Born in June 1863, Felix Weingartner must surely be the earliest major conductor whose recordings give an adequate representation of the classical repertoire in acceptable sound. Orchestral recordings of those born before him are either sonically very restricted - Nikisch (1855) is here the obvious instance - or limited in the scope of repertoire captured. For example, the records of Kajanus (1856) are confined almost wholly to Sibelius; those issued of Karl Muck (1859) contain little other than Wagner; Max Fiedler (1859) recorded nothing but Brahms; and Franz Schalk (May 1863) a mere handful of works by Beethoven and Schubert. Gaps there may be in Weingartner's recorded repertoire, in particular next to nothing of the Schubert and Schumann of which he was a renowned exponent in the concert hall. But in a studio career spanning thirty years he did record the complete cycles of Beethoven and Brahms symphonies and in addition a selection of works by Handel, Bach, Mozart, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Liszt and Wagner. Yet today, although sometimes invoked as a measure of sanity and excellence in the interpretation of the classical repertoire, the records are little known save to collectors. Can it be that this large body of recordings is now of no more than historical interest? Certainly, no estimate of their worth can exclude consideration of Weingartner's position in the history of conducting. But the interpretative characteristics with which he is usually, and rightly, credited - his judicious choice of tempi, steadiness of pulse, clarity of texture and his sure grasp of musical architecture - could without more lead merely to sterile reproduction of the printed notes without the vital spark needed for true life. Moreover, the lessons pointed by the characteristics mentioned have been absorbed, if not always properly learnt, by subsequent generations of conductors. If, then, his recordings disclosed no more, he would indeed be merely an interesting, albeit important, historical figure whose legacy would merit the attention only of the historian of musical performing style. This introduction seeks to demonstrate that it far from deserves such a fate; but first it surveys briefly Weingartner's recording activities as a whole and focuses attention upon records of particular importance to the historian. Weingartner's recording career lasted for close on three decades. But the earliest recordings made between 1910 and 1914 in Vienna and New York are of limited interest save for those in which the soprano Lucille Marcel participates; for here we are afforded glimpses of the composer-conductor and his favoured interpreter, who became his third wife. Some improvement in sound within the confines of the acoustic recording process is found in the first recordings made under his contract with English Columbia between 1923-25. In these years Weingartner recorded - all of them in virtually complete form - several symphonies of Beethoven and one apiece of Brahms and Mozart. All of these recordings, however, save only for the two odd sides devoted to his compositions, were soon to be superseded. It was only with the introduction of electrical recording in 1925 that the orchestra came into its own. The Columbia Company was quick to seize their opportunity with Weingartner. All of the major works made in the years of acoustic recording were remade. In addition there came, among others, recordings of Berlioz's symphonic fantastique, the Pastoral and Ninth of Beethoven, Mendelssohn's Scottish and Weingartner's own orchestration of the Hammerkiavier sonata. Some these recordings provide evidence of a view sometimes expressed at the time: that the London orchestras, despite the presence of distinguished soloists such as Leon Goossens (heard in many of the RPO recordings), were not in their best estate. The old RPO was not a permanent band, but one made up from the pool of London's orchestral talent for the purpose of the Philharmonic Society's eight concerts of the season. Ernest Newman compared London orchestras in general unfavourably with American theatre orchestras after his return from the USA in 1925; and the LSO's lack of ensemble, remarked W.J. Turner in 1930, "always reminds me of what happens when you disturb an ant's nest with a stick". Despite these intermittent failings some of Weingartner's early electric recordings, in particular the Scottish and pastoral symphonies and his orchestration of the Harmerkiavier sonata, retain by reason of their quality more than a merely antiquarian interest. The 1930's saw fresh developments in Weingartner's recording career. With the merger of Columbia and HMV, the resources of the combined company were available to record him at the most convenient location; hence major recordings were undertaken in three centres, London, Paris and Vienna. The recordings made with the London orchestras in this decade benefited both from superior sound and the orchestras' reformation on a permanent basis. This involved abolition of the LSO's deputy system in 1930 and the foundation in 1932 of the LPO, which for some years fulfilled the functions of the old RPO. With these orchestras he recorded the complete cycle of Brahms symphonies during 1938-1940; three symphonies by Beethoven; other miscellaneous works by these composers; his final recording of Mozart's Thirty-ninth Symphony; two concerti grossi of Handel; and, in almost the last session of his career, two works by his master Franz Liszt. As in the case of the London recordings, the repertoire represented in the Paris recordings of 1938-1939 is wide. The romantic masters Liszt and Wagner are present in strength, with the two piano concertos of the former, and of the latter his Rienzi Overture and excerpts from Tannhauser, Tristan und Isolde and Gotterdammerung. And in addition to Beethoven's third Piano Concerto, his sober approach to the pre-classical masters is heard in recordings of Bach's Suite no. 3 and orchestral excerpts from Handel's Alcina. But inevitably interest will always focus upon the Vienna Philharmonic recordings of 1935-1937, for these are a permanent memento of a renowned association with that orchestra which commenced in 1908 and did not finally cease until the Anschluss. 2 While the performances captured here do not lack vitality, perhaps they disclose rather more of the sobriety and sanity - in Bruno Walter's works, the "naturalness and simplicity" - often said to typify his readings later in life, than of the "fiery temperament... élan and brilliance" which Walter also considered symptomatic of his concert work earlier in his career. Nevertheless, the products of these sessions, particularly those dating from 1935 and 1936, are perhaps the summit of Weingartner's recording achievement. Appropriately, the recordings are devoted to Beethoven, in whose music Weingartner's supreme authority was acknowledged for well over a quarter of a century. What, then, is the importance of this legacy for the musical historian? It is twofold: the records document the influence upon Weingartner of the great musicians his seniors with whom he came into early contact; and they are (and were seen by him to be) a living representation of the musical aesthetic which he sought by precept and practice to impress upon his contemporaries. That aesthetic was concerned in the first place to eliminate the interpretative excesses of certain conductors who followed in the wake of von Bulow at the end of the nineteenth century. He rejected both "mere metronomic timebeating or a senseless mania for nuance"; neither, he said, had anything to do with art "which is at its best when that exceedingly delicate balance - more a matter of intuition than calculation - is attained between the feeling and the intellect, which alone can give a performance true vitality and veracity".4 The second all-important element was the constant search for maximum clarity in the execution in the works of the classical masters, which he saw as essential to the correct style for their performance - "the secret of the conductor's art". It was this search that led him to the publication of his treatises upon the performance of symphonies of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Mozart, the first of which exerted a world-wide influence. These and other writings demonstrate a gift unique among great conductors for analyzing in sharpest detail the ends and means of his performances. Yet, valuable as it is to witness the degree to which Weingartner was successful in transferring his ideas to record, it would be a mistake to suppose that he was either the first or alone in avoiding the pitfalls of post-Wagnerian extravagances. The feature of contemporary style against which he most strongly inveighed was the extreme and sometimes arbitrary deviations from the basic pulse of symphonic movements indulged in by the "tempo rubato conductors". Wagner himself had warned against "arbitrary nuances of tempo", but this warning was apparently ignored by some of his disciples and successors. It was these whom Weingartner castigated, and not that unbroken line of conductors always noted for their fidelity to the score and absence of mannerism. As he himself remarked in 1905, "I need mention no names in order to point out that several conductors of importance have refused to have anything to do with these perversions of style".5 Had he done so, no doubt the first among the living would have been Hans Richter, whom he admired, and who expressed his shock at Nikisch's capricious handling of Beethoven;6 closely followed by Weingartner's rival in Berlin during the 1890's, Karl Muck, whom he himself described as "most correct" in everything he conducted. Today's purism, it is safe to observe, did not begin with Weingartner, nor yet with Toscanini. For the historian, then, Weingartner's recordings are of greater significance for the light they cast upon his interpretative approach to the musical figures of the past with whom he came into direct contact. Pride of place here must be given to Franz Liszt who from Weingartner's twentieth until his twenty-third year "stood in the relationship of a fatherly friend". This relationship was, said Josef Krips, "the greatest single impression he carried throughout his career". That impression was received in the course of many gatherings of friends and pupils at Weimar in the years 1883-1885 and equally frequent more personal contacts on other occasions, the last of which occurred just a few days before Liszt's death when Weingartner accompanied him to the first Bayreuth performance of Tristan und Isolde. The insight into Liszt's musical character which he gained from these contacts led him to champion his orchestral works throughout his life; and another distinguished pupil of Liszt, Frederic Lamond, maintained that Weingartner was the "only conductor who understood the genius of Liszt the composer... and interpreted as no-one else did" his symphonic works.7 The Faust Symphony which he conducted whenever the opportunity arose did not reach the studio; but Les Preludes, the Mephisto waltz and the two concertos are valuable mementoes of his association with their composer. "Authentic" they can hardly be, in the sense of bearing the imprint of the composer's coaching, but the stamp of the conductor's own personal belief in their worth is, especially in the case of the two purely orchestral works, unmistakably present. Weingartner's personal contact with Wagner was far more fleeting in character - he met him on just one occasion - yet it is possible to maintain, convincingly, that his mobile, controlled yet subtly flexible approach to Wagner's music is far more consonant with the composer's known wishes than the elephantine character of many another performance of Weingartner's time - and ours. He was, it must be remembered, a youthful and fervent Wagnerite who by his early twenties was thoroughly familiar with Ring cycles conducted by Richter, Levi, Seidl and Mottl. And the first performances of Parsifal in 1882, supervised by Wagner himself, left a profound impression. Young as he was, Weingartner's later conception of the proper approach to Wagner was firmly rooted in this indelible experience. Even before arrival in Bayreuth he had memorised the whole score; and to the three performances he attended that year were added several more in 1883 and 1884 when the production and performances still reproduced those supervised by Wagner. Weingartner's own method of conducting owed much to the man who led those performances, Hermann Levi, for him, then and later, a greater conductor than von Bulow, Richter or Mottl; a conductor who was distinguished by the "spiritual nature of his interpretations" in which "he shed everything material and reduced technique to the minimum". 8 By 1886 he was himself participating in performances conducted by Levi, when he directed the bells and some of the stage music as well as the occasional rehearsal. It was all the more painful to him, therefore, when Cosima Wagner, aided by the adaptable Mottl, set about altering and inflating the tempi of Parsifal at will, with results which Weingartner describes with impassioned disgust in his essay "Bayreuth". This slow-motion "modern Bayreuth dragging Parsifal time" he took every opportunity to attack wherever it appeared, whether in performances of Wagner's works or elsewhere, such as the slow movement of Beethoven's Ninth. 9 Thus, while no commercially recorded Parsifal ex, ists, the lessons he absorbed on those occasions in 1882 and in subsequent years were without doubt reflected in his performances of Wagner later in life; and certainly the Paris Wagner recordings are a consistent demonstration of his frequent exhortation: "nicht schleppend" -"don't drag". And finally, Brahms. In 1896 Weingartner headed the Berlin Philharmonic at a concert in Vienna which included the Brahms second Symphony. As a well known Wagnerite he was received by Brahms beforehand with some suspicion; but matters had changed after the concert - "His Symphony was the greatest success of all. 'I am pleased at the way my piece is mirrored in your head', (Ich freue mich, wie sich mein Stuck in Ihrem Kopfe gespiegelt hat) he said when we met at his accustomed table at the "Roter Igel". And he pressed my hand warmly. He had risen as I came in and remained standing until I sat down, which Heuberger interpreted as being a sign that he was particularly pleased. 'As a rule he doesn't stand up so easily, once he has settled to his beer - he must have liked it immensely', he whispered in my ear... (The next day at lunch) he made a speech which included that praise of my conducting of his Second Symphony... of which I am very proud. Never, he said, had he heard the work so beautifully played as the evening before". In later years Weingartner became a more full-hearted Brahmsian, but it was this symphony which remained his especial favourite, and he treasured the memory of Brahms's approval. There is no doubt, then, that his recording of the work presents us at the very least with a genuine link with the composer himself. Such doubt would exist, of course, in regard both to this and to the other links with the past here discussed if it could be shown that Weingartner's style of conducting changed materially over the years. There is, indeed, some indication that his work latterly was characterised by an increased calm and serenity;-1-2 but, quite apart from the evidence provided by his vocal opposition to von Bulow and his idiosyncrasies which dated back even to his student days at Leipzig in the early 1880's, it is clear that the salient characteristics of his mature style crystallised early in his career. The "Musical Times" acclaimed him upon his London debut in May 1898 as a "thoroughly sound and sane musician, bent on reproducing the great masters' ipsissima verba", inflicting "no far fetched "new readings'". He was no "tempo rubato faddist" although his rhythmic accuracy was "enchanting; wonderful elasticity, combined with absolute clearness and perfection of detail". These words, unaltered, could well describe the qualities to be heard in recordings made over forty years later. And it is to a more detailed analysis of those qualities that attention must now be directed. Before commencing this evaluation two comments are needed by way of reservation. The first relates to the change in style of orchestral playing in the past forty years or so. Not only are certain stylistic features occasionally to be heard on these records not now fashionable, but it is undoubtedly the case that technical standards have advanced, particularly in the exactitude of intonation now demanded of the woodwind and brass. Weingartner himself was instrumental in setting new standards of precision and refinement in execution in Berlin at the turn of the century and he always managed to extract the best from those orchestras he headed as guest. It is, therefore, unnecessary to stress unduly this aspect of his recordings. But the unsuspecting listener will wish to be aware, for example, that the portamenti to be heard from the 'cellos and horns at the start of the Eroica - entirely spontaneous and natural in effect, be it said - were an integral feature of the Vienna Philharmonic's style at the time, rather than an idiosyncrasy demanded of them by their conductor. A reservation is necessary, too, about the technical side of Weingartner's recordings, which cannot tell us the whole truth about his performances. "A piano must be a piano and not a double piano, a fortissimo must be distinguished from a double fortissimo" Weingartner used to say.12 But this is a refinement the presence of which sometimes has to be taken on trust in the records; for example, the Eroica's first extended tutti is barely louder than the string and woodwind phrases following upon the 'cellos' opening subject. Furthermore, said Josef Krips, "the orchestra was not seated with respect to the best microphone treatment of the various choirs and certain details come through with less than perfect clarity".13 Consequently, while the later records have an eminently natural sound (more natural, some would say, than many of more recent vintage), it would be fruitless to attempt to .assess how Weingartner executed the refinements of balance he prescribes in his advice on the performance of Beethoven and Mozart. The characteristics of rhythm, tempo and ensemble are plain to hear but others, such as balance and dynamic gradations, the records reflect less faithfully. These reservations, although by no means grave, must be borne in mind in the examination which follows of Weingartner's recorded legacy. The recordings suggest that one of Weingartner's particular contributions in the development of the conductor's art lay in the subtle responsiveness to the changing stresses of the music which he achieved within the symphonic framework, a sensitivity which never allowed an appropriate expressiveness to distort the shaping of any part of a movement at the expense of the whole. Although frequently alluded to in terms of their reserved classicism, on the evidence of his records his performances show clearly that he was far from desiring a return to the metronomic regularity so disdained by Wagner in his descriptions of German kapellmeisters of the mid-nineteenth century. Indeed, some of his performances might be considered by today's audiences to take a notably free and flexible course. The first movement of the Eroica, for example, displays so many modifications of the initial tempo that it seems to progress in a series of expansions and contractions around it, subtle in execution but sometimes marked in degree. Obvious instances occur at bars 45 and 83 which do no more than demonstrate how Weingartner himself carried out his own recommendations for modifying the tempo at these points, but the process also occurs in numerous passages throughout the movement which he refrained from annotating in his advice on the performance of the work. It is remarkable how closely this movement - and, indeed, the performance as a whole - mirror's Hanslick's description of Wagner's interpretation of the work: "... after a very fast beginning of the first movement... he takes the second theme (forty-fifth measure) conspicuously slower"... "the Scherzo uncommonly fast, almost presto", the funeral march "beautiful, particularly the gradual dying away of the main theme". Hanslick thought Wagner's change of tempo at bar 45 disturbed the listener's "hardly confirmed establishment in the fundamental mood of the movement and diverted the 'heroic' character of the symphony towards the sentimental". This, however, is not the effect produced by Weingartner's performance: the structural integrity is preserved here and elsewhere in the movement by the breadth of phrasing, a keen judgment as to when, and to what degree, it is appropriate to relax or press forward and, perhaps most notably, the subtlety of transition between one modification of tempo and another. The marcia funebre fluctuates similarly; whether with the same conviction as the opening movement is for the listener to decide. The "maggiore" at bar 69, says Weingartner, is sometimes "trivialised by a graceful hastening of the speed. There is not", he continues, "the slightest reason for changing the normal time of the melody". Nevertheless he does: the major episode up to bar 101 is quite deliberately accelerated. And, despite his words, it was a feature of his performance throughout his career. The "Musical Times" opined in June 1902 that "he carried the contrast (between the major and minor episodes) to such a pitch that the continuous swing of the music was in danger of being lost and it was at times hurried so much that its essential character was changed". But, whatever its effect, there is no denying the intellectual control and precision with which it is accomplished. A parallel but more consistently convincing example of Weingartner ignoring his own recommendations is to be found in the allegretto of the seventh Symphony (Vienna Philharmonic). The doice theme (from bar 101) should, he says, be played in "strict original time" but he himself, to avoid the sentimentality against which he warns, presses ahead (crotchet = 66 rising to 75). This forward movement is increased still further after 150, the metronome reaching well over 80, and the first tempo is resumed only towards the end of the movement. Toscanini in his recording of the same year adopted similar subtle fluctuations in his performance of this movement although his basic tempo was marginally slower. Both are, through their control of pacing, equally well judged, the woodwind line in Weingartner's interpretation in particular being very strongly characterised from bar 150 onwards. As a final example of this balancing of stresses within the course of a movement, the opening allegro vivace of the Eighth Symphony is especially illuminating since Weingartner has relatively little to say about modifications of tempo here. Yet the Vienna Philharmonic recording is full of them, for the most part slight but characterful. The very opening bars, for example, expand ever so slightly to point the lyricism of the woodwind countersubject, returning immediately to the basic tempo with the resumption of the tutti. (The metronome registers this expansion as crotchet = 140 compared with the basic 155). Again, the impact of each of the four-bar fortissimo outbursts at the beginning of the development is heightened by pacing them slightly faster than the interspersed piano passages. And the relaxation of tension at 333 coincides with a considerable slackening of the tempo which is resumed a few bars later, the transition being accomplished in both instances with that same judgment which is so noticeable in the Eroica's opening movement. These are only a few instances of many in but one movement. Of course, none of the classical repertoire performed in strictly metronomic fashion would succeed in conveying a vivid or satisfying musical experience. The interest here, however, lies in the degree to which Weingartner is able to introduce modifications of the basic tempo into a movement which at first sight leaves relatively little room for manoeuvre in this respect without endangering its fundamental character, and to do so, moreover, with an apparently intuitive rightness seemingly as natural as breathing. Here, indeed, is the "exceedingly delicate balance... between the feeling and the intellect" giving "true vitality and veracity". Weingartner's methods produce equally illuminating results in many instances where by contrast he adopts a strict, undeviating pulse. An instructive example occurs in the allegretto grazioso of Brahms's second Symphony at the point where the tempo indication changes to presto ma non assai. The performance conveys an impression of seamless continuity without a hairsbreadth's hesitation, yet his treatment allows no hint of didacticism or rigidity, such is the lightness of touch, rhythmic buoyancy and sureness of timing; indeed, the music gains in wit and good humour. This skill is manifest in the many other tempo changes in this movement and exactly comparable effects are achieved in similar contexts in some of his other recordings: witness the resumption of the initial andante in the Romanze of Eine kieine Nachtmusik after the swift semi-quaver patterings of the minor episode, or the da capo of the scherzo after the last sound of the horns in the Eroica's trio - meticulous yet quicksilver in style. Weingartner clearly had a gift of timing which accounts for his acute judgment as to when, and to what degree, the music should be allowed to breathe for expressive purposes. The resultant experience however would not have been achieved without an allied rhythmic sense which, to judge from recordings, he indeed possessed, developed to a degree perhaps beyond that of any other central European conductor, certainly of his generation. This is, no doubt, a high claim. But in his case it is less a matter of an instantly recognisable rhythmic style - not, for example, the overwhelming rhythmic stride impressed upon Toscanini's performances of a similar repertoire; nor the relaxation of the rhythm to an ultimate degree for expressive purposes, such as characterised Bruno Walter, at least in his last years. Rather, it involves a secure mastery of rhythm in all its aspects. This imbues Weingartner's performances with a sense of progression so sure that deviations of tempo are sensed as part of a pre-ordained design instead of a deliberate and self-conscious expressiveness; it has a lightness of touch which always excludes the ponderous; and a liberating effect which, in adding a spring to the musical step, transforms the merely fast into the mercurial. Weingartner's secret here lay in his clear-headed control of dynamics and articulation, balance and tempo. All these components of his rhythmic mastery are to be heard at full stretch in the first movement of Beethoven's second Symphony. Right at the start he makes a clear distinction between the sf at bars 10-11 and the sfp in the following bars, and the darting finesse in the execution of the latter marking - particularly at 20-21 - generates a momentum, equipoise, quite peculiar to this conductor. Many of Weingartner's observations upon this movement are directed towards correct execution of dynamics, and his advice that the repeated sf in bars 120-125 be played "shortly and sharply" carries the music forward in his own performance with heightened impetus. On occasion an unmarked accent is inserted; for example on the second beat of bar 349, an addition unerringly apt in the context. Elsewhere the balance helps point the rhythm; thus the stabbing phrases of the trumpet in the ff at 110 and again from 170 add strength without overbalancing into coarseness. As important for the rhythm as the control of dynamics is the unremitting care for clean articulation: not only in underlining the perpetual ticking accompaniment of both main subjects in the allegro, or in lightly touching in the triplets in the "sweet passage" from 186; but also in clarifying the more complex figuration at 314-315 and focussing the dotted violin leaps at 345-347. In the light of his own later development, it is hardly surprising that the young Stravinsky came near to idolising Weingartner.26 Doubtless he must also have admired the iron control over tempo, heard here especially in the perfectly poised delivery of the second subject from 73 onwards and again at 90-95; two places where even Toscanini (at any rate in his commercially issued recording) cannot forbear to push slightly ahead of the beat. Never is this the case with Weingartner; as Ernest Newman said of him, his baton descends "swiftly and infallibly upon the phrases... with an intellectual lucidity that of itself is an emotional joy". 17 Many of the movements so far analysed are taken by Weingartner at notably brisk tempi. While never too fast for proper articulation, this is by no means infrequent amongst his recordings as will be apparent from the table of comparison in Part II of this discography. But the same characteristics of rhythmic poise and vitality inform his performances where the choice of tempo is relatively moderate, and their presence enables him always to avoid the dull and portentous. His presto for the scherzo of Beethoven's seventh Symphony in the Vienna Philharmonic recording-^ is certainly modest but possesses a rhythmic lift which banishes any suspicion of the overweight and permits at the same time clearly articulated execution of the trills and grace-notes. The second movement of the Scottish Symphony, again moderately paced (obeying Mendelssohn's final marking of vivace non troppo) appears almost to play itself - an effect achieved by neat rhythmic definition, audible from the opening staccato semi-quavers around which the air is allowed to circulate freely with the lightest of accentuations; and by countless felicities of balance, especially to be heard in the immaculate phrasing and articulation of the woodwind. This keen balance, so frequently audible in Weingartner's recordings despite their limited sound, also enabled his acute poetic sensibilities (he was himself a poet and lifelong student of Goethe) to find expression without the exaggeration of nuance which he condemned in those who imagined themselves to be following the Wagnerian ethos. And ironically, nowhere is this better demonstrated than in his Wagner recordings. The long-drawn phrases of the prelude to the third Act of Tristan und Isolde must at climactic moments rise to a fortissimo. Yet can it be appropriate, at this of all points in the work, for them to be drowned, as they so often are, in oceans of rich and sensual 'cello tone? Weingartner evidently thought not; and the grey textures and exquisitely sculpted phrasing here conjured from the players depict with uncanny sympathy the wounded Tristan's exhausted but as yet unextinguished longing. The recording of the Eroica has demonstrated that Weingartner's approach was far from synonymous with strict time-keeping. But naturally his reputation for preserving a classical purity of line was well deserved; while his musical sense did not disdain the unorthodox approach, it did reside equally in his uncommon restraint in the face of temptation. Particularly in the music of Brahms his recorded performances show a care for the composer's instructions which constantly aids the structural unity of his symphonic movements. If on occasion this leads to a certain reserve, as in the andante moderato of the Fourth Symphony, many would regard this as a welcome corrective to the over-emphatic gestures and unauthorised departures from basic tempo markings which are rife in performances of these works even today. Such belabouring have nothing to do with an authentic style in the performance of Brahms's orchestral music, at least if we are to trust eye-witness accounts of Richter and Steinbach - and, of course, Brahms's own approval of Weingartner's treatment of his second Symphony. Too often in the first movement of that work is the ambiguous quasi ritenente at bar 118 seized upon as an opportunity for a distended rhetorical flourish; but Weingartner's slightest of stringendos in the pizzicato accompaniment from bar 102 and his natural easing back into the basic tempo when the marking is reached shows how it may be given full value without such disruption. Again, how frequently does the first movement of the Third Symphony open with a headlong burst of sound, only to subside indulgently into an unnecessary dawdle by the time the woodwind subject is reached at bar 36. Weingartner's allegro con brio is also brisk but nowhere does he permit the forward impetus to flag. The woodwind theme referred to is fully characterised, not by an audible change of gear, but by meticulous attention to the dynamic notations and careful placing of the pizzicato accompaniment. The whole movement benefits from this tightening-up process. No other performance seems to possess quite such bite and drive in the first part of the development section; none is so careful in the observation of the un poco in the sostenuto marking before the recapitulation; and never in consequence does this movement sound so concentrated and finely organised as it does here. If the first movements of the second and Third Symphonies readily demonstrate Weingartner's scrupulous regard for structural unity, the corresponding movement of the Fourth aptly illustrates the way in which that unity is assisted by the continuity of phrasing which reinforces the impression conveyed of uninterrupted growth typical of so many of his performances. This is an aspect of this conductor's art closely linked with the acute sense of timing already examined. His ability to phrase with passion is not in doubt - of this the first movement of the Eroica is sufficient witness. On occasion, however, the concentration upon the larger design holds in check the eloquence of the phrasing, and where this is so the whole is far more than the sum of the parts. The opening movements of the Brahms Fourth Symphony in his hands is less dramatic than it is in Toscanini's, yet cumulatively the impact is scarcely less. Careful listening reveals why: each phrase, as well as being sensitively drawn, is meticulously dovetailed with the next, so assisting the music's apparently inevitable but never hard-pressed momentum. The movement as a whole has a deceptive simplicity; the poised continuity itself disguises the cunning needed to achieve this result - the precise degree of emphasis accorded to the shape of the phrasing and, typically, the ever watchful judgment of pace and timing. The demands upon the orchestra here are those of a highly perceptive musician rather than of a virtuoso, but sometimes Weingartner's demands of necessity exact virtuoso playing. The ability to elicit such a response is one of the least remarked of his attributes, perhaps because the repertoire in which he was most noted did not require display as one of its prime characteristics. But his virtuoso command, although doubtless of the quietest kind in its outward manifestation, is clearly brought out in the two orchestral works of Liszt already referred to, recorded right at the close of his career. There is no hint here of his seventy-six years; indeed, the recordings made in February 1940 are among his very best. And the command is equally apparent in the handling of the classical masters, for example in the final pages of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Very frequently it is maintained that these pages can achieve their full effect only if the tempo is firmly held to the end. Weingartner does not do so. Instead, in addition to the dynamic modifications prescribed in his advice (common form in performances today), he introduces a gradual accelerando from bar 380 lasting to the very end. This does not, as it would with many others, reduce the power of the music: so unfaltering is the balance right down to the rapid string figuration of the final bars and so finely sprung is the rhythm that not for a moment is one left in doubt of the supreme control of the guiding hand. "Now, that's not bad at all. He keeps to his tempo, you see, and that I like" - perhaps an unexpected commendation for Weingartner to give to a performance by Furtwangler, on this occasion Tannhauser at the Vienna State Opera. But in an important respect the remark may mislead: Weingartner's records show that there was more, far more, to his approach than merely "keeping to the tempo". Perhaps his style was best summed up as long ago as February 1905 by Richard Aldrich in the "New York Times", a description which draws together the strands analysed in the foregoing pages - "Weingartner has a most sensitive feeling for the essential characteristics of the music he is interpreting; the power of possessing himself of its spirit and of embodying it in a perfectly balanced, symmetrical and finished whole. With a keenly analytical power there goes hand in hand a warm, poetic feeling.... His effects are fine and delicate, and there is the subtlest sense of proportion and of finish in the adjustment and the colour of every phrase; and this he accomplishes without losing sight of the larger outlines of the whole. Thick splashes of colour, intense and garish contrasts of dynamic effects are not for him.... Everything is elaboration with the presence, almost, it might be said, the divination of one who has seen straight and seen clear to the bottom of it all - dynamic gradation, rhythm and accent, the plastic expression of theme, the delicate modification of tempo. But with this subtlety of finish there is withal the pulsing throb of life, a poignant intensity of spirit. Health and strength and a quickening imagination are in all that he does". Posterity may be thankful that this singular combination of poise and vitality, patrician dignity and directness of expression was captured, not perhaps in all its sonic glory, but with more than enough in the grooves to verify the accuracy of Aldrich's eloquent pen. NOTES
1. See
Part I, sessions nos.1-3 |