Search - Brahms, Toscanini, NBC :: Symphony 1 / Serenade

Not Toscanini's Greatest Version of No. 1, but Near To It.

07/18/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Arguably the 1940 broadcast (available on Music & Arts or Naxos Historical) is the finest and most communicative of the Toscanini Brahms Firsts. This commercial edition, from 1941 studio sessions in Carnegie Hall, is nearly as fine and -- one has long believed -- is superior to the 1951 version taken down on magnetic tape, in Vol. 6 of the BMG Toscanini Collection.I owned the original shellac 78 rpm set of this towering '41 performance, and painstakingly dubbed it to tape in the early eighties for many subsequent radio broadcasts. Yet, despite my best efforts with a good copy of the original disks, the transfer here on BMG (accomplished by the renowned Ward Marston) is even better, with seamless "joins" that reveal the interesting fact that Toscanini managed to sustain the long line during the short 4-1/2 minute start-and-stop "takes" of the original recording session. I can clearly hear in my memory the suspensions at the ends of sides, which are perfectly masked in the flawlessly matched and edited digitization. The acoustical pickup in Carnegie Hall had the mike(s) well back, compared to the clinical x-ray clarity of Studio 8H balances, for a blended articulation of orchestral choirs that more closely resembles the burnished sound that Toscanini achieved a few years earlier with the NY Philharmonic. A friend of mine attended one of Toscanini's live programs (in Denver, 1950): he avers that this recording sounds reasonably like the Maestro's live concert achievements.The performance is anti-rhetorical, lacking in the mannerisms of the early-forties Mengelberg broadcast once available on a Philips CD; yet it is by no means ascetic or pedestrian. If not possessing the demonic energy of the '40 or '43 live broadcasts, it nonetheless seems more satisfying than the '51 LP-era version.The Second Serenade comes from a live 1942 NBC broadcast, made as part of a series over the season '42-3 of the major works of Brahms. The original release in a 1967 5-LP Victor Red Seal set had compressed sound squeezing the entire reading on one side; it also had a loss of highs and 'bloom' that is evident in the original transcription source, here transferred extremely well. The performance is controversial, and some critics HATE it. I, however, adore the performance, and find the occasional sound of Maestro's very passionate humming, as he urges his players to heights of expression, quite touching. The clarity of texture is betwitching; and the tempi of the lively parts are, for me, never too urgent. It is a delicious performance!"

Fundamental treasures worthy to collect them!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 09/16/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Around the celebration of his 75th anniversary, Toscanini decided to record in Carnegie Hall in three different dates of 1941 this superb Op. of Brahms, visibly the preferred of the conductor. Although its visible tautness, gains in expressiveness and muscular propulsion and assertiveness. It's not his best version, but it's worthy to have it!



The Serenade No. 2 reminds us in its first bars, far echoes of his Second Piano Concerto Op. 83; this is one the best musical achievements of this renowned director. Plenty of delirious spring airs, it evokes perhaps more than any other Op. - except the Second Symphony - those far youth `s dreams. With the only exception of a formidable performance of Istvan Kertesz in front of the Vienna Philharmonic, no other conductor has been able to extract with such refulgent intensity and faultless lyricism as Toscanini did it.



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