Product description

CD

Review

First things first: purely in terms of sound this is the finest monaural recording of the Ninth Symphony that I have ever encountered, exceptionally accurate in timbre, uncommonly wide in dynamic range (even by stereophonic, digital standards), and with a presence and impact that seem to put one squarely in an ideal seat in the hall. But what of the performance? It is certainly interesting, if for no other reason than revealing that Klemperer, like many other great conductors, is unpredictable, often changing his mind about a work from one presentation to the next. Here, the first movement, even by Klemperer's standards, is unrelentingly broad, lacking the tautness and tension of his great 1961 live account (Testament 1332) that in 28:1 I claimed to be the conductor's finest among his many preserved presentations of the score and certainly one of the great phonographic Ninths. Its one shortcoming, perhaps, is a rather slack second movement. The same holds true for that movement in this account, again featuring both repeats and avoiding the often-favored instrumental emendations suggested by Weingartner. One interesting feature of all the Klemperer Ninths I've heard is his refusal to sentimentalize the third movement: he is never unduly slow; indeed, sometimes he was even faster than was Toscanini. Here he is clearly slower than in 1961 by a full minute, but still not as expansive as many other conductors--notably Furtwängler, Solti, and Tennstedt--have been. The finale in this performance is strange, one of the few instances where Klemperer occasionally sounds mannered. The instrumental statement of the main theme and ensuing variations unfolds at a comparatively rapid pace, the D-Major eruption of the full orchestra being especially grand and festive. But the pace is not maintained when the chorus enters. Put differently, the movement is a bit more disjointed here than in other Klemperer accounts. Still, the soloists and chorus are mainly superb, Hans Hotter being every bit as distinguished here as he was a decade earlier when he participated in Karajan's first (78-rpm) recording of the work. And the close of the movement is free of the almost hysterical acceleration that infects the accounts of Weingartner and Furtwängler. A brief two-minute snippet of Klemperer singing as he rehearses the chorus for this performance completes the disc. In short this is a release that the conductor's devotees may well want to pursue, but those who wish to experience Klemperer at his best in this score should turn to the aforementioned Testament disc. -- Fanfare, Mortimer H. Frank, Nov/Dec 2009