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             


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

REVIEW


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

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS

Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
A German Requiem Op.45 (1857-68) [61:18]
Rehearsal segment [2:38]
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)
Serenade in D major Serenata notturna K239 (1776) [11:43]
Elisabeth Grümmer (soprano); Hermann Prey (baritone)
Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra/Otto Klemperer
rec. 19 February (rehearsal of Requiem) and 20 February 1956 (performance of Requiem); 25 October 1954 (Mozart), Saal 1, Funkhaus, Cologne
ICA CLASSICS ICAC5002 [78:02]

Experience Classicsonline


Otto Klemperer had an old friend and colleague in the broadcasting station at Cologne: Eigel Kruttge (1899-1979). In 1922 he had become Klemperer’s assistant at the opera house in the city, and though their paths thereafter diverged, Kruttge was very helpful in obtaining Klemperer’s services after the war. A series of studio broadcasts followed, and we have two performances in this disc.
 
By a long way the more important is the 1956 German Requiem. Though his later studio recording with the Philharmonia remains a towering achievement, indeed a talisman of his Brahms conducting - linear, direct, and unsentimental - this earlier performance is yet more direct. In fact it’s around nine or ten minutes quicker than the London account, and allows one an increased perspective on Klemperer’s priorities in this work as they changed, or mutated, or redefined themselves.
 
Principally one notices the overwhelming sense of dynamism that he generates. There is no hint of the marmoreal; instead consolation comes through rhythmically charged tempi, sharp accenting, forward choral contributions, and direct and unmannered solo singing. The result is that the music proceeds in a steadily evolving, unbroken arch, rather than relapsing, as can happen, into a series of choral and orchestral vignettes. There is no sign of the ‘manic’ Klemperer here, simple a disciplined one conscious that even in the longest movements - Denn alles Fleisch, for example - a sense of inner motion must be maintained, and that the interlocking sections must make both local and national sense, as it were.
 
Throughout I find this admirable. The well-moulded Selig sind opens the work with a sense of forward motion; the choral entries are precise, the wind lines audible, and so too the important harp. Baritone Hermann Prey was 27 when he performed with Klemperer. The voice sounds firm, well-rounded, focused, the interpretation mature, direct, and unwilling to indulge metrical or verbal dalliances, such as would imperil the directness of the music-making. Other, more interventionist baritones can unsettle things through their insistence on rubato stretching or through drawing attention to over-expressive nuances. Not here. Elisabeth Grümmer was 45, and again she sings with admirable unselfconsciousness. Directness of utterance in her case, as with Prey’s, is not to be confused with indifference, or coldness. Rather it is a vindication of Klemperer’s ensemble virtues that orchestra, chorus and solo singers are directed to the same aim. This becomes overwhelmingly clear by the time we reach the final movement, but it is clear throughout, and it’s the accumulation of such direct consolatory drive that gives this performance its sense of integrity and power and humanity.
 
There is a brief rehearsal segment - two and a half minutes - in which one can hear Klemperer talking and singing along - that’s ‘conductor singing’, a species of sing-along known only to those who wield the baton. The Mozart Serenata notturna comes from a 1954 concert, and prefaced Mahler’s Fourth Symphony.
 
This valuable document is in good mono sound, with somewhat florid booklet notes. This invigorating reading adds an exciting new vista on the conductor’s performances of the German Requiem.
 
Jonathan Woolf
 
Masterwork Index: Brahms Requiem

 

 

 

 


 


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






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.