As suggested by his Chicago Symphony Orchestra recordings from the early 1950s, Rafael Kubelik has a special intensity that was still very much present in this 1956 live concert with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Bohuslav Martinu’s orchestrally rich, highly pictorial Les Fresques de Piero della Francesca is treated somewhat tentatively in this world premiere performance (and, in any case, is better captured sonically in Kubelik’s stereo EMI recording, ZDMB 68223). But the main point of interest here is the Tchaikovsky Pathetique Symphony. Just because Kubelik liked his Tchaikovsky fast doesn’t mean it seemed rushed: His speeds seem driven by an air of terror. And in first-movement structural and harmonic climaxes, Kubelik broadens tempos with a devastating effect. The final movement has similar moments of interpretive genius: Though he favors a far leaner sonority than many conductors in this movement, the pregnant pauses, the vivid, eloquent shaping of the phrase, plus the sense of background and foreground orchestral textures make this recording essential to admirers of Kubelik and this symphony (despite the clear but flat mono sound). The inner movements sparkle and explode with Kubelik’s distinctly clean but urgent sense of rhythm. And if these interpretive elements don’t seem like something you’d normally hear from the Vienna Philharmonic only a few years after the death of Wilhelm Furtwangler, you’re right. How, one wonders, did Kubelik do it?
