I would agree that Klemperer's 'dog tag' as a Beethoven specialist, though earned and apt, did not do full justice to his talents.

To wit: Dvoraks' New World, Handels' Messiah, Wagners' The Flying Dutchman, Tchaikovsky's Pathetique, Mendelssohn's Music to A Midsummer Nights Dream, Brahms German Requiem and my personal favorite, a brilliant rendition of Frank D minor Symphony that rescues this piece from the ranks as a tawdry orchestral showpiece.

To be avoided is K's Missa Solemmnis (EMI), the work is taken at a tempo so slow that it renders it all but unrecognizable, in my opinion at least.


Stellar thread and very interesting comments by all.



Regards

Saving this from the timing out axe, as I now have respectable gramophone again, and will kick of getting some of the Testamant issues as soon as the finance allows...

ATB from George

And do not ignore Klemperer's Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler. His Bruckner 5 and 7 and 9 are outstanding (IMHO) and the sixth is one of the few recordings which (again for me) make sense of this enigmatic work.

His Mahler 2 and 9, and Das Lied von der Erde, are still among the best available, and likewise the fourth, although I know that some people hate that version. (I am talking about the 60s recordings by EMI)

As for the Brahms symphonies, recorded in the late fifties, again for EMI, they are all superb, especially the second. And the German Requiem... something extra special.

quote:

Originally posted by Unstoppable:
To be avoided is K's Missa Solemmnis (EMI), the work is taken at a tempo so slow that it renders it all but unrecognizable

Therefore I might like just that version after 20 years of fruitless attempts to listen to it until the end at least once. Thanks ;-)

You may care to try Giulini's account with the Philharmonia on BBC Legends. Some may find it a little sluggish (and it would have been better recorded somewhere other than St Paul's Cathedral) but I'm very fond of it.

What I've heard of Klemperer's Mahler I've liked very much - a wonderful live recording of the second with Kathleen Ferrier and the Concertgebouw.

regards, Tam

How many recordings of one bit of music can you have?

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
How many recordings of one bit of music can you have?

I've got seven complete recordings of the Beethoven symphonies, and countless miscellaneous installments. I've got five recordings of the Missa solemnis, and four complete recordings of the string quartets, plus another five partially complete. Five sets of the piano sonatas ... if you count the Gilels as complete (which it isn't but still - it deserves to be counted as three sets for how good it is!)...

The more the merrier I say. As Schnabel has observed, great music is better than it can be played!

EW

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
How many recordings of one bit of music can you have?

Well, I have 18 complete sets of Beethoven symphonies (I used to own a 19th but let it go, and at some point I'm going to prune down the ones I have) and then assorted other recordings. A quick count indicates that the 5th and 7th are the most prominent with 6 and 8 recordings respectively, so 25 would seem to be the answer to your question.

Mahler is next well represented with 13 surveys (though not all of them quite complete - Barbirolli never recorded the 8th, Haitink missed it and the 6th from his live cycle, Walter didn't record everything) as well as assorted other recordings. The 6th is probably best represented with 21 recordings.

I have too many of Wagner's Ring cycles - 11 and a half of them. 10 surveys of the Brahms symphonies (and one or two other assorted recordings). In contrast Sibelius is quite restrained with just 8 (and a couple of others of individual symphonies), but I have got rid of at least two sets in the last year or so.

However, arguably the most obsessive area of my library is Verdi's requiem. I only have 5 recordings (well, 6 if you count the Bernstein which is on its way to a charity shop when I get around to it) but 4 or them are all conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini and one of those 4 I have on both CD and DVD.


What's the point of having so many? Well, in music this great no single artist is going to show you everything that's there. It's true that there are sets and recordings I could probably prune from most of those lists, but I've only really done that with the Sibelius since I have in mind writing threads on both the Mahler and Beethoven symphonies.

Interestingly, even Giulini's 4 Verdi requiem are all very different (which is why I can justify having 4).


regards, Tam

quote:

Originally posted by Tam:

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
How many recordings of one bit of music can you have?

What's the point of having so many? Well, in music this great no single artist is going to show you everything that's there.

Nail on head Tam, and the fact that strong love to individual works is instrumental in prompting us to collect multiple recordings of the works in question. The thrick is to avoid overspecialization. I on my part have got a rather comprehensive taste, even if the high-romantic and the modern periods doesn´t interest me that much. A question of temperament without doubt.

To return to the original topic, I found it very interesting that Radio 3's CD Review of Sat 6 Oct assessed the currently available recordings of Beethoven's Fifth, and ended up recommending Carlos Kleiber as the best with Otto Klemperer's 1955 version the runner-up. One quarter of a century old, the other half a century.

There must be a moral here. It has been my view for a while that so many modern interpretations of Beethoven focus on the revolutionary, "demonic" aspect of his music, employing such fast tempi that his music is robbed of its grandeur. That is not to say that there is no place for such performances (Beethoven can withstand almost anything) but in my opinion they do tend to fall into the "interesting" category.

(The other categories of performance are "moving" and "boring")

I'm not sure recordings can be pigeonholed quite so neatly as that.

The CD Review segment was fairly interesting (though I feel it would be better if they didn't insist on finding one winner, something of an impossible task with a work like Beethoven's 5th symphony, in my view). And to the extent they do that, I'm not sure Johnson proved the case for Kleiber (much though I adore the recording).

Actually, neither of my personal favourites had a look in - Solti's thrilling Chicago reading and Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, who play it with as much passion as I've ever heard.

There is some quite interesting discussion of the Kleiber on the Radio 3 messageboards, centring around an editing flaw in the transition to the finale which I must confess has never jumped out at me before, I'm meaning to listen again as perhaps it will now.

I disagree with you about modern performances, though it's true that some are probably characterised by your comments (I'd have in mind the likes of Norrington or Zinman), but it isn't essential. The Mackerras/SCO reading from last summer's Edinburgh festival (and now available on Hyperion) is no slouch but has no shortage of grandeur. Even more so is Colin Davis, whose Dresden performances are wonderful (and firmly in the Klempererian mould) as is his recent Fidelio on LSO Live.

regards, Tam

Dear Dai, and Tam,

Somehwere in the archive here is a long discussion on one or two flaws in the Carlos Kleiber recording [posted about by me], which since it was a studio effort should not have been left in, and which for me leave the flawless [except for it being mono] Klemperer recording as in equal first with Erich Kleiber's recording from 1954!

It is all subjective. Others would prefer the Karajan reading of different vintages, the Furtwangler reading etc. I have a very soft spot for Bruno Walter's CBS reading from about 1960 as well! Carl Boehm with the VPO is not half bad either!!!

I find I dig out the 52 year old Klemperer EMI performance most often though. The orchestra simply is the most wonderful old English style playing captured in almost modern sound. I like shortly afterwards to play the other great Klemperer recording, done for Vox in Vienna a few years earlier [VSO], where the recording is hardly as fine, but the reading is every bit as flowing, dramatic, and full of life! Notable that for a conductor noted for his legendary slow tempi this was one of the few recordings that fitted on one side of an LP at the time! Only in extreme old age were Kleperer's choice of tempi on the slow or very slow side. Even his Missa Solemnis recording from 1965 is several minutes less long than the contempoary Karajan or later Boehm recordings! This myth of Klemperer being a habitually slow conductor needs destroying!

His 1950 Vox recording of the Missa is almost five minutes shorter than the notoriously fast performance from the same period under Toscanini, and yet, there is no sense of the rushing found in the Toscanini version, though the recording being quite rough enough to upset some with out doubt!

ATB from George

Anyone who still thinks that Klemperer's tempi were always slow ought to listen to his recording of Mozart's "little" G minor symphony, K183, of 1957. The first and last movements are breathtakingly fast.

I did not intend to give the impression that I thought all modern performances of Beethoven lacked grandeur, but many do - such as those by the conductors mentioned by Tam!

Dear Dai,

That very recording of the Little G Minor Symphony I listened to on Sunday. Not even Norrington would have dared to attempt those tempi! Of course he never had a crack band like the Philharmonia as his in the first place. Can you imagine what the ensemble would be like with RN conducting at that speed? I bet even the Philharmonia were sweating internally with Klemperer! I know one performance that is as fast, but varies [the second subject group is much slower, and it does not really hang together as a reading in my view] as to tempo significantly: Bruno Walter and the VPO live at the Salzburg Fesrtival in 1956 - on Orfeo [from Austrian radio tapes]. And yes they do play all the notes as well, but one senses a certain strain to it! Not so with the Philharmonia who out-manouvre the NBC for Toscanini when he is going very fast, in retaining their poise and musicianship! The beneficiary is the music of course...

I think Klemperer's approach to each individual piece from a grerat master was always a response to the music and not some pre-conceived "principle" of style that straight-jacketed him. Thus he would be quite driven, or flexible, or even on occasion monumentally stable as to tempi, but always his tempi related across the entire piece giving a massive sense of architectural strength and natural inevitability [as well as a stoic quality] which perhaps has not been equalled since.

The very monumentality of some his readings can be off-putting as it completely avoids obvious short-termist expressive devices, and can give the impression of slowness, because everything is so poised and thoroughly thought out. In may ways only when Klemperer is heard in live recordings does his genius become fully apparent, because the spur of live performances releases all his latent energy and interpretive genius to "fly as an eagle, high above the normal" in music making...

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by Dai Compi:
I did not intend to give the impression that I thought all modern performances of Beethoven lacked grandeur, but many do - such as those by the conductors mentioned by Tam!

Well, each to their own. I'd be interested to know which ones you think do then.

I don't think anyone here said Klemperer was always slow, certainly his late Beethoven was, but the live Fidelio on Testament isn't, and is magnificent.

regards, Tam

That Fidelio [Covent Garden, live] recording is on my list. I have the EMI Klemperer studio set, which is very well done and worthy, but from what I have heard the Opera House production is magnificent! I knew the guy leading the basses in the orchestra in that production, and have some splendid anecdotes about the time!

ATB from George

The live recording is a must, and the one I'd take to my desert island (I'd choose it over Mackerras, and you know praise doesn't come much higher than that from me where Beethoven is concerned).

regards, Tam

George. I agree with you!

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Dai Compi:
I did not intend to give the impression that I thought all modern performances of Beethoven lacked grandeur, but many do - such as those by the conductors mentioned by Tam!

Well, each to their own. I'd be interested to know which ones you think do then.

The ones that come to mind are firstly Roger Norrington's. These sound very impressive on first hearing, and I rushed out to get his CD of the Ninth after his Prom performance some years ago, but on repeated listening I found it superficial and lacking any depth. The same applies even to the Eroica, one symphony where a fast tempo usually is beneficial. I avoid Norrington's performances now.

Secondly, Simon Rattle, whose cycle I heard performed live in Birmingham. (This will be sacrilege to some.) There was much to admire, but again there was a void at the heart of the music in some of them, especially the Fifth. The first movement of this is one of Beethoven's most intense musical arguments, and if the detail is swamped by excessive speed, or the critically important pauses impetuously curtailed, the result is so often trivial.

To be fair to Rattle, his view of the music seems to have changed since he went to Berlin.

Dai,

I wonder if we're talking at cross purposes, I meant which recordings you thought did have grandeur. I too avoid Norrington's performances (in part for musical reasons, but also because the one occasion I heard him live he kept turning and grinning inanely at the audience mid-performance, I found this so annoying that he won't be seeing another penny of my money).

I don't much care for Rattle in Beethoven earlier (though he and his Berliners can take credit for the finest performance of my favourite chord towards the close of the 3rd movement of the 9th when I heard them live at the Proms a couple of years ago). What amazed me about his VPO cycle (which attracted rave reviews in some quarters, but has the unique distinction of being one I've let go), was the way he managed to make them dull. In fairness to Rattle, I tend to find his performances either dull (the Sibelius cycle falls into the same category for me) or extraordinary (some of his Mahler and his recent Schubert great C major, which I'd probably take to my desert island).


regards, Tam

Tam,

I don't want to get into protracted discussions, but some of those Beethoven performances which I think do have grandeur have been made by (in no particular order) Klemperer, Böhm, Walter, Jochum, Colin Davis and Carlos Kleiber. Also Karajan, although not in all his recordings by any means; he has always struck me as a conductor better suited to the late romantic period than the classical or early romantic.

OK, they are all of the older generation, but then so am I!