London’s Reissues: Confusing History With Old Age

With the reissue six years ago of its celebrated 1952 monophonic edition of Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde,” conducted by Bruno Walter, London Records initiated the wave of historical recordings on CD that many industry insiders doubted would ever take place. London’s action refuted the notion that the new CD technology would be used solely in the service of the core standard repertory.

London quickly lost interest, leaving the field--at least as regards pre-stereo recordings--wide open for EMI/Angel, RCA and Philips.

Recently, however, London re-entered the competition with its mid-priced “Historic” series of items dating from the 1950s, with their then state-of-the-art sonics intact rather than filtered to the point of lifelessness. So, if tape hiss is high on your list of intolerables, read no further.

Some of the choices--all mono unless otherwise specified--are inevitable, some delightful surprises, others merely puzzling.

Pride of place goes to the complete Ravel “Daphnis et Chloe” from the London Symphony under Pierre Monteux (425 956, stereo), the conductor who introduced the work to the world in 1912.

Monteux’s “Daphnis” remains the last word on the subject: gloriously colorful, yet never vulgar, detailed and refined, sensuous and propulsive. It represents the London Symphony in its golden age and the art of stereophonic recording at a peak that remains unsurpassed. The valuable fill-ups are Ravel’s “Rapsodie Espagnole” and the “Pavane.”

Another famous interpretation, dating from 1954, is that of Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier” under the vital, stylish baton of Erich Kleiber (425 950, three discs).

Universally admired for the conductor (leading a somewhat scrappy Vienna Philharmonic), for Sena Jurinac’s impetuous, flawlessly vocalized Octavian, Ludwig Weber’s plummy, civilized Baron Ochs and Hilde Gueden’s more than usually worldly Sophie, it also suffered critical brickbats for the casting of matronly Maria Reining as the Marschallin, the opera’s focal point.

The years have enhanced its virtues and magnified its central flaw. Reining now sounds not only weak vocally but a dramatic cipher as well.

The first studio recording of Richard Strauss’ “Four Last Songs,” made by the lovely Swiss soprano Lisa della Casa (who should have been Kleiber’s Marschallin) and the Vienna Philharmonic under Karl Bohm, inexplicably vanished from the American market shortly after appearing here in 1953.

Della Casa, who possessed an instrument of crystalline purity, presents the songs in a cooler, more rhythmically structured manner than the swoony, sempre legato style pioneered and in effect standardized by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

The remainder of the Strauss program (425 959) offers Della Casa in highlights from “Arabella,” “Ariadne auf Naxos” and “Capriccio”--all sung with comparable refinement and simplicity.

Elsewhere, there’s a bracing, classically oriented Beethoven Ninth Symphony by Kleiber and the Vienna Philharmonic (425 955), with Ludwig Weber commandingly anchoring the solo quartet. But the only reason for acquiring the bland readings by Clifford Curzon and the Amadeus Quartet of the two Mozart piano quartets is the fill-up, an exquisitely blithe 1944 Mozart Horn Quintet from Dennis Brain and the Griller Quartet (425 960).

A 1950s recital of fingerbusters by Mussorgsky, Liszt and Balakirev (425 961) does not show the American pianist Julius Katchen to best advantage either technically or intellectually. Clemens Krauss’ crisp conducting of the Vienna Philharmonic in Beethoven’s G-major and “Emperor” Concertos is more interesting than the gray, lumpish solo work of pianist Wilhelm Backhaus (425 962).

On the other hand, there is an affecting balance of grandeur and dynamism in Josef Krips’ stunningly recorded (425 957, stereo) Schubert “Great” C-major Symphony with the London Symphony, but the generous encore from the same forces, the Schumann Fourth, is dull and roughly played.

Finally, there is the 62-year-old Kirsten Flagstad’s remarkably firm, soaring (but hardly girlish) soprano in a complete Act I of “Die Walkure,” partnered in quasi-heroic fashion by tenor Set Svanholm, with the Vienna Philharmonic under the sometimes majestic, at other times simply sluggish direction of Hans Knappertsbusch (425 963, stereo).