Debussy La Mer; Elgar Enigma Variations
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Edward Elgar, Claude Debussy
Label: Great Recordings of the Century
Magazine Review Date: 11/1989
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 51
Mastering:
ADD
Catalogue Number: 769784-2
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (La) Mer |
Claude Debussy, Composer
Arturo Toscanini, Conductor BBC Symphony Orchestra Claude Debussy, Composer |
| Variations on an Original Theme, 'Enigma' |
Edward Elgar, Composer
Arturo Toscanini, Conductor BBC Symphony Orchestra Edward Elgar, Composer |
Author: Richard Osborne
Were the cartoonist Pont alive, I would submit myself as a possible subject: 'The man who wasn't convinced by Toscanini's Enigma'. The picture would reveal a bedraggled hack surrounded at a distance at some musical gathering by the assorted experts, cranks, and plain-thinking Englishmen who invariably grace such occasions. I recall a reasonably civilized discussion about the merits or otherwise of the performance when Nicholas Kenyon chose the original LP reissue as one of his records of the year on BBC Radio 3's ''Record Review'' last December; but my review of the LP reissue in February 1988 was regarded as distinctly 'offside' in some quarters.
For better or worse, the CD transfer makes everything even more vivid, be it Bernard Shore's eloquent, and very prominent, viola solos in ''Ysobel'', the general precision and brilliance of the BBC SO playing, or the maestro's ghostly humming. In places, it has the makings of a wonderful performance. The opening has a marvellous legato e sostenuto feel to it and ''Nimrod'' is a revelation, shorn of all bombast, and beautifully free-flowing. But as early as Elgar's subtle and affecting portrait of R. B. Townshend there is the sense of Toscanini, rather at a loss, turning the variation into a study for orchestra a failing that I find repeated in several later variations.
Significantly, Toscanini is magnificent in ''Troyte'', the portrait of a man who according to one of Jerrold Northrop Moore's first-hand sources ''could be direct to the point of abruptness and just as 'staccato' as Elgar portrays him in action, speech, and temperament. He could be difficult if anyone suggested a variation of his opinions and plans.'' Very Toscanini-like, but who wants the Enigma directed by Troyte Griffith? In the final variation, Elgar's self-portrait Toscanini is utterly ruthless, turning Elgar into a strutting, gesticulating martinet. Which is why, in the end, I think this performance is a bad fake. Furtwangler once said of Toscanini's conducting of the Eroica, ''Either tuttis or arias''; and that sums up his Enigma, too, with the wonderful playing in some of the earlier cantabile variations duping us into thinking that the performance has heart and soul and human warmth. It is not entirely bereft of some of these qualities but in the last resort the performance is an essay in showmanship, a musical stunt.
The elementalism of Debussy's La mer is better suited to the brilliance of Toscanini's style and the astonishing pristine clarity of the BBC playing and the recording Gaisberg was able to make in the old Queen's Hall. For some it will be too savage, too brightly lit. There are few half-lights little of what the Italians call sfumato, and severai passages marked tres lointain that are decidedly de pres. Some of Toscanini's colleagues, detractors like Furtwangler and admirers like Karajan, thought he tried too hard in La mer; but it is an electrifying piece of music-making with this memorable live concert performance preferable, I think, to the later post-war studio recording.'
For better or worse, the CD transfer makes everything even more vivid, be it Bernard Shore's eloquent, and very prominent, viola solos in ''Ysobel'', the general precision and brilliance of the BBC SO playing, or the maestro's ghostly humming. In places, it has the makings of a wonderful performance. The opening has a marvellous legato e sostenuto feel to it and ''Nimrod'' is a revelation, shorn of all bombast, and beautifully free-flowing. But as early as Elgar's subtle and affecting portrait of R. B. Townshend there is the sense of Toscanini, rather at a loss, turning the variation into a study for orchestra a failing that I find repeated in several later variations.
Significantly, Toscanini is magnificent in ''Troyte'', the portrait of a man who according to one of Jerrold Northrop Moore's first-hand sources ''could be direct to the point of abruptness and just as 'staccato' as Elgar portrays him in action, speech, and temperament. He could be difficult if anyone suggested a variation of his opinions and plans.'' Very Toscanini-like, but who wants the Enigma directed by Troyte Griffith? In the final variation, Elgar's self-portrait Toscanini is utterly ruthless, turning Elgar into a strutting, gesticulating martinet. Which is why, in the end, I think this performance is a bad fake. Furtwangler once said of Toscanini's conducting of the Eroica, ''Either tuttis or arias''; and that sums up his Enigma, too, with the wonderful playing in some of the earlier cantabile variations duping us into thinking that the performance has heart and soul and human warmth. It is not entirely bereft of some of these qualities but in the last resort the performance is an essay in showmanship, a musical stunt.
The elementalism of Debussy's La mer is better suited to the brilliance of Toscanini's style and the astonishing pristine clarity of the BBC playing and the recording Gaisberg was able to make in the old Queen's Hall. For some it will be too savage, too brightly lit. There are few half-lights little of what the Italians call sfumato, and severai passages marked tres lointain that are decidedly de pres. Some of Toscanini's colleagues, detractors like Furtwangler and admirers like Karajan, thought he tried too hard in La mer; but it is an electrifying piece of music-making with this memorable live concert performance preferable, I think, to the later post-war studio recording.'
Debussy La Mer; Elgar Enigma Variations
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