Alfred Hertz – Complete San Francisco Symphony Orchestra Recordings, Vol. IV / Ossip Gabrilowitsch Detroit Symphony Recordings = RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Capriccio Espagnole, Op. 34; KREISLER: Caprice Viennois, Op. 2; Liebesleid; MOSZKOWSKI: Serenata, Op. 15, No. 1; LUIGINI: Aubade; GLAZOUNOV: Valse de Concert No. 1, Op. 47; BRAHMS: Academic Festival Overture; Menuetto I&II from Serenade No. 1 in D, OP. 11; GLUCK: Dance of the Blessed Spirits; ALTSCHUKLER: Russian Soldier’s Song; TCHAIKOVSKY: Marche Miniature from Suite No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 43; Waltz from Serenade for Strings in C, Op. 48; CHABRIER: Espana–Rapsodie – San Francisco Symphony Orchestra/Alfred Hertz/Detroit Symphony Orchestra/Ossip Gabrilowitsch
Pristine Audio PASC233, 65:06 [avail in several formats at www.pristineclassical.com] ****:
Producer and audio restoration engineer Mark Obert-Thorn completes his extensive project on Alfred Hertz (1872-1942) and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra recordings with this colorful assemblage, 1926-1928. To fill out the disc, we have the complete recorded legacy of Ossip Gabrilowitsch (1878-1936), pianist, conductor, and son-in-law of author Mark Twain whose inscriptions date from 1928.
Hertz and the SFSO open with an electrical recording of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “essay” in orchestration, his Capriccio Espagnole (21-23 April 1926), taken in the relatively dry acoustic of the Oakland venue with a reduced orchestra. The musical results, however, still prove engaging, the rhythms and Spanish colors intact, though we miss the resonant flair recordings like those George Szell would provide thirty years later. Nevertheless, castanets and harp glissandi sounds project themselves forward with no lack of fervor, and the rapid presto passagework in the coda remains virtuosic in every respect.
Romantic rhetoric inflates the Caprice Viennois of Kreisler (24 April 1926), its slow tempo and exaggerated lilt nodding a fond farewell to a Vienna of past romantic glories. If ever a full orchestra could imitate–or parody–a café ensemble in old Vienna, this has to take the schlag. Hertz himself orchestrated Kreisler’s sentimental tribute to Love’s Sorrow (15 April 1926), here a string serenade for a grand ballroom. A solo violin over brush strokes in the accompaniment manage to infuse some sense of the original salon sensibility into this tender bon-bon. The Moszkowski Serenata (orchestrated Rehfeld) comes from a 15 April 1927 session at the Columbia Theatre, San Francisco , and the electrically-processed sound proves quite distinct. Luigini’s Aubade (15 April 1927) from the same session, new to me, is a sweet Mediterranean aria with light feet. The Glazunov Waltz No. 1 in D (28 February 1928) is the last recording Hertz ever made, despite his having lived another fourteen years. The nostalgic waltz enjoys a plastic lilt, an Old World charm and sincerity that makes this performance easily competitive with that of Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony from the same era.
Gabrilowitsch certainly retains his repute as among the great pianists of the Golden Age. His tenure with the newly formed Detroit Symphony began in 1918, and it was Gabrilowitsch who insisted Orchestra Hall be constructed. The Brahms Academic Festival Overture (16 April 1928) basks in an autumnal glow of pomp of ceremony, the integration of college litanies allowing the horns and woodwinds a clear line and the strings their rockets per aspera ad astra, although “the difficulties” appear to have been surmounted. More curious are the two menuets from the Brahms D Major Serenade (18 April 1928), the first a dialogue of clarinet and bassoon over a plucked accompaniment, Brahms in his most Haydnesque style. The trio insinuates an intimate salon moment in an otherwise rustic milieu. Gabrilowitsch leads the Felix Mottl arrangement of Gluck’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Orfeo (17 April 1928), and a gentle procession it is, aerial and delicate, the unaccredited flute solo a plaint for love and beauty.
The little Russian Soldier’s Song (18 April 1928), a jaunty hornpipe, frolics in effervescent, sparkling color. So, too, does the March Miniature from Tchaikovsky’s First Suite from the same session, a real music-box piece that became immortalized a generation later with Fritz Reiner’s recording. Gabrilowitsch captures its magic beautifully, and we wish this musician had done more at the recording studio. From the day prior (17 April 1928) we have the Waltz from the C Major Serenade of Tchaikovsky, a lingering moment in the same romantic style–with long-held notes and luftpausen–that makes Furtwaengler’s rendition equally haunting. For his final lollipop, Gabrilowitsch gives us a Beecham staple, the Chabrier Espana Rhapsody (16 April 1928), in crisp vibrant colors that shimmy and shake with dynamically Iberian fervor. A mellifluous and lyrically enthusiastic reading, the recording certifies a brilliant ensemble whose legacy remains lamentably confined to seven works.
— Gary Lemco
