Jan. 30, Queens Hall, L.S.O. – Weingartner
Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini overture, though it had fine vigour sounded a little too noisy. Maybe the L.S.O strings are not weighty enough to counterbalance all that brass. But I thought generally that the string tone was a little less rich and more edgy than that of the other two London orchestras. Beethoven’s Symphony no.1 is a charming work; without being any the less his, it bears a sort of Haydnesque parental stamp. It … more >>
Jan. 30, Queens Hall, L.S.O. – Weingartner
Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini overture, though it had fine vigour sounded a little too noisy. Maybe the L.S.O strings are not weighty enough to counterbalance all that brass. But I thought generally that the string tone was a little less rich and more edgy than that of the other two London orchestras. Beethoven’s Symphony no.1 is a charming work; without being any the less his, it bears a sort of Haydnesque parental stamp. It was played with just the right sort of lightness. And then Schubert’s heavenly C major, why should it ever stop since nothing could be at once so soothing & so cheerful. Apart from that slight lack of richness in the strings it was beautifully played & the wind were so good that it is perhaps unfair to the rest to single out Alan Hyde’s lovely horn playing. Weingartner has a controlled strength and serenity, a clear mind with all dross purged away. There is nothing fussy or laboured about his conducting; he doesnt dance for the scherzo as, I think, I have seen Szell do, but he makes the music dance. He is now bald headed, thin and wiry. He was 75 last June and looks as though he might go on conducting as well for another 25 years. He had a great reception[.]
Are Walter & Toscanini & Weingartner the 3 heroes of the British public or is there anyone else who would be yelled at in this way?
---
The Times remarks that in the Schubert, Weingartner
[Bradley has here pasted in a cutting from The Times, reading:]
doubled his four wood-wind instruments and used the chorus so formed in tutti passages to make a satisfactory counterpoise to the strings and brass. So he achieved a right balance in loud places. He also used this chorus in a few places like the beginning of the Trio, where he wanted a kind of glorified harmonium effect, but in many places where the wind become singers of Schubertian song-melody he employed the normal single wind. In one place he even went so far as to delete an oboe from some bars where it doubles the clarinet. This careful editing contributed to the general effect of a well graduated dynamic and texture.
[Bradley then writes:]
It is interesting to know how so satisfying a result was produced. I was aware that there was present an unusually full complement of wood-wind but as I was in the 3rd row of the balcony at the side I could not see very well what was going on.
<< less
