Rudolf Kempe’s Bruckner Fourth is reason enough to get this entry in EMI’s Great Conductors series. In this live 1972 broadcast recording from Munich, Kempe demonstrates his command of the large-scale structure’s ceaseless ebb and flow without resorting to the stop-and-start lurchings that typify so many Bruckner performances. The mysterious opening bars, with solo horn over a bed of pianissimo strings, don’t quite prepare you for the excellence of what follows, since the spongy horn solo’s spread tones produce disquieting thoughts of impending disappointment, thoughts thankfully frustrated by the ensuing excellence of the playing. Kempe perfectly judges that slowly-built opening crescendo, and its climax is appropriately weighty. Even the horns make a creditable showing once you’re acclimated to their softer textures. The Andante also has an all-too-rare lightness and delicacy, and the last two movements have the dancing strength and perfectly-judged power to make this a recording to treasure.
The other big work here is Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, the best performances of which convey heroic strength, grandeur, and nobility. Kempe nails the “nobility” but comes up short on the other two basics. His conducting style is founded on urbane sophistication, balances, and proportion, but it runs aground in a work like the Eroica, which thrives on energetic drive. Still, Kempe’s approach has validity, and if you have a bevy of heroic Eroicas in your collection, this live 1974 Prague performance with the Royal Philharmonic represents a refreshing alternative view. The broadcast engineers’ wide-stage perspective enhances Kempe’s carefully wrought internal balances and elucidates his texture-clarifying use of divided strings. The understated Funeral March misses the piece’s tragic dimensions. It’s less a portrayal of crushing grief than a distant recollection of past tragedy recalled and softened.
Prime among the shorter works is a Brahms Tragic Overture that bristles with energy and builds with inevitability. Wolf’s Italian Serenade gets a lovely reading, though EMI’s high-level transfer is jarring on the heels of the lower-volume cast of the Eroica. Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloë is notable for Kempe’s sympathetic impressionism and for his use of the chorus, a relative rarity in orchestral performances of the Second Suite. A rousing polka by Strauss the Elder makes for a nice encore. The Brahms and Strauss are reissues of 1960 studio recordings; the rest derive from live concert or broadcast materials dating from 1971-74. Recommended as one of the stronger sets in this interesting series.
