Ludwig v B 5th - Kleiber vs Karajan vs ...?

Anders

Well, in my opinion (and that of countless admirers of Beethoven around the world), the Carlos Kleiber recording of Beethoven's Fifth is one of the greatest recordinds ever made of any piece of music. Beside it, any of HvK's numerous takes of the work will sound dull.

Try to hear Erich Kleiber's (ie dad's) 1950s Decca recording of the same piece with the Concertgebouw, though I believe that you have the very best available.

Try also to get hold of CK's Beethoven Seventh (available, coupled with the Fifth, on a DG Originals CD, if you permit yourself to listen to the medium).

Graham

Dear Anders,

I am not sure that Graham and I would agree too many times on top preformances, but Kleiber, the elder's was the most wonderful performance of this work I know! I have not got much time for HvK's Beethoven, but others you may wish to consider are the mono set from Klemperer, which is wonderfully terse, and full of surprisingly beautiful things as well. And then right at the end of his life Furtwangler left a Radio tape from the 23rd May 1954, in which there is the most shattering perforance of it. The recording also contains the Pastoral, in a performance that may strike many as a bit odd, but very beautiful for all that, the joy at the end is unsurpassed. [Of the 20 odd recordings with WF of the Fifth, this is one that has stood the test of time for me, and is on Tahra (France).]

I used to have the sixties DG HvK Beethoven (35 minutes music on an LP was a meagre helping even then!), and it has a splendid perfection, rather like someone has taken a splendid oak side board, sanded it down and French polished it, and there is absolutely no sense of tensions, only fast tempi, like driving a Porshe down narrow lanes with extreme skill at an alarming speed! Splendid, but more to do with Karajan than Beethoven, actually! And pure executional skill, which of course non of those I cite above lack, but it is used in the music's service rather more than a muscular showing off of a splendid orchestra in a vehicle of considerable popularity.

Fredrik

PS: From the outset, I find the Carlos Kleiber's performance unfortunately gets a rhythmic fault which ruins it for me right from the first two bars, and repeated as many times as these return. The feeling of a triplet in the first three notes is inescapable, and this is because the notes are at a faster tempo than the subsequent Allegro, while the drawn out note is natutally slower: Triplet, long note;... triplet, longer note;... Main Allegro, and on. The effect become very irritating once noted. If Beethoven had intended this he could easily have written it and it would be much easier, as it requires no double subdivsion of the beat at the very moment of starting off, and subsequently often out of a pause... None of the performance I mention here fall into that most elementary trap!

Fredrik/Graham

Thanks for your insightsful comments on the 5th!!! I shall look for Furthwengler and "Father" Kleiber

Anders

Fred knows a hell of a lot more about playing orchestral music than I ever shall. But, to my untutored ears, Carlos Kleiber's Beethoven is unmatched. And, what's more, it's difficult to imagine any future recording ever coming close to it.

So, why not try his equally unmatched recordings of Tristan und Isolde (quite shattering!), La Traviata or Der Freishuetz? Of course, his recordings of Brahms' Fourth Symphony and Schubert's Unfinished are also regarded by many as definitive.

Graham

Dear Anders and Graham,

I don't suppose we shall see the likes of the Kleibers, father and son, again, unfortunately. When the best the Berlin Philharmonic think they can do is appoint Rattle as chief conductor given the choices, what hope is there left for music-making? This is a decision completely dominated by the media and finance. I don't know the politics behind that appointment, but I wonder if Furtwangler, Kleiber (father), Klemperer or Bruno Walter would have got anywhere in today's climate. Quite possibly nowhere I suspect, and there is the rub. As for Rattle, it seems to me, that his chief claim to fame is his Mahler and contemporay music making, which indeed must be revitalised if orchestras are to survive as working organisations, rather than musical museums. But I would have thought that a truely great musician would be able to comprehend and perform within all the major styles more or less since Bach, and still be at the top of the tree in modern music. The great advantage ( said the old cynic!)) of modern music is the audience has less idea how it goes, so more or less anything does go. I have played the stuff, and I am not telling porkies! What we need is new music, where it is apparent it is right when it is! That might be asking a bit nowadays I supoose.

All the best Fredrik

I think Klemperers intellectualized Beethoven interpretation demonstrates the structure of Beethovens music in an outstanding and unique way. But it can´t stand alone. And for that reason I find, that Carlos Kleibers dramatically expressive and rhetorical almost theatrical interpretation of symph. 5 & 7 offers an alternative, which gives another valuable understanding of Beethoven. And to be honest, I think the approach of Kleiber is more in accordance with the nature of Beethovens music, than Klemperers approach. I certainly agree that it is difficult to hear the proper rhytm of the opening motto in Kleibers recording, but there are so many other things to enjoy in the recording. Walters Columbia set, which I know well, is IMO a committed middle-of- the-road interpretation without idiosyncrasies, and wery rewarding too. And I know it has been said before, but neither can I find much more in Karajans interpretations than superficial polish, even more striking in comparation with Klemperer and Walter.

Dear pe-zulu,

Absolutely spot on about Walter. I used to have the Comumbia Symphony set of both the Beethoven and Brahms symphonies on LP. Splendid way with it. Perhaps I like grit in my eye. I keep enjoying more the toughness of Klemperer, and elsewhere Walcha! Could it be that what these rather austere performances do is allow me to live the music for myself, and then not realise it? I prefer Boult to Barbirli in Elgar, and in Sibelius, Kajanus to Kowsevitsky as well. But I prefer the more romantic Babiroli to the more classical Davies, so it is not quite clear cut. And I wildly prefer Furtwangler to Toscanini in Beethoven. Taste is the oddest thing! Glad you mentioned Walter. Is the Beethiven set on CD now? I know it backwards, and it was my first complete cycle...

All the best Fredrik

For what it's worth I come down very firmly on the side of Kleiber. I've never managed to get on that well with karajan and fine him too restrained and polished.

I'd be interested to know if the Walter set is on CD, I haven't heard them at all, but I do like a lot of his other work.

As to Furtwangler/Tocanini (a debate as old as the hills, or at least the two men in question), I think it depends a little what sort of a mood in, both do totally different things and are at opposite ends of the spectrum of Beethoven interpreters. I love, for example, the Bayreuth Furtwangler 9th. However, as a set, the Toscanini RCA set is very fine indeed (indeed one of the only things that keeps it from being my favourite is the poor sound). Furtwangler's EMI set is also good, and tough to fault musically, sadly the recording quality on some recordings (particularly 2 and 8) is so poor that they are almost unlistenable, which is a great shame indeed.

I don't want to give the impression I care more about the audio quality than the music, I don't, but it is a factor, and I think there are interpretations that deliver it all (Kleiber does, as, I think does Mackerras). Szell's set with the Clevelanders is also very fine (particularly number four) and while I wouldn't take any of them to my desert island, I do fine Jochum's DG set very satisfying too.

As suggested above, Erich Kleiber is also worth investigating, and I recently picked up his excellent decca original masters set at bargain price.

I've never been that great a fan of the 5th, indeed it's one of my least favourite Beethoven symphonies, which perhaps explains why I rather like the Solti/CSO version (I wouldn't recommend the set to anyone who isn't a Solti fan, since he puts his own personality over the music too much, but it is an exciting record).

regards,
Tam

I have the origina Karajan/Berlin Phil series on vinyl and find it had to beat. Much better than susequent recording where Karajan started to "alter time".
Bob

Bob

That's a start, but you really owe it to yourself to hear the Kleibers "pere et fils", as well as others mentioned here, particularly Furtwaengler.

I'd like to suggest two recordings by Georg Szell in the Fifth. First, in the studio, with the Concertgebouw, for Philips in 1966. The second is a live recording with the Vienna Philharmonic from the Salzburg Festival, on Orfeo, with a superlative account from Gilels of the Third Piano Concerto.

Graham

quote:

Originally posted by Tam:

[...].

Furtwangler's EMI set is also good, and tough to fault musically, sadly the recording quality on some recordings (particularly 2 and 8) is so poor that they are almost unlistenable, which is a great shame indeed.

[...].
regards,
Tam

Dear Tam,

At the risk of digressing. The Stockholm Philharmonic recording of a live concert from 1948 of the Eightht is not the only Furtwangler tape to exist, Orfeo have a wonderful coupling of Eight and Seven, in that order [!], of a concert done at Salzburg in 1954, which presents WF's reading very well indeed. Orfeo Festpieldokumente C 293 921 B Mono. The Seventh is amazing and the Eight, rather wonderful and humain... nothing rushed and nothing overstated! The concert was rounded off with the Great Fugue, which DG released as part of the 150th Anniversary of the Vienna Phil, but that would not be found now for love nor money as the VPO control the tapes, I believe, so presumably we shall have to wait another forty odd years to hear that shattering performance again... I was lucky enough to catch it!

As for the Second, Furtwangler's recording was done by the BBC at the Albert Hall also in 1948, I tkink, and it is so poor that I never replaced my LP with a CD. For the Second, I have enjoyed Walter, Klemperer, and Monteux. The order is my prefered one.

All the best from Fredrik

Fredrik,

Thanks for pointing out those extra performances (I'll look out for them). This, I suppose, is one of the drawbacks of buying my Beethoven, by and large, in complete cycles and so the EMI one is perhaps inevitably flawed.


regards, Tam

Dear Graham,

Thanks for your recommendations. I'll make a point of trying to get hold of these recordings.

Bob

This set gives a good survey of Kleiber snr's Beethoven (and other work), though you ought to be able to find it for less than this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000276K46/qid.../202-3494894-1901433


regards, Tam

Dear Tam,

I have had two Bethoven Symphony cycles, and both on budget LPs. Neither was good throughout, and so I gave up on cycles after Klemperer, EMI stereo, and Walter on CBS Meisterwerks. I would prefer one shattering performance in isolation to seven good ones and two less so. Even better is one great one on a CD. Beethoven, as Furtwangler correctly remarked, was a composer who faced in so many different directions, and so the idea that one conductor would get the whole lot just so seems unlikely. Ironically, I would go for Karajan in the '60s as a unified vision. None of them are even great but one gets all the notes written and there really is a steady (if wrong) vision behind it! Klemperer is as good or great as a bi-polar sufferer would ever be. Shattering or not so, and Walter, the lovely man, too even to grasp the heoism inherent in some of it. I liked his even numbered versions, where heroism is not part of the picture if you think about it.

Monteux got most of it right, but not the Choral.

The Brahms is different, as well may be the Piano concertos of old LvB!

All the best, Fredrik

Don't get me wrong, I like a shattering performance as much as the next guy, I just also very much like to have complete sets (collector vs refiner, I guess ) as I find it fascinating to see a conductors view of all the works (Solti's set is particularly interesting in that regard, as there's almost more of him than Beethoven).

As to Brahms, I recently heard Abbado's Berlin set, which was fairly good, though my favourite remains Mackerras and the SCO, though, having heard him do number 4 last year with the Philarmonia, I'd be very interested to hear a set of him with a large orchestra. Brahms's concertos, are very fine too (though I find I get on much better with the second). I have Gilels excellent account, but I slightly prefer Fliesher/Szell.

As far as the Beethoven concertos go (I seem to be getting some way off the original point of the thread here), I again like to have complete sets. I wouldn't really want to be without Kempff (though the earlier mono cycle is, in pretty well every way, superior) and there is nobody who can play the 4th like him, perhaps it's his own cadenzas that do this, but other versions just sound a little wrong to me. Solomon's classic set is also excellent (the 5th in particular). Solti/Ashkenazy is fascinating, but not the best musically by some way. Of modern sets, Brendel/Rattle isn't bad, though the recent Aimard/Harnoncourt set eclipses it in every way and is simply fantastic.


regards, Tam

I'm afraid I cannot remember which Beethoven 5s I particularly like. However, I loathe almost every Karajan recording I have heard, including a Beethoven 5 - probably the 60s one - I can't remember right now.

The only Beethoven 5 I actually have is Erich Kleiber / Concertgebouw (1949). I like it but, as I said, I prefer unremembered others. I think the recording quality of the Kleiber bothers me a bit. Unfortunately, I can't check because I don't have a functioning turntable or amplifier anymore.

---

Fredrik,

Re not knowing how modern music goes: I remember Yo Yo Ma's Tanglewood TV series, years ago, in which extracts from two rehearsals of the same modern piece were played. It was instantly obvious (to anyone, I should think) which was the better performance, and I must admit that I undervalued the piece after hearing only the first extract.

More to the point I would have guessed that audiences would generally be inclined to mistake a poor performance of an unknown modern piece for a poor piece of music, as I did, rather than adopting an anything goes attitude. It's kind of encouraging to learn that I'm mistaken because it suggests people are becoming more receptive to new music.

Re new music that's obviously right when it is. Having given up my hopes of becoming the next Kraftwerk [on the grounds of expense] I'm seriously thinking of writing "classical" music, despite being musically illiterate. [I have some experience of writing synthetic music for computer games, writing some of the music in BASIC and assembly language!]. What I have in mind is writing music that might strictly be called atonal but which majors on simplicity and draws idiomatically on contemporary popular music. I'm hoping that serious musicians will find it, at worst, uninteresting but unpretentious and at best interesting enough to want to play it. My plan is to start off with a string quartet - this may not seem a good starting point to a "classical" musician but from a pop perspective it makes a lot of sense. This won't be soon though - maybe this time next year. I'm devoting most of the next few months to doing what doctors and therapists couldn't, and curing my own depression.

Dear Jeremy,

You look after that (last point) and keep well. I hope you draw pleasure from writing music. I have ideas, and am stumped by the very real thought that none of it is any good! I wish I had not been so self-deprecating when younger. Some of those ideas were rather good with hind-sight, but it is finding the energy now. I have a few ideas that might get somewhere when I next have a break from work, especially now I am living in a nice flat in a place I know and rather like. Not posh, but it suits me, and that has lifted my spirits a lot too.

All the best from Fredrik

Thanks, Fredrik.

Glad to hear you've moved into a place that suits you.

Hope you find the time to write some music in the near future.