid craftsmanship and first-class ensemble. In the studio Böhm often could sound too sober and unvaried (e.g., a drawback to his otherwise superbly played Fourth on Decca). But in his live Sevenths, the conductor is much more flexible in pace and phrasing. The only instance where this becomes a tad eccentric (in both live accounts) occurs in the first movement/second subject, where Böhm’s swift tempo suddenly slows right at the moment the big brass chorale is reached. Another minor criticism: the live Sevenths have a tiny hesitation just before the Adagio’s cymbal clash, which slightly diminishes the climax’s dramatic impact.

Both live readings feature some wonderfully stretched rubato in the brass passage leading to the Adagio’s livelier second subject. Böhm adroitly realizes this movement’s unusual bipartite tempo structure, where a slow first subject in 4/4 time is followed by a Moderato with three beats to the measure. Therefore, he correctly increases speed for the second subject, whereas some interpreters (e.g., the Solti reviewed above) just plod on as before. In the playing of this second subject, the Bavarian strings sound somewhat utilitarian in comparison to Vienna’s. The live Austrians play with an ineffable sweetness and lyricism that evokes Johann Strauss, Jr. (after all, Bruckner once remarked that he would rather hear a Strauss waltz than a Brahms symphony). The Scherzo in both live readings is bracingly alert and features an amiable Trio, but again the Viennese players sound much more Austrian. The tricky Finale has fine playing from both orchestras, but there is really nothing quite like the virtuosic solidarity of the Vienna brass.

The verdict: Böhm live in Vienna surely outclasses Böhm live in Munich. I went on to compare Andante’s release to five other stereo recordings from the Vienna Philharmonic and found Böhm to be more eloquent and idiomatic than the faceless Abbado (DG), the brusque Harnoncourt (Teldec), the aforementioned Solti, the strangely lackluster Giulini (DG), and the smooth but exceedingly detached Karajan (DG). Except for Harnoncourt, all of these conductors employ the disputed cymbal clash in the Adagio’s climax.

Of course, there are other interpretive approaches that certainly deserve a place in one’s “Seventh Heaven” collection. My choices here are all post 1956 and, with one exception, in stereo. A more dramatic first-movement coda than Böhm’s can be heard in the live 1992 Asahina/Osaka Philharmonic (63:01 on deleted Canyon; no cymbals) and in the 1967 Matačić/Czech Philharmonic (68:54 on Supraphon, with cymbals). Asahina’s rich, lower string-based sonorities are captured in terrific sound, and his agile, headlong gallop through the Scherzo is altogether thrilling. The Matačić is my favorite among the slower Sevenths (those lasting over 66 minutes). Its warmly lyrical phrasing benefits enormously from the Czechs’ distinctive instrumental timbres (see Paul Ingram’s favorable review in Fanfare 28:5). The 1964 Schuricht/Hague Philharmonic (60: 24 on deleted Scribendum; with cymbal clash) has moments of less-than-distinguished ensemble, but the reading is intensely passionate and its divided violins reveal many intriguing contrapuntal effects. Rosbaud’s 1957 Southwest German Radio studio account (63:09, without cymbals) is now on a Meisterwerke CD (misdated as 1959). The Austrian conductor (a native of Graz, as was Böhm) provides a veritable master class on how to use varied rates of string vibrato for expressive effect, and his brisk Finale is a marvel of pointed clarity. A special favorite of mine is the live 1960 radio broadcast (59:31, no cymbals), with Paul Hindemith leading the New York Philharmonic (Baton LP). The barely decent mono sound may suffer from hiss and a few sonic dropouts, but Hindemith’s profoundly insightful interpretation is riveting. Highly nuanced string phrasing, unusual tempo choices, and generous use of rubato create a most illuminating view of Bruckner from one of the last century’s greatest composers. The NYP needs to give us an official release in good sound (but see below).

Finally, here are a few purchasing suggestions. Böhm’s live Seventh on Andante is part of a four-disc Bruckner set (all Vienna Philharmonic) that includes Furtwängler’s 1954 Eighth and a Karajan Ninth from 1978 (see Robert McColley’s positive review of this set in Fanfare 27:1). The Furtwängler Eighth (excellent mono sound) is extraordinary. The stereo Karajan Ninth is committed but somewhat rough-edged. Andante’s set normally retails for about $56, but it recently was available via the Internet from Berkshire Record Outlet for $28 plus postage. The deleted Asahina and Schuricht items are hard to find and fetch high prices. Matačić’s is mid-priced ($12) and the Rosbaud is even cheaper (under $10); both can be bought at amazon.com. The Hindemith has appeared on a sub rosa CD from Disco Archivia (available from musicinthemail.com for $5 plus postage). I recently bought a copy and it seems to be a straight dub of the old Baton LP. Also included is a pair of Hindemith/New York bonuses: Cherubini’s Medea Overture (from the same concert as the Bruckner) and the overture to Weber’s Euryanthe (1963). Please be aware: what you get is a bare-bones CD-R in a plain plastic envelope (no notes). To my mind, each of those alternatives is a better value than Audite’s offering (retail price: roughly $18).

I have always preferred opera in the original language, but have also enjoyed recordings in other languages, provided that great singers are involved. In this case, as in other Italian operas sung in German, the problem is there is no similarity between the vowel-rich Italian language and the more guttural German.

The cover of the CD features the conductor and is labeled “Edition Ferenc Fricsay Vol. IX.” The recording dates from 1953. Fortunately, the conductor had an all-star cast of some of the finest German singers of their era. Fricsay was an artist of that time, and this performance cuts the duet between Lucia and Raimondo in act II, and also the Wolf’s Craig scene. The complete recording of the opera as Donizetti wrote it lasts 137 minutes, so that in this version a half-hour of music is not performed. Surprisingly, in the love duet both Stader and Haefliger sing the high E♭ in the final verse, which was usually never sung in those years.

Maria Stader was one of the finest coloratura sopranos of her era. Fischer-Dieskau was a premier baritone, and Ernst Haefliger, who is probably the least known, is the star of this performance. His Edgardo is beautifully sung.

Donizetti wrote music for singers, not conductors. The notes are principally concerned with Fricsay. His conducting is meticulous. There is only a list of the bands. Those who are interested in historical performances, and do not object to the opera in the wrong language may want to investigate this recording, as the sound is excellent. There are many recordings of this opera. The most well regarded Lucias on record are Callas and Sutherland. Recently, a live complete performance of the opera from Buenos Aires was issued on an Argentine label, Piscitelli, starring Beverly Sills and Alfredo Kraus. I strongly recommend it for those who love Donizetti, and want to hear all of the music that he wrote.

Audite’s release devoted to violinist Erica Morini falls into two parts: a live performance of Tchaikovsky’s concerto from October 13, 1952, and studio recordings she made two days later in Berlin’s RIAS Studio 7. Morini recorded the concerto with Désiré Defauw and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on 78s and with Artur Rodzinski and the Royal Philharmonic for Westminster in 1958 (289 471 200-2). DOREMI has released another live performance of the concerto, in which Igor Stravinsky conducted the New York Philharmonic in 1940, Doremi 7772 (Fanfare 24:6). Audite’s release of the live version, with Ferenc Fricsay conducting the RIAS Symphony Orchestra, enjoys a transfer that allows Morini’s rich tone to emerge naturally, vibrantly, and authoritatively (and transmits a vividly detailed impression of Fricsay’s and the orchestra’s vigorous accompaniment). Morini shifts back and forth in the first movement between poetic sensitivity and technical passagework that digs deeply into the strings, especially in double-stops. This contrast appears in microcosm in the cadenza, to which she introduces unexampled sensibility into phrases that often serve only as transitions between technical coups. Throughout the movement, her 1727 Davidoff Stradivari (sadly, stolen from her as she lay dying) sounds as throaty as a Guarneri on the G string but brilliantly reedy in the upper registers (listen to the introductory measures of the finale to get an idea of her slashing rhetoric as enhanced by her instrument). Carl Flesch thought that her technical manner sounded dated, but it suits the episodes in the finale, for example; in any case, she never employs devices, such as swooping portamentos, that would mark her playing as anything but individual. Just as in the cases of Nathan Milstein, Jascha Heifetz, Zino Francescatti, and David Oistrakh, not to mention Fritz Kreisler, those mannerisms impress the violinist’s playing with a personal stamp, and so they do as well in Morini’s case. Listeners should beware, however: Although the booklet clearly indicates that the finale appears in a truncated version, the timings of the finale (8:10 with Stravinsky, 8:29 with Horenstein, 8:00 with Rodzinski, and 8:10 with Fricsay) reveal that the performance, however surprising the cuts when they occur, fits well into her usual way of playing the movement.

Morini recorded Giuseppe Tartini’s “other” G-Minor Sonata, “Didone abbandonata,” in a collection that included works by Vivaldi, Pergolesi, and Nardini, with Leon Pommers, and I remember acquiring that LP (Decca DL 10102) now almost two generations ago and finding the performance somewhat chunky and stolid. This one seems more gracious and suave. Those familiar with Isaac Stern’s master class in China in his award-winning documentary should remember his insistence that the young student sing the first movement (literally). Morini doesn’t sing it with the kind of expressivity that Stern suggested, but as in the third movement, not always interpolated nowadays, her reading is expressive in its own way—and at a tempo that seems slow but not quite languishing. The second movement’s technical passages sparkle as brightly as so many diamonds; still, the recorded sound in these studio recordings seems a bit tubby. She makes the finale sound as cheerful despite its minor key as do any of the sunny minor-key movements in violin concertos by Giovanni Battista Viotti. For some, her combination of wistfulness and brilliance in Tartini will sound altogether too romantic; for those who don’t adhere rigidly to any performance-practice dogmas, it will seem a sensitive updating, effectively translating many of Tartini’s idiosyncratic expressions into modern dialects.

Ottorino Respighi’s popular reworking of Antonio Vivaldi’s sonata already contains within it the seeds of tension between the Baroque and the era in which Respighi transcribed it, so it should be no surprise if Morini’s performance sounds somewhat ambivalent as well. But the same characteristics nevertheless prevail—an incisive technical approach married to a bold yet lyrical expressivity. Morini also recorded this sonata later, included in Decca’s collection with Leon Pommers.

The end of the program consists of what might nowadays be considered “mere” encore pieces. Kreisler’s celebrated pastiche of Tartini’s celebrated variations on Corelli’s celebrated gavotte from his L’arte del arco, a favorite with almost every eminent violinist since Kreisler’s time, makes a strong appeal in this elegant performance (an early video of David Oistrakh playing it doesn’t suggest either such effortlessness or such sparkle). DOREMI also reissued this performance, along with the Tchaikovsky concerto conducted by Stravinsky, in its second Morini volume. In Kreisler’s own Schön Rosmarin, Morini turns in an even more elegant, more sparkling performance that catapults her to a place among the very most convincing exponents of that violinist’s composition, while her by turns sultry and skittish reading of the famous Caprice viennois cements her in that place. (Her capriciousness in the middle section recalls Kreisler’s own; not every successful Kreisler re-creator resembles him so much here.) Her reading of Brahms’s waltz may provide one of the most pleasant surprises of the collection for listeners largely unfamiliar with the panache with which violinists of her generation could dispatch such simple items. Wieniawski’s Capriccio-Valse isn’t so simple, though it may be simply a barn burner. Many violinists could play it with equal technical command, but how can you compare her silken sound and the subtly nuanced coddling of phrases tailor-made for such an approach to theirs?

Because of the slenderness of Morini’s output, these recordings should appeal to every collector of violin music and to every admirer of the best violinists of the 20th century, now sadly receding into the past. Nathan Milstein supposedly would play only with Morini in his later years. It’s easy to see why. Inspiring, and urgently recommended.

This wonderful three-CD set presents itself as Fricsay’s complete recordings of Bartók’s music, yet the liner notes refer to DG studio recordings of the Concerto for Orchestra and Bluebeard’s Castle, neither of which is in this collection. Curious.

What is present is, for the most part, marvelous, though the tightly miked, over-bright sound of the Violin Concerto No. 2 and the Divertimento for String Orchestra somewhat spoil the effect of the music. In both, the brass and high strings sound as shrill as the worst NBC Symphony broadcasts, and this shrill sound also affects Varga’s otherwise excellent solo playing. On sonic rather than musical terms, I was glad when they were over. The remastering engineer should have softened the sound with a judicious reduction of treble and possibly the addition of a small amount of reverb.

Needless to say, the studio recordings are all magnificent, not only sonically but meeting Fricsay’s high standards for musical phrasing. I’m convinced that it is only because the famous Fritz Reiner recording is in stereo that his performance of the Music for Strings, etc. is touted so highly; musically Fricsay makes several points in the music that Reiner does not. The liner notes lament that the Cantata profana is sung in German in order to accommodate two of Fricsay’s favorite singers, Helmut Krebs and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. No matter, for the performance itself is splendid and, sonics again aside, it has never been surpassed.

In a review I previously wrote of a modern pianist’s recordings of the Bartók concertos, I brought up the Annie Fischer–Igor Markevitch recording of No. 3 as an example of what the music really should sound like. The Anda–Fricsay recording of No. 2 is yet another example. The music flies like the wind, none of the brass interjections or rhythmic propulsion are ignored, yet none of it sounds like a jackhammer chopping up the pavement of your brain. Indeed, the Adagio enters and maintains a particularly soft and mysterious sound world that is the essence of Bartók’s post-Romanticism. The notes take Kentner to task for glossing over “some of the intricacies of the fragile dialogue between soloist and orchestra in the middle movement” of the Third Concerto, but I find this a small if noticeable blemish in this live concert performance. Many of the orchestral textures completely contradict what one hears in the modern recording on Chandos, and even Kentner’s very masculine reading has more of a legato feeling.

If you take in stride some of the harshness in the live performances (particularly the violin concerto), you’ll definitely want this set in your collection. So much in these performances represents Bartók’s music as it should sound, and it should be remembered that Kodály, Bartók, and Dohnányi were Fricsay’s teachers at the Liszt Music Academy in Budapest. Historically informed performance students, take heed.

Eduard Franck was born in Breslau in 1817, studied with Mendelssohn in Leipzig between 1834 and 1838, moved from Berlin to Cologne, from there to Bern, and on to Berlin in 1867 as head of piano at the Stern Conservatoire. His last post was as professor in his hometown, and he died in Berlin in 1893. He was the father of the pianist and composer Richard Franck. Even in his lifetime, Eduard Franck's music hardly made an impact: Six symphonies, three quartets, two concertos each for piano and violin, much chamber music, and works for piano—all largely forgotten by the time he died.

The music of these two quartets is confidently and expertly crafted—and just a tad anonymous at times. But Franck has a ready stream of melody into which he taps for some gorgeous tunes, and even if he doesn't readily establish a harmonic identity, he is always resourceful and inventive. The op. 54 quartet, probably the second of the three he produced, was written in 1847, when Brahms was 14—and again and again it's Brahms whom the music prefigures. Take the second subject of the first movement—who but Brahms could have written that melody? The same with the exquisite second movement, though here there's an admixture of Schubert, too. The lusty scherzo looks even further into the future: It directly pre-echoes the scherzo of Franz Schmidt's A-Major String Quartet of 1925. Michael Struck-Schloen's notes call on Beethoven and Haydn as influences on the E♭ Quartet, op. 55 (date unknown—it was published only in 1899): a slow introduction, in the late Beethoven's searching manner, and a concertante role for the first violin à la Haydn. The deeply expressive slow movement evokes Bach, both in manner and with a direct quote from the St. John Passion. This is something special: It brought tears to my ears when I first heard it. A buoyant minuet brushes such cares aside. And for the finale—11 variations on a monophonie song—he takes Beethoven's op. 74, the "Harp" Quartet, as his model, as Struck-Schloen points out. And now the pre-echoes are more surprising still: There are passages here that point forward to Robert Simpson's Ninth Quartet of 1982.

The Edinger Quartet performs both works with passion and commitment—not always perfectly in tune (the leader, Christiane Edinger, in particular), but not so far out that it mars your enjoyment. Good sound from Audite, and a helpful essay from Struck-Schloen.

This is, in fact, the sixth CD that the Detmold label Audite has dedicated to Eduard and Richard Franck. A cello sonata from each gentleman appears on Audite 20021, as does more music for cello and piano on 20.031 ; each of two Eduard Franck symphonies shares its disc with one of his violin concertos on 20.025 and 20.034; and his op. 49 String Quartet and Piano Quintet, op. 45, can be found on 20.033. I haven't had a chance to hear these discs yet, but you can be sure I am going to chase them down. In the meantime, this one is strongly recommended—here's another Franck you really ought to know.

Rather than attempt to come up with a “best of” list, I prefer to think of my annual Want List as a medium for calling attention to recording projects of extraordinary documentary or historical value. This year’s choices include three big boxes, suitable for and worthy of holiday giving or receiving. Finally, I also include a single new recording that really blew this jaded critic away this past year.

Not included for 2009, but certainly deserving an honorable mention, is the continuation of the Sibelius Edition on BIS, now at eight volumes and counting. Perhaps no single volume issued this year has reached the heights of last year’s “Voice and Orchestra” box, which featured gorgeous performances of the many little-known but stunning choral-orchestral works; but still, this project will surely stand as one of the enduring landmarks in the history of recorded music.

As it happens, four of my five official items this year are reissues, although they differ widely in character. This is the third incarnation of DG’s Brahms Edition, originally issued on LP in 1983 to mark the composer’s sesquicentennial. DG here atones for allowing the 1990s CD edition to go out of print; the current incarnation is identical to it in content, but trades the multiple volumes and elaborately illustrated booklets for a single compact box (essentially a five-inch cube) that can be had for under $100. For most collectors, of course, multiple duplications will be unavoidable, but this set is worth the price just for the four gorgeous discs of choral music under Günter Jena—whose name, shamefully, can be found nowhere in the booklet or CD sleeves—not to mention the four discs of rare vocal duets and quartets with DG stalwarts Mathis, Fassbaender, Schreier, and Fischer-Dieskau, or the superb piano trios and quartets with Tamás Vásáry. I could go on, but if you love Brahms and missed this the first two times around, grab it.

Bernstein’s 1960s Mahler cycle was literally a once-in-a-lifetime case of musical syzygy: the music, the conductor, the still-recent development of the stereo LP, and the times all aligned to make these recordings central to the “Mahler boom” that continues to reverberate more than four decades later. Several of the performances remain unmatched, and all have been remastered in stunning sound that makes all previous issues obsolete.

The Audite set includes all the live 1947–54 Furtwängler material still extant in the form of original RIAS tapes. All this material has been issued elsewhere, but the sound quality of these first transfers from the original 30-ips tapes is superior—sometimes dramatically so—to that of all previous issues. The performances need no recommendation from me; see Henry Fogel’s article in the September/October 2009 issue for more details.

Ansermet’s Borodin recordings, particularly the two symphonies and the overture in astonishing 1954 stereo, are representative of his best work. Ansermet also reminds us what a little gem of a tone poem In the Steppes really is. This collection stands on its own merits, but also has to serve as a proxy for the 50-plus CDs already issued in Eloquence’s “Ansermet Legacy” series, which offer the opportunity to rediscover many other wonderfully atmospheric performances by one of the last century’s great conductors, most of them in legendary audiophile sound.

Finally, the single new Brahms performance that gave me fresh perspectives on the formidable C-Minor Quartet: the Arcanto Quartet, a group of young German musicians, plays this music not only with complete technical mastery and tonal beauty, but also with astonishing insight into its endlessly fascinating complexities. If and when the other two quartets follow, this could be a cycle to rival or even surpass the benchmark Melos and Emerson versions. If the Piano Quintet doesn’t quite rise to the same heights, it is still a worthy discmate. The Arcanto is the finest new quartet to come along in years, showing astonishing musical maturity in the most challenging repertoire.

Starting in 1952, as a salvo in the cultural Cold War, the State Department sponsored a world tour of Porgy and Bess, choosing the work for reasons that look particularly quaint today. This set documents one performance from that run, taped at the Titania Palast in Berlin in September 1952. The edition was a hodge-podge by producer Robert Breen that changed the orchestration, cut some of the music, added a few bits (like an instrumental recap of “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” before act II, scene 3 and an extra verse in “It Ain’t Necessarily So”), and shuffled material around in a way that may throw you. (In fact, the transfer of the “Buzzard Song” to act III so confused some critics that, when Guild released this same recording last year, they mistakenly insisted it had been eliminated entirely.) But whatever you think of the political impulse and the editorial impulsiveness, it would be hard to deny that the production had a spectacular cast. The title roles were taken by William Warfield and his young wife, the then virtually unknown Leontyne Price (this may be the earliest recording of her voice to have been commercially issued); and they were supported by Cab Calloway, as well as a couple of singers who had participated in the original 1935 production (Helen Dowdy as Lily and the Strawberry Woman, Ray Yeats as the Crab Man).

Most attention, I’m sure, will be focused on Price, who sings with an astonishing purity of tone (even when she’s teasing), as well as a sure dramatic sense. From the beginning, you can appreciate the conflicts she faces, and her reprise of “Summertime” at the end will break your heart. Still, to my ears, her voice—indeed, her whole demeanor—is slightly too operatic, too cultivated. That quality is heightened by the contrast between her polish and the improvisational earthiness of the Catfish Row residents, who dig into their parts with abandon, often treating the written text as but a scaffold for ornamentation. In act I, they scorn Bess as a whore who’s beneath them; vocally, she sounds out of her element for entirely the opposite reason. Still, it’s hard not to be taken in by her vocal command and by the sheer beauty of her timbre.

Warfield is even better, with superb enunciation, a fluid control over the long cantilenas, and a warm vocal sound that instantly conveys Porgy’s inner spirit: you can well understand why he accepts Bess’s weaknesses and why he returns from jail with gifts for the whole community. Cab Calloway, as Sporting Life, is slightly less flamboyant than I would have expected, but he’s doubly seductive as a result; Helen Colbert and Helen Thigpen are superb as Clara and Serena. The only disappointment among the soloists is John McCurry, a marginally undercharacterized Crown, neither sufficiently menacing nor, in the hurricane scene, reaching the heroism of Lester Lynch on the recent Mauceri recording (30:3).

Ensemble work is exceptional. As I’ve suggested, Catfish Row is represented by singers comfortable with the vernacular traditions that Gershwin had used as his basic material: the give-and-take in the crowd scenes is utterly transfixing. Indeed, while this opera has a problematic vision at its core (it’s certainly hard to take its representation of African-American life without wincing), no other recording so successfully banishes your qualms while you’re listening—for no other recording gives Catfish Row such an infectious sense of community. Smallens, who presided over the premiere, conducts with tremendous energy, favoring quickish tempos and avoiding the score’s temptations to sentimentalize during such hit numbers as “Summertime” and “Bess, You Is My Woman Now.” This performance of Porgy took place only seven years after the collapse of a regime that banned the music as degenerate. But the Berlin orchestra brought in for the occasion seems to have transcended history quickly: they sound entirely immersed in the idiom.

The original tapes were made on what appears to have been state-of-the-art equipment, and the sound is astonishingly clear and vivid for a live recording of that vintage; Audite’s reprocessing is marginally smoother than Guild’s, although the differences are minimal. Not a first choice if you’re going to live with a single recording (I’d pick the Rattle for that), but as a supplement, this is enthusiastically recommended.

Unlike the 12 fairly full CDs in the Audite set of Furtwängler recordings made by the RIAS between 1947 and 1954—released in 2009 and included in my Want List for that year—this box of recordings by Hans Knappertsbusch with the Berlin Philharmonic is comparatively thin. There are two live recordings made at the Titania Palace—two days apart in 1950 with very different programs—and three studio sessions. And one of those studio sessions documented the same program as the January 30, 1950, live performance, just two days before the concert. (The run-through and recording before the live event no doubt appealed to the rehearsal-resistant Knappertsbusch, and fit with the economics of the time. It does give an opportunity to hear how much two contemporaneous performances of the same works could vary under the legendarily spontaneous conductor’s leadership.) The other sessions came in January of 1951—the Bruckner Eighth—and January of 1952 for the Beethoven and an operetta excerpt. That, regrettably, was all that made it onto the high-quality 30-inch-per-second tape masters held in the German Radio archive. Changing tastes, other projects, and the ascendancy of Karajan soon after brought this collaboration to an end.

These original masters, of course, are the reason for this release. All of these performances have been available before, some in expert transfers by the likes of Tahra and Music & Arts, but none had access to the original tapes, and the additional clarity and dynamic range, and the lower distortion of these Audite transfers, are immediately attractive. While one could take exception to some of the equalization decisions—resulting notably in some wiriness of the high strings in the Bruckner and Schubert recordings—there is no gainsaying the extra detail that is revealed, the greater power of the climaxes, and the sense of ambient space now heard in these recordings.

Collectors of this artist’s work will know what to expect of the performances. The program notes make a theme of the expectation of slowness, and it is my own experience that Knappertsbusch has routinely been lumped with Furtwängler, Klemperer, and Celibidache as if these four represented some distinctly dilatory school of conducting. In truth, each of these conductors has given the casual listener reason for the slow tag—note Knappertsbusch’s somnambulant Munich Bruckner Eighth on Westminster—but as the more experienced collector will know, tempo is relative, and the impetuous drama of Knappertsbusch is nothing like the deep mysticism of Furtwängler, or the monumentalism of later Klemperer or Celibidache. Still, I am not sure that these recordings belie the stereotype for slowness in general. Knappertsbusch is often deliberate, especially to ears attuned to the quicker tread of present-day performances of these works. Listeners will find the Beethoven Eighth ponderous or profound according to their persuasion. The Haydn “Surprise” Symphony has a weightiness that rather mitigates its high spirits, regardless the enthusiasm of the playing.

The overall timings of the Schubert “Unfinished” seem unexceptional until one realizes that Knappertsbusch did not observe exposition repeats. The studio recording is the more conventional, if any performance by Knappertsbusch can be called that, a very pleasant but not highly distinctive performance. It is in the live performance of two days later that the musicians discover the full potential of Knappertsbusch’s approach, controversial as that may be. It is full of portent, dark and forbidding in the very moderate Allegro moderato: slow, especially at the start, but strikingly powerful. The Andante con moto is also rather unhurried, but with phrasing flexible and alive to the impulse of the moment.

His Bruckner, however, is anything but measured. Under the conductor’s impulsive and fluid direction, these performances breathe like a living thing. The performance times are mainstream—the annotator makes a point of their being generally faster than the “normative” Wand—but as with the Schubert, the overall tempos tell little. Within that basic timing, the conductor shapes the works compellingly, with extremes of tempo and many shadings of dynamics and texture. The effect is often exhilarating and, as at the end of the Adagio of the Ninth, quite moving. The studio version is shaped with comparative restraint, the tempos in general somewhat faster and less extreme. Two days later he takes his audience and the apparently telepathic—though not infallible—orchestra through an emotional roller-coaster of a performance that leaves the listener drained at the end. Risk-taking in live performances was this conductor’s modus operandi, and sometimes it failed to come together into a coherent vision. In this live performance of the Ninth, and in the similarly dramatic Eighth of 11 months later, the spontaneity pays off handsomely.

Lighter music is the other part of the offering here. Those who only know Knappertsbusch through his Bruckner and Wagner may be surprised to find that he shows an equal affinity for the waltz and polka. The concert on February 1, 1950, was what we would now call a pops concert. The one work of symphonic scope is the leisurely Haydn symphony. The rest consists of operetta overtures, a Viennese waltz, and ballet music by Tchaikovsky. As with the larger-scale works, there are liberties taken. At one point Knappertsbusch slows the Pizzacato Polka to a droll attention-getting crawl, and he starts the Komzák Bad’ner Madl’n waltz at a crawl and then pulls it about in a most willful way. Yet the audience loves it, judging from the included applause. At the very worst, listeners will feel that these and the other Viennese confections are loved to death, but I think most will find them charming. The same is true of the Tchaikovsky suite, which is slower than is the norm, but which remains very light on its feet.

Another service that this release provides for the collector, besides making these recordings available in superior transfers, is to clarify their provenance. Previous issuers have had to guess a bit at dates—another concert of the Bruckner and Schubert on January 29, 1950, as it turns out, was not recorded—and there has been some confusion between the live and studio recordings. This is not a major issue for most listeners, who will be interested primarily in the sound and artistry. This set, in the former quality, supersedes all other releases of these performances. Anyone remotely interested in Knappertsbusch’s art or in the symphonies of Bruckner should add it to his or her collection post haste.

Fricsay (1914–1963) struck me as the Dinu Lipatti of conductors: once you heard his performance of a work, there seemed no other possible way to play it. A student of Bartók at the Budapest Academy, he became an unmatched interpreter of his teacher’s music; his championship of Bartók in the late 1940s and 1950s was a major force in bringing the composer international recognition as one of the masters. Most of Fricsay’s Bartók recordings came just before the stereo era, yet they never pale beside newer ones. His Concerto for Orchestra remains the ideal version even today, matched only by Reiner’s account from Chicago, and that only because of its spectacular stereo sound. Fricsay’s other specialty was Mozart: his Entführung and Zauberflöte, both with Stader and Streich, are treasures. No one in Germany played much Haydn in the first half of the 20th century, yet Fricsay shows an understanding and taste rare for the day. Robbins Landon and Scherchen were bringing Haydn to Vienna, but only for recordings; local audiences paid little attention.

Despite some drawbacks—a mediocre orchestra and merely adequate monaural sound—these are fine Haydn performances. Fricsay was a superb orchestra builder, raising a new radio orchestra called RIAS (Radio in the American Sector, of divided Berlin) to the near equal of that city’s great Philharmonic. Other postwar radio startups, such as this WDR Symphony Orchestra of Cologne, were less fortunate; as a guest conductor, Fricsay had to make do with what he found. His “Trauer” is dark and serious, as befits Haydn’s minor keys. The opening Allegro con brio is less hectic than Scherchen’s inspired performance, but no less impassioned. The Menuet is pure Fricsay, formal yet graceful, characteristics of most of his performances. The Adagio avoids excess sentiment and shortchanges repeats but seems just right anyway—the old Fricsay magic; and a rapid Presto finale works despite taxing the WDR strings. There are a few old-fashioned touches (this was 1953), notably the pulling back of tempo for final chords in most codas, but this remains one of the finest accounts of the “Trauer,” Fricsay’s dignity a complement to Scherchen’s passion.

The B♭ Symphony has considerable sparkle and plenty of power but is short on humor; this was more a product of the time (1952) than of the conductor, whose Mozart and Bartók could smile beatifically. Also symptomatic of the era is a lack of repeats; Fricsay does not take those in either sonata-form movement. He varies the playing in the Menuet repeats, giving soloists more leeway the second and third times. He does give full value to Haydn’s tenuto marks and rests at a time when conductors seemed embarrassed by delay and silence. Oddly, the tacet measure near the end of the finale (four bars before the moderato) is ignored; perhaps this is an editing error. The coda has the violin solo but no cembalo. Only the edition of the score and the orchestra’s limitations—sloppy string articulation, a tinny (when audible) oboe, and ugly trumpets—keep this from being a competitive recording of the B♭ Symphony.

Warts and all, I’m delighted to have this sample of Fricsay’s Haydn.