What Historical Recordings Can Tell Us about "Authentic" Performance

In our music schools, for example, does anyone ever expose students to recordings by musicians whose careers overlapped with the great composers of the 19th century? We have hundreds of such recordings, featuring singers who worked with Verdi, Puccini and Wagner as well as conductors and instrumental soloists who knew or worked with (or whose careers overlapped with the lives of) Brahms, Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, and Mahler.

How many young musicians have studied Willem Mengelberg's recording of Mahler's Fourth Symphony? And of those, how many have mocked its supposed excesses, without knowing that in 1904 Mengelberg sat in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and listened to all of Mahler's rehearsals and performance of that piece, and marked his score with what he heard--using it for the rest of his life? How many young singers have listened to the tenor Fernando de Lucia's recording of "L'anima ho stanca" from Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, scowling at its "distortions," its extreme rubatos, its long-held diminuendos, without knowing that the composer himself was accompanying the tenor at the piano? Have any violin students listened to Bronislaw Huberman play the Brahms Concerto in a style far freer than anyone would dare play it today, never knowing that the fourteen-year-old Huberman played it in a concert attended by Brahms? Not only that, but Brahms wrote a very laudatory note in Huberman's score at the concert's end.

I know that I sound like a broken record on this subject (for those of us old enough to remember what a "record" is), but the sameness that inhabits our concert halls today is, at times, almost numbing. Performers who might even think about straying too far from that center line of "just playing the printed notes" will find themselves beaten into submission by their teachers, their colleagues, and the critics.

While I've written on this subject many times, I could and should go one better. I could give you specific examples to experience, if you wish. For those of you who are intrigued by this subject but unfamiliar with the vast world of "historic" recordings, here is a brief list that I believe can open up a new world of experiencing music. Some of these performers did overlap with the great 19th-century composers. Others came later, but chose to tie themselves to that tradition. The list is certainly not all-inclusive, and I welcome additions to it by readers. But I can say that I find all of these recordings to be revelatory in their spontaneity, and in the conviction and passion they display. They are capable of opening any listener's ears to new thinking about music.

MAHLER: Symphony No. 4. Jo Vincent, soprano; Willem Mengelberg, conductor; Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. Pristine Audio PASCD 055, which is available from Pristine Audio's website and is the best transfer of this live 1939 broadcast.

TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto. Bronislaw Huberman, violin; William Steinberg, conductor; Berlin Staatskapelle. BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto. Huberman, violin; George Szell, conductor; Vienna Philharmonic. Naxos 8.110903

IGNAZ FRIEDMAN: The complete recordings, Volume 1. Ignaz Friedman was one of the most creative, colorful, individualistic of pianists, and this first volume of his records, wonderfully transferred by Ward Marston, is a great introduction. Naxos 8.110684. You might find yourself wanting the other volumes in the set after you've experienced this one.

BRAHMS: Symphony No. 1. Wilhelm Furtwängler, conductor; North German Radio Orchestra, Hamburg. This is the single recording I'd choose to introduce someone to Furtwängler's conducting. Music and Arts CD-4941 is a complete Brahms set with great Furtwängler performances, and I'd recommend that box as a great buy.

JOSEF HOFMANN: Here is another pianist from a bygone era, who played with a flexibility, warm legato, and singing tone that are just not encountered today. For an introduction to the set, I would recommend Volume 4 of the complete Hofmann, on VAI Audio VAIA/IPA 1047.

FERNANDO DE LUCIA: Opera arias and songs. This two-disc set (Pearl 9071) captures the last truly great pre-Caruso tenor to make significant recordings. This is singing with a freedom that might astonish you, but it does include the aria from Adriana Lecouvreur mentioned above, in which the tenor is accompanied by Cilea himself--which to me suggests that composers expected this kind of interpretive freedom. De Lucia's singing will take some getting used to--his vibrato is very strong by today's standards--but it is worth recognizing that the important composers of the day (Puccini, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano) all wanted him to sing their operas.

ROSSINI: The Barber of Seville. Riccardo Stracciari (Figaro); Dino Borgioli (Almaviva); Mercedes Capsir (Rosina); Lorenzo Molajoli, conductor; La Scala Orchestra. This 1929 recording has a sense of spirit, abandon, and spontaneity that is almost never heard in modern opera recordings. And it has truly great singing from Stracciari and Borgioli. It has been available on many labels, including EMI, Grammofono, and Musica Memoria. I'd recommend Googling it to find out what is currently available.

GYÖRGY CZIFFRA: Paraphrases and Transcriptions. Hungaraton 31596.  If you want to hear wild, abandoned, free-style piano playing with impeccable technique, this disc has it. Cziffra--a great pianist whose career was shortened in part by the tragic death of his son in a motorcycle accident, which devastated Cziffra--was one of the monster technicians of the mid-20th century. This is thrilling pianism.