Bruno Walter and Berliner Staatskapelle – Symphony No. 40 in G minor (Mozart) (1929)

Bruno Walter conducts the Berliner Staatskapelle in Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, recorded in Berlin in January 1929.

The movements are:

00:00 1st movement
06:14 2nd movement
14:36 3rd movement
18:42 4th movement

From Wikipedia: Bruno Walter (born Bruno Schlesinger, September 15, 1876 – February 17, 1962) was a German-born conductor, pianist and composer…

Born near Alexanderplatz in Berlin to a middle-class Jewish family, he began his musical education at the Stern Conservatory at the age of eight, making his first public appearance as a pianist when he was nine… He studied composition at Stern with Robert Radecke, and remained active as a composer until about 1910… But it was hearing a concert in 1889 by the Berlin Philharmonic led by Hans von Bülow, he wrote, that ‘decided my future. Now I knew what I was meant for. No musical activity but that of an orchestral conductor could any longer be considered by me.’ He made his conducting début at the Cologne Opera…in 1894. Later that year he left for the Hamburg Opera to work as a chorus director. There he first met and worked with Gustav Mahler, whom he revered and with whose music he later became strongly identified.

In 1896, he was appointed Kapellmeister of the Stadttheater (municipal opera) in Breslau, on the strength of a recommendation from Mahler to the theatre’s director, Theodor Löwe. However, Löwe required that before taking up this position the young conductor change his last name from Schlesinger… Walter said that he had ‘suggested several names, which Mahler wrote down and gave to Löwe, who returned the contract with the name Bruno Walter…’

In 1897, Walter became Chief Conductor at the municipal opera in Pressburg (now Bratislava)…and in 1898 took the position of Chief Conductor of the Riga Opera, Russian Empire. While there, he converted to Christianity, probably Roman Catholicism. In 1899 Walter was appointed music director of the Temeswar, Austria-Hungary (now Timișoara, Romania) Opera… Walter then returned in 1900 to Berlin, where he assumed the post of Royal Prussian Conductor at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, succeeding Franz Schalk…

In 1901, Walter accepted Mahler’s invitation to be his assistant at the Court Opera in Vienna… In the following years Walter’s conducting reputation soared as he was invited to conduct across Europe—in Prague, in London…and in Rome. When Mahler died on May 18, 1911, Walter was at his deathbed…

Although Walter became an Austrian citizen in 1911, he left Vienna in 1913 to become the Royal Bavarian Music Director and General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich…

In January 1914, Walter conducted his first concert in Moscow. During the First World War he remained actively involved in conducting…

Walter ended his Munich appointment in 1922 (being succeeded by Hans Knappertsbusch) and left for New York in 1923, working with the New York Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall; he later conducted in Detroit, Minnesota and Boston.

Back in Europe, Walter made his debuts with both the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1923, and was Music Director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Städtische Oper) from 1925 to 1929. He made his debut at La Scala in 1926, and was chief conductor of the German seasons at Covent Garden in London from 1924 to 1931.

Walter served as Principal Conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1929 until March, 1933, when his tenure was cut short by the new Nazi government… Walter left Germany and was not to conduct there again until after the war.

Austria became his main centre of activity for the next several years… In 1936 he accepted an offer to be Artistic Director of the Vienna State Opera, where he occupied the same office that had once been Mahler’s…

On November 1, 1939, he set sail for the United States, which became his permanent home. He settled in Beverly Hills, California…

During his years in the United States, Walter worked with many famous American orchestras…From 1946 onwards, he made numerous trips back to Europe…

His late life was marked by stereo recordings with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble of professional musicians assembled by Columbia Records for recordings. He made his last live concert appearance on December 4, 1960 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and pianist Van Cliburn. His last recording was a series of Mozart overtures with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra at the end of March in 1961.

Bruno Walter died of a heart attack in his Beverly Hills home in 1962. He is buried in the cemetery of Gentilino in Canton Ticino, Switzerland.

I transferred the symphony from Columbia DX 31. The first and last two sides were from solid stock pressings and sides 3 and 4 were transferred from a laminated pressing.

source