Kurt Weill; Paul Hindemith; Igor Stravinsky - Orchestral Works (Otto Klemperer)

Information

Composer: Kurt Weill; Paul Hindemith; Igor Stravinsky

• (01) Klemperer - Merry Waltz
• (02-08) Weill - Kleine Dreigroschenmusik
• (09-11) Hindemith - Nobilissima visione - Suite
• (12-14) Stravinsky - Symphony in Three Movements

Philharmonia Orchestra
Otto Klemperer, conductor

Recording Date: 1954-1962
Compilation: 2000
Label: EMI

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Review

This release in EMI's The Klemperer legacy series is notable as a reminder of the breadth of Otto Klemperer's repertoire in earlier years. It is also humbling to be reminded that Klemperer, as also many conductors, was a prolific composer. Although he had to his name 6 symphonies, 9 string quartets and a hundred songs, he did not exploit his great fame in later years by programming his own compositions. This excerpt from a 1915 opera, revised in the '70s, is however not all that merry; slightly soured Strauss, I thought it.

Hindemith, to my surprise, is described in the notes as now 'little more than a name' to younger music-lovers, having been in the 'top half-dozen' of contemporary composers for a long time previously. Perhaps this is but an example of the gulf between concert programming and radio/recording output. I hadn't noticed his disappearance - he has always been part of my musical life; I used to enjoy playing his piano and organ sonatas and I have piano transcriptions of music from Nobilissima Visione, his ballet score about St Francis of Assisi. It includes a beautiful prelude and pastorale, and culminates with a lengthy, ultimately rather grandiose, passacaglia. It is the earliest of these remastered recordings which date from 1954-62.

He recorded the Stravinsky in 1965 and it comes up well, firm and severe, completely unfussy, a bold, intense account of a much-recorded masterpiece, with some 15 versions now in the catalogue. But the best reason for buying this CD is, I think, the inclusion of Klemperer's historic account of the suite from the Weill Threepenny Opera. Otto Klemperer himself commissioned this suite for winds & percussion, based on the original score, and he premiered it in Berlin in 1929. It comes up vivid and pungent in this 1961 recording, excellently transferred by Allan Ramsay, holding its own easily against later versions.

-- Peter Grahame Woolf, MusicWeb International

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Kurt Weill (March 2, 1900 – April 3, 1950) was a German composer, who became a United States citizen in 1943. Weill held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht, such as Weill's best-known work The Threepenny Opera, which included the ballad "Mack the Knife". Weill's music was admired by Berg, Zemlinsky, Milhaud and Stravinsky, but was also criticised Schoenberg and Webern. Sixty years after his death, Weill's music continues to be performed both in popular and classical contexts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Weill

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Paul Hindemith (16 November 1895 – 28 December 1963) was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher and conductor. Hindemith is among the most significant German composers of his time. His early works are in a late romantic idiom, and he later produced expressionist works, before developing his neoclassical style in the 1920s. Notable compositions include his song cycle Das Marienleben (1923) and opera Mathis der Maler (1938). Hindemith's most popular work, both on record and in the concert hall, is probably the Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, written in 1943.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hindemith

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Igor Stravinsky (17 June [O.S. 5 June] 1882 – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century. He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913). Stravinsky's compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. His output is typically divided into three general style periods: a Russian period, a neoclassical period, and a serial period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Stravinsky

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Otto Klemperer (14 May 1885 – 6 July 1973) was a German conductor and composer. He is widely regarded as one of the leading conductors of the 20th century. Klemperer met Gustav Mahler while conducting the off-stage brass at a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2, and later assisted Mahler in the premiere of Mahler's Symphony No. 8. He became the first principal conductor of the Philharmonia in 1959, subsequently made many recordings for EMI that have become classics. While adopting slower tempi as he aged, Klemperer's performances often maintain great intensity, and are richly detailed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Klemperer

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