Munch’s performances when he was Music Director of the Boston Symphony could often be thrilling exhibitions of improvisation; many, in fact, were often too thrilling: his appearance in Boston on Teldec’s Art of Conducting video shows him at his excitable worst. Here, however, he keeps himself under superb control. Both the music and the viewer are the better for it.
For devotees of baton technique, Munch keeps his feet squarely on the ground, often using just his right arm to signal both beat and articulation, raising it high to preview important downbeats and employing his left sparingly for signaling and cues. As for the music itself, D’Indy’s arrangement of the Dardanus Suite makes Rameau unrecognizable, but it’s fun to watch Munch articulate the music, often phrase-by-phrase, with subtle stick and arm control. Berlioz’s Royal Hunt and Storm is wilder music and summons a wilder Munch, but it’s in the two Ravel pieces, and especially in La Valse, where Munch often created musical havoc, that he creates nothing but beautiful music. These two pieces alone make this video worth acquiring, but all of it is a welcome reminder of Munch’s stature as a conductor. Picture and sound, by the way, are good early 1960s vintage.
