Reading Richard Osborne's excellent liner notes for the Klemperer box sets, it's clear that O.K. had unequivocal appreciation for very few composers, Mozart and Bach being his most esteemed.
Although an associate of Mahler, he was far from convinced by all of G.M.'s symphonies and this reflected in his discography. Recording Walkure Act 1 in the autumn of 1969, he remarked to Gramophone that returning to the piece was 'like meeting up with a woman you were madly in love with years before.....and finding she's just the same.' He famously slashed several bars from Bruckner's 8th symphony (to the astonishment of Suvi Raj Grub) because he felt that Bruckner had 'overreached himself.'
Personally, I think this unsentimental detachment is part of what Klemperer such a great conductor: he wasn't in awe of (most of) the music he performed.
Although an associate of Mahler, he was far from convinced by all of G.M.'s symphonies and this reflected in his discography. Recording Walkure Act 1 in the autumn of 1969, he remarked to Gramophone that returning to the piece was 'like meeting up with a woman you were madly in love with years before.....and finding she's just the same.' He famously slashed several bars from Bruckner's 8th symphony (to the astonishment of Suvi Raj Grub) because he felt that Bruckner had 'overreached himself.'
Personally, I think this unsentimental detachment is part of what Klemperer such a great conductor: he wasn't in awe of (most of) the music he performed.
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