Best Eroica

Dear Weldon,

It's the mono version of Otto Klemperer conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra on EMI.

Cordially

Big Brother

I've just ordered it on Amazon for $11.98. It will arrive Friday via UPS. In anticipation,
Weldon

Cheers, Weldon.

Happy listening.


Big Brother

For a faster, lighter approach, Mackerras with the RLPO is hard to beat (not least because his 5 disc cycle can be had for £15 or less).

That said, much as I love the Mackerras cycle, for the Erioca it is not my favourite. I have a very soft spot for Bernstein's New York reading, also for Colin Davis with the Dresden Staatskappelle and Jochum with the BPO. However, my absolute favourite comes from a stunning live performance from Furtwangler with the VPO in 1944 (though, given this is a wartime reading, I know some people may have political problems with it - if you can get past those, however, I struggle to think of anything matching its intensity).

regards, Tam

Dear Tam,

Are you aquainted with the Klemperer recording in question. It is actually the fastest yet recorded in many parts! The slow movement, in time duration, is less than two thirds of the time Furtwangler took on so many occasions! Yet never lacks gravity or pathos, but rather gains a massive noble momentum...

As for lightness, no orchestra since the young Philharmonia combined the deft lightness and precision of its strings, or clarity and quality of its wonderful wind section in the mid fifties when it was arguably the finest orchestra in Europe, and possible even rivaled what the US orchestras had to offer in virtuosity. Heavy or slow this performance is distinctly not! If you do not know it, I can promise you the shock of your life. It is incandescent!

All the best from Fredrik

PS: It is coupled with the first two Leonore Overtures in equally startling perfomances. An issue to treasure, and place beside other great readings of this music, but for me it keeps rising to the top of my list of favourites.

EMI CDM 567740 2 [Mono recordings from 1954/5]

This brings to mind another question. I have read in this forum and other places where the quality of many older mono LPs have a high degree of musical fidelity that can rival many digital cd's. Does this same type of thing also hold true with mono cd's? I know many of the great performances were recorded before stereo became commonplace but I am referring more to the actual sound qualities in these mono versions.

Weldon

Yes, indeed. The mid-fifties mono tapes often show a distinct advantage over any recordings made since - this one being a case in point - except for the fact that some people will insist on stereo.

I personally find stereo the bigest mistake ever made in the process of recording, at least until the advent of multi-channel. This is one of a very great many EMI recordings of the period which simply present the music in the clearest, and most natural balance, and these aspects have yet to be improved on. The remastering is a considerable achievement, in that there is almost no trace of tape noise either. Also it is true that the music is taken in takes consisting of whole movements, which Klemperer insisted on for many years in spite of the fact that tape joining was by then a possibility. Remarkable in every single way...

Fredrik

Fredrik:
Thanks for your thoughtful insights. I've just ordered the EMI Klemperer Eroica (1955 mono version)from amazon for only $11.98 US. (I didn't want to wait for delivery so for an extra $3.99, I will have it tomorrow). Thanks again,
Weldon

Anybody familiar with the old Bohm Eroica with the Berlin Philharmonic (now available on DG Legends)? This is not Bohm's later 70's version with the Vienna Phil. It is supposed to be a very fine performance and I would be interested in any comments from those who might be familiar with it.

quote:

Originally posted by AWS: I've just ordered the EMI Klemperer Eroica (1955 mono version)from amazon for only $11.98 US.

You made a wise choice. This is by every standard the definitive Eroica. Well, definitive doesn´t exist of course, but if I were to choose only one Eroica, this would be the one.

I actually slightly prefer the stereo Klemperer to the mono one, but even then my ultimate nod goes to either Carlo Maria Giulini’s DG recording or Erich Kleiber’s 1950 Concertgebouw recording or Wilhelm Furtwangler’s 1953 recording. (I haven’t delved too deep into the Furty recordings, so better ones may be out there.)


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quote:

I personally find stereo the bigest mistake ever made in the process of recording, at least until the advent of multi-channel.

too true. mono rules. i'm listening to Mozart's The Magic Flute with Klemperer/Philharmonia on vinyl as i type this. no doubt this is probably why i like the Intro2/Allae so much; they present a stereo recording with a certain direct immediacy that nearly rivals that of a mono recording with their total inability to create some audio goober's idea of fancy-ass sounstage.

PACE

If you think mono recordings sound better than stereo, you're in serious need of a better hi-fi!

Dear Basil,

I am sorry to disappoint you for I fear that we are not going to agree on this. Stereo in my view is most catastrophic mistake made by the gramophone industry before multi-channel, which fortunately has fallen flat on its face. It and stereo have no redeeming features relative to mono, and simply means we have less fine replay sets at any given price point as well. In fact I am certain that my replay set is more than adequate.

However it would certainly be finer if the same money had been spent on a mono set costing the same amount, but first class mono sets stopped being made quite a few years ago, because of the first attempt to render all old fashioned recordings redundant by the gramophone recording industry. I seem to remember that the digital revolution was embarked upon for much the same reason. Technical perfection wasn't it? And an excuse for Karajan to record the beethoven Symphonies for a fifth time or whatever, and etc...

Fortunately enough wisdom prevails nowadays for us to be able to recognise that the quality of the performance contained is the significant issue, and not some trifling detail of recording technique. Perfectly balanced musical recordings have been made since early 1926, when the electric microphone was first successfully employed in recording music. Not all older recordings are fine but the best mono remains unrivalled in the important issues of relaying the music and the way the performers chose to read it.

[Smiley]! Fredrik

Normally good stereo is better than mono (except in solo piano where I think stereo adds nothing, and a lot of the time takes away with very unnatural effects). The 'good' is a very important caveat - there is a huge amount of bad stereo out there: recordings that produce an unnatural, and rather distracting level of detail. By and large, this is a problem that has got worse in recent years (with the exception of companies like telarc). In the concert hall, I am usually struck by how little of a stereo effect you get by comparison with many recordings.

The early stereo sets were particularly fine.

I think it is not an issue of the quality of the system, except that such badly made recordings as I have alluded to above tend to be shown up worse by better systems.

regards, Tam

quote:

Originally posted by Basil:
If you think mono recordings sound better than stereo, you're in serious need of a better hi-fi!

Then be sure to replace you ancient Naim two channel system with a Sony 5.1 Surround sound.

more channels = better sound. Doesn't everybody know that ? [sarcastic Smiley]



BB

I recently picked up the Eroica by Thomas Dausgaard with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra on Simax and found it wonderful in every respect. Beautifully played and recorded. I love the wartime Furtwangler Eroica, but find this modern version very satisfying, even if it isn't mono!

By the way, I recently watched two Michael Tilson Thomas "Making the Score" episodes on PBS (in hi-def) that included the Eroica and the Rite of Spring. Superb lectures by MTT with the SF Symphony playing these two groundbreaking pieces--catch it if you can...DVDs also available.

Fredrik,

When was the last time you heard an orchestra playing live?

Tam,

Many piano recordings suffer from being too closely miked so you not only get to hear the music, but all the noises made by the piano (and pianist) as well. This has nothing to do with them being stereo or mono.

Stereo recordings just get far closer to the "live" sound than their mono cousins. They capture the acoustic of the recording venue in a way that mono recordings miss. If your kit doesn't show this, something is wrong.

Dear Basil,

I'm afraid you have missed the point I was making with regard to piano music which had nothing to do with close micing - rather to do with what I would term 'over-stereo' in that the high and low notes come from right an left in a way I have never heard in the many many concerts I have attended.

I attend something in the region of 50 classical concerts a year, so I reckon I have a pretty good idea of what I'm listening for and, to be honest the extent of a stereo effect I get in a concert hall tends to be pretty limited - this is one of the reasons why I have got rid of my Bernstein recording of the Verdi Requiem (the soprano and bass were so absurdly far to the left and right respectively it drove me nuts). My point is that millions of microphones tend to amplify such issues of instrumental placement in a way that is unnatural and simply does not occur in the concert hall.

I don't think I have argued that mono is inherently superior (as there is a degree of stereo in the concert hall). More that mono is much easier to get right. Stereo is tricky to get right and an awful lot of recordings get it very wrong indeed.

As to stereo recordings getting closer to 'live', I don't think so. I have two live recordings of Giulini conducting the Verdi requiem. The mono account is more thrilling, more engaging and more 'live'. This has nothing whatsoever to do with technical issues mind, it is the performance. However, I have very many more engaging live mono readings than I do stereo (though this is in large part because most so called 'live' issues these days are not).


regards, Tam

Dear Basil,

The week before I went to Poland - three weeks ago! I played in a few as well, but that stopped four years ago... [Last live concert orchestral music].

I am not concerned to get the absolute sound of an orchestra into my living room, but rather the absolute and correct, lucid balance of musical lines, and a conveyance of the musical and emotional thrust of the performance. [Rhythm, pitch, dynamic, phrasing, and some fine representation of the sonorities and their variance, but certainly this is not the actual sonority]. It is well to prioritise whether one regards a natural (and all too often rather blurred) sonority as found in a concert hall or a fine representation of what is written in the score as more important. Personally I find listening to a great reading from 78s just as enjoyable as a concert on occasion. Obviously it is easier to listen to a better recording, but I always listen through the recording, rather than to it, as such.

For those after a natural sonority above all else, then perfection can never be reached because all recording is flawed, and play-back is flawed, but the musical aspects are indeed very well served by mono, and rather less often well served in stereo, which started to go down hill within a decade of becoming a practical possibility. Once the engineer starts to make the balance all semblance of musical integrity is lost in a welter of false effects, in my view.

Two pence worth from someone who still regards music reproduction as a a means to an end, rather than an end in itself!

Good listening from from Fredrik

quote:

I'm afraid you have missed the point I was making with regard to piano music which had nothing to do with close micing - rather to do with what I would term 'over-stereo' in that the high and low notes come from right an left in a way I have never heard in the many many concerts I have attended.

Can you give me an example of a piano recording that displays this effect?

quote:

More that mono is much easier to get right. Stereo is tricky to get right and an awful lot of recordings get it very wrong indeed.

As does a lot of hi-fi kit, which prompted my initial post.

You may be right that a lot of kit gets it wrong - however, given I have plenty of stereo issues that are okay, I know in my case it's the recording not the hi-fi.

I can't think of a specific piano disc off the top of my head but most stereo issues suffer from this to a greater or lesser degree (Paul Lewis is a notable exception). I shall have a listen to some discs tomorrow evening and post an good example or two.

regards, Tam

quote:

I shall have a listen to some discs tomorrow evening and post an good example or two.

Well?

Sorry, I have been meaning to do so, but have been rather busy the last week or so (so getting round to this hasn't exactly been a priority).


As I said in my above post, though, most piano discs, suffer to this to a greater or lesser degree. Right now I'm spinning Perahia's Schubert D960 (since it's on the top of a pile I'm getting rid of) at it is a case in point (though that isn't why I'm getting rid of it, that's more to do with the artist's overly percussive pianism).


I also find it to be the case in piano concerto discs (Barenboim's Mozart concertos from Berlin suffer from a piano that seems rather to move about on the stage, but the performances are rather fine, and cheap, so I don't begrudge him hugely).

Even something like Barenboim's EMI Waldstein (which is by no means badly recorded) has the lower notes well to the left, the higher well to the right). I have never heard anything like this in the concert hall. The contrast, as I put in Paul Lewis's recent recording is stark (everything is much more even).

Indeed, Barenboim seems incredibly prone to this (his Well Tempered Klavier too). Kempff, on the other hand, was much better served by his engineers.

Uchida's recent Beethoven disc suffers badly, as does



Actually, on Thursday night I was at a concert (albeit a rather poor one) and was struck by how mono the sound was (in the shoe-box shaped Glasgow City Halls).



regards, Tam

Dear Weldon,

How did you get with the old Klemperer recording of the Eroica?

There is another with a similar vintage (oddly enough) from Erich Kleiber and the Vienna Phil on Decca. I don't know if it is currently out, and it is possible that it is in a very large budget album of CDs, which is a shame.

I span the disc the other day, and it is a contrast to Klemperer's set, not least in the first movement where the big exposition repeat IS taken! This makes the movement very long and the climaxes seem all the more powerful, though never overwraught in Kleiber's hands!

I am afraid that I have finally completely fallen out with Furtwangler's iconic reading from Vienna in 1944, and I suppose that it comes down to my much increased unease about such a performance taking place in a Nazi governed country, and the whole heroic ethos of the music seems quite undermined by the considerations of time and place. Indeed since my visit three weeks ago to Majdanek Concentration Camp, I am quite sure that none of Furtwangler's Nazi period perfomances will ever recapture the affection I held for some of them.

I have no problem with the notion of a Furtwangler performance done in peacetime after 1945, but in a post Krystalnacht world, I am left wondering why such an honourable man as Furtwangler could stoop to working under the strictures of such a dreadful Medieval Tyrany. In other words, I see why my Norwegian grandfather was genuinely very angry about Furtwangler's activity at that time. Don't forget that Furtwangler was on a Scandinavian tour at the very time Danmark and Norway were invaded. What was he thinking about? I think this aspect haunted him to his end, and I believe he was right to have eventually doubted his wisdom in imagining his activities could somehow be seem as ABOVE Politics, once he had to subscribe to the list of Banned Musicians and Composers, as well as giving command performances at the 1938 Nuremburg Rally and later at Hitler's birthday party celebrations in Birlin. A wiser man would have walked (as he eventually did) across the border to Switzerland many years before 1945! If he had done so in 1938, I doubt if there would be a cloud over him, which inevitably will remain as long as any of us have memories and aquaintance of those who came through that period.

All the best from Fredrik

PS I have about 15 hours of these War-time Berlin and Vienna Furtwangler recordings on CDs, which are available gratis, to any who does not share my reservations on this, but it is spoiled for me now... Please post here or send me an email - address in profile.