At Last, The Freeman Television Interview With Otto Klemperer

Thanks for that George.

A spellbinding thirty minutes. I wasn't aware that Freeman died just over a week ago.

George.

Thank you for posting George.

I enjoyed it very much.

Now I put on his Vox reissue of Beethoven w. Vienna Symphony which is the oldest recorded 5th I have. ( '51 recording )

Dear Kuma,

That Vienna Vox recording is rather good I think! A glimpse of the vigour of the young Klemperer from his early heyday in Berlin up till 1933 perhaps? Certainly to some degree anyway.

Here is a film from the very end of his career with the New Philharmonia in London when he was about 85 years old. By now we have a wisdom in performance that's all the time in the World to let the music unfold without any forcefulness or wilfulness. I would especially ask anyone to observe the start of the Second Movement at 15 minutes 5 seconds. 

Klemperer really had that orchestra eating out of his hand and his facial expression as he brings even quieter playing from the first violins is a treat unseen by the audience. How many conductors wink at their players!

After that he almost stops moving at all, but listening alone to the poise of it all. And then the spine tingling effect of the warming of the tone with the slight crescendo as the strings are augmented by more power from bas line instruments playing out just a bit more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiIh80jYeGE

This is by no means the greatest of Klemperer;s Beethoven, but it is still immensely emotionally gripping, and full of something rarely caught in music. It seems that Klemperer never lost the inner spirit even when the youthful fire was perhaps left two or three years earlier! 

It is a performance to give the impression of a slow conductor, which he was not, until the very last years of his career ...

But still worth attention I feel.

ATB from George

Of course the film is of the Beethoven Seventh Symphony, which to me was so evident that I did not mention it. However it would be easy to consider that I had lost the plot, unless I straightened that one out!

ATB from George

George,

I enjoyed his 7th since I have not heard it.

How many conductors wink at their players!

Maybe Beecham might have. 

4 min. into this clip, you can see him smiling at his player. Charming.

Dear Kuma,

Beecham and Klemperer knew exactly [but in completely different ways] how to get an orchestra doing exactly what is needed without the orchestra ever being quite aware of how or why!

I suppose both understood both the music and the musicians. Talents not given to all of the famous musicians and conductors of that age or any in reality!

Thanks for posting the Beecham clip. It shows something very rare in music making. Apparent levity, combined with the highest standards, and not a raw afterwards. The orchestra could play no other way when these giants were on the podium!

ATB from George