My first Gramophone review, by Edward Greenfield

When in 1960 over lunch Tony Pollard as editor and Alec Robertson as senior reviewer asked me to write for Gramophone I could not have been more delighted. I had already been writing a weekly record review for The Guardian for over six years and broadcasting on records for the BBC for four years, but this was the ultimate accolade. Having started to read Gramophone as a boy during the Second World War I counted it as the most important arbiter of quality.

I was delighted to get in my first batch of review discs a version of Schubert’s Great C major Symphony from Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony, though my first reaction, as my review makes plain (see below), was to think that Munch was an unexpected Schubertian. That the result is so compelling came as a great delight. In those days with relatively few rival versions available, I was happy to use only Toscanini and Josef Krips for my comparisons (Kubelík is mentioned in passing), but Munch provided something different and thrilling. I am glad to see that I brought out in my review the marked accelerando that Munch allows in building the big climax in the slow movement, leading up to a shattering discord with following relaxation. I would still count this Munch along with the Krips among the finest versions ever.

The other point to make is that with barely a dozen reviewers on the Gramophone panel, one enjoyed turning one’s hand to the widest range of repertory. I was lucky to be succeeding Bill Mann, similarly a musical polymath, who had just been appointed chief music critic of The Times. With so many discs issued today involving so many reviewers, inevitably the total effect is in some ways more diffuse if more specialised, but Gramophone still proudly remains the most important arbiter of quality.

Schubert Symphony No 9 in C major, D944, 'The Great'

Boston Symphony Orchestra / Charles Munch

RCA 88697 04603-2 (Buy from Amazon)

Selected comparisons: 

Toscanini, NBC SO (Buy from Amazon)

LSO, Krips (1/59) (Buy from Amazon)

RPO, Kubelík (2/60) (Buy from Amazon)  

This is one of those rare performances on the gramophone where an unexpected choice of performer leads to an entirely fresh enjoyment of the work. It is a performance to rival and even outshine Toscanini's (the 1953 one) in sheer dramatic force and excitement. Like Toscanini's it could only have come out of America. It is taut and energetic rather than relaxed and Viennese, and that inevitably will turn away many who like to sun themselves in Schubert's heavenly lengths. But I urge anyone who has ever felt that the lengths were just a little too heavenly, or more specifically who has enjoyed the Toscanini performance, to hear this new one. 

Munch's speeds for both the opening Andante and the Allegro proper are very fast by normal standards – faster even than Toscanini's – but when Munch's players can cope with the technical difficulties with such ease, there is no feeling of haste. The Andante here has a solid strength which matches the urgency of the Allegro. As well as providing far more excitement this approach gives a clearer feeling of the structural strength of the movement. I was expecting Munch to slow down for the second subject, but the Boston Orchestra still manages to give it the necessary spring and lilt even at this pace. Munch's speed does mean that he cannot give the più moto for the coda so much weight, but the contrast in speed is quite sharp enough, and in fact there is some gain in not having the gear-change quite so marked. Munch makes this passage more exciting than any rival, even Toscanini; and Krips, whose performance I have always admired for its sympathy and sanity, seems positively low-powered in comparison. 

Munch's speed for the slow movement – if so measured an Andante can be called slow – is much more normal. At the opening the Boston players miss the hushed tone that Krips draws from the LSO: the recording, which rarely allows a really soft pianissimo, is partly to blame. Despite this, Munch's sense of contrast, and particularly of dynamic contrast, lies at the heart of his conception of the movement. The fortissimo passages on the appearance of the second theme have a startling dramatic impact. Munch – helped this time by the recording – deliberately brings out the timpani each time with resounding thwacks, and though the effect made me sit up, I was immediately convinced. Some will no doubt find this out of keeping with their idea of the score, and they may object also to Munch's unashamed accelerando for the biggest climax of the movement, where with trumpets calling out their insistent rhythm, the full orchestra clashes in a determined and long-drawn discord, startling indeed for a work written in the l820s. Though the restraint of keeping the tempo the same can bring its own feeling of strength, Munch manages to make his accelerando sound the natural result of mounting tension and increasing frenzy. 

Then after the pause, interrupting the frenzy at its height, comes one of the loveliest passages in the whole work. Krips, for this, slows down just as unashamedly as Munch speeded up earlier, and he brings a tragic, almost heartbroken tone to the music. That is one way of looking at it, but I prefer Munch's approach of easing only slightly and giving the passage a warm glow. The contrast is just as great, and it leads back naturally to the return of the main theme. 

Munch, like Toscanini, drives the scherzo hard, perhaps too hard, and Krips certainly achieves a more ingratiating lilt, particularly in the trio. But the definition of the quavers in the opening theme and the sharpness of the attack throughout the Boston performance is spectacular, and only the woodwind give the impression of any haste at all. For the finale Munch chooses an identical speed with Toscanini, and the impetus of both is astonishing. 

Like LS, who last month felt he ought to prefer the Amadeus to the Juilliard in Schubert's Death and the Maiden, I feel I ought to prefer the Krips version to Munch's or Toscanini's. It is certainly a safer recommendation, and on the whole well recorded. But I have no doubt at all that when I want to play the Great C major I shall go first to Munch. The recording is rich and brilliant at the same time, not always with such clarity as the Kubelík HMV version (a version I rule out for its comparatively pedestrian performance), but with a fine coordinated sound far better than Krips's. This is so in both mono and stereo. The stereo provides many tangible advantages in increased spread, atmosphere and separation.

Edward Greenfield (Gramophone, October 1960)

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