Klemperer's Bach B Minor Mass

[Guest]

I don't much like Bach, but I very much like Klemperer.....and am considering buying his 1967 EMI recording of this work. Any opinions on it? I'm probably more likely to go for Bach in a 'non-authentic' performance.

[Keraulophone]

This EMI classic was the subject of 'The Trial' in Gramophone Oct 2010".

Richard Fairman (of the FT) for the prosecution, concluded: "Above all, Klemperer has a habit of proceeding methodically beat by beat, sinking down foundations in a way that may have made his Beethoven monumental but seems to me fatal in Bach. The music is chained to the ground like a bird that is desperate to take flight. No, I'm sorry. I really cannot bear this. One more playing of Janet Baker's supreme Agnus Dei and this is going back in the box for another 40 years — if I am still alive then."

Jonathan Freeman-Attwood (RAM) defended: "Klemperer's Mass is a shining example of how a great musician (and Bachian) is true to himself and lives with the consequences: the great, the good, the misjudged but never the bad or ugly. It's a discographic landmark whose controversial and celebrated reception history continues to challenge the limited purview of so much modern Bach performance. A valuable conscience, if not quite a timeless totality."

Although the latter is more likely to make it into Pseuds' Corner, I am with JF-A in this instance. Beware, the Kyrie is slow, which m'lud refers to as "a slow tactus", whatever that may mean. One of the easiest arguments for having it in one's collection must be Janet Baker's Agnus Dei.

You can read the whole article at G's website should you be one of the many who seem to have cancelled their subscription!

[MickyD]

Keraulophone, I am so relieved that someone else thinks that JF-A's reviews are worthy of Pseud's Corner. Much as I respect his obvious musicianship, I found his musings in Gramophone increasingly irritating.

[rauschwerk]

Beware, the Kyrie is slow, which m'lud refers to as "a slow tactus", whatever that may mean.

'Tactus' (see Grove) is nothing more than an obsolete (15th/16th century) term for 'beat'. Pseud's Corner indeed!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I often find Klemperer's interpretations to be rather ponderous, but the Bach B minor Mass and the Mozart Die Zauberflote recordings are, for me, right at the top of the tree. The Kyrie is indeed slow, but in this way, the magnificence of Bach's fugal writing can be heard at its best; I've never heard a finer performance.

[Don Petter]

Do try to hear some of it before looking elsewhere, and don't pay too much attention to the Klemperer knockers. His 'Denn alles Fleisch' in Brahms' German Requiem is one of my 'goose-pimples and don't dare to listen to it too often' movements.

[Mandryka]

Do try to hear some of it before looking elsewhere, and don't pay too much attention to the Klemperer knockers. His 'Denn alles Fleisch' in Brahms' German Requiem is one of my 'goose-pimples and don't dare to listen to it too often' movements.

I'm programming a spotify listen for later today.

I have the Klemperer Deutsches Requiem and love it.

[mathias broucek]

Mandryka, if you fancy a "trad" B minor Mass, consider Jochum's EMI version. It's large-scale with full orchestra (Bav RSO) but is reasonably lively, unlike Klemperer.

[umslopogaas]

I've probably posted this thought before, but am delighted to find an excuse for posting it again. We should always hear what Klemperer has to say, because he was a formidable musician with a highly individual voice. However, we should never only hear Klemperer, because he could be very idiosyncratic and there will almost certainly be other valid ways of approaching the work. As well as Klemperer (HMV), I've got LP versions by Harnoncourt (Das Alte Werk, original instruments), Richter (Archiv), Karajan (Columbia, mono) and Maazel (Philips). Not sure which one I like best, but the Harnoncourt sticks in the memory more than the others.

[Dave2002]

Mandryka, if you fancy a "trad" B minor Mass, consider Jochum's EMI version. It's large-scale with full orchestra (Bav RSO) but is reasonably lively, unlike Klemperer.

mathias

Have you got a good version of Jochum's? I have it on CD - but there is at least one horrible sounding glitch. For a long while I thought it was my equipment and possibly also some compression processes I might have been trying, but in the end I came to the conclusion that there are aspects of the recording - at least on my copy - which are inherent. I'd have to check, but mine was one of the reissue versions which came out maybe 5 years ago. I think it was the one with this cover - http://www.emiclassics.com/releasedetails.php?rid=31186

If there are better CD transcriptions I agree that the performance is worth hearing.

[Mandryka]

mathias

Have you got a good version of Jochum's? I have it on CD - but there is at least one horrible sounding glitch. For a long while I thought it was my equipment and possibly also some compression processes I might have been trying, but in the end I came to the conclusion that there are aspects of the recording - at least on my copy - which are inherent. I'd have to check, but mine was one of the reissue versions which came out maybe 5 years ago. I think it was the one with this cover - http://www.emiclassics.com/releasedetails.php?rid=31186

If there are better CD transcriptions I agree that the performance is worth hearing.

I've just discovered that I bought the Jochum version in a sale nearly two years ago - it only cost 2 quid, iirc.

However, I've never listened to it - and, having just listend to the Klemperer on spotify, I don't think this is a work I'll ever get on with. It gives me that familiar urge (familiar when listening to Bach, anyway) to shout STOP!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've got LP versions by Harnoncourt (Das Alte Werk, original instruments), Richter (Archiv), Karajan (Columbia, mono) and Maazel (Philips). Not sure which one I like best, but the Harnoncourt sticks in the memory more than the others.

Karl Richter's version is extremely fine, as is Munchinger's, though the latter is compromised by a rather weak choir. (Munchinger's was the first recording to be issued on only 2 LPs. On hearing the Kyrie, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this was achieved by fast tempi, but the rest of the work is performed at a more leisurely pace.)

[mathias broucek]

"Have you got a good version of Jochum's?"

I had an earlier reissue and, although I haven't heard it for a while, I'm fairly sure it was OK

It's staggering how often record companies mess this sort of thing up. A few years ago there was a Szell Bruckner disc that apparently had the second half of the Scherzo DC missing!

[rank_and_file]

I have Klemperer’s Bach B Minor (SLS930), and certainly agree with the remarks about Janet Baker. I also like the Richter version, but the Klemperer ending is quite amazing.

Anyway, I am intrigued, because I came across this version, attributed by the uploader to Klemperer and the Berlin Philharmonic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMq44NLoVPc

The EMI version was released on LP in 1968 and Klemperer died in 1973. In the libretto an extract from the Royal Festival Hall’s November 1967 programme notes has him saying that “The only time I conducted this work was in December 1932 with ...the BPO...”

I should be very interested to know if anyone knows of a subsequent performance with the BPO, or if the uploader has made a mistake and the attribution should be to the New Philharmonia?

I know people will say I should put a stop watch on my LP’s timing and the attached clip and see if they coincide. They do sound similar - although that stands to reason!

[Alf-Prufrock]

The EMI version was released on LP in 1968 and Klemperer died in 1973. In the libretto an extract from the Royal Festival Hall’s November 1967 programme notes has him saying that “The only time I conducted this work was in December 1932 with ...the BPO...”

I should be very interested to know if anyone knows of a subsequent performance with the BPO, or if the uploader has made a mistake and the attribution should be to the New Philharmonia?

I know people will say I should put a stop watch on my LP’s timing and the attached clip and see if they coincide. They do sound similar - although that stands to reason!

I should not trust the uploader. After all, he or she writes, 'The last part of Bach's mass in B minor sung by the Berliner Philharmoniker and conducted by Otto Klemperer.' I don't think I particularly want to hear the BPO singing.