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Mahler: Symphony No. 9; Richard Strauss: Metamorphosen; Death and Transfiguration.(Sound recording review)
Mahler: Symphony No. 9; Richard Strauss: Metamorphosen; Death and Transfiguration. Otto Klemperer, New Philharmonia and Philharmonia Orchestras. EMI 0946 3 80003 2 7.
EMI issued this 1967 Mahler Ninth recording a few years back in their "Klemperer Legacy" series, but I never had the chance to buy or hear it. Which means I hadn't heard it since its old LP days and had quite forgotten how persuasive it is. Now that it's been remastered in EMI's "Great Performances of the Century" line, I'm sure it sounds better than ever. In fact, to me it sounds better than anything currently on the market, new or old.
Although Mahler's last completed symphony was the crowning jewel in his symphonic cycle, gorgeous and sublime, it has always been somewhat ambiguous. Many listeners have interpreted its expressionistic content as an optimistic journey into the light, ending in sweet and everlasting repose, while others see it as a pessimistic view of the world's future where degeneration and decay are our lot. I favor the former view, but I suppose there is something to be said for the second viewpoint as well. At the time of the work's composition in 1909, Mahler was aware that he was gravely ill, and in addition he may have foreseen the coming of the Great War and the end of civilization as his generation had known it. So, there is every possibility of reading the symphony optimistically or pessimistically. Klemperer, who first performed the work in 1925, just thirteen years after its premiere, knows the piece backwards and wisely takes mostly the former course.
In my own view, the opening and closing ...
- Otto Klemperer: His Life and Times, 2 vols.
- Magazine article from: American Scholar Horowitz, Joseph March 22, 1997 700+ words
...Perlman? James Levine?) But "Otto Klemperer: His Life and Times" sounds right A...giant, a wild yet austere personality, Klemperer occupied a vast stage. Purposefully...Berlin's Kroll Opera from 1917 to 1931, Klemperer personified Weimar culture - new music...
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...1933--, EL FILLOGO JUDO ALEMN VICTOR KLEMPERER INICIABA SU RESISTENCIA AL RGIMEN NAZI...tomos de diarios del judo alemn Victor Klemperer (1881-1960), correspondiente al...al ingls y, con ello, el nombre de Klemperer, tal como en su da el de Ana Frank...
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- Magazine article from: Sensible Sound Puccio, John September 1, 2000 700+ words
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...THE LESSER EVIL: The Diaries of Victor Klemperer, 1945-59 translated by Martin Chalmers...Hitler put a pistol to his head, Victor Klemperer had secured his place in history. For...for all future studies of the period. Klemperer, born Jewish, survived the war through...
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- Magazine article from: Notes Roberts, Kenneth B. December 1, 1997 700+ words
...great but complicated conductor Otto Klemperer beginning in 1969. Out of these and...Press in 1984, about a decade after Klemperer's death (reviewed in Notes 42 [1985...interviews had covered the entire life of Klemperer) and during the period of the 1980s...
