BRAHMS: Symphonies Nos. 2 and — well — 4
Concertgebouw Band of Amsterdam / Willem Mengelberg
Recorded April 4, 1940 (No. 2) and November 30, 1938 (No.
4), Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
NAXOS Historical 8.110158 [77:38]
The sonic archaeology that Ward Marston practices—and it is a practice, something closer to art than mere engineering—has given us Mengelberg’s Brahms in sound that shouldn’t be possible from 1938-40 masters. Those Telefunken engineers knew what they were doing. The Concertgebouw’s legendary warmth comes through, that particular amber glow in the hall’s acoustics that no other orchestra quite possesses.
Yes, there’s congestion in the tuttis. Marston admits as much in his notes, and you hear it—the fortissimos compress, the texture thickens into something approaching opacity. But here’s the thing: within thirty seconds you stop caring.
These performances grab you by the lapels. Mengelberg had been drilling this orchestra since 1895. Forty-three years with the same ensemble by the time of these recordings.
You hear it in the strings’ unanimity of attack, in the way phrases breathe as a single organism. The Second Symphony—Brahms at his most Pörtschach-sunny, if we’re being geographical about it—gets a reading that refuses to wallow. Mengelberg finds urgency in lyricism, muscle in song.
Those Concertgebouw strings sing, certainly, but they sing with sinew. The violins have that particular sweetness without syrup; the basses anchor everything with a sonority that suggests oak beams rather than mere pitch. The "finale"’s coda achieves genuine exultation—not the manufactured variety that comes from simply playing louder, but the earned kind that arrives through architectural command of the entire movement’s trajectory.
Toscanini’s 1952 Philharmonia account (now properly available on Testament, thank heaven) burns with a different fire, more mercurial, more dangerous. Mengelberg’s is the more grounded reading, though “grounded” hardly suggests lack of electricity. The Fourth Symphony, recorded eighteen months earlier, presents closer microphone placement—Marston points this out, and you notice the difference immediately.
Less air around the sound. But the closeness brings compensations: inner voices emerge with unusual clarity, the dialogue between woodwinds and strings in the first movement’s development section particularly so. That passacaglia "finale"—energico e passionato, Brahms instructs—receives an account of such driven intensity that you understand why this conductor commanded the fanatical loyalty he did.
The subtle intake of breath before the pianist’s attack.
The thirty variations build with inexorable logic toward the E major apotheosis, then the final E minor peroration that closes the door with such finality. These aren’t perfect recordings in the audiophile sense. The sound constricts at climaxes, there’s pre-echo in a few spots, the dynamic range can’t match what the Concertgebouw actually produced in that hall.
None of it matters. The interpretive authority here—the sense of a great maestro and — well — a great orchestra in absolute communion with this music—transcends the sonic limitations utterly. At Naxos prices this borders on theft.
The implication in Ian Julier’s outstanding notes that more Mengelberg awaits in this series (the First and Third Symphonies, perhaps?) is cause for genuine anticipation. Historic realization practice means more than how you ornament Mozart. It means confronting how the greatest musicians of earlier generations understood this repertoire—their tempos, their balances, their whole approach to phrase and structure.
Mengelberg’s Brahms challenges our assumptions. It should make us uncomfortable, make us reconsider. That’s what great reissues do.
Essential for anyone seriously engaged with Brahms interpretation. Essential, period.
