Fritz Lehmann is a little-remembered conductor whose recording heyday was short, but who did manage to make dozens of recordings for Deutsche Grammophon before his early death at age 52 in 1956.
Lehmann has appeared here twice before - with his recording of The Nutcracker Suite and with Brahms and Schumann overtures, along with two of Dvořák's Slavonic Rhapsodies. This post will revisit the Brahms and Schumann works while adding overtures from the Romantic period by Mendelssohn, Weber and Schubert.
About Fritz Lehmann
To paraphrase myself from an earlier post: Lehmann (1904-56) was a busy conductor who died too young. An enthusiast of Baroque music and early advocate of period performance practices, much of his recorded legacy is from the classical and Romantic periods. DG kept him engaged, but he also recorded for other labels.
Although not reflected in this program, it's important to mention Lehmann's advocacy for Bach and Handel. He was conductor of the Göttingen International Handel Festival, from 1934-44, and then again from 1946-53, where he conducted modern revivals of two Handel operas. His death came while he was conducting a performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion. At the time he was in the midst of recording the Christmas Oratorio. The final sections were completed with Günther Arndt.
Two Mendelssohn Overtures
In 1951, Lehmann joined with the Berlin Philharmonic for recordings of two sea-going Mendelssohn concert overtures issued on the 10-inch LP above. The first and better known is The Hebrides (also called Fingal's Cave), a marvelous, dramatic work here in a performance that does it full justice.
Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage - written at about the same time as The Hebrides and inspired by Goethe - starts off (uh) calmly. There isn't enough wind to sail. But soon enough the voyage is on its way. The composer's music is never less than interesting, but the work suffers in comparison with its predecessor.
The recordings - like all here with the Berlin orchestra - were made in the Jesus-Christus-Kirche.
Brahms and Schumann Overtures
The second 10-inch LP is the one I have previously featured, but which has been thoroughly reworked for this post.
It combines Brahms' Tragic Overture, the portentous work that has remained familiar in the concert hall for nearly 150 years. Hugely dramatic and impressive, it is one of the composer's best and best-known works.
Lehmann is a sure hand with this material, again with the Berlin Philharmonic in a performance from 1952.
From that same year we have Schumann's Manfred Overture, the most familiar part of the composer's set of incidental music inspired by the Lord Byron poem. From that music, the overture alone has maintained a footing on symphony programs.
For the Schumann, Lehmann leads the Bamberg Symphony, which is not as refined as the Berlin ensemble, but which still produces a worthy performance whose dramatic qualities make it a good disk mate for the Brahms.
Weber - Der Freischütz Overture
Late in 1952, Lehmann and the Berliners turned their attention to the overture from the first German Romantic opera - Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz, which also is well performed by the musicians from Berlin. The opera itself is far more often heard in Germany than here in the US, but the engaging overture is a welcome program addition.
This pressing appeared in American Decca's budget 10-inch line. Decca reprinted many of Lehmann's recordings and those of other DG conductors such as Paul van Kempen and Ferenc Fricsay. This collection does not include the second piece on the Decca LP - Gluck's Alceste Overture - because it is not from the romantic period.
Two Schubert Overtures from the Same Work
Our final selections are two Schubert overtures associated with the same work - the composer's incidental music to Rosamunde, a play by Helmina von Chézy.
When Schubert assembled his Rosamunde score, he opted to use the overture he had written for his opera Alfonso und Estrella. This is the overture that is now sometimes called the Rosamunde, as it is here.
In 1855, well after the composer's death, a publisher substituted Schubert's Die Zauberharfe overture in an edition of the Rosamunde score. Since then, conductors have generally used that piece when they program the Rosamunde music, at least in part because it's considered better music than the Alfonso und Estrella overture.
Here you can judge for yourself in these 1952-53 performances from Berlin, again from Decca's budget 4000 series.
DG's sound during this period was impressive, although with a tendency to bass heaviness, which I've clarified in these transfers.
