In his review of this Ein Heldenleben in its recent Teldec reissue, Jed Distler wrote: “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 Ferdinand Helman’s slurpy, cloying dispatch 13 years later.” I see no reason to take issue with this assessment. Just compare the way Mengelberg phrases the opening in 1928 as compared to 1941 to learn the difference between inflection and mannerism.
The coupling, though, offers a more impressive performance. The allegro passages work up to a fine fury (though Mengelberg’s underlining of the “death rhythm” on the brass really is pretty vulgar), and the actual moment when the dying man gives up the ghost allows the important quiet strokes on the tam-tam more prominence than in many modern renditions. What a pity then that the limitations of 1942 recording technology can’t begin to capture the orchestral incandescence of the final transfiguring apotheosis–despite a warmly immediate and quite listenable transfer by Mark Obert-Thorn. Mengelberg fans will want this if they don’t already have it. Others aren’t missing anything particularly special.
