Touring with the Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi once remarked that “we give a great concert and George Szell gets a great review.” True, Szell turned this ensemble into one of the world’s great international orchestras during his 24 years as the orchestra’s music director. Yet Dohnányi has maintained and broadened the Cleveland Orchestra’s high standards during his nearly 20-year music director stint, abetted by musicians who for the most part postdate Szell’s tenure.
To honor Dohnányi’s departure from the post this spring, the Cleveland Orchestra Association has published a 10-CD collection culled from the conductor’s live performances over the years. The selections cover a wide repertoire range, from Haydn’s Symphony No. 88 to the world premiere of John Adams’ The Wound Dresser. The lion’s share of works constitute late-19th/early 20th century pillars, many that Dohnányi has not recorded commercially. These include Schoenberg’s massive, unfinished cantata Die Jakobsleiter and his harrowing A Survivor from Warsaw, plus a richly detailed and high-tech account (in the positive sense!) of the same composer’s Variations for Orchestra.
Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony gathers strength as it proceeds, once past the stolid, sometimes mannered first movement (Dohnányi, like Simon Rattle, irritatingly lays on the first 16th-note in measure four’s accelerando, and at similar moments). The sinewy balances and forward impetus of Dohnányi’s Franck Symphony recalls Pierre Monteux’s classic Chicago recording. A lithe and linear Sibelius Fifth (perhaps the Andante’s a bit fast and lacking in tender mystery) adds another welcome staple to Dohnányi’s discography. No question, though, that his Shostakovich First captures the music’s brash, rude qualities in the second and fourth movements with more fervency and fire than Kurt Masur’s version included in that conductor’s 10-CD New York Philharmonic box (and, for that matter, Erich Leinsdorf’s in the Boston Symphony’s archival box set!).
Dohnányi’s live Bruckner Fourth and Beethoven Fifth significantly add to what we glean from the conductor’s excellent studio versions from years before. Yet more distant mike placement in the Bruckner imparts an organ-like sheen on the orchestral image without sacrificing the conductor’s carefully differentiated textural strands at loud moments. Differences in the respective Beethoven performances chiefly amount to greater animation in the Andante con moto this time around, plus fine-tuning of details–such as the Scherzo’s more tightly-knit Trio and added clarity to the cello’s churning eighth-notes in the Finale (measure 28). In Garrick Ohlsson’s hands, the gnarly solo part of Brahms’ B-flat Concerto takes on a sleek, more pliable consistency than usual, and I like it. Dohnányi, in turn, matches the tensile strength and lyrical eloquence that Szell brought to his two Cleveland Brahms Second Concertos with respective soloists Rudolf Serkin and Leon Fleisher.
Another Szell specialty, Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber, takes on darker, more opulent colors via Dohnányi’s equally authoritative leadership, especially in the Andantino and the climax to the March finale. Listeners who know Dohnányi’s Vienna Philharmonic Tchaikovsky Fourth and Mendelssohn “Italian” symphonies will be fascinated to compare his live Cleveland counterparts, if only for the latter’s more assertive brass section. Granted, the exposed instrumentation of Varèse’s Ecuatorial would gain enormously by upfront studio miking, but the brass antiphony congeals to powerful effect in Janácek’s Sinfonietta. Sanford Sylvan almost enacts the Walt Whitman text in John Adams’ The Wound-Dresser, compared to his more internalized, subtler studio recording for Nonesuch. The usual Berlioz Damnation of Faust excerpts are played to the hilt, and Wagner’s Rienzi Overture receives a noble, full-throated reading whose grandiose climaxes generate excitement without bombast (no easy feat in this music).
I can’t think of a better way to salute Dohnányi’s intelligent, ever-evolving musicianship, supreme podium craft, integrity, taste, and most of all, genuine pride in what his Cleveland musicians have achieved during their fruitful partnership. Full texts, thorough credits, and superb annotations crown this worthwhile release, available only from The Cleveland Orchestra, 11001 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44106, (216) 231-7300–or at www.clevelandorchestra.com.
