Conductor: Otto Klemperer
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Bach: Brandenburg Concerti; Mozart / Otto Klemperer
Mozart, Beethoven & Brahms: Orchestral Works / Klamperer
This is the second volume of Otto Klemperer’s ‘live’ authorized broadcasts from 1955 and 1958. None has ever been published before. When comparing the conductor’s studio accounts, Rob Cowan in Gramophone magazine said of the first set: ‘Viewed overall, what we have here is the Klemperer we already know and love, but granted wings and, trust me, you can tell the difference almost straight away’. Klemperer had a great affection for Mozart’s Symphony No.25, here almost a minute faster than his 1956 account. In his booklet note, Richard Osborne describes the performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 from the 1958 Edinburgh Festival as “a performance that genuinely gathers itself to greatness.” Klemperer’s performances of the Brahms Requiem were justly famous, and this 1955 ‘live’ account precedes his acclaimed 1961 studio recording and is almost five minutes faster. Gramophone described the latter as follows: “Klemperer’s reading of this mighty work has long been famous: rugged, at times surprisingly fleet with a juggernaut power.” In this ‘live’ performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Klemperer is joined by the baritone Hans Wilbrink from the Munich State Opera and the German lyric soprano Elfride Trötschel, a protégée of Karl Böhm. The Mozart and Brahms recordings have been sourced from the Lyrita Recorded Edition Trust, while the authorised BBC broadcast of Beethoven Symphony No.5 is from another collection.
Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner & Debussy / Klemperer
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REVIEWS:
Klemperer’s Mozart may sound a bit heavy-handed and brusque. On the other hand, the performances are refreshingly direct, projecting exemplary clarity of texture with the wind instruments really cutting through the orchestral tuttis to impressive effect. Likewise, the performance of Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 is really compelling, a good sense of structural cohesion working in tandem with great expressivity and rhythmic precision.
– BBC Music Magazine
Viewed overall, what we have here is the Klemperer we already know and love but granted wings and, trust me, you can tell the difference almost straight away.
– Gramophone
Beethoven & Chopin & Schumann Piano Concerti
Includes work(s) for piano by Johann Sebastian Bach, Christoph W. Gluck, Camille Saint-Saëns, Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven. Soloist: Guiomar Novaës.
Anton Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 4, 6 & 7
Beethoven: 13 Times the Same and 13 Times Different / Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Saarbrucken Radio Symphony Orchestra
G-G-G-E flat, better known as "Ta-ta-ta-taaa", are perhaps the four most famous notes in all of classical music, four notes that almost the whole world knows. They form the opening motif of the 5th Symphony in C minor, Opus 67 by Ludwig van Beethoven. In various interpretations by Otto Klemperer, Michael Gielen, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and Ádám Fischer, among others, the range of Beethoven's reception at the turn of the millennium is to be compared. At the end the whole symphony will be heard under Robert Trevino: Hear, discover and compare.
Beethoven: Complete Symphonies / Klemperer, Philharmonia Orchestra
Klemperer Conducts Beethoven - Symphonies No 9, Etc
This Beethoven 9th was originally released by Music & Arts on MACD292 in 1986 and was newly remastered in 2006; the 8th, taken from the same concert, has not previously appeared. Critic Henry Fogel wrote of the original issue of the 9th in Fanfare: 'The Concertgebouw plays if possessed, the chorus sings in the same manner, and one listens to this performance feeling the impact of great music being performed with the deepest of emotional and intellectual conviction'.
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos 5 & 6 / Klemperer, Vienna Symphony Orchestra
Arrau Plays Chopin - The Two Concertos
I wish the sound were less grating, because these are impressive performances. I am particularly touched by the Second Concerto, where Arrau seems filled with some kind of noble fire. He is impassioned but in a most dignified way: the tension of his playing is simply thrilling. The unfolding of the great first theme in the Larghetto has rarely been played so beautifully. The recorded sound on the First Concerto is somewhat smoother and warmer: again the Larghetto is ravishingly played, with a bold lyricism and facility that the later recording does not quite equal, and here the recorded sound does not interfere. Neither recording allows us fully to appreciate Arrau’s famed subtlety of touch. Nonetheless, these are important recordings.
Michael Ullman, FANFARE
