Otto Klemperer, Wiener Philharmoniker - Live Broadcast Performances (8CD) (2005)

  • 15 Jun, 14:53
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Artist:
Title: Live Broadcast Performances
Year Of Release: 2005
Label: Testament
Genre: Classical
Quality: FLAC (image+.cue,log,scans)
Total Time: 08:28:33
Total Size: 2,6 Gb
WebSite:

Tracklist:

CD1 - Mozart - Serenade No.12, Symphony No.41
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
1. Ambience
Serenade No.12 in C
2. Allegro
3. Andante
4. Menuetto in canone
5. Allegro
6. Applause
Symphony No.41 in C 'Jupiter'
7. Allegro vivvace
8. Andante cantabile
9. Menuetto. Allegretto
10. Finale. Molto allegro

CD2 - Beethoven - Coriolan, Symphony No. 4, Schubert - Symphony No. 8
1. Applause
Ludwig van Beethoven
2. Coriolan, Overture, op.62
Symphony No. 4 in B, op.60
3. Adagio - Allegro vivace
4. Adagio
5. Allegro vivace - Trio. Un poco meno allegro
6. Allegro ma non troppo
7. Applause
Franz Schubert
Symphony No. 8 in b, D.759'Unfinished'
8. Allegro moderato
9. Andante con moto

CD3 - Beethoven - Symphony No. 5, Rameau - Gavotte mit 6 Variationen (Orch. Klemperer)

1. Applause
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 5 in c, op.67
2. Allegro con brio
3. Andante con moto - Piu mosso - Tempo I
4. Allegro
5. Allegro - Presto
6. Applause
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Gavotte mit 6 Variationen (Orch. Klemperer)
7. Gavotte
8. Variation I
9. Variation II
10. Variation III
11. Variation IV
12. Variation V
13. Variation VI

CD4 - Bruckner - Symphony No. 5
Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 5 in B flat major
1. Introduction (Adagio) - Allegro
2. Adagio (sehr langsam)
3. Scherzo (Molto vivace) and Trio
4. Finale (Adagio - Allegro mode...

CD5 - Mahler - Symphony No. 9 in D minor (movements I-III)
1. Applause
Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 9 in D minor (movements I-III)
2. Andante comodo
3. Im Tempo eines gemдchlichen Lдnders
4. Rondo-Burleske.Allegro assai

CD6 - Mahler - Symphony No. 9 in D minor (movements IV), Bach - Brandenburg Concerto No. 1
Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 9 in D minor (movements IV)
1. Adagio. Sehr langsam und noch zurьckhaltend
2.Applause
Johann Sebastian Bach
Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F
3. (Allegro)
4. Adagio
5. Allegro
6. Menuet - Trio I - Menuet - Polacca

CD7 - Strauss - Don Juan, Wagner - Siegfried, Triston und Isolde, Die Meistersinger,
Richard Strauss
1. Don Juan, Op. 20
Richard Wagner
2. Siegfried Idyll
3. Applause
4. Tristan und Isolde - Vorspiel
5. Applause
6. Die Meistersinger - Vorspiel

CD8 - Brahms - Ein Deutsches Requiem
Johannes Brahms
Ein Deutsches Requiem
1. Applause
2. Selig sind, die da Leid tragen
3. Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras
4. Herr, lehre doch mich
5. Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen
6. Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit
7. Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt
8. Selig sind die Toten
Wilma Lipp - soprano
Eberhard Wachter - baritone
Singverein der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde

Performers:
Wiener Philharmoniker
Conductor: Otto Klemperer

This extraordinary set of live Klemperer performances should be in the collection of everyone who cares about Klemperer and his marvelous style of music making. Massive and often slow but always vital and alive, they will not appeal to everyone. But it is astonishing how these CDs bring into sharp focus Klemperer's real magnetism on the podium. As good as his EMI recordings are, they are so very much the product of the recording studio one can be forgiven for wondering whether they represent what Klemperer was in fact capable of achieving in live performance, particularly near the end of his career when his various physical disabilities became almost overwhelming impediments to performance.

Somehow, almost miraculously, Klemperer put it all together for a few weeks in the late Spring of 1968 in Vienna to produce truly incandescent performances. Not note perfect by any means, this is music making nevertheless for the ages. I suppose the Mahler 9th comes closest to failure as it offers some of the most ragged playing in the set. (According to the excellent liner notes, some of that can be attributed to Klemperer but more to the orchestra's unfamiliarity with Mahler's last great symphony and even downright hostility to Mahler's music.) But in the end that raggedness doesn't matter at all. Klemperer's trademark qualities as conductor are very much present in the Mahler as in all these performances: clarity of polyphonic texture; structural integrity; overall rhythmic coherence (even if ensembles are a bit 'shaky' at times). I was particularly moved by the performances of Bach and Mozart -- the 'Jupiter" symphony is positively incandescent -- as well as by the Bruckner Fifth which is, hands down, the greatest performance of that symphony I have ever heard, live or on record. But all these performances are well worth hearing again and again in spite of their foibles.

All performances from the 1968 series are in good quality stereo sound; the single mono recording, a very decent-sounding performance of the Brahms German Requiem, is taken from a Klemperer concert in Vienna about ten years earlier. I don't recommend this set to the 'note perfect' crowd or to anyone who has a fixed idea about what is the "best" recording of the Beethoven Fifth or Mahler Ninth. But if you are prepared to hear the 'thoughts' of an old man who has struggled with this music all his life, for whom this music meant more than anything else on earth and for which he was willing to push himself past pain and infirmity, then I think you will be moved and enriched by this priceless set.