From the archives
Andrew Mcgregor finds much to enjoy in an expansive collection of recordings from conductor Kurt Masur
‘I think my best characteristic is stubbornness…’ – perhaps not the kindest quotation to lead with in the booklet essay, but it’s a penetrating insight from Kurt Masur. He had to be stubborn to evolve from a shy teenager with a physical condition that prevented him pursuing the piano, surviving two totalitarian regimes, to become Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic, the main orchestras featured in The Complete Warner Classics Edition (Warner Classics 9029661155; 70 CDS). There’s strength and depth and mellow maturity to the sound in almost everything here that speaks powerfully of Masur’s reputation for hard work, intense rehearsal and that stubborn refusal to take the path of least resistance.
You could begin with Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, a rugged yet lyrical account with a magnificent finale. The Schumann symphonies with the LPO are richly rewarding, the Tchaikovsky cycle has a kind of old-world authenticity and you mustn’t miss Masur’s Liszt: real authority in the tone poems and the Faust and Dante Symphonies, drawing radiant tone from the Leipzig players.
There’s the special connection with Mendelssohn, Masur’s predecessor in Leipzig, and about whose music he was evangelical: richness, warmth and lightness in the symphonies, and a remarkable live recording of Elijah from Tel Aviv. There’s a humanity to it that also illuminates powerful performances of three other major choral works live in New York: Brahms’s German Requiem, with its sense of hope and consolation; Britten’s
War Requiem, whose resonances for a German who survived active service in the Second World War must be immense. And Shostakovich’s ‘Babi Yar’, bookended by Yevtushenko reading his own poems; this meant so much to the conductor who worked behind the Iron Curtain and played his own part in the peaceful reunification of Germany. Humane, heartfelt, serious… and stubborn. An utterly admirable musician.