The Boston FM radio and my Sansui TU-X1 tuner gave another magnificent treat - a whole weekend of Bruno Walter music. I always liked Bruno Walter, although he never was my “buy on spot” conductor.  Performances of some conductor (for instance Scherchen, Barbirolli, Golovanov and etc…) I buy (if I find something that I still do not have) religiously juts because they conducted it. Bruno Walter was not a part of that “no questions asked list”. I loved quite many of this works but I never dived deeply into him.

Suddenly, the Bruno Walter’s Orgy threw the brilliance of Bruno Walter as one single push, a single push of phenomenal musical amplitude. Asalo, and… I hate to say it… the single push of surprisingly phenomenal audio quality. I own and know very well some of the CDs from which the WHRB broadcasted the Bruno’s music and whatever they did to sound sounded way more musical then the same CD played on my CD playback.

I did not have a lot of plans this weekend but I did not suspected that the Bruno Walter Orgy will turn out to be such a great listening event. In the end I spent the entire two days for nothing else but listing the Bruno Walter’s orchestras, and at the same time I loaded 18G of WAV files on the hard drives of my DAW. The biggest irony that the Saturday MET’s live broadest of “Die Zauberflote” was kind of ordinary musically but sonically it was awful. However, as soon the programming returned back to Bruno Walter it was very-very fine again… Another irony was that I built my life over this weekend entirely along with the WHRB’s schedule… and… never was happier with the result…

WHRB 95.3 FM: Bruno Walter Orgy 2006.  "Something of me will remain after I have gone"

1. Mozart: Symphony No. 38 In D, K. 504, "Prague"; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (1936, Pearl)
2. Schumann: Dichterliebe, Op. 48; Lehmann, Walter (1941, CBS)
3. Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14; Paris Conservatory Orchestra (1939, Turnabout)
4. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in d, K. 466; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (1937, Pearl)  - Bruno plays piano himself, I never heard this performance before. What a beauty!
5. Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F, Op. 90; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (1936, Koch) – I like it better that with Furtwangler. Probably only Clement Krauss and Barbirolli with Wiener Philharmonic from 1967 could push against it
6. Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D, Op. 61; Szigeti, British Symphony Orchestra (1934, Naxos)
7. Wagner: Die Walküre, Act I; Lehmann, Melchior, List; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (1935, Naxos)  - Could anything be ever better!
8. Mahler: Symphony No. 4; Seefried, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (1950, MCA)
9. Beethoven: Egmont Overture, Op. 84; New York Philharmonic Orchestra (1954, Sony)
10. Schumann: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat, Op. 97, "Rhenish"; New York Philharmonic Orchestra (1941, Sony)
11. Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in b-flat, Op. 23; Horowitz, New York Philharmonic Orchestra (1948, Music and Arts)
12. Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in e, Op. 64; Milstein, New York Philharmonic Orchestra (1945, Sony)
13. Mahler: Symphony No. 5; New York Philharmonic Orchestra (1947, Sony)
14. Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 in e, Op. 11; Rubinstein, New York Philharmonic Orchestra (1947, New York Philharmonic)
15. Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 73; New York Philharmonic Orchestra (1953, Odyssey)
16. Dvorak: Symphony No. 8 in G, Op. 88; Columbia Symphony Orchestra (1961, CBS)
17. Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B-flat, Op. 60; Columbia Symphony Orchestra (1958, Sony)
18. Mahler: Kindertotenlieder; Ferrier, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (1949, EMI)
19. Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde; Patzak, Ferrier, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (1950, London)
20. Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 in d; Columbia Symphony Orchestra (1959, Sony) – where else will you find so much balance between melodysm and drama?
21. Mozart: Symphony No. 38 In D, K. 504, "Prague"; Columbia Symphony Orchestra (1959, CBS) – the conducting is wonderful this place should not be played by Columbia and … the damn CBS…
22. Schumann: Frauenliebe und -Leben, Op. 42; Ferrier, Walter (1949, London)
23. Mahler: Symphony No. 9; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (1938, Dutton) – the Bruno’s1961’s performance of M9 do not even stay close to this one. It was not broadcasted yet but I know this performance quite well and I‘m writing is during the Frauenliebe transmission. This M9 will be a hell of a ride! I will crank is... LOUD!!!

Rgs,
Romy the caT

BTW, for whoever cares the WHRB has a quite good Internet live feed (well, it is 3 seconds delayed)….