Willem Mengelberg and the Concertgebouw Orchestra - Perpetuum Mobile (Strauss) (1932)

'Perpetuum Mobile' was recorded in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, on 11 May 1932. From Wikipedia: Joseph Wilhelm Mengelberg (28 March 1871 – 21 March 1951) was a Dutch conductor, famous for his performances of Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Mengelberg was the fourth of fifteen children of German-born parents in Utrecht, Netherlands...After studies in Utrecht..., he went on to study piano and composition at the Cologne conservatory (now the Hochschule für Musik Köln)... In 1891, when he was 20, he was chosen as General Music Director of the city of Lucerne Switzerland, where he conducted an orchestra and a choir, directed a music school, taught piano lessons and continued to compose. Four years later, in 1895, when he was 24, Mengelberg was appointed principal conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, a position he held until 1945. In this position, Mengelberg was to premiere a number of masterpieces... Mengelberg founded the long-standing Mahler tradition of the Concertgebouw... Mengelberg also founded, in 1899, the annual Concertgebouw tradition of performing the St. Matthew Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach on Palm Sunday. One criticism of Mengelberg's influence over Dutch musical life, most clearly articulated by the composer Willem Pijper, was that Mengelberg did not particularly champion Dutch composers during his Concertgebouw tenure, especially after 1920. Mengelberg was music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from 1922 to 1928. Beginning in January 1926, he shared the podium with Arturo Toscanini; Toscanini biographer Harvey Sachs has documented that Mengelberg and Toscanini clashed over interpretations of music and even rehearsal techniques, creating division among the musicians that eventually resulted in Mengelberg leaving the orchestra... In 1933, Mengelberg generated negative publicity in what was known as the 'Mengelberg Crisis.' Mengelberg had changed his residence to Switzerland to evade high tax rates in the country. Mengelberg was described by Fred Goldbeck as 'the perfect dictator/conductor, a Napoleon of the orchestra;' Alan Sanders writes, 'his treatment of the orchestra was autocratic. In later years his behaviour became extreme, and there are extraordinary stories of abusive verbal exchanges between him and his players at rehearsal...' The most controversial aspect of Mengelberg's biography centres on his actions and behaviour during the years of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands between 1940 and 1945....Explanations have ranged from political naiveté in general, to a general 'blind spot' for criticism of anything German, given his own ancestry. After the war, in 1945, the Netherlands' Honour Council for Music banned him from conducting in the Netherlands for life; in 1947, after an appeal by his lawyers, the Council reduced his ban to six years, though also in 1947, Queen Wilhelmina withdrew his Gold Medal of Honor. This notwithstanding, he continued to draw a pension from the orchestra until 1949 when cut off by the city council of Amsterdam. Mengelberg retreated in exile to Zuort, Sent, Switzerland, where he remained until his death in 1951, just two months before the expiration of his exile order... The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980) entry on Mengelberg describes him as a 'martinet addicted to meticulous and voluble rehearsals;' it also notes that he did not hesitate to make what he called changements to a composer's scores when he felt it would aid clarity. Mengelberg's recordings with the Concertgebouw Orchestra are marked by frequent use of an unusually prominent portamento... In addition, Mengelberg employed fluctuations of tempo that were extreme even in an era in which tempo fluctuation was more common than in modern practice. While admirers of Mengelberg value his tempo inflections, detractors have criticized them.... I have transferred this side from an Australian Columbia pressing of LOX 181.

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