Fritz Lehmann Conducts Romantic Overtures

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.

LINK

Seiji Ozawa's First Recording

That young conductor on the left above bears little resemblance to the wizened 88-year-old Seiji Ozawa who died this week. He was 29 at the time and making his first recording.

The resulting readings of Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn concertos were typically crisp, with fine balances and sharp articulation, a portent of things to come from this prodigy.

The young Seiji Ozawa

He was matched in this 1965 recording by the 25-year-old violin virtuoso Erick Friedman. A protégé of Jascha Heifetz, Friedman (1939-2004) was a relative veteran of the recording studios, having made several earlier discs.

Ozawa had already achieved some renown at the time. He was the music director of the Ravinia Festival, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony, and had just been named as the music director of the Toronto Symphony. He would take over the Boston Symphony in 1973, remaining there for 29 years.

Here's Harris Goldsmith of High Fidelity on this performance: "Erick Friedman plays very well indeed, but what establishes this disc on a rarefied plane is Ozawa’s absolutely brilliant work. It is particularly instructive to find how such a rudimentary (one would have thought) orchestral backdrop as that of the Tchaikovsky takes on logical significance when the rhythm is held firmly, when important instrumental voices are brought out structurally, and when tutti passages are played with accuracy and judicious balance."

Erick Friedman

Goldsmith on the soloist: "Friedman rises mightily to the challenge, phrasing with fine intelligence and control." Let me add that the performance by the London Symphony is beyond reproach.

The recording was made in Walthamstow Assembly Hall by Decca-London engineers for RCA Victor. The sound is excellent. The disc is a tribute to all involved.

LINK

Vaughan Williams, Mendelssohn-Moscheles, Copland - Works for Two Pianos

Here is another transfer prepared as the result of a request. It features four unusual compositions for two pianos, including the premiere recording of a very good piece from Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The transfer comes from a circa 1979 LP issued by the American label Orion. Performing are two pianists who often recorded for that label - Evelinde Trenkner and Vladimir Pleshakov - although they appeared only one other time as a duo.

Vladimir Pleshakov and Evelinde Trenkner 

The major work on the first side is Vaughan Williams' Introduction and Fugue for Two Pianos, dating from 1946, between the composer's fifth and sixth symphonies.

In his sleeve note, Pleshakov writes, "The musical language is complex, a reflection of the composer's personality. There is an ever-present conflict between the lyricism implicit in his essentially vocal themes and the drama of his symphonic architecture. This very conflict generates the possibility of great and sublime music."

The other major work on the LP is a joint effort by Felix Mendelssohn and Ignaz Moscheles, the Variations on a Theme from Preciosa by Weber. Preciosa is an 1821 play by Pius Alexander Wolff with incidental music by Carl Maria von Weber. These days, only the overture is heard, and that only occasionally.

The music is never less than interesting, although it was essentially an occasional piece for performance by the two friends. This could well have been its first recording.

Filling out the two sides of the record are transcriptions by Aaron Copland from two of his early works. The Dance of the Adolescent is an arrangement of the first movement of his Dance Symphony. The Danza de Jalisco is based on one of the Two Mexican Pieces (which would become the Three Latin American Sketches).

The performances and sound are very good. Evelinde Trenkner (1933-2021) was a German pianist and piano teacher who often appeared in the duo piano repertory. Vladimir Pleshakov (1934- ) was born in Shanghai to Russian parents but has been resident in the US since 1955, receiving a doctorate from Stanford University.

Mendelssohn Special with Kletzki, Szell, Barbirolli, Borries and Celibidache

Rummaging through my collection a while back, I came across several interesting discs with the music of Felix Mendelssohn, and decided to transfer them for this post, and possibly one more to come.

Here are the details of today’s offering. The sound quality varies, but is never less than good.

Symphony No. 3 (Israel Philharmonic/Paul Kletzki). This particular record was among the first to be made by the orchestra, dating from April/May 1954. The download includes scans of an eight-page commemorative booklet included in the American Angel release. Kletzki leads a good performance, although the coda, marked Allegro maestoso assai, is more maestoso than allegro.

Symphony No. 4 (Hallé Orchestra/John Barbirolli) and Violin Concerto (Siegfried Borries; Berlin Philharmonic/Sergiu Celibidache). This coupling on RCA Victor’s Bluebird budget label combined Manchester and Berlin sessions that both transpired in February 1948. Barbirolli elicits a spruce performance from the resuscitated Hallé, which remained underpowered in the strings five years after the conductor revived its fortunes. Siegfried Borries, then the concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, offers an assured reading of the concerto, with an excellent accompaniment led by Celibidache during his postwar years as the orchestra’s conductor.

Symphony No. 4 (Cleveland Orchestra/George Szell) and Music from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Philharmonic-Symphony of New York/Szell). The fine Cleveland performance is from November 1947 dates in Severance Hall; the terrific New York rendition of the Midsummer Night’s Dream music is from January 1951 and Columbia’s 30th Street studio. I don’t like making comparisons, but for me the New York band of this period was second to none. This particular coupling had two different covers, both of which are in the download along with images from a 78 set and 10-inch LP.

If there is interest, I will transfer Mendelssohn overtures from Adrian Boult and Midsummer Night’s Dream excerpts from Sargent and Old Vic forces including Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann and Stanley Holloway.

George Szell blisses out to a 1951 recording session playback