Wagner: Orchestral Music.(Sound Recording Review)

Wagner: Orchestral Music. Otto Klemperer, Philharmonia Orchestra. EMI 7243 5 67896-2.

It should be no secret by now that I love some of the older conductors who were fortunate to live long enough to record a few things in stereo. Among them are Fritz Reiner, whose RCA Living Stereo releases continue to thrill me, and Otto Klemperer, whose recordings from the late fifties, sixties, and early seventies are still amazing, both interpretively and sonically. Unlike so many of today's cookie-cutter conductors, whose music-making is identical to everyone else's, people such as Reiner and Klemperer put their individual stamp on their performances without distorting the composer's intentions. It is a talent that only a few musicians possess.

This two-disc collection of Wagner orchestral music is compiled from several of Klemperer's albums recorded between 1960 and 1963 with his Philharmonia Orchestra at its peak. The man brought to all of his music a heroic feeling of granite construction, every work a towering monument. And what better music is served by this approach than Wagner's, which was towering in every respect?

Not that Klemperer couldn't be playful and lighthearted, too, taking his Mendelssohn and Haydn as examples. But it was in Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, and Wagner that he is best known today. This Wagner collection is second to none.

Klemperer has a way of often ...