Otto Klemperer: The EMI Recordings on Warner

[smittims]

Glad to hear you're enjoying them. The early 1960s were a peak period for him in the studio, and Walter Legge unashamedly capitalised on the success of his Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner to record more popular repertoire. It paid off : these are recordings to treasure.

[Keraulophone]

I'm glad this thread has been revived. The late Mozart Symphonies box set came out some time ago and, for me, is a satisfyingly valid antidote to some of today's speed-merchants, not thay I have anything against HIPP performances or recordings - their timbres are often more pleasing than their conductors' choice of tempi, in both fast and slow movements.

The first box of LPs I ever bought (from Thomas Heinitz's shop, and I must have been in my O-level year) was the mono EMI Beethoven 3, 5 & 7 which the likes of Richard Osborne in Gramophone suggested were worthier than Klemperer's stereo remakes. My schoolmates in the boarding house would have turned the volume up on their Hendrix and ELP records to counteract my highbrow tastes, as I played these LPs nearly to destruction. Then I returned to Thomas Heinitz for the CBS box of Stravinsky conducts Stravinsky (the popular works). They liked the Rite of Spring after I took it into a General Studies lesson when we were invited to bring in one recording that we could discuss and play to the class - the most common reaction was that it sounded like film music!

Klemperer wasn't always slow and lugubrious; it's just that the recording era, particularly in stereo, flourished towards his later years. Try this Tango from the Threepenny Opera suite from the Berlin State Opera in 1931 as an antidote. He recorded the whole suite with the Philharmonia thirty years later, where the Tango is decidedly slower.

https://youtu.be/eTPknPtfZWk?si=iRS_jiCK_raszqFW

[kernelbogey]

Klemperer's LvB III in stereo was one of the first clasical LPs I encountered in our household (my brother's purchase). The coda of iv - quite slow and magnificently introspective - lives in my head as the definitive approach.

[Petrushka]

Since I started this thread 9 years ago (!) Warner have issued two newly remastered boxes of these Klemperer recordings. They are amongst my most treasured CD boxes, doing Klemperer, his musicians and recording team of the day, proud.

For me, Klemperer is one of the top half dozen conductors of all time.

[Barbirollians]

I enjoyed his account of the Symphonie Fantastique - serious yes but the excitement came from the music rather than being externally applied if you get my drift .

Tchaikovsky 4 now.

[richardfinegold]

You might wish to explore the current collection of OK Vienna Symphony recordings

[Barbirollians]

I liked that Tchaikovsky 4 - again one of these OK recordings in which his relatively restrained approach to the emotion in the piece illuminates the quality of the music - could have done with a bit more Barbirolliesque fervour in the finale though .

[Petrushka]

You might wish to explore the current collection of OK Vienna Symphony recordings

I have the collection from the same label (Musicas) of the live Concertgebouw recordings but not the VSO discs.

[pastoralguy]

I may have told this story before but here goes.

The flutist, Peter Lucas-Graf played under OK many times. He was living in London at the time OK was conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra and popped round to see him after a concert which had included Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. PLG reminded OK of the time they had played it in Munich at the main concert hall. ‘Yes’, ‘ I remember it too but it wasn’t in the concert hall - it was at the municipal sports stadium’, replied OK. By this time, OK had experienced two strokes and wasn’t in the best of health but PLG wasn’t going to contradict him and highlight that his memory was faulty.

It wasn’t until PLG got home and looked up his concert diary that he realised that OK was in fact correct. The concert hall had suffered from a plumbing issue and concerts were held in the municipal stadium for three weeks until repairs were made. PLG had absolutely no memory of this but OK was able to remember that fact and as well as the concerto and the soloist as well as the overture!

[Alain Maréchal]

Glad to hear you're enjoying them. The early 1960s were a peak period for him in the studio, and Walter Legge unashamedly capitalised on the success of his Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner to record more popular repertoire. It paid off : these are recordings to treasure.

I acquired his LP of Weber and Humperdinck on an Angel LP as soon as it was available. I was so pleased to re-acquire it in the Warner CD Box. The "Dream Pantomime" has not been bettered for charm and atmosphere, not even, I think, by Kempe. OK may have been reliving his youth.

[akiralx]

Klemperer wasn't always slow and lugubrious; it's just that the recording era, particularly in stereo, flourished towards his later years.

His Bruckner 4 is of course one of the fastest ever recorded.

[Barbirollians]

I know and love his Midsummer night’s Dream recording but what a knockout Scottish Symphony from OK best I have ever heard -move over Abbado and Maag.

[Keraulophone]

His Bruckner 4 is of course one of the fastest ever recorded.

Yes, it's one of the most cogent recordings of Bruckner 4.

Klemperer's timing for the fourth movenemt is 19'06 with Cleibidache at the other extreme, taking 31'42 in Munich on Sony (his EMI/Warner live performance is four minutes shorter).

I'd still like to have been at either of those Celi concerts. The final build-up makes a colossal impact at such a slow but remorseless tempo. The mesmerising effect he can have on an audience, if not the orchestra (!), is rather lost on playback in one's listening room, especially after the first few repetitions.

[Barbirollians]

Really enjoyed both Mendelssohn 4 and Tchaikovsky 5 today - they are such interesting performances even if one does not agree with every detail.

[richardfinegold]

I know and love his Midsummer night’s Dream recording but what a knockout Scottish Symphony from OK best I have ever heard -move over Abbado and Maag.

I played that today along with the Mahler 4 which were both new to me. Marvelous, and excellent sound