RODZINSKI NBC 1938, Volume 3 (1938) - PASC760

N.B. The first of these two concert broadcasts was longer than usual, and the only way to fit it onto a CD was to lose one of the pieces. With the Glinka overture too short to make the difference, after much thought we decided that a forgotten work by a pretty much forgotten composer, Starokadomsky’s Concerto for Orchestra, would be cut from the CD release. This work is present in all download versions of this release, and all CD buyers receive a download link to the recording in MP3 versions should they wish to hear the missing concerto.

In December 1938 Artur Rodziński and the NBC Symphony Orchestra offered American radio audiences two exceptional programmes from Studio 8H in Radio City, separated by a single week but strikingly different in their musical terrain. Still early in the orchestra’s life, these broadcasts reveal an ensemble of formidable discipline and tonal punch, and a conductor whose flair for programming was matched by his ability to coax high-voltage playing from musicians already performing at the top of their game. Preserved on remarkably fine acetate discs and newly restored in Pristine’s XR and Ambient Stereo process, these concerts now emerge with a clarity, warmth and spatial naturalness that Studio 8H’s famously desiccated acoustic rarely allowed at the time.

The 10 December 1938 broadcast opened with Glinka’s evergreen Ruslan and Lyudmila Overture. Contemporary reviews singled out its sparkling character and the orchestra’s brilliance, noting that despite the modest studio acoustics the execution was consistently impressive. Under Rodziński the overture becomes a showcase of tensile rhythmic drive and peerless ensemble precision. The NBC strings, already one of the most agile sections in the country, dispatch Glinka’s perpetual-motion writing with an ease that belies the difficulty of the music.

The centrepiece of that first broadcast was Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, a Rodziński speciality. Critics at the time praised his command of Tchaikovsky’s long spans and the orchestra’s powerful response, particularly in the sweeping finale. Rodziński shapes the symphony without indulgence: the opening motto is sombre yet flexible, the slow movement’s horn solo emerges with poised lyricism, the waltz glides without heaviness, and the finale surges with tightly controlled energy. These players may have been assembled for Toscanini, but in Rodziński they found a conductor who drew from them a comparable mixture of discipline and white-hot emotional commitment.

That programme also included the American broadcast premiere of Mikhail Starokadomsky’s Concerto for Orchestra, a 1933 work by a now little-known pupil of Myaskovsky. The score was described at the time as competently crafted and orchestrated with skill, even if its idiom owed more to Germanic symphonic practice than to the more modernistic Russian school. While the work’s historical footprint is small, its presence in this broadcast testifies to Rodziński’s willingness to present new Soviet repertoire to American listeners at a moment when few conductors were venturing far beyond the established Russian canon. Although too long to fit our CD programme, it is included complete in the download edition.

The concert closed with Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, which listeners reported as having considerably enlivened the atmosphere despite the dryness of the broadcast studio. Rodziński’s performance is taut, colourful and intensely dramatic, the NBC brass and percussion delivering Stravinsky’s climaxes with thrilling impact. Even in the early years of high-fidelity broadcasting, the sheer blaze of this performance must have made a vivid impression on listeners.

A week later, on 17 December 1938, Rodziński returned to Studio 8H with an entirely new programme, later reviewed in the New York Times’ “Other Music” column. The broadcast opened with Dvořák’s Symphony No. 4 — the work now recognised as his Eighth — already a favourite in the concert hall by that time. The critic praised the NBC Symphony’s “strong, clear and brilliant” playing, noting especially the finely balanced winds and the orchestra’s rhythmic vitality in a score whose pastoral lyricism can so easily turn heavy-handed. Rodziński gives the symphony a firm architectural profile, shaping its buoyant themes with affection but without sentimentality.

Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler Symphony followed, a bold choice in 1938 when the composer was at the centre of cultural controversy in Europe. Reviews highlighted the NBC Symphony’s splendid discipline and the work’s vivid colour and firm structure under Rodziński, whose affinity for Hindemith’s muscular counterpoint is audible throughout. Far from the austerity sometimes associated with the composer, Rodziński finds warmth and expressive breadth in the score, especially in the luminous “Engelkonzert” movement.

The second broadcast concluded with Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel, played with élan, razor-sharp precision and a wicked sense of humour. Contemporary accounts praised the performance’s personality and momentum, noting the orchestra’s quick responsiveness to Rodziński’s characterisation of Strauss’s mercurial antihero.

For these restorations Pristine has employed its XR remastering and Ambient Stereo techniques to address the inherent limitations of Studio 8H’s bone-dry acoustics. Wow and flutter have been eliminated, tonal edges softened, and a sympathetic convolution reverb drawn from one of the world’s finest symphonic halls has been added to restore a sense of breadth and natural resonance. The result is a pair of broadcasts that emerge with new presence and musical richness, preserving the sound of a great orchestra under an electrifying conductor at a pivotal moment in American radio history.