At about the time these
discs arrived, in one of my other lives
(though far from feline I seem to have
about nine these days) I was working
on the translation of a life of the
Italian 20th Century painter
Giorgio Morandi. Morandi lived a wholly
uneventful, unmarried life, rarely travelling
south of Rome or north of Venice (just
twice he ventured as far as Switzerland),
untouched by the acclaim his work was
receiving in exhibitions on both sides
of the Atlantic. For him celebrity just
meant wasting time answering letters
and receiving well-meaning visitors
when all he wanted to do was paint with
canvases steadily piling up on a narrow
range of subjects (still-lifes arranged
on his study table and views out of
his own window) in a style far-rooted
in the classical past yet (for those
who saw beyond the surface) remarkably
open to modern abstraction as well.
The musician in me kept saying at various
points in the story, "sounds like
Brahms!". And then these records
came.
What I wouldn’t have
expected, quite honestly, is that Klemperer
should have revealed the gentle, home-based
side of Brahms, and that he should have
done so in the Third Symphony. The problem
with this symphony has always been,
now I come to think of it, that the
magnificent opening surge, with its
vistas of high mountain ranges, runs
out of steam so early on. There are
conductors who attempt to maintain this
electric surge right through the first
movement – the "Toscanini-solution",
except that Toscanini’s own commercial
recording took a different view – but
they often appear to be doing this in
spite of the music. Others just frankly
let the tensions drop, then rise again,
then drop again … With Klemperer the
opening attack is formidable, the brass
tones thrilling, but as the volume drops
we realise that the whole mountain range
has been viewed, as it were, from down
in the valley. When the carolling second
subject emerges it sounds completely
inevitable because we realise that Brahms
has been here all the time. And so the
whole panorama unfolds, for this is
one of those Klemperer performances
where something "clicked"
and the entire symphony seems conducted
in a single breath; a world of emotions,
storms and aspirations is viewed from
within the composer’s own quiet little
Alpine valley. The final "unwinding"
is not really an unwinding at all since
it was already implicit in the opening.
Don’t think this will be a "slow"
performance by the way – the timings
are 13:04, 8:17, 6:12, 9:14 compared
with the normal-sounding tempi of Boult
which come in at 13:08, 8:32, 6:03,
9:08 so Klemperer is actually faster
in two movements.
However, elsewhere
the set invokes different reactions.
First to be recorded, in 1954, were
the Haydn Variations, and here we still
recognisably have the Klemperer of the
Vox recordings of the late 1940s and
early 1950s, tempi brisk and bracing
(16:56 against the Boultian normality
of 17:25, though I’d swear it sounds
faster still), textures clean, lean
and astringent, the phrasing expressive
but in an anti-romantic, almost baroque
manner. With a close and rather strident,
but exciting recording, this sounds
more like Vox-Klemperer than EMI-Walter
Legge-Klemperer, raising the question
whether the Vox recordings sounded like
Klemperer rather than the other way
round. This would not be my preferred
way of hearing the work, but from time
to time I shall need it.
Changes were taking
place in Klemperer’s psyche round about
the time of these Brahms recordings,
changes which have been fully discussed
elsewhere and which there would not
be space to go into here. The "early-manner"
Klemperer could still sometimes surface
in 1957, as in the Tragic Overture which
seethes with fiery, muscular tension
and is actually the fastest of the several
versions on my shelves (12:32).
It gains points compared
with Boult – 13:52 and lively in
a more generalised way, as well as too
comfortable-sounding where Brahms’s
nerves are most on edge – and Kempe
– 12:58 and inclined to hysteria
as the music moves forward – though
away from comparisons I have admired
both these performances on their own
terms and praised them on this site.
Where
Klemperer loses points, though, is against
Karel Ančerl’s much slower but
action-packed reading which, far from
being heavy, finds the widest range
of mood from utter dejection to stark
tragedy and compassionate warmth, all
contained within a taut formal control.
Also impressive is
the Academic Festival Overture. At the
opening you will find the tempo brisk-to-normal,
but most conductors start below tempo
and Klemperer intends to go on like
this. With an almost naughty relish
of Brahms’s unusual (for him) instrumentation
this is far from heavy, let alone academic,
and properly festive.
About the remaining
symphonies I am not sure, or maybe I
have not yet understood what Klemperer
wishes to say. Perhaps it was a mistake
to hear his no. 1 immediately after
the up-front version by Herman
Scherchen see my review),
but coming back to it later, having
heard the rest of the set in the meantime,
I modified my view only up to a point.
I appreciated the weight of the opening
and generally found Klemperer engaged
in the work’s more stormy moments. Between
those he seems content to let the performance
go on automatic pilot; it is not so
much the tempo that lags as the tension,
with phrases sitting side by side instead
of forged together. Also in the second
symphony moments of positive engagement
seem to alternate with more dispirited
ones and the whole often assumes a rhythmic
trajectory closer to big-band Bach than
Brahmsian lyricism. Perhaps one day
I shall see the point of this, but will
I ever come to accept the way in which,
in this radiantly pastoral symphony,
Klemperer’s forward wind balancing often
results in the intrusion of a particularly
acidulous oboe (assuming it really is
an oboe, it sounds like a mouth-organ
to me)? In this symphony in particular,
the melodic line brought out of the
textures is not always the usual one
and I am not always convinced that this
is a deliberate choice on the part of
the conductor as opposed to a failure
to intervene and sort things out.
The fourth symphony
has its strong moments but also takes
on board some traditional gestures which
Klemperer’s reputation might lead us
to expect would be expunged – the accelerando
at the end of the first movement, which
even Mengelberg avoided, and the slowing
down for the flute melody in the finale.
Not to speak of his distracting delayed
upbeats which litter the scherzo. All
things considered, a less integrated
reading than one would have hoped.
Last to be recorded
was the Alto Rhapsody, mightily impressive
in its Mahlerian angst, except that
Klemperer’s apparent belief that the
whole piece is to be played forte becomes
counter-productive and leads Ludwig
into a public-address style of singing
which seems to want to combine Amneris,
Azucena and Eboli in one. It is true
that Boult’s more contained conducting
for Janet Baker can sometimes sweep
Brahms’s exposed nerve-ends under the
carpet, but he allows his singer to
bring her whole dynamic range to play
and I am bound to prefer this.
There is no doubt that
Klemperer’s is an individual and important
statement on this music. If I have personally
found revelation only in Symphony no.
3 and, up to a point, the Variations
and the two Overtures, I shall nonetheless
be returning to all the performances
which may yet prove as inexhaustible
as the music itself. Although this didn’t
worry me unduly (except for that oboe)
I should point out that the orchestral
playing is often rough and ready both
in term of ensemble and intonation and
the recordings are a little coarse –
but they are getting on for fifty years
old.
Christopher Howell
see complete
series of Great
Recordings of the Century
Christa Ludwig* (mezzo-soprano)