Believe it or not, here are Teldec’s third go-rounds reissuing the Mengelberg/Concertgebouw Orchetra Strauss Don Juan and Ein Heldenleben recordings. Collectors, of course, will ask how Seth Winner’s new transfers compare with Teldec’s previous CD editions, as well as Michael Dutton’s recent refurbishing on his own label. Winner’s restorations stem from clean copies of original Telefunken shellac 78s. Surface noise has been considerably tamed, and registral differentiation is better defined, without the blotchy treble peaking marring Teldec’s impactive but noisy 1988 Mengelberg Edition transfers (whose Heldenleben was copied from the 1949 Capitol LP dub). The transfers also supercede Teldec’s overfiltered second attempt.
In contrast to Winner’s non-interventionist philosophy, Dutton beefs up the sonics with a soupçon of artificial reverberation. Close headphone listening also reveals a hint of stereo spread in the mix. While the effect seems superfluous as applied to the well-recorded Don Juan, Ein Heldenleben’s denser passages are less cloudy than before, particularly the Battle scene. For all its admirable fire and temperament, the 1941 Heldenleben comes off as a caricature of the Dutch maestro’s opinionated yet powerful 1928 New York Philharmonic reading. The latter boasts superior lung and lip power from the brass, and more cohesion from the podium. And New York concertmaster Scipione Guidi invests the violin solos with dashing, poetic virtuosity of a higher order than the Ferdinand Helman’s slurpy, cloying dispatch 13 years later. By contrast, Mengelberg’s tempo fluctuations and distensions of phrase give Don Juan’s multitude of ideas plenty of breathing room. Also from 1941, a gently rollicking Till Eulenspiegel with Clemens Krauss fronting the Vienna Philharmonic favorably compares to his 1950 Decca remake with the same orchestra. Strauss biographer Michael Kennedy provides excellent, perceptive notes that zero in on the specifics of these recordings.
