Erich Kleiber’s relatively
slender discography has long needed
a degree of consolidation. The scattering
of recordings on Decca singles, the
Great Conductors of the Century series
and on Amadeo (the Cologne recordings)
has been frustrating for collectors;
this box of the 1949-55 Deccas in their
Original Masters series will therefore
be greatly welcomed and proves to be
especially useful to those who wish
to analyse Kleiber’s way with the Eroica
and the Pastoral – both of which
exist in two recordings – and maybe
to acquaint themselves with those recordings
they may not previously have encountered,
the Weber Symphony for example or even
the Choral Symphony, which has
certainly not enjoyed the currency of
some of his other Beethoven recordings.
Let’s start with the
Concertgebouw Eroica, recorded
in May 1950. Demerits are the lack of
the first movement exposition repeat
(which accounts for the timing difference
between this recording and that made
in Vienna three years later where Kleiber
plays the repeat), a few orchestral
imperfections, and an idiosyncratic
luftpause in the Scherzo, which was
something he clearly brooded over because
he rectified it in Vienna. In addition
the recording is slightly constricted
and doesn’t really expand enough to
catch Kleiber’s climaxes. Whilst I prefer
the later recording, however, this one
has profound things to say – not least
in the constant battle between orchestral
fluidity and dynamism and between vigorous
string clarity and orchestral sonority
generally. Kleiber’s horns evince a
sense of total drama in the first movement
and in the funeral march there is a
coruscating depth. The Vienna recording
has all the virtues of the Amsterdam,
plus the advantages of the restoration
of the repeat and a better Scherzo;
it’s also much better recorded and rather
better balanced as well. The strings
are warmer than those of the Concertgebouw,
which are hampered by a degree of vintage
Decca shrillness. The Fifth saw Kleiber
back in Amsterdam a few months after
recording the Eroica in Vienna.
Again the strings are a bit harsh –
Decca clearly had problems in this hall
in the late 1940s and early 1950s –
and there’s a distinct lack of bloom
to the sound. I find it difficult to
be objective about the performance not
simply because it is so famed but also
because it was one side of the first
LP I owned. Trying to put nostalgia
to one side it still seems to me a magnificent
achievement – fiery and forward moving
(but not driven) in the first movement
with moments of lyric elasticity emerging
naturally from the music’s fabric, and
acute attention paid to the dynamics
of the slow movement, a profound union
in Kleiber’s hands of the songful and
the serious (it even achieves an almost
quasi-operatic effulgence).
Similar praise for
the Amsterdam Pastoral. Comparison
with, say, Ančerl’s warm
heartedness in this work might lead
one to think Kleiber cool and aloof
but the latter’s virtues are ones of
the most acutely penetrating insight
in the architecture and sense of fluctuation
inherent within it – of tempo and feeling.
The Concertgebouw performance is greatly
to be preferred over the earlier 1948
LPO traversal. Clearly the master tape
was problematic here because there are
all manner of preserved bad edits and
misaligned side joins – try 4.27 in
the first movement – where we lose rhythmic
impetus after the opening 78 side, 3.59
in the second movement, 2.57 in the
fourth and 6.07 in the fifth – allied
to which there’s no repeat in the Scherzo.
Coupled with the London Pastoral
is the 1949 Mozart G minor, sans clarinets,
sans exposition repeats, with somewhat
etiolated Decca violins but good basses.
Despite the sonic imperfections this
adds up to another magnificent piece
of conducting – the record by which
I "learned" this symphony
- fast and fluent in the Molto allegro,
energetic and full of brio in the finale
(which has a few ticks it must be noted)
and crafted with firm, if affectionate,
direction in the slow movement.
The Cologne performances
are preserved in somewhat constricted
sound but they give us Kleiber’s Weber,
in which he perfectly catches the symphony’s
pomposo elements as much as the more
overtly romanticised gestures that aerate
the Andante. The same session gave us
Mozart’s E flat major symphony as well
as the ebullient little Dances. The
Symphony amplifies the very qualities
that so admirably exist in the G minor
– lyricism, never easily won, allied
to strong structural awareness, balancing
of sections and string choirs, an inevitably
right sounding tempo. The Schubert Ninth
comes from Cologne but was recorded
about two years earlier than those last
1956 sessions. Caveats first – the recorded
sound is really pretty basic, light
in the lower frequencies and constricted
in a way recognisable from those later
’56 sessions. Yet what a performance.
Dynamic, incisive, full of momentum
and grandeur this reading has myriad
shades of dynamic variance, which survive
even the poor recording. Kleiber’s sense
of finesse and forward-looking intelligence
- intellectual, intuitive – makes of
this work a real case study in sympathetic
symphonic dynamism. He is not at all
the hustling Toscanini acolyte that
some have found in his conducting; whatever
he conducts and however initially brisk
and disconcerting it may seem, there
is always time to breathe, always sufficient
metrical plasticity to let melodies
unfold at their proper speed. And then
to Beethoven’s Ninth, his Vienna recording
of 1952 – there doesn’t seem to have
been a concerted effort to get Kleiber’s
cycle on disc, which accounts for the
multiple re-recordings and the lacunae
in his recorded legacy. Yes, certainly
Furtwänglerians will recoil form
the gimlet precision of the opening
movement but no one could doubt the
splendidly controlled and rhythmically
precise Scherzo, with prominent wind
solos taken with such tonal idiosyncrasy.
The slow movement is prayerful but the
finale has a few glitches – the choir
can sound woolly, there’s some blasting,
particularly on fortes, on the master
tape (I assume it’s the master tape)
– an especially unfortunate passage
is from 8.10 to 8.15 and again a minute
later at 9.10. The solo quartet is is
amongst Vienna’s finest at the time
and responds well to Kleiber’s operatic
sweep though they can be variable vocally.
On balance whilst not quite as impressive
as his other extant examples of Beethoven
Symphonies this is a classically conceived
and tightly argued traversal and as
with so much of Kleiber’s Beethoven
and Schubert it points a way forward
to a more streamlined aesthetic.
Housed in a double
CD sized box and with brief but pertinent
notes this is a mandatory purchase for
admirers of the conductor. Obviously
there are imperfections and weaknesses,
not least in the master tapes; there
is repertoire duplication as well, something
of a given in Kleiber’s case. But the
command is palpable, the symphonic shaping
utterly persuasive, the musicianship
sovereign.
Jonathan Woolf
Erich Kleiber, with orchestras and recording
dates as noted above