Otto Klemperer had an old friend and colleague in the broadcasting
station at Cologne: Eigel Kruttge (1899-1979). In 1922 he had
become Klemperer’s assistant at the opera house in the
city, and though their paths thereafter diverged, Kruttge was
very helpful in obtaining Klemperer’s services after the
war. A series of studio broadcasts followed, and we have two
performances in this disc.
By a long way the more important is the 1956 German Requiem.
Though his later studio recording with the Philharmonia remains
a towering achievement, indeed a talisman of his Brahms conducting
- linear, direct, and unsentimental - this earlier performance
is yet more direct. In fact it’s around nine or ten minutes
quicker than the London account, and allows one an increased
perspective on Klemperer’s priorities in this work as
they changed, or mutated, or redefined themselves.
Principally one notices the overwhelming sense of dynamism that
he generates. There is no hint of the marmoreal; instead consolation
comes through rhythmically charged tempi, sharp accenting, forward
choral contributions, and direct and unmannered solo singing.
The result is that the music proceeds in a steadily evolving,
unbroken arch, rather than relapsing, as can happen, into a
series of choral and orchestral vignettes. There is no sign
of the ‘manic’ Klemperer here, simple a disciplined
one conscious that even in the longest movements - Denn alles
Fleisch, for example - a sense of inner motion must be maintained,
and that the interlocking sections must make both local and
national sense, as it were.
Throughout I find this admirable. The well-moulded Selig
sind opens the work with a sense of forward motion; the
choral entries are precise, the wind lines audible, and so too
the important harp. Baritone Hermann Prey was 27 when he performed
with Klemperer. The voice sounds firm, well-rounded, focused,
the interpretation mature, direct, and unwilling to indulge
metrical or verbal dalliances, such as would imperil the directness
of the music-making. Other, more interventionist baritones can
unsettle things through their insistence on rubato stretching
or through drawing attention to over-expressive nuances. Not
here. Elisabeth Grümmer was 45, and again she sings with
admirable unselfconsciousness. Directness of utterance in her
case, as with Prey’s, is not to be confused with indifference,
or coldness. Rather it is a vindication of Klemperer’s
ensemble virtues that orchestra, chorus and solo singers are
directed to the same aim. This becomes overwhelmingly clear
by the time we reach the final movement, but it is clear throughout,
and it’s the accumulation of such direct consolatory drive
that gives this performance its sense of integrity and power
and humanity.
There is a brief rehearsal segment - two and a half minutes
- in which one can hear Klemperer talking and singing along
- that’s ‘conductor singing’, a species of
sing-along known only to those who wield the baton. The Mozart
Serenata notturna comes from a 1954 concert, and prefaced
Mahler’s Fourth Symphony.
This valuable document is in good mono sound, with somewhat
florid booklet notes. This invigorating reading adds an exciting
new vista on the conductor’s performances of the German
Requiem.
Jonathan Woolf
Masterwork Index: Brahms
Requiem
Elisabeth Grümmer (soprano); Hermann Prey (baritone) 
