Every time Otto Klemperer’s EMI Beethoven recordings are re-released, the couplings change, the prices go down, and the consumer gets confused. In the late 1980s EMI released the conductor’s stereo Beethoven symphonies on six full-priced CDs, with another disc devoted to the same composer’s overtures. These were re-released at midprice, with different cover art. In 1994 EMI bundled the seven discs in a budget-priced package. Four years later the cycle was remastered and recoupled on six individual midprice discs for EMI’s series The Klemperer Legacy, but with some differences. The conductor’s 1961 Beethoven Seventh was now replaced with his 1955 version, recorded in experimental stereo. The Egmont Incidental Music, Fidelio, Consecration of the House, and King Stephen overtures were dropped. The present budget box gives you these six discs (the 1998 remasterings) along with three CDs encompassing Klemperer’s Beethoven Piano Concertos and Choral Fantasy with soloist Daniel Barenboim.
By and large, the transfers offer noticeable if not drastic sonic advances over previous incarnations. There’s more focus to the lower strings and woodwinds, plus improved definition in note attacks and timpani strokes. Fashions in Beethoven playing have gone through several phases since these recordings first appeared. Indeed, the conductor’s dark, foreboding countenance, expressive severity, and implacable pacing will seem utterly anachronistic to fans of Beethoven on period instruments.
The music may take shape slowly under Klemperer’s guidance, but damned if it doesn’t move. Every phrase, each orchestral balance, and all transitional junctures patiently unfold and pull you in with the force of a hidden, powerful magnet. This approach proves spellbinding for the symphonies and overtures, yet makes for a more ponderous effect in the concertos. What was grand has now turned fussy, and the young Barenboim’s self-consciously pointed pianism generally yields to the greater harmonic sophistication, technical finesse, and spiritual penetration of Arrau’s similar yet more mature conceptions. Moreover, Klemperer exerted less control over his orchestra in the late 1960s than his relatively healthier self a decade earlier when the symphonies were made. For the symphonies alone, though, this boxed set still constitutes a great bargain and remains a milestone in the history of Beethoven recordings. [12/19/2000]
