Favourites Performances of the Brandenburg Concertos.

Dear Poul,

Thanks for you post. One day I will chance on Klemperer's Vox Brandenburg set.

I have some [Uriana, not sure but made in Budapest] recordings with Klemperer in a live series of recordings of the Magnificat, Second suite etc. And though the recordings are terrible [flaky acetate recordings transfered without any effort to solve the faults] the performances have a complelling nature. Flawed in some details, but my goodness I would have given an an arm or leg to have been at the concerts!

ATB from George

PS: I am finding the Mogens Wöldike set simply engaging in a way that I could have hardly predicted. Not HIP, but something so fine that it will never leave. At this level it is futile to compare to Busch, or Linde, but be grateful for all of them! Mogens Wöldike's trumpet player is wonderful!!

Dear George

Originally intending to listen to Beethoven/Klemperer yesterday I decided to listen to these Brandenburgs/Klemperer on Vox. I have listened to these once before some years ago. They did not impress me much, and neither did they impress me yesterday.

They have got the usual Klemperer-transparency with the winds into the fore, but the string section sounds too big. The continuo is clearly and not too much audible though, the violoncello(s) as well as the double bass and the harpsichord. The harpsichord is without doubt a Pleyel type, rather bombastic sounding and bombastically played by Marguerite Roesgen-Champion. Klemperer´s interpretation "speaks" a heavy pre-pre-preinformed accent, with an often senseless litteralness (true to the score) which eventually becomes tedious. Rhythms are quite litteral, no double dotting of course, but when the "gigue" of no.5 is played rhytmical litterally almost á la Casals..? Ornamentation is badly interpreted, and of course there are no cadential or added trills except when indicated in the score (dedicational manuscript) and in the score they are usually just implied. Articulation-slurs are likewise only used excactly where indicated in the score and not when implied. Tempi are most often fast from the beginning of a movement to the end almost without agogics and even without concluding ritardando, and instead the final note is held for a very long time. Many movements sound hectic or relentless plodding. In some movements there is for strange reasons much concluding ritardando e.g. the minuet of no.1 each time it recurs. In this movement repetitions are taken in the first trio but not at all in the second trio, and the few repetitions in these concertos are taken quite at random to say the least. Klemperer solves the problem of the transitional cadence between the two movements of no.3 in the most radical way I ever have heard, - by omitting them completely. As far as I know. this is the only recording which does so. Soloists are adequate and sometimes more than so, especially Marcel Mules: soprano saxophone (who balances very well with the other soloists), Roger Cortet: traverse flute and the two uncredited viola soloists in no.6. Pitch is often changing between movements, more than usual, and the general sound is of course a bit dated.

My essential objection to this recording is, that pedantic considerations (typical of the time of the recording) seem to be more important to Klemperer´s choice of interpretation than musical sense, whereas e.g. Wöldike, Múnchinger and Boyd Neel attached great weight to the musical sense in situations where their amount of historical information was insufficient.

Dear Poul,

I value your words! I shall not be spending any effort or money on finding these [Klemperer Vox Brandenburg recordings] after that! I can well imagine what you are describing, and no! It would not please me at all.

I guess you read about my even greater appreciation of the Wöldike recordings. Not HIP, but full of great music making for all that, or perhaps I should really say I would gladly have played in the band if the conductor wanted it played that way!

Best wishes from George

From the new Danish CD issue of the [1950-54 recorded] Woldike set of the Brandenburgs, on the second disc following the Fifth and Sixth Brandenburgs, come a pair of splendid Double Concerto performences.

The Oboe and Violin Concerto in C and the Double Violin Concerto in D Minor.

These have gradually got under my listening skin, as they inevitably followed on in listening.

The Oboe and Violin Concerto is given very straight and non-the-worse for that. Less flambouyant than David Reichenberg's DG Archive set with Pinnock [on period instruments], it presents the music with majestic good nature, unaffected by any point making at all. It is a real bonus in this set, and the recordeing is actually very fine indeed - better than the main Brandenburg ones, in spite of its greater age. It has gradually caught me and I cannot deny that it seems the best I know of the music. I used to have the famous colaboration between Menuhin and Goosens, which would seems perfumed [and romanticised beyond belief] in compairson now. Beside the DG Pinnock led performance it delves so much more into the emotional heart of the matter, without ever falling into a surface routine of beauty, but finds something indefinably greater. Music loved in chaste and wonderful fashion that denies any possibility grandstanding the expressive aspect in the music.

As for the Double Violin Concerto, it stands absolutely satisfying for me on its own account - less emotive than the old 1927 set from Arnold and Alma Rose from HMV 78s [on Biddulph Labs CD] but full of warmth and once again a sort of chaste love of the music. It is clearer in the part writing even than the glorious set from Grumiaux on Philips, and much more appropriately scaled than my favourite performance with the Oistacks [father and son] on DG with the very well played but weighty accompaniment from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Eugene Goosens [brother of the Goosens playing the Oboe in the Menuhin/ Goosens recording of the Oboe and Violin Concerto - small world!].

This set strikes me as so wonderful that everyone who loves any of these pieces should add it to their library, even if only as a suppelment.

ATB from George