Review: The Carlos Kleiber Complete DG Recordings
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- Опубликовано: 1 фев 2021
- Carlos Kleiber's scarcity as a performer and recording artist created a certain mythos around him that, like most such things, was only partly true. He was, by and large, a very fine conductor, but you'll find the best of him in his operatic performances as opposed to his purely orchestral ones. The additional BluRay disc in this set will appeal to those with the necessary equipment to play it.
Surprised you don't have a blu ray player - How do you watch Andre Rieu concerts? Do you just stream them?
BBC Music Magazine once voted Kleiber the best maestro of all time, and many people whose opinions I respect agree or place him in their personal Top Three. I've never quite understood this and there might be multiple reason why that's on me rather than others who hold this opinion. I don't care for opera generally, so I can't factor in a maestro's pit performances to overall assessments. As a dude in his late 30s, I came along largely after the celebrity maestro era and can only judge these guys from their recordings, sans live performance, and I only know the personalities to the extent they manifest themselves in recordings. Operating in this vacuum, Kleiber doesn't particularly stand out to me in his conservative, core fach repertoire. I'm open to being persuaded otherwise, but I just don't hear it so far. Also, I love The Miraculous Mandarin, but even I'm not nutty enough to take it in every day with my morning egg sandwich. Practicing law with Bela Bartok or his brother would have been fun.
there is another (very striking to my ear) interpretative thing in the first movement of that Brahms 4 where Kleiber seems to have the principal horn play a (written) C6 (sounding E5) in the coda, fourth bar after letter Q in my old score, rather than have the pair playing written C5 (sounding E4) in unison. It looks to me like Brahms being kind to his horn players but I think the octave transposition is an improvement. The ringing quality of that high note contributes a lot to the feeling of "intensity" you get from it. As a youngster I bought this recording (because it was said to be the best) and was really surprised to never hear that thrilling high note on any other recording or performance I heard afterwards!
"I just don't care"... common sense about audio snobbery. I agree with with you generally about Kleiber. Such a limited repertoire "Greatest Guest COnductor". There is value in a conductor that has a wide repertoire. I mean, someone like Ormandy is so disrespected nowadays, yet he led a great orchestra for decades. Kleiber could never have managed that, musically, or professionally. As for his recording, as a brass player, I love the transposed octaves in the horn in the Finale of Brahms 4. His Tristan (at least orchestrally) I like. Above all, his Vienna Rosenkavalier (video) is world class...
Those who worked with Kleiber say he was a great genius. None of his records are evidence of that.
'"Merlot" 😂😂😂
I can't force myself to listen to Carlos Kleiber's Beethoven fifth again, but here is how I remember it: The performance is aggressive, and Kleiber plays the loud parts fast and the quiet parts slow, breaking up the flow of the music. Typical for DG the recording is not good, shrill and lacking bottom end. Why this is the favoured version among the many available remains a mystery to me.
I too, have Kleiber's Brahms 4 and after the hype my reaction was "It's merely very good" For me the pedal-to-the-metal 4th is the nonagenerian Stokowski's ...now that's a performance. And Dave finally comes clean about his audiophile past, so I promise not to ask any more questions about Dave's speakers, amps, cables, and power conditioners. Great video .
I love your concert story I'm going to share one even cuz I have no place else to share it.. had just moved to Boston and was dying to see the Boston pops conducted by John Williams so we got our tickets we sat in the balcony on the side in symphony Hall about 10 minutes into the concert we could start smelling chicken and we looked to our right and the family that was seated next to us in large family it all smuggled in fried chicken and they were passing it up and down the aisles amongst themselves chomping away.. yes eventually the ushers did get them and took care of it but I always smell chicken now when I hear the pops
I can't believe how big that box is given the number of albums in it.
Your review was both helpful and enjoyable. It was enjoyable particularly for your remarks concerning audio recording media. To my ears, the compact disc remains the ultimate format for classical collectors. A well-remastered analog recording, provided the sonics were good to begin with, obviates any need for a now-fashionable return to LP vinal discs. A well-engineered digital recording is the next best thing to "being there." CDs are virtually indestructible under ordinary conditions of use. Of course there are still those who claim that there has never been a better medium than 78-rpm monaural recordings (preferably played on a wind-up victrola). Antiquarians we will have with us always. My only qualm is that we CD mavens may well be antiquarians ourselves, as physical formats give way to digital streaming. Your talk was also helpful in that I was unfamiliar with Carlos Kleiber's opera recordings, and your favorable reviews of them spoke well of a conductor whose meager recorded legacy in the symphonic repertoire I have never liked. "Sterile" would be the word I would choose to characterize his famous Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms recordings. Thanks again for this informative review.
Thank you. I hope you are encouraged to digress more about your concert-going experiences. They should be a matter of record!
Although I don't like critics that much in general, who does, I have grown to like hearing your opinions. Thanks for putting it out there.
Hehe I'm 42 and I remember quite well the battle VHS Vs. Betamax. I chose VHS, a matter of quantity, of course!!! 😝 And I think SACD was a very good idea but appeared too late. Now I have a good stereo system, with a cd transport (I have too many CD's) and the only concession to "modernity" is a bluetooth dongle...
I have an all in one player and thus can play any digital format. My first digital experience was a Denon disk of something and indeed it was a revelation. I never knew before that Alcoa had entered the musical instrument business. Then came DVD audio. A software nightmare!! Next followed SACD which today actually sounds quite good but just as it acquired its wings, Sony decided not to support it. Now comes Blu-Ray. You really need a monitor to navigate. I find the results mixed. The only bright spot in all of this is that more expensive CD "Red Book" players sound pretty good and many quite good SACDs are being or have been issued by smaller classical labels. Oh, by the way, you can get a really good sounding SACD player form six grand and even better for between six and 12. Happy listening. Love this website and the other Classics Today as well. Happy listening!
I held the Kleiber DG box in one hand several years ago, and in the other hand I held Bernstein's Mahler cycle with the New York Philharmonic. The price was the same, around 36 euros, and I already had the Bernstein II set with Vienna, the Concertgebouw and the NPO. I took the Bernstein I home with me. I'll get my hands on that Kleiber set some day.
To round out the recorded legacy of C. Kleiber as an opera conductor, we are fortunate to have two of his Rosenkavalier performances on dvd, one from Vienna, the other from Munich, both with outstanding casts.
Thanks Dave! I absolutely agree that on direct A-B comparison (even on Der Freischutz), I prefer Erich to Carlos every time. In addition to the Pizzicato ending of the Beethoven 7th 2nd movement, they both play the glissandos before instead of on the beat. The only other recording that I have heard do something similar is the Chailly on Decca.
Thanks for the candid and fair evaluation, David. I'm not qualified to talk about C Kleiber's opera performances. Own His DG Tristan (no complaints) and I own his La Traviata and Der Freischutz (haven't listened to them). Don't get the raves for his LVB 5 and 7 or his Brahms 4. While they are certainly fine, I can think of six or seven a dozen conductors who conducted them at least as well. And his Schubert 3 is plain wrong-headed.
Completely agree about Freischutz. It really shows him at his amazing best. I've never really enjoyed the studio Beethoven either, the live recordings of 4, 6 and 7 with the Bavarian State Orchestra are in another class entirely.