Decca does a useful job of bringing Dutch conductor Eduard van Beinum’s Decca and Philips recordings together in one box. Justice is finally rendered to a discreet but outstanding figure in orchestral conducting.
On April 13, 1959, in full rehearsal of the 2e movement of the 1D Symphony of Brahms at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the musical director of the orchestra, Eduard van Beinum, collapses, struck down by a heart attack. The Dutch conductor died at the age of 58, leaving a largely unfinished legacy, just when the invention of stereophony was able to give even greater relief to his intractable interpretations of the masterpieces of Brahms, Bruckner and music French.
If you are tempted to gauge the importance of Eduard van Beinum by consulting his Wikipedia entry, you will find a somewhat simplistic portrait of the artist. A rickety note informs us that we “will retain two superb discs with Amsterdam, devoted to the last two symphonies of Bruckner, the Symphonies noh 8 And notoh 9 “.
This insult to his memory reinforces the impression of doing useful work by talking about the artist through this box of 44 CDs dedicated to him by Decca. This snippet of information on the conductor, born in Arnhem in 1900, fortunately makes the link between Anton Bruckner and him, even if it only cites two symphonies, while his visions of 5e And 7e Symphonies are equally significant.
In practice, Van Beinum is with Furtwängler, Böhm, Abendroth and Jochum the greatest “historical” Brucknerian – Böhm (born in 1894) and Jochum (born in 1902) will have the chance, them, to mark the stereophonic era.
The imprint by contrast
Born into a family of musicians, Eduard van Beinum studied violin, viola and piano. He exercised his talents as an accompanist within the family framework, with his siblings, then with his cellist wife. Beginning with choral direction, he obtained a post as director of the Orchestral Association of Haarlem in 1927. The brilliant results obtained in Haarlem enabled him to accede to the position of assistant to the famous Willem Mengelberg at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In 1938, he acquired the rank of full leader alongside Mengelberg, whom he replaced when the latter was dismissed from his post after the Second World War and fell into disgrace until his death in 1951.
Van Beinum’s star immediately shone in contrast. One could not imagine more opposite characters and musicians than Mengelberg and Van Beinum. The grand gestures and authoritarianism of the first were matched by the sobriety and faculty of persuasion of the second. His modesty was as musical, in search of the eloquence of the score, as human. “The members of the orchestra should be your friends”, said the one who considered himself a primus inter pares (first among equals), not as a tamer. From this point of view, bringing the conductor down from his pedestal from the 1950s, Van Beinum is the first conductor of the modern era, in a spirit widely held today.
Far from the great effects of Mengelberg, the recordings of Van Beinum testify to a more lively approach to music, with a keen sense of rhythm, a brighter and more transparent sound. He greatly appreciated the music of Debussy, Ravel and Berlioz, which appealed to his sense of color. He enjoyed directing Bartók due to his penchant for precision. His Bruckner has a clearer and sharper character, because in the balance of the brass, he gladly emphasized the trumpets.
Van Beinum “thickened up” the sound of the Concertgebouw with luminous woodwind interventions. This is what we lost with his death: the continuation of this work, the digging of this sound culture, which stereophony shows us admirably in The sea by Debussy in 1957 on CD 36.
Legacy for specialists
If the Decca set is particularly useful, it is because the previous, partial editions brought confusion and frustration. In addition to the Concertgebouw, Van Beinum conducted the London Philharmonic, albeit briefly in the late 1940s, but enough to record with it, too, resulting in duplicate records. Van Beinum was also a conductor in Los Angeles, but without an official sound legacy, although many concerts have been recorded.
The conductor having an aura of “wise”, making a break with the past and paving the way for Bernard Haitink, Decca, Philips, Dutton, Beulah, Lys, Scribendum, Eloquence, Retrospective have published recordings of Van Beinum which overlap without never form a whole.
Navigating through it was all the more complex as there are, for example, three recordings (1947, 1951 and 1958) of the 1D Symphony of Brahms. There is a Fantastic from 1946 another from 1951, two 7e of Bruckner, etc. This box finally puts some order in there, while just missing the opportunity to do so definitively. There is a letting go in the “first Van Beinum” which were recorded for Polydor and Telefunken and which we are offered on CDs 41 and 42, but only partially. Missing THE swan of tuonela by Sibelius, Death and Transfiguration of Strauss, excerpts from the Damnation of Faust (1942), the overtures Taming of the Shrew And Cyrano de Bergerac of Wagenaar and almost all of the Ballet Suite of Reger. But three Philips or Decca recordings in good and due form are also missing: a Psyche and Eros by Franck from 1947, the opening ofAlceste by Gluck from 1949 and Introduction and Allegro by Ravel in 1952, although reissued in Australia. No resurrection of the two absolute rarities of Van Beinum’s discography: Overture and Bacchanalia of Tannhauser by Wagner, recorded in 1946 but remained unreleased, and his first Fantastica nearly lost 1941 Telefunken recording.
The redundancy of certain repertoires and the majority monophony reserve the box set for ardent discophiles, lovers of Brahms, Bruckner and orchestral conducting (really start from The sea, to understand the conductor’s philosophy and the personality of the orchestra, and decode the rest from there). But it is precious, with real references, including, in addition to Bruckner, the 4e Symphony of Mahler, the 1er Concerto of Brahms with Clifford Curzon and the Rhapsody for contralto by Brahms with Aafje Heynis.