Walter Weller – The Decca Legacy

A violinist-conductor who understood orchestras from the inside out: commanding power and Viennese warmth in the complete Decca symphonic recordings of Walter Weller.

As the youngest ever leader of the Vienna Philharmonic, Walter Weller quickly established a natural rapport with orchestras at home and abroad when he swapped bow for baton in the late 1960s. Engaged as a regular conductor by the Vienna State Opera, he made his debut as a conductor in the studio with a 1970 recital of arias with the Spanish soprano Pilar Lorengar.

As leader of the Weller Quartet, he was no stranger to Decca’s studios, but he disbanded the quartet to focus on conducting. In Geneva with the Suisse Romande orchestra, then in London with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and London Symphony Orchestra, he brought his insider’s knowledge of orchestral technique to bear on mostly Russian symphonies through the course of the 1970s. Critics identified Weller’s total grasp of complex scores and his ability to get a rich yet transparent sound from his orchestras.

The First and Ninth symphonies of Shostakovich in 1971 were followed up by equally acclaimed complete cycles of Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. In 1974, Weller also made a compelling account of the Symphony by Paul Dukas, in this underrated work’s first recording on a major label. Decca’s full-frequency sound complemented the burnished gleam of string timbre which Weller elicited wherever he went. He proved a sympathetic and alert accompanist to Pascal Rogé in a 1974-76 cycle of the Bartók piano concertos, and then drew on his own Czech heritage for a broad and loving traversal of Smetana’s Ma vlast with the Israel Philharmonic.

Near the close of his relationship with Decca (1979-82), Weller then returned to the repertoire he had grown up with as the son of a Vienna Philharmonic violinist, recording the Hungarian Dances of Brahms and the violin concertos of Mozart with the Japanese soloist Mayumi Fujikawa. This set stood out from the competition by including the two concertos published under Mozart’s name after his death, later deemed spurious, but highly attractive in their own right. Accompanying this Original Jackets collection, Peter Quantrill contributes a new essay on Walter Weller’s life and career, paying tribute to a true son of Vienna.