A Beethoven Program from Berlin

Paul van Kempen

Conductors and soloists who did not record in the stereo era are often forgotten. A good example is Fritz Lehmann, recently heard here in a Romantic overtures program. He died in 1956. Another is Paul van Kempen, who lived from 1893-1955 and was active as a conductor for little more than 20 years.

For longer-lived artists, their stereo recordings often overshadow worthy readings of the same pieces made in the mono era. This was the case with pianist Wilhelm Kempff and to a lesser degree violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan.

So today we have a program of Beethoven featuring those three musicians in Deutsche Grammophon recordings from Berlin made in 1952-53, before the stereo era.

The program begins with the Consecration of the House Overture, continuing with the Violin Concerto and the Piano Concerto No. 4.

Consecration of the House Overture

The recordings all come from the Jesus-Christus-Kirche, DG's invariable recording site for the Berlin Philhamonic during this period. Van Kempen's Consecration of the House Overture from 1952 provides a hugely dramatic opening to the program in one of the most effective performances I have heard. The contemporary critics called it "imposing" and "forceful, idiomatic."

The sound here and throughout the program is excellent mono. These transfers all come from US Decca's licensed pressings from DG masters.

Violin Concerto

Like van Kempen, Wolfgang Schneiderhan (1915-2002) had a extensive career playing in orchestras before he began a full-time career as a soloist. The Vienna native had been the concertmaster of that city's famed Philharmonic from 1937-51. The next year he was to make a famous set of the Beethoven sonatas with Kempff. This recording of the concerto comes from the next year.

Wolfgang Schneiderhan

Schneiderhan's stereo recordings are far better known, not least because he had introduced his own adaptation of Beethoven's cadenzas for the piece. The composer did not write those cadenzas directly for the violin concerto, but rather for his adaptation of that work for the piano. But here we have what I believe are the cadenzas by Joseph Joachim. (Please correct me if I am mistaken.)

In her obituary for Schneiderhan, Anne Inglis wrote in The Guardian, "Wolfgang Schneiderhan’s first commercial recording of the Beethoven Concerto (under Paul van Kempen, for DG) was long considered a benchmark: its purity, dignity and sense of inner calm were often favourably compared with the more extrovert, even glamorous qualities claimed by its various rivals."

The truthful sound from 1953 is well in tune with the performance of Schneiderhan and the Berliners under van Kempen.

Piano Concerto No. 4

Wilhelm Kempff (1895-1991) elicited superlatives from the critics throughout his life and thereafter. Here's Dabid Mermelstein in the Wall Street Journal: "The German pianist Wilhelm Kempff was blessed with more attributes than any artist seems entitled to, even a great one like him. Intelligence, grace, tonal beauty, technical aplomb and interpretive rigor were hallmarks of his playing."

Wilhelm Kempff

Kempff recorded both mono and stereo Beethoven concerto cycles. "His stereo set from 1961, with Ferdinand Leitner conducting, still rightly sits prominently on many record shelves," Mermelstein wrote. "And were I sent to that proverbial desert island, I wouldn’t want to be without his mono survey from 1953, with Paul van Kempen on the podium. I cannot recall another cycle that possesses authority and poetry in such equal measure."

The pianist was inclined to ruminate about music. Here is what he said about the opening of the fourth concerto in 1951: "The orchestra is silent. But is not the piano also silent in its own way? These first bars should not really be played at all; it is just a listening to the soul ... There is infinite charm in this allegro moderato, in which Beethoven proves his genius as a composer. Everything is spiritual, and even the dramatic development only serves to show what peace of soul really is."

I am inclined to prefer the more straightforward approaches of Maurizio Pollini and Noel Mewton-Wood.

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But the Kempff-van Kempen recording is rightfully considered a classic, although not uniformly. The critic of The Gramophone, Malcolm MacDonald, complained that the first movement lacked "effortless repose" and that the cadenzas - which I believe are Kempff's own - were "unsuitable."

Here, too, the sound is excellent. These recordings come from my collection and Internet Archive.

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