Ferenc Fricsay - Complete Recordings Vol. 1 - Orchestral Works - Box Set45CDs

Label : DG
Format : Flac (image + cue)
Cover : No

Ferenc Fricsay’s tragically early death at 48 from stomach cancer in 1963 robbed the world of a great artist and formidable conductor at the peak of his powers. Fortunately his relationship with Deutsche Grammophon from 1949 until his death yielded a larger and wider-ranging discography than one might suspect. To celebrate what would have been Fricsay’s 100th birthday on August 9, 2014, DG has brought out the first of two big boxes encompassing the conductor’s complete recordings for the label. It is given over to orchestral repertoire and works for instrumental soloists and orchestra, while operas, choral works, and other vocal music are saved for Volume 2.

Volume 1?s 45 discs are more-or-less arranged in alphabetical order by composer. If the “original jacket” sleeves do not necessarily reflect each volume’s actual contents, the booklet’s index by composer helps to keep things straight. Just about everything Fricsay recorded is outstanding. For more than half a century critical consensus singled out this conductor in Russian music, and rightly so. His last three Tchaikovsky symphonies (including two versions, mono and stereo, of the “Pathétique”) fuse passion and razor-sharp clarity, as does a vivacious Rachmaninov Paganini Rhapsody with pianist Margrit Weber that leaves no detail unaccounted for.

True, the complete Stravinsky Petrouchka and Sacre du printemps ballets and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade fall a bit short of their best 1950s competition, but the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra musicians whip up plenty of excitement and precision in Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia, Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain, and in an abridged edition of Glière’s Third Symphony (Ilya Muromets) that wipes Scherchen’s lackluster complete mono version off the map. Furthermore, Fricsay’s gifts for balancing complex linear textures without sacrificing color enliven Richard Strauss’ Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel, Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture), Ravel’s Bolero and La Valse, and Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.

If the quicker pace of Fricsay’s mono Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra 1953 Dvorák “New World” Symphony’s finale seems more urgent and intense than in the 1960 stereo Berlin Philharmonic remake, the latter’s climaxes are more carefully gauged, with superior sound and orchestral execution. Fricsay brought comparable authority to the German/Austrian symphonic classics, as the lean sonorities and poised wit of six Haydn symphonies reveals, although I prefer the conductor’s better-played mono Berlin Mozart symphonies to the slightly scrawny stereo Vienna Symphony K. 550 and K. 551.

Among the six out of nine Beethoven symphonies that Fricsay set down with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Ninth remains a powerful reference version, while the 1958 “Eroica” (No. 3) and Leonore Overture No. 3 far surpass the conductor’s heavy-handed 1961 live performances issued in EMI’s Great Conductors series. The lyrical poetry and tensile soft playing in the Fifth’s Andante justify Fricsay’s unusually expansive tempo. By contrast, Fricsay’s breakneck speed for No. 1’s Allegro doesn’t faze the string and woodwind players, nor does it even slightly compromise their supple and pointed execution.

Nor did Fricsay take curtain raisers and lighter repertoire for granted: he lavished comparable care upon Rossini Overtures, Verdi Preludes, Strauss Waltzes, and Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies–and on justly obscure scores like Rolf Liebermann’s Suite on Swiss Folk Songs and Werner Egk’s Suite after Rameau. His concerto collaborations continue to wear well, especially the Beethoven Third and Mozart Rondos with Annie Fischer, Mozart’s K. 459, 466, and 595 with Clara Haskil, the Dvorák Violin Concerto with Johanna Martzy, the Brahms Second with Geza Anda, and all of his recordings with Margrit Weber.

Perhaps the high standards and seriousness of purpose that Fricsay brought to the music of his own time defines his most enduring orchestral legacy: Hartmann’s Sixth Symphony; Hindemith’s Symphony Dances; Martin’s Petite symphonie concertante; Boris Blacher’s Paganini Variations; the classic Bartók piano concerto cycle with Anda; the Kodály discs. The 1961 Háry János Suite is the one to have, although collectors will find Fricsay’s sonically and interpretively edgier 1954 mono counterpart equally fascinating.

Complete tracklist : Ferenc Fricsay - Complete Orchetral Works Recordings on DG