Kubelik conducts 20th Century masterpieces

An orchestra and its conductor very much in tune

Rafael Kubelik’s commercial recording legacy from his years as Chief Conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra mainly concentrates on the classic German repertoire of Mahler, Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart.  It hardly featured works of the 20th century from other musical traditions.  But Kubelik built his orchestra into an impressively virtuoso and versatile instrument and this compilation demonstrates some of the range they achieved.  He had made a studio recording of the Hindemith with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1953, but never recorded it or the other two works with the BRSO.

The Bartok and the Debussy were recorded in the orchestra’s then home in Munich, the Herculessaal and they demonstrate both the hall’s sympathetic acoustic and the highly dynamic and spontaneous quality  of Kubelik’s live performances.  The Hindemith was recorded on the orchestra’s tour of Japan in 1975 from a concert given in the Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo.

Kubelik’s life was greatly affected by the major political events of the mid-20th century.  He was exiled from his native Czechoslovakia by the advent of Hitler and hr fled again when his country was taken over by the Communists after the end of the Second World War.  He had a deep affinity with the musical culture of Central Europe and his concerts frequently contained works by Czech and Hungarian composers.

Bartök was also exiled by the war and his Divertimento for Strings was composed in 1939, his last work before he left for the United States.  It was commissioned by Paul Sacher for his Basler Kammerorchester and given its first performance in June 1940.  The work’s title and neo-classical framework refer back to the Baroque concerto grosso tradition but the music also brings in Hungarian folk inflections, combining grace, sudden dynamic shifts and harmonic friction, which give it a strong underlying sense of anxiety.  It opens in a buoyant mood, but the work’s emotional epicentre is the middle, slow movement, whose unsettling chromatic sequences and anguished phrases reflect a continent on the brink of catastrophe.  The work concludes with a movement full of propulsive energy and technical bravura, whose joy has a manic edge.  Kubelik’s renowned rhythmic vitality and the BRSO’s precision make this a definitive interpretation of Bartók’s concise masterpiece.

Paul Hindemith was also a wartime  exile, leaving his native Germany  in 1938, and settling in the United States in 1940.  The Symphonic Metamorphosis is his most popular concert work and was composed in 1943.  It arose from a failed commission from Leonide Massine for a ballet to music by Weber.  Hindemith reworked the musical material to compose this four-movement tour de force.  While harking back to German Romanticism, it is also a celebration of American orchestral brilliance.  It was given its premiere by the New York Philharmonic in January 1944 under Artur Rodzinsky.  It is a work full of energy but also of wit and delicacy.  At its heart is  the second-movement Scherzo, which is a jazzy, manic set of variations, culminating in a spectacular, swinging brass fugato.  George Balanchine made a ballet to the score in 1952.  Kubelik and his orchestra play the work with enormous brio, relishing in its vigour and its dry, American humour.  Bracing and exhilarating music making.

Debussy’s La Mer belongs to a very different world, but Kubelik and his Bavarian, land-locked orchestra take us there with tremendous élan, his reading both lush, exciting and emotionally stirring.  Composed between 1903 and 1905, Debussy put the finishing touches to the work at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, overlooking the sea, which he described there as “unfurling itself with an utterly British correctness”!

However, Debussy’s sea is far from tranquil.  Titled Three Symphonic Sketches, the work’s movements describe the sea in various moods: From dawn to noon on the sea, then Play of the waves and finally Dialogue of the wind and the sea.  The writing is highly pictorial, but Kubelik’s reading is less impressionist than most other versions.  His sea is a deep ocean, with dark undertones, swirling currents and violent winds.  His players respond to his rhythmic flexibility with thrilling effect.  The sound is warm, lush but also viscerally alive.  The waves peak and dissolve with a wonderfully spontaneous, natural momentum.  The storm in the final movement has a dark, operatic intensity, driving the work to its conclusion with terrifying momentum.

This compilation brings together three exceptional live archival documents that chart the absolute zenith of one of the 20th century’s greatest partnerships, a conductor and an orchestra working together with a rare degree of telepathic unity.  The works they perform here highlight their breathtaking agility on a broad international stage. It is live music-making at its most dazzling.

Béla Bartók (1881 – 1945)

Divertimento for Strings

Track 1: Allegro non troppo

Track 2: Molto adagio

Track 3: Allegro assai

Paul Hindemith (1895 – 1963)

Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber

Track 4: Allegro

Track 5: Scherzo

Track 6: Andantino

Track 7:  Marsch

Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918)

La Mer

Track 8: From dawn to midday on the sea

Track 9: Play of the waves

Track 10: Dialogue of the wind and the sea

The Bartok was recorded  from a concert given on 13 or 14 November 1969 in the Herculessaal, Munich.

The Hindemith was recorded at a concert given on 5 June 1975 in Bunka Kaiken, Tokyo.

The Debussy was recorded at a concert given on 7 December 1973 in the Herculessaal, Munich.

The recordings were donated to Music Preserved by Nigel Simeone