From the archives

Erik Levi blows the dust off this month’s set of reissued and archival recordings

April round-up

A memorable 1972 BBC Proms concert featuring the Munich Philharmonic under principal conductor

Rudolf Kempe features a vibrant interpretation of Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony, as well as a powerful and dramatically compelling account of Tod und Verklärung by Richard Strauss. Flawed ensemble at the opening of Beethoven’s Prometheus Overture reflects the difficulties that faced the German orchestra in mastering the problematic acoustics of the Royal Albert Hall. But the ensemble quickly settles down in the ensuing faster passagework. Devotees of this charismatic conductor will certainly want to hear these excellently honed performances, although the recorded sound calls for a good deal of tolerance. (ICA Classics ICAC5I70)

Sound quality is also unfortunately an issue in a threedisc set featuring the complete recordings from the early 1940s of the short-lived Primrose Quartet, a group of outstanding string virtuosos including Scottish-born viola player William Primrose, drawn from Toscanini’s NBC Symphony Orchestra. Yet such is the irresistible forward momentum of the playing, heard at its most fleet-footed in the finale of Mozart’s K387 and in the opening movement of Brahms’s Op. 67, that the constricted dynamic range and dryness of the recordings cease to be such a problem. (Biddulph 85023-2)

Austrian pianist Walter Klien established a formidable reputation for his Mozart performances as a result of extensive Vox recordings of the composer’s solo keyboard music and piano concertos made in the 1960s and ’70s. Most of the concerto recordings were taped in Austria in partnership with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, but in 1978 Klien travelled to the United

States to complete the cycle with Concertos Nos 17 and 27 alongside the Minnesota Orchestra under Stanisław Skrowaczewski. Working in a relatively unfamiliar environment seems not to have phased Klien one jot since he delivers wonderfully sensitive performances of both works supported by some particularly sprightly solo woodwind playing. (VOX-NX -3012 CD)

Much more recent reissues appear on In Memoriam I, a tribute to the memory of Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey’s son who died at a tragically early age last year. It features duo music by Schubert adapted for cello and piano, performed with insight and lyrical warmth by Wispelwey and Paolo Giacometti. It’s a matter of great regret that the Austrian master never composed an original work for cello. Yet although some of these arrangements sound idiomatic in their new instrumental guise, not least the glorious Fantasy in C, others such as the Rondeau Brillant or the Trockne Blumen Variations, have some awkwardly florid corners that don’t entirely convince. (Evil Penguin EPRC 5051)

Shropshire-born composer Edward German (1862-1936) is best remembered these days for his enchanting light operetta, Merrie England. This enterprising mid-1990s recording of his Second Symphony ‘Norwich’ may not exude the same degree of thematic memorability, but nonetheless demonstrates his considerable mastery of large orchestral forces. The National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland under Andrew Penny delivers a fluent if not always pristine performance of this work, but rises to the occasion in German’s Welsh Rhapsody. (Naxos 8555228)