The publication of imposing boxes of recordings by two former musical directors of the New York Philharmonic, Pierre Boulez and Kurt Masur, calls not only for commentary on these boxes, but also to put into perspective the interest of certain integrals for discophiles.
With the declining penetration of physical media in the market, publishers began to compile. This trend dates back 20 years. Totally absent at the time of the microgroove, the phenomenon caused two types of construction of catalogs and collections to collide.
Collision of logics
Traditionally, the disc documents the work of a composer recorded by an artist. This leads to a logic of building catalogs and collections by composer. Discos are organized from Adolphe Adam to Alexander Zemlinsky.
Already, at the time of the microgroove, “recitals” were occasionally published, for example compilations of virtuoso pieces. But if one paid homage to Toscanini, for example, it was by the grouped publication of separate volumes responding to the aforementioned logic.
The practical format of the compact disc and its decline in intrinsic value gave rise to the publication of box sets where the unit price of the CD was equivalent to more or less 2 dollars. We then saw the flowering of anthologies devoted to performers (Abbado, Argerich, Maazel, Karajan, etc.) and even to collections (Decca Sound, Mercury, Seon, Phase 4).
The consequence was, for the first time, the accumulation of duplications by cross-postings. Admittedly, a publisher like Philips (now Decca) sold us the CD for 2 dollars, but he could sell us A hero’s life de Strauss by Bernard Haitink on separate CD, in a Richard Strauss box, in a box Haitink: The Philips Years and in the cube Philips: The Stereo Years. If it had been rather the Don Quixote of the same Strauss with Heinrich Schiff, would have added the box Heinrich Schiff: Complete Recordings on Phillips.
Comment Boulez, The Conductor: Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon and Decca84 CDs and 4 Blu-Rays published by Deutsche Grammophon and Kurt Masur: The Complete Warner Classics Edition, 70 CDs published by Warner, it is necessary to keep in mind that we observe the complete swing of the catalog from a “logic of composer” to a “logic of performer”. Everyone must then assess, by the yardstick of their own discotheque, the impact, the clash between these logics. “Do you really need it? » according to the formula now consecrated!
Redundancy
Some releases don’t pose much of a problem. For example, the Sony box dedicated to Eugène Ormandy’s monophonic recordings: 152 recordings never officially released on CD before. Zoltán Kocsis’ Decca box allows us to finally understand the exceptional importance of this artist. Many recordings had disappeared from the catalog, and this dense block devoted to the Hungarian pianist is essential. Finally, when Erato collected Jean-François Paillard’s recordings for the Japanese market in 2019, they were considered “stale” in the West and unavailable for a long time. However, Paillard still had a number of nostalgic admirers.
Abbado is the total counter-example. His recordings have not ceased to be edited and reissued, even in box sets: Abbado conducts Beethoven, Mahler, Bruckner, Mozart. Then, Abbado symphonist and Abbado opera conductor. Finally, Abbado in Berlin, Abbado in Vienna and Abbado in London. It all overlapped.
This is, it must be said, the case of Pierre Boulez. The beautiful big box is signaled by a disaster narrowly avoided. DG had forgotten Ravel’s concertos with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and added them on the sly on CD 84. But for the rest, it’s only giving us back, exhaustively, things that have always been accessible and intelligently published. In individual CDs then in “Boulez-Bartók”, “Boulez-Stravinski”, “Boulez-Mahler” or “Boulez-musique française” boxes. There was even a “Boulez XX” cubeand century “. So who can really be interested in Boulez and not, at least, have, at DG, “Boulez-Bartók” and “Boulez directs Debussy and Ravel”? What finished fan does not have his “Boulez by Boulez”?
What more is there here? The Blu-ray version of Ring by Chéreau (which we also have in audio in the box), very well reduced compared to the horrible initial DVD edition, and sometimes exceptional “off-camera” recordings (8and Symphony of Bruckner), sometimes distressing (Thus spake Zarathustra by Strauss, Gran Partita Mozart) and a failed re-recording of works by Edgar Varèse. Two sharp little rarities: one 6and of Mahler “alternative” in concert with the Staatskapelle of Berlin in 2009, and a prelude of Tristan with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra (CD 84).
What do we learn, musically? Nothing. Why would we deprive ourselves of Solti or Dorati who add flesh in Bartók? The Ravel Debussy box or the XX cubeand century, according to your tastes, are more than enough. Note that this box comes in addition to the Sony box which covers the New York period, in no way less relevant. Superfluous box for wealthy collectors.
Kapellmeister become icon
The Kurt Masur box is hardly more interesting. Warner draws on two catalogs: EMI and Teldec, in Europe and New York. Before 1989, Masur was the indestructible conductor of the Gewandhausorchester in Leipzig. He made records for the East German market released by the VEB-Deutsche Schallplatten Berlin monopoly on the Eterna label. VEB signed licenses in the West which failed with Philips (Beethoven, Brahms), Eurodisc-BMG or EMI (prokofiev concertos with Beroff, orchestral music by Liszt). EMI also published an awful Beethoven concerto with Menuhin in 1981, then a good triple concerto (Hoelscher, Schiff, Zacharias).
After 1985, the Teldec label, in reconstruction, had the idea of feeding VEB licenses from Masur. As a result, the unsurpassed complete Mendelssohn and the beginning of an honorable (no more) symphonic complete Tchaikovsky completed in 1990 and 1991 with the 2and,the 3and and Manfred. As soon as the Wall fell, Masur also recorded a few CDs with the London Philharmonic, whose conductor, Klaus Tennstedt, retired in 1987 for health reasons.
Masur, who had conveniently placed himself at the head of the procession of East German demonstrators in the summer of 1989, became a star in the West and, with James Levine or Daniel Barenboim, one of the Stakhanovists of recording at the time of glory of the CD. In this, he served the interests of Teldec, the former Telefunken, sold to Time Warner in 1987 and which Warner wanted to launch in the classic world against DG, Sony and EMI in 1990.
Masur’s problem is that he’s always been just a strong and skilful Kapellmeister (choirmaster) regional with knowledge of a certain repertoire (Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Brahms). From there to making it a musical conscience and a planetary record star, there is a very big step…
But Teldec recorded 10 CDs between February 1990 and June 1991 and this thirst for hoarding will continue when the New York Philharmonic will see in this musical authority of the Germanic repertoire the successor of Zubin Mehta. Teldec will be there to record the inaugural concert in September 1991, the 7and by Bruckner. It is, here, CD 32 and the saga leads us in 1999 to CD 69, the 4and Concerto by Beethoven with Hélène Grimaud. The same year, Warner will close Teldec overnight.
In the meantime, Masur had provided the catalog with a Brahms integral, the 8and and 9and of Dvořák, the Bolero by Ravel and the usual classics. In short: the illusion of artistic importance. It’s all mostly clean and well-played. Sometimes very cold (Brahms: A german requiem), almost never memorable. If we re-listen to totally forgotten CDs like the 5and by Prokofiev from 1994 or Scheherazade from 1997 (as Alexander Nevskyin Leipzig in 1991), we never cry injustice. It is forgotten, because it was not memorable.
What’s left? Mendelssohn, again and everywhere, including elias recorded with the Israel Philharmonic in 1992 and some works that Masur liked: the Symphony by Frank, Babi Yar by Shostakovich, plus accompaniments like Vengerov’s debut. This is far too little compared to the investment. The Liszt and Mendelssohn boxes in Leipzig have been around for a long time and meet the needs.