Artur Rodziński – Complete Westminster Recordings

The complete Westminster recordings by ARTUR RODZIŃSKI date were made in London and Vienna from 1954 to 1958. While they represent a true autocrat of the podium, Rodziński drew from orchestras every last ounce of energy as well as cultivating their virtuoso talents. Most recordings in this set appear internationally for the first time, together with some (previously unpublished) rehearsal extracts.

Like his colleagues and fellow emigres Fritz Reiner, George Szell and Arturo Toscanini, Artur Rodziński did not seek to make friends in the process of making music. His rehearsal methods were as ruthless as his conducting style was fiercely driven. His caustic manner extended to fellow professionals in the business such as soloists and agents, and the new essay by James H. North for this Eloquence collection includes stories of his dictatorial behaviour. But then Rodziński’s musical values also represent another era, and he drew from orchestras every last ounce of energy as well as cultivating their virtuoso talents.

Once he had emigrated to the US, Rodziński played an instrumental role in making the Cleveland and Chicago Symphony orchestras into the superbly responsive ensembles for which they are world-renowned today. Having retired from the stress of directorships, in the mid-1950s and in variable health, he produced a remarkable Indian summer of recordings for the Westminster label.

Made mostly in London between 1954 and his death in November 1958, these Westminster albums centred on the late-Romantic and early-20th-century repertoire which responds to a virtuoso conductor’s concern for subtle orchestral colours and extremes of speed and dynamic: Mussorgsky Pictures, Kodály Dances and Richard Strauss’s tone-poems. Rodziński plays insightful accompanist to piano concertos with Paul Badura-Skoda, Youri Boukoff and Jörg Demus, but he achieved a special affinity with Erica Morini in the violin concertos of Brahms and Tchaikovsky.

Rodziński’s decades of experience in the theatre bring sweeping authority to ‘bleeding chunks’ of Wagner, suites of Bizet and Tchaikovsky ballets. Further highlights in this set of newly-remastered mono and stereo albums include a Shostakovich Fifth which testifies to Rodziński’s early commitment to the composer in the West. Other, enduringly robust interpretations of canon symphonies include Dvorak’s Ninth, Prokofiev’s First, Tchaikovsky Nos. 4-6, and his very last Westminster album, of Beethoven and Schubert. At the end of the sessions, Rodziński thanked the orchestra in a speech which was captured for posterity and reissued here. More rarities unearthed especially for this set include several rehearsal sequences, capturing Rodziński’s inimitable manner and dedication to his craft.