Search - Schumann, Toscanini, NBC :: Symphony 3

Disappointing Schumann, But Corruscating Weber!

09/18/1998

(4 out of 5 stars)

"An old-time collector who was privileged to own the RCA Victrola LP issue of this 1949 broadcast of the Schumann Third Symphony will note at once that the sound of this compact disk transfer is VERY different, and is significantly inferior.The LP was surely made from a magnetic tape: the closest listening reveals not the slightest trace of mechanical disk noise; the highs are consistent from start to end; and the clarity and freedom from distortion is admirable.This CD issue in the "official" RCA / BMG canon was prepared from 78-rpm aircheck mechanical transcriptions, to judge from the repetitive "swishes" and the clicks and pops; furthermore, there are distinct 'side joins' where the high frequencies and sound balances shift audibly.Why did RCA not use the same tapes employed for the sixties LP release?The reading is somewhat sober and static when heard alongside the great, flowing January 1938 account (which does not sound much less transparent in the best archival copies than this CD issue of the '49 broadcast.) The Weber overtures are given typical Toscanini interpretations: emphatic, aggressively driven, and highly pointed. One prefers the more natural expression of the "Euryanthe" in the 1951 telecast tape (issued by RCA / BMG on a video but not in a CD version.) Interestingly, Bruno Walter gave an NBC reading of the "Oberon" in a 1939 broadcast (on Pearl CD) that has more celerity and spirit than this 1952 commercial account by the Maestro. The Freischuetz Overture is well represented here, and is also available in an alternative account from 1945 (austere and not quite as well recorded) in Vol. 51 of the Collection. But it must be said that Toscanini's view of this last piece is quite "literal", and lacks the ominous magic of the Furtwaengler reading."

A must-have album, despite the poor sound edition!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 06/06/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

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The heroic vision of Arturo Toscanini conferred to Schumann `s Third Symphony an incandescent gaze, and somehow making of this lovable and majestic Symphony, a sort of personal Epic Pastoral. This is one of the most emotive and refulgent performances ever recorded, an authentic treasure that explains and answers by itself for the musical newcomers, who have not been familiarized around the febrile transcendence of the volcanic outburst performances of the Maestro, who shone with radiant intensity in this album.



The performance of Manfred is mercurially telluric, impregnated with subduing energy and sweeping intensity.



In what Weber concerns, please fasten seat belts; because these visceral performances have never been played with such histamine and explosive approach. They are absorbing, elegant and sumptuous but never, never educated. They are enjoyably energetic. Pitifully this conception is totally absent o from the Concert Halls; it seems to prevail the concept that you never must disturb the audiences with powerful sounds (notice how Mr. K the Director who conducted the Berlin Philharmonic from the early sixties until 1986) in the last movement of Beethoven's Third Symphony minimizes the fortissimos and substitutes by pianissimos) the result is a brutal incision into the core of the score, a true artistic crime because in Beethoven the dissonances must sound bitter and steeled but never scented.



After you listen this album you will agree with the eloquent affirmation of Faust. "I love who pretends the impossible."





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