MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

Not available in the USA

Classicsonline Crotchet

 

Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Symphony no.1 in C minor, op.68 (1876) [42:00]
((i) Un poco sostenuto; Allegro [13:00] (ii) Andante sostenuto [9:50] (iii) Un poco allegretto e grazioso [4:20] (iv) Adagio; Allegro non troppo ma con brio [14:50])
Academic Festival Overture, op.80 (1880) [8:54]
Richard WAGNER (1813-1883)
Tristan und Isolde – Prelude to Act I (1859 version) [10:59]
Siegfried Idyll (1870) [18:36]
Berlin State Opera Orchestra/Otto Klemperer
rec. Singakademie, Berlin, June 1927 (Academic Festival Overture and Tristan und Isolde Prelude); Berlin, 1927 (Siegfried Idyll); Berlin, 1927 and 1928 (Symphony no.1)
NAXOS HISTORICAL 8.111274
[80:28] 

Experience Classicsonline


Discussion of the distinctive characteristics of Otto Klemperer’s conducting tends to focus on the final phase of his long career, when many of his interpretations appeared to mirror his impassive – if not positively stern - facial expression and his physical immobility.

In fact, his best-known and most widely circulated recordings – made with the Philharmonia and New Philharmonia orchestras in the 1950s and 1960s – almost invariably attract such adjectives as “forceful”, “unwavering”, “solid” and “craggy” (the word “granite” appears with almost monotonous regularity). 

But that seriously distorts Klemperer’s overall achievement in the recording studios. Many of his early 1950s Vox discs, for instance, exhibit a far less monolithic “style”. And the interpretations preserved on this new Naxos Historical issue offer surprising and conclusive proof of the individuality and subtlety of his interpretations of core repertoire at an even earlier stage of his career. 

Klemperer’s image in the late 1920s was that of a progressive modernist. Appointed Chief Conductor of the Kroll Opera in Berlin in the very year that most of these recordings were set down and remaining in that post until 1931, Klemperer famously outraged the Nazi Party’s cultural panjandrums by focusing on works by such culturally – and often racially – suspect composers as Hindemith (Neues vom Tage, 1929), Schoenberg (Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene, 1930) and Kurt Weill.

And yet these Brahms and Wagner recordings, expertly restored to fine effect by Mark Obert-Thorn, show him to have been, at the same time, an entirely sympathetic and often quite surprisingly flexible interpreter of such late 19th century Romantic repertoire. 

From the very opening of the Brahms symphony, we are in for a surprise, for the timpanist’s strokes - far from driving all before them in the usual relentless and dominating fashion - are, while remaining the music’s key propulsive driver, far more integrated into the full orchestral mix than we generally expect. 

Of course, it might be argued that a single such instance might well be due to the inadequacies of late 1920s recording technology (even though modern restoration techniques have shown conclusively that many surviving masters have far more detail embedded in them than used to be assumed.) But further listening reveals that the C minor symphony’s opening is of an exact pattern with Klemperer’s conception of the whole work, with showy dramatics consistently eschewed in favour of lightness of touch, frequent fleetness of foot – especially in the finale - and orchestral transparency that allows the score’s finer detail to shine through. And what lovingly-presented detail there is! Just listen, for instance, to the sweetly seductive solo violin in the slow movement (from about 6:56 onwards), geműtlich almost in the manner of a Viennese café player and making a noticeably more striking contribution that usual. 

This is, in fact, an interpretation which might be said to draw out the similarities to Brahms’s second symphony, rather than following the usual practice of emphasising the contrasts: Klemperer revealed not as granite, but as chalk. As such, I enjoyed it immensely. 

The performance of the Academic Festival Overture exhibits many of the same qualities. This is a piece that can easily sound somewhat episodic, but Klemperer moulds its various elements together into a coherent and musically convincing whole in which, for once, Gaudeamus Igitur does not sound like it has simply been tacked onto the end for dramatic effect. 

The Tristan Prelude is something of a disappointment – but only compared to the exceptional music-making found on this disc’s other tracks. Though just as well played, here Klemperer’s interpretation lacks individuality. The recording by the same orchestra under the much-underrated Max von Schillings, also made in 1927 (and available on Preiser Mono 90267), is, to my ears, a far more involving experience. 

That leaves us with an exquisitely shaped, well-balanced and beautifully paced performance of the Siegfried Idyll that not only demonstrates, once again, Klemperer’s fine musicianship but also showcases the Berlin orchestra’s qualities to perfection. 

Today we tend to remember the Weimar Republic’s more avant garde contributions to the arts. This disc performs an important function of reminding us that, even in an era marked by prolonged economic crisis and political instability, the German musical tradition was still being maintained at the highest levels. Indeed, having listened to this disc, many might argue that such superb and responsive musicianship puts to shame a good number of well known orchestras making recordings today.

Rob Maynard




 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.