Rachmaninoff, Sergei. Isle of the Dead, Op. 29
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Conductor.
Columbia Masterworks Heritage [Sony Classical] MHK-62342 (Mono, ADD)
Originally released on 
Columbia Masterworks MM-599 (78 r.p.m., Mono)
Recorded at Northrop Memorial Auditorium, Minneapolis, 2 March 1945.
b/w Mahler, Gustav. Symphony No. 1 in D-Major, "Titan." Recorded 4 November 1940.
I first got turned on to Dimitri Mitropoulos when I was in high school, and my band director lent me a copy of Mitropoulos conducting Liszt's Les Preludes and Richard Strauss' Salome's Dance, recorded in the 1950s with the New York Philharmonic (Columbia Masterworks ML-5198, I still haven't returned it). I was totally knocked off my feet by the pummeling of Mitropoulos' frontal-assault method of conducting. I had been mesmerized previously by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony's Salome, and had thrilled to an old Leopold Stokowski set of 78s of Les Preludes, but that was because of the razor-sharp delineation of Reiner's rendition and the majestic, plush upholstering of Stokowski's lustrous "sound." But, from a 30-plus year old, seemingly innocuous, mono 33 r.p.m.. record came such a forceful impact of sound, literally an aural drive-by shooting.
Later, in the Army, I became a metal-head; Yeah, I still listened to classical, but only to those passion filled recordings I had relished at a younger age. In the early 1980s, there was no-one, absolutely no-one who could come in and step into the void left by the absence of the masters I grew up with, from Toscanini, Ormandy, Stokowski, Munch and Szell, to Leinsdorf, Barbirolli, Reiner, Herrmann and Walter. Then, tragedy struck: Compact Discs. Suddenly, I was out trying to "replace" the wonderful records with which I had grown up. I was lured into buying great new "digital" recordings, with their "infinite" frequency and dynamic ranges, which made all my old vinyl "obsolete."
Unfortunately, after wasting hundreds of dollars, I realised that the most technically advanced digital recordings of garbage still sound like garbage. Oh, well, GIGO. Welcome to the computer era, sucker! I was stuck with crap by Michael Tilson Thomas, Herbert von Karajan, Simon Rattle (for God's sake, please cut that ridiculous hair; you look like a cross between Richard Simmons and "Horshack" from Welcome Back Kotter), and James Levine (ditto on the hair). Occasionally, I came across conductors I liked, such as Lorin Maazel, Vladimir Ashkenazy (a way better conductor than pianist), Esa-Pekka Salonen and Mariss Jansons, but most of those conductors who ushered the listening public into the "digital era" did with their mandate what the Republican Congress did with theirs after winning the 1994 elections. Like a disaffected Republican running to the Libertarians, I headed to the one place a bi-polar man of passion could seek solace: Heavy Metal.
Well, after a decade, I have melded my love for metal and classical into a unified field theory. It's no coincidence; After all, Richard Wagner invented metal (a large brass section augmented by Wagnerian tubas). Compare the Nietzschean overtones to Twilight of the Gods to Motörhead's Sacrifice. Listen closely to Wagner's wall of brass and tubas, and you hear the harbinger of Lemmy's jackhammer bass. I returned to listening to the conductors I grew up with, trading the "scholarly interpretations" of the above mentioned charlatans of sophistication for MEN with real blood running through their veins.
Which brings us to Mitropoulos. This guy's
approch to conducting reminds me of no other conductor's. Next to
him, even Toscanini comes across as a lightweight; Toscanini's merely an
M-60 machine gun next to Mitropoulos' howitzer of sound (don't get me wrong;
Toscanini still rules). The closest musical comparison I can make
with Mitropoulos as conductor is Kerry King, guitarist for Slayer.
This Isle of the Dead will change your
mind about everything you thought about the famous tone-poem after Arnold
Böcklin's eerie painting which inspired
Rachmaninoff. Very few conductors have that ability: Of the
versions I have of Die Toteninsel, all comparisons are merely a
matter of degree (though my favourite is the Koussevitzky,
also reviewed here). For example, I adore Rachmaninoff's own,
but wish he'd not edited so much out of the score (same with the 1954 Ormandy
recording); Reiner has a remarkable breadth and line; Ashkenazy's sound
is crystal clear and impassioned; Koussevitzky's the darkest - a true Liebestod;
and Maazel's is lithe, all sinewy flesh and bone.
But, Dimitri Mitropoulos turns this most tragic and emotional composition into something I never imagined. Without sacrificing its spirit, Mitropoulos attacks the piece head-on. When you think of Isle of the Dead, your mind goes to the imagery of the lonely courier, rowing his gondola full of souls down the River Styx. Mitropoulos' rower becomes General Douglas Mac Arthur, and the island of lost souls becomes the Inchon Landing. The tragic climax to the piece in which I envision the grim reaper cutting a swath with his scythe becomes Barbara Stanwyck standing over her victim in some sordid film noir tale, her pursed lips gently blowing the smoke away from a hot .45. Hey, who wrote this piece anyways, Sergei Rachmaninoff or Miklos Rozsa?
The answer is: It doesn't really matter. This is a performance that would have pleased Rachmaninoff himself. In fact, Rachmaninoff only considered a handful of conductors as being able to do justice to his scores: Gustav Mahler, Leopold Stokowski, Eugene Ormandy and Dimitri Mitropoulos.
Mitropoulos as conductor was the Nietzschean superman incarnate. An story about him in his Minneapolis days centers around an old woman who knew him as a boy in Greece. After attending a concert, the woman went up to Mitropoulos, hugged him, then sternly remonstrated to Mitropoulos "You were supposed to become a priest!" Mitropoulos smiled, then pointed at the podium: "Well, this is my church and there is my pulpit."
Also on this set is Mitropoulos' rendering of Mahler's Titan Symphony, the first - and one of the greatest - ever recorded. It packs the same kind of ordnance he brings to the Rachmaninoff recording. Both are recordings with unabashed chutzpah, without a trace of schmaltz.
