It’s well known that performers of all stripes, and not just in classical music, sometimes amass a cult following, particularly if the artists in question have the good fortune to be dead. If they died tragically, even better. If they died tragically and made very few recordings, and those of dubious quality, better still. The less audible the evidence of greatness that exists, the more satisfied cult members feel that they are hearing things that no one else can. This explains the posthumous reputations of, say, Kathleen Ferrier and Wilhelm Furtwängler. The former was, to put it mildly, a minor local talent and an acquired taste, the latter an indisputably great artist among his contemporaries whose recordings, whether authorized or not, often disappoint.
Don’t get me wrong: many artists deserve their popularity, and in this case it’s useful to distinguish the general reverence for a major figure such as Maria Callas from the “Callas cult,” which holds that she could do no wrong and that every screech and squeal that she emitted contains imperishable “insights.” The whole point of a cult, after all, is to eliminate the possibility of adverse criticism, bringing together a group of like-minded non-thinkers who wish to reinforce their abdication of discerning judgment in favor of a blanket adulation of the personality in question. In the case of conductor Jascha Horenstein, the ingredients for cult designation include his inability to hold down a regular job, comparative neglect during his lifetime, his promotion of Gustav Mahler (who turned out to be the biggest cult composer of the 20th century), and the wildly variable quality of his surviving recorded legacy.
This last quality is important. Excellence is the sworn enemy of the cult mentality in its musical manifestation, because one of the prime characteristics of this mindset is self-righteous anger on behalf of the object of worship. If everything that Horenstein did had been exceptional and generally recognized as such, then he would not need a cult to support his claim to immortality. The music doesn’t matter. The quality of his conducting doesn’t matter. What matters is the satisfaction that cult members derive from belonging to the group, and the recordings are merely triggers that activate and reinforce the herd instinct. The Horenstein cult, which is not large, but which regularly pops up in internet chat groups– especially those devoted to Mahler–has thus found a perfect object of veneration, because so much of his surviving work is simply dreadful by any standard.
How, then, you might reasonably ask, did he achieve in the first place what little fame he once enjoyed among record collectors? He is known today almost exclusively as a Mahler conductor, and for two other recordings significant in their time: his Nielsen Fifth Symphony, and his noteworthy accompanying role in Earl Wild’s outstanding set of Rachmaninov piano concertos. Out of the dozens of other discs that he made, these are the only ones that still seem viable now, and of these, only the Rachmaninov remains a top recommendation—less because of Horenstein than for Wild. I don’t know anyone who listens to a Rachmaninov piano concerto primarily for the conducting, though no doubt such people exist.
The case of Horenstein’s Mahler recordings, however, is a bit different. In the early 70s when the best of them (Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3) were released, they were seen as a legitimate alternative to the more eruptive, emotive Mahler style of conductors such as Bernstein and Barbirolli. Horenstein recorded for a small independent label (Unicorn in the U.K., licensed to Nonesuch in the U.S.A.), but he also had the London Symphony Orchestra, which virtually assured the respectful attention of the British press. The performance of the First Symphony has never quite commanded the same respect as has that of the Third, though it’s the better of the two, for the simple reason that at the time the latter work was still a great rarity in concert and on disc, while the First had several very good recordings to its credit (including Solti’s on Decca, also with the LSO).
At present, I count over 40 recordings of the Third Symphony in my collection. Still, it wasn’t so long ago when this lengthiest of all major symphonies was scarcely ever played. Scores were hard to come by, and it was an easy thing to own the two or three available albums and enjoy them for their respective differences. Over time, however, the luster of Horenstein’s Mahler Third has dimmed considerably. The lapses in execution, combined with his chronic rhythmic stiffness and inability to follow Mahler’s clearly indicated tempo and expressive indications, become more and more obvious as time goes on. Why? Simple. Many listeners and critics (myself included) now know the music really well. The symphony has a performance tradition, with the parameters of interpretation, not to mention Mahler’s own intentions, generally known, accepted, and understood.
None of this was true when Horenstein’s Mahler Third first appeared. In the U.S.A., for example, there was Bernstein on Sony (Columbia) as a reference recording in less-than-great sound. Solti’s first Decca (London) effort was lousy, and everyone said so. Haitink and Kubelik were difficult-to-obtain, expensive foreign imports, and neither conductor had a major international reputation at the time. Abravanel’s cycle was a sort of “poor man’s Mahler,” with a second rate orchestra on a wildly inconsistent label (Vanguard) whose LPs often suffered from horrible pressing quality. In terms of what was readily available, Horenstein was indeed a contender, and in the minds of some he remains one, despite the clearly audible evidence that his interpretation is not particularly outstanding, and has been surpassed both interpretively and sonically dozens of times over.
The first chinks in his armor began appearing as the Mahler flood really got underway, along with effective international recording distribution. Polygram sucked up DG, Philips, and Decca, and performances of the Third such as Levine’s, Haitink’s, and Mehta’s offered a level of sheer technical mastery, whatever one thought of interpretative details, that Horenstein couldn’t approach. When his rendition finally was transferred to CD, listeners discovered that its sonics were quite inferior (as opposed to Bernstein’s Sony recording, for example, which sounded better than ever). Horenstein retained the respect and affection of Mahlerites for his pioneering work on behalf of the composer: indeed, he deserves it still. But the recordings appeared as prime recommendations with decreasing frequency, save among those critics and fans for whom a nostalgic fondness for a first impression counts for more than how a piece of music should sound.
Such people constitute the membership of the Horenstein cult. My reasons for suggesting that it may be dying are anecdotal. In the six years since Classicstoday.com has gone live, we have had a chance to review many Horenstein recordings, including most of his Mahler. My negative assessment of these releases has occasioned plenty of hate mail from cultists, but more interestingly, over the past few years I have also received a surprisingly large number of letters saying, in effect, “I listened comparatively and you are right. Horenstein sucks.” It was the most recent of these communications that suggested to me that I write this piece. The point is not to dump on Horenstein; he was one of many mediocre conductors who did some good work, and lots of bad, as evidenced by far too many surviving recordings.
I am, however, genuinely fascinated by what appears to be a particularly visible manifestation of the process by which reputations are made and shaped. As a conductor, Horenstein has progressed (or regressed) from a widely recognized name in a specialized field (that of “Mahler conductors”), to a mere footnote. The reasons for this are heartening. First, the “field” no longer exists, meaning that musical mediocrity cannot find a niche and make a name for itself at Mahler’s expense. Every conductor worth his salt is expected to conduct Mahler, and now the eccentrics are not those who did, but the vanishing breed of those (like Celibidache, Günter Wand, and Georg Tintner) who did not. Second, it seems that ultimately the quality of the music making really does speak for itself. Listeners who take the time and trouble to make the necessary comparisons may well come to the conclusion that Horenstein’s work is simply inferior.
While this may not be good news for Horenstein, who is anyway long past caring, it’s an excellent, healthy trend in all other respects. It suggests something of how works enter the repertoire and become more familiar over time, and how an increasingly educated listening public uses its knowledge of the music, combined with an abundance of excellent choices on disc, to value specific recordings. That these estimations change and evolve is a wonderful thing, a sign of cultural life. Even more importantly, the case of Horenstein implies that in the final analysis, perhaps it really is the music that matters most, and not the personality of the artist, or the enthusiasm of his fans. If so, then this is without question the most encouraging sign of all.
David Hurwitz
