Klemperer

From the Notes: This great affection, and respect, for the Viennese players would last all his life. 'I think', he once wrote with characteristic honesty to the orchestra itself, 'that the Vienna Philharmonic is better than any American orchestra. I prefer them to the Berlin Philharmonic. It is true that some members of the orchestra can be unpleasant. They are not easy to deal with. But it's wonderful how they play, especially the strings' (quoted in Klang und Komponist, 150 Years of the Vienna Philharmonic, Tutzing 1992).

At the end of the final rehearsal for the 1968 series of concerts, the Schubert/Strauss/Wagner programme, Klemperer (noted bassist and music historian Alfred Planyavsky in his diary) said: 'Gentlemen, before I leave Vienna, I would like to thank you for your understanding and collaboration. Making music with you was one of the finest experiences I have had.'

written by Mike Ashman 2004

By the time he made these celebrated recordings with the Philharmonia Orchestra in the early 1960s, Otto Klemperer was a grand old man of conducting. Christa Ludwig, by contrast, was in the glowing early prime of her extraordinary career, which encompassed repertoire for both mezzo-soprano and soprano. “Klemperer was marvellous for the singing,” she later said, “because he did nothing against the composer.” This collection shows the fruits of their collaboration in Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms and Mahler.

Otto Klemperer's Mahler is invariably dry-eyed, yet urgent, a valuable corrective to the number of latter-day interpreters who would either self-indulgently wallow in the music's sentiment or, even worse, treat it as pure sonic architecture, as though it were pre-Schoenberg. If this 1967 reading of the Ninth sounds slightly detached by modern standards, if its expressive points seem slightly understated, it is nevertheless deeply engaged and masterfully controlled. Klemperer was beginning to slow down by this point in his career, and the tempos are just a hair on the slow side, especially in the two middle movements. But the old firmness of conception and rocklike steadiness are still there, even in the stormy weather of the Rondo-Burleske.

"The five songs that follow the performance of the Fourth Symphony (two from Des Knaben Wunderhorn and three from the Rückert-Lieder) date from the time of the Klemperer/Ludwig Das Lied von der Erde, and rank among the finest examples of Mahler singing ever recorded. Christa Ludwig's "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen"–the most beautiful song in the world?–is every bit as fine as Janet Baker's more celebrated version on the same label, and Otto Klemperer's unsentimental conducting style suits the music's "innigkeit" ("inwardness") better than Barbirolli's more affectionate approach.

Otto Klemperer's Brahms needs no introduction. It remains a classic reference edition, one of the very few complete cycles with absolutely no weak links. It's customary to call these performances "granitic", an adjective that certainly applies to the First Symphony but doesn't begin to describe the swift and thrilling finale of the Fourth, the grand but impulsive Third (with its first-movement repeat in place), or the warmly lyrical Second. In general Klemperer's unsentimental but always gripping approach to this music practically defines the word "idiomatic".

Cet album Cascavelle reprend ce qui semble être l'intégralité d'un concert Mozart de Clara Haskil, Otto Klemperer et l'Orchestre du Gürzenich de Cologne en 1956, complété par le Concerto de Schumann de quelques semaines postérieur avec Ernest Ansermet et son orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Comme date d'enregistrement la notice indique le 09 septembre 1956 pour Mozart et le 10 octobre 1956 pour Schumann alors que trône en fronton de la couverture de l'album un superbe « Live recording – Montreux April 9th 1956 ». Pourtant c'est bien cette dernière date d'avril qui semble erronée, le concert Mozart ayant bel et bien été donné dans le cadre du Septembre musical de Montreux.