The new Klemperer box from EMI France

[brunumb]

I have always been curious to hear the Klemperer M7 after reading the very negative reviews about it's incredible length.  Resellers have been charging exorbitant prices for it keeping it out of reach.  The new box collecting together all of the Klemperer/EMI Mahler recordings is incredibly cheap, so I lashed out and bought it just to get the M7.  No doubt the advent of this set will now see prices of earlier issues of the M7 drop markedly, but c'est la vie.

My initial reaction was OMG.  How slow is this!  I've now listened to it several times and, although it still seems 'wrong', I'm growing to like it.  It seems to have a nocturnal feel to it that is rather appropriate.  Only the slowness of the final movement doesn't sit well.  That ebullient, boisterous opening that welcomes daylight is far too restrained here.  Being one of the musically illiterate I'm sorry that I cannot comment on the quality of the playing.  

So, perverse or not (that's me or the recording), I'm keeping it.  Anyone else care to share their thoughts?

         

[barry guerrero]

I just can't listen to it, but am amazed those who can. IMHO, the symphony should definitely gain in tempo as it goes along its merry way.

Barry

[brunumb]

I must admit that you do get the feeling of wanting to get out and push at times.  It's at its best lying in the dark, half asleep.  Matches the music I guess 
I've come to think of it as M7 v.2 rather than M7.  With Mahler's output so limited, it's nice to have a 'new' symphony to listen to   

[barry guerrero]

.   .   .  can't argue with that. Obviously, there's a lot of room to skin the Mahler cat many different ways.    (I'm not angry - I just felt like adding the angry face. It's my favorite).

[Roffe]

.   .   .  can't argue with that. Obviously, there's a lot of room to skin the Mahler cat many different ways.    (I'm not angry - I just felt like adding the angry face. It's my favorite).

... skin the Mahler cat... loved that expression for M's music. And yes, we really have to squeeze every drop out of him.

Roffe

[stillivor]

The first time I heard it I thought,'Oh dear, Klemperer is just too old to be making recordings now'. It seemed nearly like a parody.

Now, when I'm feeling more energetic, it feels like it's being pulled thru treacle.

When I'm feeling laid back, I can get into it as a valid view, all intensity and digging deep. It's a performance for rare occasions, not one I'd turn to much.

There is a movement, with a musical branch, called The Slow Movement that thinks we'd be better off if we did things lots more slowly than now. The Klemperer fits into that. With it, I find I can climb inside the work, as it were.



    Ivor

[barry guerrero]

Well that's the interesting thing: in Klemerer's late period, he often times did faster movements slower, but kept the tempi flowing in Adagio movements. He and the Philharmonia were attuned to the point where they could get away doing that.

I have Klemp's Bruckner 9, which is a very late recording. I think it's fabulous - easily the best one in my collection.

[ChrisH]

I really enjoy the Klemp 7. I find it to be one of the few performances of anything that allows us to actually 'hear' the score. The balances that Klemp gets out of the orchestra are really something. Everything in the score is audible. Could anyone imagine the insane amount of concentration that would go into conducting something like this and the absolute conviction of the orchestra to pull this off. It is glacial but it never stalls or becomes lackadaisical and it always has intensity. I've always felt that we really hear the music in this 7th. Klemp conducts it as the music it is, not as an orchestral showpiece as this work has often become. A good friend once said that the 7th is not the Symphony Fantastique.

I always have to wonder if their is more to this 7th than most think. He did hear Mahler himself conduct the work and was also involved in something like 20 rehearsals. If you buy into the idea that opening is representative of oaring a boat across a lake Klemp nails the tempo; he is right and everyone else is too fast. Or maybe, he was just old and crazy.

I like this recording though, I really do.

[barry guerrero]

I agree with much of what you say, Vehemence, as far as it applies to the first two-and-a-half movements. But I do believe that the finale IS much closer to the "Witches Sabbath" from Sym. Fantastique, than what Klemperer gives us. Everyone finds the 7th so difficult to 'analyze', but it's clearly little more than yet another darkness-to-light traversal. The finale sets the table for the "Veni Creator Spiritus" - Part I of M8. It's in the last two movements where Klemp. really loses me, and I think psychologically defeats himself as well. Anyway, that's just my take on it. But for the first two movements; yeah, sure, Klemperer is pretty darn good.  

[Toblacher]

I have always LOVED the late Klemp recordings, no matter the composer.  I've always been of the opinion that fast movements will always sound and feel fast no matter how slow the conductor takes it, and slow movements will always sound slow no matter how fast it is taken.  That why I love the the Adagioetto taken briskly, no need to drag it out, it will still sound fine.