Legendary Mahler 5 released - Horenstein

At last, a remastered release of  the legendary Jascha Horenstein  Mahler Symphony no 5, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra recorded at the Edinburgh Festival in 1961. It's available for digital download from  Pristine Classical, the specialist supplier.

"And so it came to pass that on the night of 31st August, 1961, somebody, somewhere, was listening to the radio broadcast that evening, live from the annual Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, with tape reels loaded up, poised and ready to press record as the BBC announcer began his introduction to the evening's main concert attraction: Jascha Horenstein would be conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of Mahler's Fifth Symphony.  Perhaps the unknown sound recordist was already aware of Horenstein's reputation in this field. Perhaps he was simply excited to hear a performance of this then-somewhat-neglected composer's symphonic work. Perhaps he was merely curious. I don't have any clues on this front. But the tape survived and, fifty-something years later, a copy arrived in the hands of the conductor's cousin, Misha Horenstein, who has dedicated a good part of his life's energies into collecting together as comprehensive an archive of Jascha's work as is possible." writes Andrew Rose, head of Pristine Classical

Horenstein's "renown in the works of Mahler is legendary. Yet two major symphonies have eluded us and for many years were believed unrecorded: the second remains in this limbo (though who knows?...); the fifth is now known to exist in no less than three concert recordings, all unreleased. This week we finally fill that gap in Jascha Horenstein's catalogue with the most brilliant, electrifying performance of those three, a performance with the Berlin Philharmonic which easily demonstrates the conductor's abilities as one of the great Mahlerian's of all time, a performance that all involved would surely be proud of."

"Sometimes mythical, lost recordings turn up, then fail to quite live up to expectations. It's as if they sounded better in the imagination than in reality. That is not the case here - indeed, I suspect for many this will exceed their expectations, and then some."

As Mischa Horenstein, cousin of the conductor, writes "I listened to the whole symphony and compliment you on a grand job. You have successfully managed that compromise between cleaning up a pretty miserable recording and maintaining good sound, no, improving it tremendously, so that's terrific. The sound is very similar to what I remember from the JH concerts I attended, big orchestra, wide dynamic range, powerful bass line. Bravo!"

Please click HERE for a link to purchase Click HERE for a review

Mahler and Strauss? How Horenstein did it

Today is the 40th anniversary of the death of Jascha Horenstein. Misha Horenstein says

"I was present at the concert preceding this recording, one of my most vivid and lasting musical memories, and also attended one of the recording sessions. The concert opened with Mahler's 4th, then came the intermission followed by three waltzes by Strauss. This programming was a revelation to me, it changed the way I heard both Mahler and Strauss. Later I learned that this was a practice adopted by Mahler himself (and Bruno Walter) for performances of the 1st and 4th symphonies."

"For Horenstein the fourth is not a slight, easy going piece. Charm, for once, is merely a side effect, uppermost is a profoundly disturbing vision, the darker moments fully in focus. Nearly all the tempi are very broad indeed and if one makes casual samplings they seem too slow to work. This is not the case however, and rarely has the work been unfolded with such care for character in detail, or for cohesion in overall shaping. The second movement, with its restless undercurrents, is a revelation, unlike any other you have heard. Its deliberation leads the ear to perceive new dimensions, new angles in the music The third movement, with its deep double bass pizzicati that penetrate the texture like bleeding heartbeats, is wonderfully warm and sustained. Margaret Price, in what I believe is her first commercial recording, sings the last movement with delicacy and great style. R.I.P." 

Follow Misha Horenstein's Mahler Page on facebook. and subscribe to his Youtube channel..  

Music in Palestine, Musical Times 1939

From my friend Mischa Horenstein : Please go to his facebook page on Mahler where there's an erudite discussion going on

Music in Palestine
The Musical Times, Vol. 80, No. 1153 (Mar., 1939), p. 225
DURING the summer months a season of popular concerts was given by the Palestine Symphony Orchestra with Jascha Horenstein as chief conductor and Milhaud's 'Suite Provencale' as the principal novelty. The winter season opened later than usual, for owing to the international situation it was impossible for Pierre Monteux to make the journey in October, as originally planned. The subscription season in Tel-Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem started in November under Eugen Szenkar, who made such an impression here last year, and proved again to be a convincing interpreter of great music, especially of the romanticists and late nineteenth century works. In his second series of concerts Szenkar had Huberman as soloist in the Beethoven Violin Concerto. It was the first time that Huberman had played with an orchestra after his flying accident last year (when there were fears that he would never recover from his injury). His performance was an experience that no member of the vast audiences in the three towns is likely to forget. In addition Huberman gave recitals, assisted by Angelo Kessissoglu, and a concert with chamber orchestra. Some of these concerts were repeated in some larger settlements.

Another event of importance in Palestine musical life was the first performance here of Mahler's third Symphony (the first Symphony was given in the orchestra's first season under Steinberg). Szenkar conducted the work by heart, and the orchestra, enlarged for the occasion, was at its best. The choir was from the Michael Taube chamber choir, and Vittorio Weinberg, a baritone, sang the alto solo.

Szenkar's last concert brought-apart from Beethoven's fifth-Ravel's second suite from the ballet 'Daphnis and Chloe' and the first performance of a thoroughly uninteresting work-Eugen Zador's 'Capriccio Hongrois.'

Szenkar's farewell-outside the regular series of concerts--was a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with Elsa Juelich-Taube, Dela Gotthelft, Marcel Noe and Vittorio Weinberg as the vocal quartet, and the choir of the Palestine Oratorio, conducted by Fordhaus Ben Tsissy. The conductors engaged for the rest of the season have been Dobrowen, Szell, Dr. Sargent, and Monteux, who has promised to make up for the cancelled concerts this spring.

Jascha Horenstein on Hanns Eisler

Jascha Horenstein on Hanns Eisler, from Sinn und Form, 1964. With many, many thanks to Mischa Horenstein, who runs the Jascha Horenstein page on Facebook (link here).

"It is perhaps characteristic that my first encounter with Hanns took place on the soccer field at the Vienna Prater. Most of the young musicians of my generation became acquainted either in one of the four galleries of the court opera or the standing room of the Musikvereinsaal. Hanns and I were, to be sure, fellow students of the same high school, but we were separated in different classes; we did not know each other. An enthusiasm for soccer is what brought us together. It is perhaps characteristic that my first encounter with Hanns took place on the soccer field at the Vienna Prater. Most

This occurred in Vienna in 1912, and this first meeting is clear in my mind even today. The noisy atmosphere of a sports stadium was certainly a much better place to begin a friendship with Hanns than the rather aristocratic ambiance of the Vienna Opera would have been. At first sight he seemed comical to me. Even his clothing was somewhat absurd. It was as if part of his dress had come out of his father's closet, and the rest out of his younger brother's. The overall impression was that his suit was at the same time too large and too small. And as if that weren't enough, the thirteen-year-old already had the bald head of a forty-year-old. If one can imagine that, on top of a rather short-built body sat a large head, with a cheerful, full-moon-shaped, mischievously grinning face, which at every turn revealed a bald head, then it will be easy to understand that, after more than 50 years, I cannot forget this first impression of Hanns.

'And when wasn't he excited?'

He had the voice of a child, and this voice would often break, even in later years, and it broke especially when Hanns was excited. And when wasn't he excited! This often shrill, "unmusical" voice was a very important component of his arsenal used in endless discussions, as it was no longer used for the end of a soccer game, but rather for more serious things. You could hear this voice a few years later when Hanns, at that time already a prospective student of Arnold Schönberg, dressed in the uniform of an Austrian army which no longer exists, leading all-night discussions in the barracks in Grinzing, on the one hand about the music of Schönberg and Webern, and on the other hand about the events, consequences and views of the Russian Revolution of 1917. This voice reached its highest tone, that of scorn, when his polemic vented itself in the extreme against the "splendid isolation" of the Vienna composers of that time who counted for something, against their "art for the sake of art" attitude, against their disdain for the historical events which had literally unhinged the world.

At that time only one man was granted the limitless mercy of the merciless Hanns: Arnold Schönberg. The esteem, love, admiration and devotion that Eisler felt and demonstrated for Schönberg can hardly be explained without the help of psychology or psychoanalysis. Schönberg was for Hanns neither the greatest composer or painter, poet or thinker, nor the greatest musician and teacher: to him he was simply the greatest. Period. It was that way when Hanns was 20 and it remained so until Schönberg's death. I remember one afternoon at Schönberg's house in Los Angeles—it was 1944 or 1945—when Hanns literally became deathly pale because I had dared, during a conversation with Schönberg at tea time, to contradict a remark made by Schönberg. On the way home from Schönberg's house, Hanns was rather depressed and short-tempered. In order to provoke him, I turned the conversation around to Schönberg—his character, his music, his many remarks about contemporary artistic questions which had been the topic of conversation that afternoon. And then I asked Hanns what he thought a socialist society should/would do with a man such as Schönberg. "Ah," said Hanns, and his mood changed instantly from grouchy to cheerful and boisterous. "A wonderful palace would need to be built for him, completely out of glass, of course, with wonderful gardens, large fountains, and colorful exotic birds. And in this glass house would sit the old man, painting his twelve-tone rows in gigantic notes, undisturbed by what was going on in the world, while the rest of us, outside, on the periphery of his glass palace, would build up socialism. Thus should Schönberg live until the end of his life, like the Caliphs in the Thousand and One Nights."

When Hanns' listeners would not go along with him, as would sometimes happen in the barracks in Grinzing, then he would appoint himself as his own audience, stage boos, and finally maneuver himself into some corner from which there was no longer a way back, and then there would be a detour through lots of laughter. And who, of those who lived it, could forget the crescendo, the accelerando, the heavenly boisterousness, and the uninhibited happiness of his laughter. Or instead Hanns would act dumb, in a way that only few can do.

A communicative basis for music

During his indescribably hard studies with Schönberg, I sometimes heard comments from Hanns which convinced me that he had already at that time, perhaps only intuitively, sought a communicative basis in music. We see in his development only a short period in which he was attracted to the "New" per se. The piano sonata, the duet, the "Palmström Songs belong to this period. With the fresh, aggressive "Newspaper Clippings" (Zeitungsauschnitte) he "attempted—through a radical, anti-traditional manner and through "persiflage" which reminds one with its open brutality of Georg Grosz—to point out and make fun of the decades-old unbearable, accumulated pseudo-romantic bombast. Because at that time, the end of World War I, the "New" could be realized only through the shock effect. Eisler very soon tired of this "commoner-shock" attitude. "New" as a goal in itself no longer interested him. Events forced him to "express his opinion"—the intensification of the political situation forced decisions. The composer Eisler, whose musical language, under the influence of Schönberg, was tied to late romanticism, from which he forged a style that belonged more to "art for art's sake" than it corresponded to the need for a communicative basis, decided, and to be sure with a certain suddenness, on an almost heroic step: to write, on the basis of communicative art and with materialistically very modest means, music which was simple, sound, optimistic and powerful. The opinion is often given, especially in America, that it was Bert Brecht who caused this change in Hanns. That is nonsense. Hanns underwent this change at least five years before he met Brecht.

The editor of this memoir—and this publication does not deal with anything else—does not have the intention of giving an aesthetic valuation of the works of Eisler, and particularly not of those written in collaboration with Brecht. Only one detail should perhaps be mentioned, namely that this change in style was by no means unconditional—and therefore by no means a definitive renunciation of the "first" post-romantic period. In many compositions, expecially the songs for voice and piano which were written in America during the war, one can find numerous elements of an almost Schubert-like tenderness and beauty with a very nostalgic undertone of the Austrian countryside.

Hanns Eisler was not a radical anti-Romantic. Under a tough exterior (lit. "rough shell") was hidden a very sensitive, warmhearted musician. What was unbearable to him was the esoteric jargon of the contemporary lyricists—especially Rilke. With his outspoken taste for caricature, Hanns could in inimitable ways improvise poems "à la Rilke," and he would accompany the recitation of such an improvisation with a grotesque choreography of classical ballet. It's not that he had no sense for great lyrics. He knew his Goethe, he loved Morike and Hölderlin, and of his contemporaries he valued the poetry of Berthold Viertels—but the mystical symbolism of a Stefan George or Rilke could not win him over. I remember one incident very clearly, when Hanns was looking over the composing attempts of a musician friend. This happened in Vienna, around 1920. He sat at the piano; in front of him lay the musical arrangement of a Rilke poem. Hanns played the first few opening bars and then began to sing the first lines of the song, "The evening is my book...." He stopped here suddenly and shrieked with all his might: "But that is impossible! One cannot compose such a thing! The evening is not a book, the evening is a newspaper, and to be sure a...." And now broke forth a waterfall, a cascade—a gruesome, true-to-nature description of a Viennese afternoon newspaper called The Evening. And this description was no compliment to this newspaper or its publishers, as one can easily imagine, and certainly no compliment to Rilke or the young composer.

In literature, Hanns was already very experienced as a young man. Today he must be especially given credit for the fact that he was the only one of the young men and also the only one among the Schönberg circle who did not unconditionally accept Karl Kraus. I have him to thank for my first acquaintance with the great French romantic novelists. Stendhal was his great love. When I once spoke enthusiastically of a novel by a Russian author, Arzybaschev, he merely schrugged his shoulders and the corners of his mouth, and he said, "You must read Stendhal." A few days later he brought me the "Chartreuse de Parme" in German translation. He had a great admiration for French literature, [but] much less for French music, and no understanding at all of French painting. He was not a visual person. He was proud of his French heritage, somewhere on his paternal side. When he mentioned Robespierre, Danton or Marat, it was as though he were speaking of his cousins. But he was equally proud of his rural, Saxon heritage from his mother's side.

I believe that in certain phases of his life, cynicism and tactics hid behind the face which he presented to the public. Without perhaps realizing it himself, he suffered immeasurably from the fact that he did not succeed at reaching the reality of the proletarian. He could not alter his character. Despite a light, perhaps too easily comprehensible musical idiom (which he put aside after his return from America in 1948) which was supposed to meet the challenges of its era and place of composition, a style which got on the nerves of educated musicians and irritated and horrified the sophisticated listener, he lived and died as a radical, anti-subjective but late middle-class artist, certainly as a creature of the nineteenth century and as a musician of the late-romantic Viennese school of Arnold Schönberg.

Eisler had a pronounced talent for friendship. His good will, patience, and his compassion for his colleagues were of quite a rare variety. Professional circumstances sometimes made it necessary for Hanns to come together with composers whose music had very little worth or was altogether worthless. It was an extraordinary drama to observe with what friendliness and politeness Hanns dealt with these musicians, as if he had to compensate for their endless bad luck, namely their lack of talent, with an extra measure of good.

Hanns and I came through many bitter years of Hitler and emigration side by side. Our last meeting, several years ago, took place in Vienna, not far from the soccer field in the Prater where we first met in 1912."

Horenstein conducts Janáček

Jascha Horenstein conductrs Janáček in 1955 with the Wiener Symphoniker. This is robust Janáček. Pianists don't understand. Thank goodness, Bělohlávek in Prague gets the respect he deserves.

Militant Marching Mahler 3 Szenkár

Eugen Szenkár, Mahler conductor? Most people don't know who Szenkár (1891-1977) was at all, far less his track record in Mahler. But he was quite a significant figure in his time. It was he who premiered Béla Bartók's shocking The Miraculous Mandarin in 1926 and was attacked by Konrad Adenauer, then Mayor of Köln. "Szenkár", he said, "that piece of filth must go!" before banning further performances.

 Bartók knew Szenkár, a fellow Hungarian, and obviously trusted the then young conductor to take on the difficult, innovative piece. Nonetheless, the composer, oblivious to the near riot around him at the premiere, grumbled "Eugen, on page 34, I specified mezzo-forte for the clarinet! I could not hear it!".

Szenkár, like Jascha Horenstein, was forced out of Europe by the Nazis – to Russia in 1934, to South America in 1938. The photo shows him conducting in Buenos Aires in 1939.  He is known to have conducted at the famous opera house, Teatro de Colón and also in Rio de Janeiro. He also reorganized local orchestras. Perhaps Daniel Barenboim's parents knew him?   And Erich Kleiber, who had premiered Wozzeck and had moved to Argentina in 1935 ? They were all part of a flourishing émigré community. Szenkár returned to Germany in 1950, conducting in Mannheim and Düsseldorf, where he died in 1977. He was by no means an obscure conductor, as his continuing relationship with Bartók indicates.

Mahler was not, as popularly supposed, forgotten after his death, for there were many performances of his work among the "modern" young guard. Willem Mengelberg  maintained an unbroken tradition in the Netherlands, and Carl Schuricht started a festival in Wiesbaden in 1923. During 1926 Szenkár conducted several Mahler symphonies in Germany.Thus he was recognized in the field and was awarded a Gold Medal by the Mahlerverein after the war.

Szenkár's recording of Mahler's Third Symphony was made in Köln in March 1951, a few short months after Scherchen made the first ever recording. Because Szenkár was so connected in that period, his recording needs to be studied to get an idea how early Mahler interpreters thought about the symphony. What's striking is how Szenkár emphasizes the marches in Mahler's sunniest, cheeriest symphony. There are marches in this symphony for a a very good reason."Summer marches in", as Mahler said. It's vigorous and drives away all traces of winter in its path  There are references to Dionysius, the God of Misrule, whose followers drunkenly disrupt society around them. But also, there are links to Socialism.

Mahler was known to have sympathies with the left. Workers' movements were active in Germany and Austria. Even Alma noted that Mahler walked alongside a worker's procession. Whether he was merely curious or showing support, we don't know, but he is believed to have voted for the left and certainly was well aware of the issues. Indeed, when Richard Strauss conducted Mahler's Third, he said that the marches made him think of workers' processions, and men marching in solidarity. The relevance, then, for conductors like Szenkár and Horenstein, becomes clearly obvious. They knew all about Hitler's Brownshirts, the Spanish Civil War and the suppression of the left.

Szenkár’s marches capture a rough and ready proletarian feel. Real marching men's brass here, these, played by musicians who had heard a lot of marches in their time, both socialist and national socialist. Militant and military, and still painfully relevant in 1951 when the Cold War split west and east Germany. There is a real grimness to this playing, which even goes beyond Mahler's exhortation roh dreinblasen" (raw and crudely blown). One of the horns manages a bizarre, almost jazz-like flavouring which is not so surprising when you remember what jazz meant in the Weimar Republic and how the Nazis hated it. The orchestra is the Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester, some of whom might have remembered Adenauer's conservatism and had mixed feelings about capitalism, even if they didn't adhere to communism.

Szenkár keeps a solid, steady rhythm which underpins the different sections in the Erste Abteilung. There are few dramatic contrasts. Even the massed horn fanfare towards the end doesn't shake the sense of relentless marching. This is a very "military" reading, good at capturing "Das Gesindel" (the rabble) with its resonant bass drums and lack of dramatic contrast, even in the famous eight horn fanfare.

The second and third movements are played relatively straightforwardly. Szenkar doesn't make much of the savage irony in the Ablösung sections which do so much to give the symphony its characteristic black humour. However, the posthorn interlude is bittersweet and nostalgic, heard as if from a distance both in space and time. The finale is played through quickly, hardly evoking the horror that Mahler perceived below the surface. Given the gravitas of Szenkár's approach, much might be expected of the critical "O Mensch!". Indeed, the soloist, Diana Eustrati, a Greek alto, makes this perhaps the most successful part of this performance. She sings with dignity, infusing real sincerity into " Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit". The boy's choir is also excellent – bursting with joyous confidence and exhilaration, a counterpoint to the Dionysian march in the first movement. Eustrati's voice contrasts well against the background of bimm-bamms. Even the orchestra, for once, joins in the exuberance. The final movement draws together the reverence of "O Mensch" and the optimism of the choir, in a shimmering contemplation of bliss. Szenkár's steadiness helps weave a texture where all the elements balance to create a seamless feeling of light.

This recording is on a tiny label, Archiphon, issued about 8 years ago. No way will this appeal to the current fashion for Mahlerkugeln! Nor to those who swallow the "Vienna City of Dreams" mythology.  It's not even one to listen to for "fun". The orchestra is more enthusiastic than good! But it's an extremly important insight into a much deeper level of Mahler's mindset. I don't think you can evaluate this symphony without knowing Szenkár, or Horenstein's Mahler 3. Now maybe you can understand why I think so very highly of Simon Rattle's Mahler Third with the Berliner-Philhamoniker.  Obviously Rattle and the Berliners don't access the same militancy, but they have that energetic, vigorous spirit of conviction. Nature marches on, like mankind, and neither gets suppressed.

Horenstein conducts Korngold Violanta

Thanks to Brendan Carroll, Korngold's biographer: "An unreleased and unknown test recording of the climactic love duet Reine Liebe (Pure Love) from Korngold's early and highly precocious opera VIOLANTA . It features the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jascha Horenstein."

"The recording presents the orchestra alone (no voices) and was made on June 2, 1965 at the Kingsway Hall, London. This gorgeous music is one of the most remarkable examples of Korngold's prodigious gifts, a sumptuously erotic duet by a teenage composer (he was not quite 17) who had barely experienced his first kiss, let alone the passion depicted here."

"The Prelude and Carnival music (from the same sessions) was briefly available on an LP from Quintessence in the early 1980s, but this unique performance of Reine Liebe was not included."

Horenstein speaks on Mahler, Janáček

Jascha Horenstein (1898-1973) speaks about the composers and conductors he's known. Like a fellow who sat quietly in rehearsals, looking very unprepossessing - Janáček. These are extracts from Horenstein's 1970-1 interviews with Alan Blythe, which sometimes get added to CD issues. Strauss, Schreker, Bartok, Berg, Furtwängler, Schoenberg, Horenstein knew them all. What these tapes don't include are Horenstein's reminiscences of Hanns Eisler, a childhood friend. Horenstein conducted a lot of Eisler too, including some of the documentaries. (One is available for download on this site - see "Eisler".)

Horenstein Conducts Hanns Eisler in Global Warming Movie

Anyone who enjoyed the Edgard Varèse weekend  would probably love Hanns Eisler. His music is accessible because, as a passionate socialist, he believed that music was meant to communicate with people. His usual image is that he writes simplistic agitprop. But in fact,  his music – particularly the chamber music – is exquisitely beautiful and sensitive.  Above is his Kammersymphonie op 69.  (1940)  The camerawork in this film is outstanding. If it wasn't for the horrible narrative, this would be an exquisite work of art. Technically, it can't have been easy to set up these shots. To appreciate how good it is, just watch some of the embarrassingly bad Virgil Thompson movies of the period. It's also better than the Joris Ivens movie Regen, though Eisler's music for that is the famous, and wonderful Fourteen ways to describe the Rain.  The subject is amazingly up to date, too - volcanoes and global warming!

The conductor is Jascha Horenstein, often associated with Mahler and Nielsen. Horenstein and Eisler were boyhood friends. Horenstein conducted several Eisler movies, like The Forgotten Village,  but White Flood (Kammersymphonie) is the best.

Eisler also wrote for the movies, long before he went to America. As early as 1929 he realized how movies could be expanded with sound recording. His seminally important Kuhle Wampe is on this site here (complete download). Eisler didn't lose his integrity when he found success in Hollywood. Though he won an Oscar, his music made movies into art. Eisler represents an aesthetic for popular movies different to Korngold or Miklos Rosza.  Eisler got kicked out by the US House Committee on Un-American Activities. A fewe years later,  he supplied an atmospheric score to Alain Resnais' 1955 film about the Holocaust, Night and Fog.