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CD
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ARB 153CD
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2007 release. Most orchestra conductors have egos bigger than all their musicians combined. Oskar Fried deliberately kept his inner life out of any limelight. A mysterious conductor, he appeared out of nowhere to start at the very top, with the Berlin Philharmonic, claiming that his previous experience had been as a trainer for dogs and circus animals. Any time a new figure emerged on the scene, Fried was the first to seek them out and conduct their music before anyone else had a chance. His way of interpreting reveals a penetrating spirit within his native Berliner gallows humor, always on the move in sound as he was in life, deliberately skirting any permanent engagement. As the first foreign artist to play in Russia after the Revolution, Fried's overnight train from Berlin was met at the Moscow station by Lenin in person. A secondary career was probably in espionage and one hears him unearthing secrets in everything he recorded. Our disc includes the rarest example of Mahler's music led by an initiate. The awful fetish that Mahler has become gets a makeover through Fried's close acquaintance with the neurotic composer as he exposes inner conflicts that other disciples chose to sweep under the sonic rug. One is also devastated by his grasp of Stravinsky's Firebird ballet, transitioning from an infernal dance to a nirvana-like plateau state. Informative notes reveal the doings of a genius who had to elude anyone probing his actions too closely. Orchestras include the USSR Radio Orchestra, the Berlin State Opera Orchestra, the Berlin Charlottenburg Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Berlin Philharmonic, with musicians Astra Desmond and Josef Wolfsthal. Compositions also include works of Mozart, Rossini, Carl Maria von Weber, Wagner, and Saint-Saëns.
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