Ahronovich Conducts Tchaikovsky's Manfred

The Russian-Israeli conductor Yuri Ahronovitch (1932-2002) has appeared here several times and has achieved a certain level of popularity among listeners. I had a request for more from him, so here is his 1977 recording of Tchaikovsky's Manfred. 

Yuri Ahronovitch

This is the first time we have had a chance to hear the conductor at his most subjective. His Nielsen Third Symphony was powerful but not eccentric; the same could be said of Taneyev's Fourth Symphony. And in the Taneyev Concert Suite he was the well-mannered accompanist to a tidy and not in the least temperamental soloist.

Manfred is extravagantly Romantic music; Ahronovitch was an extravagant conductor, so it's a combination that should have worked out. Whether it did or not was a matter of some debate.

Lord Byron

Tchaikovsky called Manfred a "Symphony in Four Scenes," but it could also be considered four interlinked symphonic poems. The composer, at the behest of Balakirev, patterned it after Berlioz's Harold in Italy. Both were inspired by works of Lord Byron. The French composer explained Harold's solo part as follows: "I wanted to make the viola a kind of melancholy dreamer in the manner of Byron's Childe-Harold." Manfred has no soloist, but nonetheless concerns the troubles of another melancholy Byronic hero.

In both works, Lord Byron's heroes mirrored his own travails. The noble poet had evacuated from England to the Alps after scandals that involved a supposed affair with his half-sister. His hero Manfred, similarly, has an unspecified but forbidden relationship with with his late love, Astarte. He is tortured by this, resorts to the supernatural to help him forget, but remains bereft.

Eventually he chooses death, famously telling an Abbot, "Old man! 'tis not so difficult to die."

Pyotr Tchaikovsky

In conducting Manfred, Ahronovitch's tempos struck some reviewers as excessively slow. Edward Greenfield in The Gramophone: "Not since the days of Mengelberg at his most wilful can I remember a Tchaikovsky performance which indulged so freely in rhythmic caprice ... I could hardly believe my ears at Ahronovitch’s treatment of the lovely Andante theme for muted strings at bar 171 in the first movement representing Astarte. I thought that the first phrase of five quavers and a dotted minim would never end, and after that the following pause was equally exaggerated. No doubt that extreme ritenuto style can on occasion in a live performance give a sense of spontaneous expressiveness, but here it sounds mannered to a degree, with Tchaikovsky’s free-sung phrases getting glued up."

But others were convinced by the performance. Here's Ivan March two months later, reviewing the tape edition in the same magazine: "EG [Edward Greenfield] and I are generally at one on Tchaikovsky interpretations but I enjoyed Ahronovitch’s account of Manfred more than he. It is very much a personal reading, certainly, but in this Byronic work one can accept a little licence; for instance I found Ahronovitch’s treatment of the tender second subject of the first movement (on muted strings) rather moving and his extreme ritenuto style effective in its way. Certainly this performance has transferred well to tape with good detail and an impressive weight and richness in the bass."

Whatever the merits of the performance, there are many memorable moments in Tchaikovsky's score. For me, Ahronovitch is at his best in the dramatic fourth movement. 

The record was transferred from a mint copy in my collection with dramatic if none-too-subtle late-analogue sound. This is a notably well-filled LP; the second side is 36 minutes long!

The link below is for the 16-bit, 44.1 kHz version. A 24-bit, 96 kHz transfer is available on request.

LINK

Two Views of Taneyev's Suite de Concert

Sergei Taneyev

The music of Russian composer Sergei Taneyev (1856-1915) is seldom heard in concert, but there are far more recordings available than years ago. When these discs of Taneyev's Suite de concert pour violon et orchestre were released there were just a handful.

It's a shame that Taneyev remains relatively obscure because his works are rewarding to hear. Previously I've posted his Symphony No. 4 in a powerful reading from the London Symphony and the Russian-Israeli conductor Yuri Ahronovitch (1932-2002). Today, Ahronovitch returns with the Suite de Concert, this time with the Vienna Symphony and the then-young violinist Christian Altenburger (b. 1957). The recording is from circa 1981.

Yuri Ahronovitch

For contrast, I've added a much different interpretation from violinist David Oistrakh, the Moscow Philharmonic and conductor Kirill Kondrashin, dating from about 1958.

The Altenburger-Ahronovitch Recording

Writing in High Fidelity, the critic R.D. Darrell put the composer in historical perspective: "As neither an overt nationalist nor an unabashed romanticist, Taneyev got lost in the abyss between, on the one hand, the favorites of connoisseurs, the Mighty Handful (Mussorgsky, et al.), and on the other, the darlings of the mass public, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff." Darrell described this present work as a "prodigally ingenious experiment in setting up and solving the problems of creating a bravura concerted work for violin and orchestra."

"On first acquaintance, one may be over conscious of the work's scarcely disguised contrivance: on rehearings, however, one will respond more readily to its genuine attractions - especially those of the piquant Gavotte, the oddly evocative (indeed, Berliozian) Conte, and the extended Tema con variazioni."

Christian Altenburger

David Hall in Stereo Review provided a fair assessment of the album: "Young Christian Altenburger's new recording will not make me forget the famous Oistrakh performance [note: a different one from the record discussed below], but he does a much more than merely creditable job with the solo part, bringing to it a sweet but not overly lush tone and ample dexterity. Yuri Ahronovitch and the Vienna Symphony provide warm and wholehearted collaboration."

The LP is derived from an early digital recording, pleasing but with the violinist backwardly balanced. This is a fairly truthful perspective, but it contributes to the impression that Altenburger is a cool customer - a marked contrast to the Oistrakh recording discussed below.

As with the Taneyev fourth symphony, the recording was made by producer Wolf Erichson, probably for his Seon label. My transfer is from an American pressing in my collection.

The link below is to the 16-bit, 44.1kHz version. A 24-bit, 96kHz version is available on request.

LINK to Altenburger-Ahronovitch recording (16-44)

The Oistrakh-Kondrashin Recording

David Oistrakh

The eminent Russian violinist David Oistrakh (1908-74) was a proponent of the Suite de concert. An on-line Oistrakh discography shows him as recording it as early as 1950 (although I suspect this is a transfer of a concert). In 1956, HMV produced a commercial recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Nikolai Malko. A few years later came this Russian effort with the Moscow Philharmonic and Kirill Kondrashin (1914-81). There was yet another version in 1960 with Kurt Sanderling.

Kirill Kondrashin

Oistrakh's affinity for the work shows in this commanding performance - with the soloist close-up and the band in a very resonant space behind. The contrasts in Taneyev's work are emphasized by Oistrakh and Kondrashin, who is at one with the violinist. This oversized reading is not something you might hear today (not often, anyway), but it is impressive - and enjoyable.

This transfer comes from an American pressing as found on Internet Archive and remastered in ambient stereo for this post.

LINK to Oistrakh-Kondrashin recording

Ahronovitch Conducts Taneyev

A few months ago I offered a performance of Nielsen's Third Symphony led by the late Russian-Israeli conductor Yuri Ahronovitch in one of his few commercial recordings.

At that time I promised a transfer of Ahronovitch's reading of the Symphony No. 4 by the Russian composer Sergei Taneyev, pupil of Tchaikovsky and teacher of Rachmaninoff. I'm pleased to provide it here, with a recommendation for all who are unfamiliar with Taneyev or who just want a committed, well recorded version of his best-known composition.

Yuri Ahronovitch

This is powerful, impressive, even memorable music that is not often heard or recorded, unaccountably. Ahronovitch had the measure of the work, and the London Symphony performs it beautifully. The late analogue recording, dating from May 1979, is recessed but well-balanced. It marked a relatively rare foray into romantic repertoire for producer Wolf Erichson, a specialist in early music productions for the Das Alte Werk, SEON and Sony Vivarte imprints. My transfer is from the US Arabesque pressing.

The striking cover painting (which has little or nothing to do with the music) is Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin's "Bathing of a Red Horse," from 1912.

Ahronovitch also recorded another Taneyev composition for Erichson - the "Suite de Concert" with violinist Christian Altenburger - which I can transfer if there is interest.

LINK to Symphony No. 4

Corrected File - Ahronovitch Conducts Nielsen

In my last post, I inadvertently uploaded a mono version of the Nielsen symphony conducted by Yuri Ahronovitch. I've now corrected that error, and a link to the stereo version can be found in both the comments to this post and the original item below.

Sorry for inconveniencing all who downloaded my first attempt!

Ahronovitch Conducts Nielsen

The Russian-Israeli conductor Yuri Ahronovitch (1932-2002) made only a few commercial records, although he was a most interesting musical personality.

Among those recordings was this 1981 live performance of Nielsen's Symphony No. 3 ("Sinfonia Espansiva") with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, transferred here from a Unicorn-Kanchana LP.

Yuri Ahronovitch

This is a well-judged, well-played version of Nielsen's wonderful symphony. Ahronovitch was known for his subjective interpretations, but there is little evidence here of that tendency, except for his slamming on the brakes before the symphony's final chord. Unicorn-Kanchana seemingly decided to set up its microphones in the last row of the hall, but the distant sonics are well balanced.

Both the audience and the orchestra were impressed. Unicorn includes four minutes of applause at the conclusion of the performance (which I have put into a separate track), and the orchestra serenades Ahronovitch with a "tusch", a type of musical salute heard occasionally at European concerts. This is the only commercial recording in my collection with such a fanfare, and I have to say it startled me the first time I heard it many years ago.

Ahronovitch, a pupil of Natan Rakhlin, became conductor of the USSR Ministry of Culture Orchestra when he was only 32, holding that post until emigrating to Israel in 1972. Later he was chief conductor of the Cologne Gürzenich Orchestra and the Stockholm Philharmonic.

This is a later recording than I usually post, but I transferred it for another site, and decided to make it available to followers of this blog as well. I will also be transferring Ahronovitch's recording of Taneyev's Fourth Symphony, with the London Symphony.

LINK

NB - Several years ago I posted the first recording of Nielsen's third symphony, also made with the Danish Radio Symphony, and conducted by Erik Tuxen. I've newly remastered that recording, and it is now available via this post.