Beethoven Symphony no 9 - Klemperer - Live 1957

The nineties saw the appearance, especially from the EMI stables, of a group of recordings taken live at actual concerts conducted by Otto Klemperer and authorised for release by his estate, some of them taped perhaps too late in his career but very interesting to compare with studio efforts. Live Klemperer recordings have been indeed uncommon, since the conductor was able to studio-record the vast majority of the repertoire that made him famous, a susprising quantity of it in stereo in view of Klemperer's long life span (he lived close to 90). The late fifties saw the recording and release of the conductor's famous HMV stereo set of the Beethoven 9 symphonies, never out of the catalogue since then. I don't know why this recording of Beethoven's Op. 125, taken at a RFH concert in November 1957 was made or if it was ever meant to be released to the general public when EMI put it on tape, but collectors must for ever thank Testament for making it available. If you're acquainted with the Klemperer style mostly from the EMI studio recordings made from the late '50s onwards, you're in for a big, big suprise.

On the outside, this live ninth is not strikingly different from the studio recording, made less than a month later with the same participants and available also from EMI in a single disc or as part of the complete 9 symphonies set. But how different it sounds! There's a tense, thrilling atmosphere throughout that is far less present in the studio, as Klemperer --like most of the conductors of his generation, one that comprised monsters of the art like Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Furtwängler or Erich Kleiber-- could be radically different in a concert hall, before an audience, than in the studio, and this recording does show it all-round. Besides, in 1957 he clearly still had a strength or power of expression that a few years later, save for a few exceptions, age had signifficantly taken away and replaced with idiosyncracies that tended to mar a number of those recordings he made during the last 5 or 6 years of his life (a significant example of this lies in his Bruckner 8th). This ninth is exhuberant with life, joy and dramatic tension, everything fits readily into place and some of the tempi may even susprise listeners more used to Klemperer's famous slowness, here apparent mostly in the scherzo, a slowness that many US record reviewers liked so much to criticise as "pedantic" during the sixties.

This a "Choral Symphony" to place among the very greatest ever put on disc. The sound is very good and clear (stereo, most unusual for a live recording dating from 1957), the conductor's usual orchestral layout a definite plus and Klemperer's legendary exigence of clarity of intonation and articulation very well followed by a Philharmonia Orchestra that at the time was one of the world's greatest orchestras. A must then, and if Testament can dig out similar Klemperer material from record company vaults, may they be blessed for ever! - Amazon.com




Links

http://rapidshare.com/files/361236987/Beet9Klem57.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/361262168/Beet9Klem57.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/361274715/Beet9Klem57.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/361292827/Beet9Klem57.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/361320798/Beet9Klem57.part5.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/361343036/Beet9Klem57.part6.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/361364329/Beet9Klem57.part7.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/361365100/Beet9Klem57.part8.rar