This recording of Mengelberg’s 40th annual St. Matthew Passion Easter concert, performed on Palm Sunday, 1939, has held legendary status among the conductor’s fans. I like it but it’s not for everybody. In fact, Naxos should have a cover sticker warning historically informed performance buffs that this St. Matthew Passion may be dangerous to their health. Its toxicity is proportionate to Mengelberg’s indulgent Romanticisms–the unending succession of rubatos, exaggerated dynamics, inappropriate, thickly-spread legato, micromanaged phrasing, and a runaway harpsichordist who disfigures recitatives with staccato poundings are among the objectionable practices here. Of course, many of these reflected the performing style of the time; others, the conductor’s willfulness.
Still, there are listening rewards here for those who can respond to the intensity of the performance, and who can ignore or at least forgive its flaws. Mengelberg made heavy cuts in the score, mostly in Part 2, which is understandable for a live performance but is certain to relegate a recording to supplementary status for collectors. Even if you accept Mengelberg’s interpretive excesses, the vocal and engineering flaws are not as easily overcome. The soloists range from good (Karl Erb as an intense Evangelist) to the acceptable (Willem Ravelli’s Jesus, Jo Vincent’s bright-voiced if sometimes strained soprano arias, and Ilona Durigo’s even more pressured alto arias) to the mediocre, all redeemed in part by heartfelt singing. The chorus too, however involved it may be, is raw, its efforts plagued by acoustic haze.
A single microphone was used in the recording and that may account for the chorus’ banishment to a cloudy acoustic while soloists are front and center with an immediacy that’s impressive for a 1939 radio broadcast. Producer/audio restoration engineer Mark Obert-Thorn has given us a better transfer than previous ones despite working from Dutch LPs. In a note, he says (and our ears confirm) that there are “sudden volume level changes, sputtering sounds, distortion and jarring edits, not all of which could be eliminated.”
The third disc is filled out with Mengelberg’s commercial recordings of Bach’s Second Orchestral Suite, whose bouts of sprightliness (a superfast but well articulated Badinerie, for example) can’t wholly overcome the impression of bloated heaviness. That scale-busting weight infects two versions of the Third Suite’s Air, while the D minor Concerto for two violins, with its fast outer movements and lovely Largo, sounds a bit less dated than its discmates. This is a set for specialists and Mengelberg fans, who’ll welcome it with open arms.
