Anyone who subscribes to the view that ‘Knappertsbusch’ invariably means ‘slow’ or ‘ponderous’ should try the 1929 Berlin State Opera Orchestra recording of Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 featured in this fascinating if quirky collection. The very opening is fairly swift, with the Adagio’s semiquaver accompaniment played as if double-dotted and a lively main Allegro to follow. Knappertsbusch plays both repeats at the beginning of the Andante con moto; his Menuetto is unusually brisk (though the trio is affectionate enough), and so is the finale. The recording, however, is extremely boxy (most early electrical Odeons were), though the 1941 broadcast recordings of Symphonies Nos. 40 and 41 with the Vienna Philharmonic (already available on Preiser, 5/94) are scarcely better. Here, drama often predominates, especially at the onset of the G minor’s first movement development section (the exposition is repeated) and the closing pages of the Jupiter’s finale. Knappertsbusch brings considerable weight to bear in No. 41’s Andante cantabile while the chug-along account of Haydn’s Surprise Symphony is both pleasantly genial and very well played.
Knappertsbusch’s Mozart and Haydn performances are characterful without being particularly extreme, whereas his Bach and Handel, though of some historic interest, are pretty hard to take. Not that I object to ‘big band’ baroque in principle; far from it, especially when Furtwangler, Mengelberg, Scherchen or Stokowski are at the helm. Here, however, slow speeds, uninflected phrasing and heavy emphases spell certain death – especially when deprived of Furtwangler’s inspirational fervour, Mengelberg’s colourful pointing, Scherchen’s feeling for style or Stokowski’s glamorous dress sense. True, the Bach A minor Violin Concerto finds Wolfgang Schneiderhan projecting a fairly full body of tone, but why such extraordinary rigidity – especially in the closing Allegro assai, which takes an astonishing 5'23'' to crawl through what is normally a disarming Gigue?
Bach’s Third Suite features a warmingly romanticized “Air” and lumpy dance movements while the Handel D major Concerto grosso would make even Handel-Elgar sound ‘authentic’. Furthermore, Knappertsbusch’s lumbering baroque was an anachronism even in its day; turn to recordings by Adolf Busch or Boyd Neel, and you hear a very different story. Music & Arts present fairly decent transfers, but this is definitely one for specialist collectors only.'