Carlos Kleiber Chicago SO Beethoven 5

[mathias broucek]

I picked up some Memories Excellence CK recordings from Amazon.com marketplace a couple of months ago. I've just got 'round to this.

Oh my!!! It starts with an incendiary first movement and the last two movements are full of wonderful details and spine-tingling excitement. My only reservation is the rather fast 2nd movement - VERY con moto (9'.12" vs 10'.00" on DG). But overall a truly amazing performance.

Sound for the Beethoven and the Schubert 3 and Freischutz overture from the same concert is very decent (just some balance problems). Sound is slightly limited but listenable mono for the other concert included - Brahms 2, Mozart 33 and Butterworth's English Idyll No 1(!!!!!!).

If you like Carlos's Beethoven this is worth seeking out if at all possible!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ithe other concert included - Brahms 2, Mozart 33 and Butterworth's English Idyll No 1(!!!!!!).

I really wish I hadn't gone to Specsavers, mathias! With the pair they sold me this looks just like you've typed "Butterworth's English Idyll No 1"!!!

[mathias broucek]

I really wish I hadn't gone to Specsavers, mathias! With the pair they sold me this looks just like you've typed "Butterworth's English Idyll No 1"!!!

Indeed! Not an obvious piece for Carlos and the CSO!!! Apparently it was one of the handful of pieces he conducted after about 1980.

[Petrushka]

I have a vague memory of that Beethoven 5 concert being broadcast on R3 one Sunday morning in the early 1980's at the time when R3 used to do such things.