Great Artist, Bad Day: The Great Szell Greatly Underplays Mahler's Sixth

This dully recorded live performance on Sony ought never to have been released. It just goes to show that even a perfectionist like Szell can kid himself into believing that impressive execution inevitably produces an equally impressive interpretation. Well, it doesn't, and it didn't here.

[richardwilliams]

Mahler s Tragic Symphony being Tragically performed.

[richardfrankel]

I remember when the 2-Lp set of this performance was first released. And I remember certain critics' raving about it, showering it with superlatives, calling it revelatory, etc.

Well, I bought the Lps back then, and thought, "Maybe I just don't get this symphony!". And decades later, I even bought a used, beat-up copy of the cd reissue for two bucks, just to see if that sounded any better. It didn't. And now, with the Szell Box, I own THREE copies of the damn thing!

June 19th will mark the 50th anniversary of that 1st release, and somehow I feel I should mark it....perhaps the way a dog marks its territory.

[igorgregoryvedeltomaszewsk]

I always thought of this recording that this is what it would sound like if somebody had callen Mozart back from the dead, handed him the score and said:
"Now conduct this - a vista!"

[MDK_Radio]

Yeah, that one is in the big Sony Szell box which I picked up after your video about it (for some reason I hadn’t had many of his recordings before), and that Mahler 6 is a letdown. Now I know why. But man, all that Mozart is terrific (so far, still working my way through it).

[marknewkirk]

George Szell and Sergiu Celibidache both made no secret of not "getting" Mahler. And both for the same reason - they regarded Mahler's music as structurally incoherent. Having been in Cleveland for decades and giving the lion's share of the concerts there during those years (unlike today's music directors who might conduct 10 to 12 concert programmes a season and spend the rest of the year jet setting), Szell could not escape having to do music he did not prefer from time to time. Celibidache largely did whatever the hell he wanted, and that was not Mahler - apart from Kindertotenlieder, which he conducted at least once.

[fred]

Hello Dave
Here's another suggestion to great artist bad day video.
Neville Marriner conducts Beethoven Symphonies, Bartok, Respighi, and Tchaikovsky Manfred Symphony.
Karajan conducts Schumann symphonies.
Best wishes Fred

[chickenschnitzel]

The recording was made by WCLV in Cleveland. Vlad Maleckar, the audio supervisor, was mostly concerned with mono compatibility. These tapes were made only for broadcast. They were not intended for commercial release. Most people at home or in their cars were listening to their radios in mono. Stereo was an afterthought. Combine that with a difficult hall, and you get cardboard.

Sony's participation was in taking what was left of the tapes, whatever condition they were in, and remastering them into something more listenable, but it was never going to sound like their own product.

When EMI took over Cleveland and started off with the Gilels Beethoven concertos, their engineers got into such trouble getting a decent sound that they asked the Sony engineers in for help. This NEVER happens. A difficult hall.

[leestamm]

For as long as I can remember, which is back to when it was first released, Szell fans have pointed to this as a landmark M6. I've never thought it was anything special. Good to hear from some others who agree.

[henryfate]

This was broadcast in late days of the Szell era on local Classical Music Radio Station WCLV. Szell and the orchestra's reputation was by this time well established internationally, and though a local subscriber to the concerts, I sometimes wondered if the parties ( and radio station) were resting on their laurels, as I was often disappointed in the rebroadcasts of the cocerts. Released by Sony, but not unusal sound for the orchestra in the late 60s.

[leeturner]

I borrowed a CD of this performance from my public library about 20 years ago. I gave it a listen and didn't listen again. It just sounded dull and underplayed. I expected better.

[detailorientedmedia]

Exposition repeats should always be observed in post-classical pieces. This is obviously true for neo-classical sonata forms, like the one in Shostakovich's 9th, but given that explicit repeats were largely out of favor when Mahler's 6th (or Dvorak's 9th) was composed, if one is there, it's probably there for especially good reason, and shouldn't be omitted.

(Oddly, I picked up this very disc at a flea market in Manhattan the day before you posted this.)

[mrktdd]

I've always thought Szell was a great conductor. He worked in Prague in the 30s and I would have thought he could do a great Janáček Sinfonietta but his recording is disappointing.

[cappycapuzi]

"Mechanical" LOL No, I wouldn't have imagined Szell with Mahler's 6th. Yes, it's form is the most traditional, but it's also hyper-emotional. Maybe the most emotional of Mahler's symphonies. But, thanks for an honest assessment! Hopefully it wasn't too painful!

[jensguldalrasmussen]

Well, this video seems to give room for some Szell-bashing here in the commentaries. No reason for that, as also the title of this series indicates: 'GREAT artists, bad day'...to some extent, it's actually reassuring to know, that even such a meticulous guy as Szell once in a while could have an off-day.
But if one takes into consideration the vast amount of music in the Sony Szell box, it's really amazing how few outright duds or even mediocre recordings, one finds there - especially measured against the really great and excellent stuff!
Actually, Szell is a conductor, who had a reputation, who stood in his way. Not only as someone being his own worst enemy - to which statement in a state of crisis, after Szell in anger over the (lacking) level of the company left the podium at the dress rehearsa at the Metropolitan Opera, not to return, Rudolf Bing famously remarked: "Not while I'm alive!" (Many years later, when a friend in another context made the same remark to Szell: "George, you are your own worst enemy", Szell is said to have replied, not without a certain ascerbic wit: "Not while Rudolf Bing is alive!").
His reputation for being a strict disciplinarian, not tolerating any kind of slackness or sloppiness ("Schlamperei"); his being a controlfreak, down to the minutest details (as f.ex. where the individual members of the Cleveland orchestra parked their cars at Severance Hall before rehearsal); his aloofness, sometimes bordering on outright coldness, when irked (as they probably would say in England: he didn't suffer fools lightly); all these characteristics - and most likely more personality traits of the same kind, led to the belief, that Szell also in his music making was a staunch unyielding and rigid martinet, whose interpretations were charactetized by a degree of coolness and lack of human emotion. An attitude that sometimes seems to have spilled over into the critical appraisal of his recorded legacy (an appraisal not shared by Mr. Hurwitz, though, as anyone following this video channel soon will detect).
The fact, that Szell was his own worst enemy, is entertainingly reflected in the brick heavy book, "Classical Music", edited by Alexander J. Morin, where a host of professional reviewers make their contributions to the books stated content: "Great Composers. Influential Conductors & Musicians. Thousands of Recordings Reviewed and Rated" (from the front cover).
At some point I started to wonder, and then systematically went through each and every review, where Szell was mentioned - the result: 70-80% of the reviews upheld the notion, that the recording in question in a positive way differed from Szell's habitual output! To give, but a few examples: "The classic recordings by Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra show the human side of that often unbearably controlling martinet" (Schumann symphonies); "... this is the relative rare Szell performance where no trace of calculation remains in the music making" (Tchaikovsky, 5th symphony); "A lovely and uncharacteristically relaxed performance by Szell" (Mendelsohn, A Midsummer Night's Dream); "His cool, dry approach, which freeze-dried [sic!] the music of so many other composers made his Haydn fizz like champagne, and the music's sly wit seems to have brought out whatever sense of humour this conductor had" (Szell's set of the earlier London symphonies); "Szell should have recorded more Mozart than he did, for this composer elicits more fire and warmth not often heard in his other outings" (Mozart, symphony no. 39); and so forth.
With the exception being the norm, it might seem safe to draw the conclusion, that Szell was indeed better than his reputation. Or as Klemperer with his habitual sardonic wit and in heavy German accent slyly countered, when someone stated, that "Szell is like a machine": "Jah, but a very good machine!".

[steveschwartz]

I thoroughly agree with you on Szell's Mahler, except for his Das Lied and his Symphony 4. The latter I find incandescent.

Much, much better in Wagner und Strauss (Richard, the two Johanns, and Josef).

[discipulussimplex]

I happen to own this on a cassette and listened to it a few months ago. I was inclined to blame the constricted sound and lifeless interpretation on the old cassette, but now I learn it simply is poor sounding, period. Kind of a relief, strangely.

[richfarmer]

The Szell was my first Mahler 6th. I remember being surprised by the applause at the end. Since rhen I've gotten Levine and Bernstein:much better.

[olinwilliams]

The only worse outing from Szell is Janacek's Sinfonietta