Misunderstood/neglected/ignored conductors

[Beef Oven!]

My German is quite poor, but it appears that a fine musician like Ingo Metzmacher is reduced to earning a living working in a record shop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omow0R7B85o

[Stanfordian]

Giuseppe Sinopoli
Vladimir Ashkenazy

[Petrushka]

I've been listening to a fair amount of Klemperer recordings in recent weeks and cannot understand the reputation he is supposed to have for ponderous tempi. It seems to be such a given that everybody seems to accept it. But where is the evidence? His Mahler 7 is said to be ridiculously slow but I've not heard that so can't comment but in his Brahms, Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz, Mozart and much more these are truly excellent recordings deserving of much greater appreciation.

So Otto Klemperer is most definitely misunderstood.

[Beef Oven!]

I've been listening to a fair amount of Klemperer recordings in recent weeks and cannot understand the reputation he is supposed to have for ponderous tempi. It seems to be such a given that everybody seems to accept it. But where is the evidence? His Mahler 7 is said to be ridiculously slow but I've not heard that so can't comment but in his Brahms, Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz, Mozart and much more these are truly excellent recordings deserving of much greater appreciation.

So Otto Klemperer is most definitely misunderstood.

Funny enough, I'd always thought this. And as an example, his early M2s were well-quick and fitted onto 1 CD when all the rest needed 2!!

[Petrushka]

Funny enough, I'd always thought this. And as an example, his early M2s were well-quick and fitted onto 1 CD when all the rest needed 2!!

It's a complete myth that his tempi were always ponderous and it put me off investigating his recordings for many years. Why critics come out with such nonsense when the recorded evidence says otherwise is a mystery.

[Beef Oven!]

It's a complete myth that his tempi were always ponderous and it put me off investigating his recordings for many years. Why critics come out with such nonsense when the recorded evidence says otherwise is a mystery.

I was put off in the same way.

I have subsequently found his tempi to be lively in the LvB, Mahler and Bruckner CDs that I've acquired.

[Petrushka]

I was put off in the same way.

I have subsequently found his tempi to be lively in the LvB, Mahler and Bruckner CDs that I've acquired.

I listened to OK's recording of the Berlioz Symphony Fantastique tonight and it's very fine indeed and furthermore it's in really excellent sound, outstanding for 1963, better than many a subsequent recording. If Klemperer is ever so slightly slower here it enables masses of detail to emerge and you don't often get the bass drum coming out at you in many recordings of the time.

[Richard Tarleton]

I've been listening to a fair amount of Klemperer recordings in recent weeks and cannot understand the reputation he is supposed to have for ponderous tempi. It seems to be such a given that everybody seems to accept it....So Otto Klemperer is most definitely misunderstood.

Perhaps Pet it would be fair to insert the word "sometimes" before "ponderous"? I remember Bernard Levin (an admirer who saw him many times) writing in defence of his slow tempi, for example in the classical music chapter on his book on the Sixties, The Pendulum Years? As Exhibit A for the prosecution I'd offer the scherzo and trio of Beethoven's 7th symphony, which he takes at half the speed of Toscanini (and Beethoven's metronome markings come to that).

I had a ticket to see Klemperer in February 1971 (to have conducted Bruckner 7) but he withdrew a couple of days beforehand. We got Charles Groves (and an additional Mozart symphony) instead. I believe he conducted one more concert.

OT, having just read Max Hastings The Secret War, I'm struck by a passing resemblance between Klemperer and Hugh Trevor Roper (whom I did see, many times!) -

[Petrushka]

Perhaps Pet it would be fair to insert the word "sometimes" before "ponderous"? I remember Bernard Levin (an admirer who saw him many times) writing in defence of his slow tempi, for example in the classical music chapter on his book on the Sixties, The Pendulum Years? As Exhibit A for the prosecution I'd offer the scherzo and trio of Beethoven's 7th symphony, which he takes at half the speed of Toscanini (and Beethoven's metronome markings come to that).

I had a ticket to see Klemperer in February 1971 (to have conducted Bruckner 7) but he withdrew a couple of days beforehand. We got Charles Groves (and an additional Mozart symphony) instead. I believe he conducted one more concert.

OT, having just read Max Hastings The Secret War, I'm struck by a passing resemblance between Klemperer and Hugh Trevor Roper (whom I did see, many times!) -

Yes, 'sometimes' could be inserted but critics pounce on it as if it's 'all the time' which is simply not the case. There are cases such as the (presumably 1968) Beethoven 7 but going through his recordings collected together in several Warner boxes, I've been astonished at just how vital and alert they are.

I saw Bernard Levin several times and spoke to him last in the Royal Albert Hall when I think he was already ill, poor man, and it's good to be reminded of his writing which I love.

As for Hugh Trevor-Roper presumably you were at Oxford? I associate him with his book The Last Days of Hitler which I first read aeons ago.

[Richard Tarleton]

I saw Bernard Levin several times and spoke to him last in the Royal Albert Hall when I think he was already ill, poor man, and it's good to be reminded of his writing which I love.

As for Hugh Trevor-Roper presumably you were at Oxford? I associate him with his book The Last Days of Hitler which I first read aeons ago.

My Bernard Levin sightings were in the ROH where he was also a regular. One sentence of his sticks in the mind - about experiencing Siegfried's Funeral March through the soles of his feet, sitting in the front row at Bayreuth.

HT-R - yes, indeed I recounted a scary encounter with him here. Max Hastings's account of his role in WWll was a revelation. He didn't write that many books, more essays, articles and reviews, some of them of singular ferocity. Sadly he made a right idiot of himself in his twilight years over the "Hitler Diaries".

[Ferretfancy]

I have Collins' recordings of the Sibelius symphonies 3,4,6, and 7 on the original mono Decca LPs and very fine they are too. I think he was a pioneer in playing Sibelius's music at a time when nobody else did.

He looks, as displayed by the cover art, very forbidding: bald head, large cranium, trimmed beard and moustache, bow tie and probably dying to give the orchestra a hard time. Have any of you orchestral ancients memories of his conducting?

Perhaps not really a pioneer umslopoglaas, but a fine Sibelius conductor. I say not really a pioneer because Basil Cameron was a devoted advocate and personal friend of Sibelius and conducted his music frequently during the 1940s and 1950s, particularly at the Proms. Sadly, there seem to be only a couple of recordings of Cameron conducting Sibelius, a nice performance of the Second Symphony with the LPO in 1947, and part of the Kareila Suite with the Musette from the King Christian the Second Suite.

I also have Cameron on CD conducting Colin Horsley in a splendid performance of Ireland's Piano Concerto, Moiseiwitsch in Rachmaninov 2 coupled with the Paganini Rhapsody, and last but not least Ida Haendel's 1945 performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.

Cameron is certainly a rather forgotten figure these days, but his performances introduced me to a great deal of music back then when I was just beginning to enjoy
this music and see those great performers.

[Beef Oven!]

Adrain Leaper
Barry Wordsworth

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Adrain Leaper

Well, maybe in the gutter, but certainly gazing at the stars. After last night, I shall approach Leaper's work with a completely altered attitude.

Barry Wordsworth

Hmmm. Having attended many of Bazza's concerts in the Dome, Brighton in the '80s and '90s, I rather think that he is as well "understood" as he deserves to be. A competent stick shifter, regularly employed, amiable chap - but has never really "done it" for me.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Having recently read on the Forum that Gergiev is recording a second Mahler cycle makes me weep all the more that nobody in the '60s was intelligent enough to ask Horenstein to do a studio cycle.

[Beef Oven!]

Well, maybe in the gutter, but certainly gazing at the stars. After last night, I shall approach Leaper's work with a completely altered attitude.


Hmmm. Having attended many of Bazza's concerts in the Dome, Brighton in the '80s and '90s, I rather think that he is as well "understood" as he deserves to be. A competent stick shifter, regularly employed, amiable chap - but has never really "done it" for me.

I was using the Belgian spelling for Adrian.

We must speak as we find. I’ve attended a few of Bazza’s concerts, mainly from years ago and thought them very good indeed. I was also grateful for his recordings on Naxos etc, when I was first exploring classical music.