Bach: 6 Brandenburg Concertos - Mozart: Serenade, K. 525 "Ei

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.

This release has been sourced from the Richard Itter archive. After twelve years of negotiation, ICA Classics has signed an exclusive long term agreement with the Lyrita Recorded Edition who are responsible for Richard Itter Trust. The collection is very important for collectors because it has never before been released. Despite there being a large number of Otto Klemperer recordings on the market, these Richard Itter tapes of live broadcasts from the Royal Festival Hall and the BBC’s Studios in Maida Vale between 1955 and 1956 have never, as far as is known, been released before. Klemperer was always more exciting when caught live and had added urgency as compared to his studio accounts, particularly at this time before his health deteriorated in later years. His Philharmonia concerts were hugely successful in the mid 50s when Walter Legge was looking to replace Herbert von Karajan who was in the process of leaving for the Berlin Philharmonic. As Richard Osborne states in his notes: “The winter of 1955-56 marked a new dawn for 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

Includes work(s) for piano by Johann Sebastian Bach, Christoph W. Gluck, Camille Saint-Saëns, Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven. Soloist: Guiomar Novaës.

Otto Klemperer is, to this day, still considered one of the great Bruckner conductors. His EMI studio recordings made in the 1960's remain benchmark reference recordings. This 3CD collection of live Bruckner recordings from the 1950's and 1960's, a welcome addition to his famed studio recordings, finds Klemperer leading three of the finest European orchestras. Newly remastered.

This truly fantastic live set of the complete Beethoven symphonies plus select overtures as played by the Philharmonia Orchestra in Vienna in 1960 under the direction of the legendary conductor Otto Klemperer has now returned to the Andromeda catalog in completely re-mastered, superb 24bit/96kHz sound, taken directly from the original master tapes. It always a fascinating pastime to compare Klemperer’s live performances with his studio recordings of the identical works from the same period, as these come from around the time of his famous EMI late-‘50s recordings with the same orchestra.

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'.

Classical Music

Recorded in 1954 and 1950 respectively, these performances are justly famous among collectors for the spectacular energy—and subtlety—that Claudio Arrau brings to them. Those same collectors are apt to denigrate the slower, more dignified, but still wonderful studio recordings Arrau made decades later. (These are now available in a two-disc set on Philips.) Listeners to this Music & Arts disc will have to contend with a sound I found unpleasantly shrill, especially on the Second Concerto. For once, I wish my high-end stereo had a knob to turn down the treble. There are other sonic problems, besides the understandable surface noise. The orchestral passages, particularly in the Second Concerto under Busch, are damped down in volume.

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