BBC classical recordings give meaning to the 'legend' label

If there is one word that invariably raises the eyebrows of a classical music critic, it is "legend." That said, the quiet introduction over the past few years of a breathtaking series of recordings, made in concert in England over the past 50 years or so, has done much to restore proper dignity to this overused word.

Having released more than 100 extraordinary recorded performances from its famous archives, BBC Music, in association with IMG Artists, has virtually reinvented the idea of what constitutes a musical legend. For them, it has as much to do with the status and quality of the performer and performance as it does with the unique time and circumstances in which the music was presented.

Series producer Stephen Wright says that BBC Music plans to issue about 15 to 30 CDs each year "for as long as the archives provide quality material."

"Though we choose celebrated artists of the past, we try to find works they never recorded commercially, or things that they did record but where the performance is so tremendous that reissuing it becomes worthwhile."

Virtually every one of the more than 30 discs I have heard has lived up to the producers' glorious ideal. These widely available and handsomely packaged CDs retail for $17.95 per single disc, a bargain given their remastered sound that seems to place the listener in the concert hall. Several sets include bonus tracks devoted to broadcast interviews with the musicians.

Among the artists represented: pianists Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Walter Gieseking, Claudio Arrau, Wilhelm Kempff, Annie Fischer, Clifford Curzon, Benno Moiseivitsch, Arthur Rubinstein, Shura Cherkassky and Myra Hess; conductors Jascha Horenstein, John Barbirolli, Igor Markevitch, Arturo Toscanini, Leopold Stokowski, Rudolph Kempe, Carlo Maria Giulini, Pierre Monteux, Evgeny Mravinsky, Thomas Beecham, Karl Bohm and Benjamin Britten; singers Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Lucia Popp, Galina Vishnevskaya, Victoria de Los Angeles, Irmgard Seefried, Peter Pears and Janet Baker; violinists Yehudi Menuhin and David Oistrakh; cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and the Amadeus and Borodin string quartets.

Among the most notable recordings are those of several Mahler Symphonies, especially those conducted by Horenstein and Barbirolli, plus a surprisingly luminous reading of the fourth symphony with Britten at the helm of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Barbirolli's account of the Third Symphony (BBCL 4044) with the Halle Orchestra is as thoroughly idiomatic as it is moving, and Horenstein's magnificent readings of the massive Eighth and the heartbreaking Ninth (coupled with the Kindertotenlieder sung by Baker) make for a powerful listening experience (BBCL 4001 and 4075). Of particular interest is Horenstein's penetrating performance of Das Lied von der Erde with the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra, a live reading that is equal in every way to those of Herbert Von Karajan, Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer (BBCL 4042).

Mravinsky, a friend of Shostakovich and his most vigorous protagonist, was for years the leader of the Leningrad Philharmonic and was viewed by many as Russia's greatest conductor. Here we can hear him very much in his element, leading his orchestra while on tour of the United Kingdom in 1960, in the British premiere of Shostakovich Symphony No. 8 (BBCL 4002). The effect of this immeasurably sad work on its audience is clear in the stunned silence that precedes volcanic applause.

On the piano side, Richter's ebullient reading of Chopin's Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise with its original orchestral accompaniment is coupled in a two-CD set with Liszt concertos and the Hungarian Fantasy, boldly conducted by the eminent Kiril Kondrashin.(BBCL 4031). Recorded in concert in 1961, it ranks as one of the late Russian pianist's finest moments.

Yesteryear's celebrity pianist, Moiseivitsch, a Russian who lived in England for much of his life, offers an elegant, sinuous reading of Rachmaninoff's evergreen Piano Concerto No. 2, as well as Beethoven's Emperor Concerto (BBCL 4074).

Among the singers, there is a warm and avuncular presentation of Brahms's Liebeslieder Waltzes where Britten, a brilliant pianist as well as conductor and composer, teams up at the piano with the virtuoso Arrau. The four singers are Baker, Pears, Heather Harper and Thomas Hemsley (BBCB 8001). Vishnevskaya's dark but authoritative performance of Mussorgsky songs, accompanied by Markevitch and the London Symphony Orchestra, is one of the highlights of the series. Also of special note is silver-throated soprano Popp in a sublime recital of Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, Dvorak and Mahler (BBCL 4025).

For more information, go to the BBC Legends IMG Artists Web site: www.imgartists.com/default.sps.

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