It seems to me that, with exception of Toscanini’s account, the old trio of “classic” Harolds by Beecham, Toscanini, and Koussevitsky has been roundly outclassed by new(er)comers Bernstein, Munch, Markevitch, Davis, and Ormandy. Of course Beecham was a masterful exponent of French music, and his studio recording of Harold (with violist William Primrose, last available on Sony Masterworks Portrait and crying out for a good remastering job) tops this live effort in several respects, sonically and interpretively. Beecham always played the second movement Pilgrim’s March quite deliberately, but he holds the music together more effectively in the studio recording while also offering a fractionally more relaxed and genial third movement Serenade. Neither finale is going to win any awards for whiplash excitement or ensemble discipline. Frederick Riddle makes a fine soloist, but no performance of this work lives or dies by the quality of the viola playing as long as it’s competent, as Paganini himself realized when he declined to perform the work that he had commissioned. As to the overtures, Beecham’s best Corsaire remains his EMI stereo version, King Lear is well performed but not terribly thrilling (Gibson’s on Chandos remains the most exciting overall), and the Trojan March makes a pleasing and fool-proof encore. Here’s yet another disc from BBC Music that demonstrates that live recordings aren’t necessarily finer than their studio counterparts.
