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

Information

Composer: Kurt Weill; Paul Hindemith; Igor Stravinsky

• Klemperer - Merry Waltz
• Weill - Kleine Dreigroschenmusik
• Hindemith - Nobilissima visione – Suite
• Stravinsky - Symphony in Three Movements

Philharmonia Orchestra

Otto Klemperer, conductor

Date: 1961; 1954; 1962

Label: EMI

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Review

The remainder of the works in this collection are undeniably from the twentieth century, and the earliest recording here is the suite from Hindemith’s ‘choreographic legend’ Nobilissima visione.Richard Osborne tells us that this was a last-minute substitute for the Hindemith Horn Concerto, the recording of which had to be abandoned when Klemperer and Dennis Brain failed to agree over the proper tempi for the performance. Brain subsequently recorded the work with Hindemith himself conducting. I cannot find that the Klemperer recording of the ballet was ever issued during his lifetime, or indeed before it appeared on CD in 2000; perhaps Walter Legge was at a loss to find a suitable coupling. It is a very good performance indeed, with only a slight lack of full string tone to indicate the age of the mono recording which otherwise is admirable in all respects. The Philharmonia at this time were making a number of recordings of modern scores, including Hindemith and Bartók with Karajan and Britten with various conductors; in later years such studio ventures into modern territory would become rarer.

 

Klemperer himself had commissioned Weill’s Kleine Dreigroschenmusik following the successful stage première of the Dreigroschenoper the year before, and gave the first performance at the Kroll Opera in Berlin during his final years in pre-Nazi Germany. He always had a warm affection for the work, and this comes across in this delightfully insouciant performance which is superbly inflected by the Philharmonia players with just the right degree of sleaziness, never overdone. Klemperer also espoused the music of Stravinsky during these years, but the only recordings he ever made were those included here of the Pulcinella suite and the Symphony in three movements. He takes a very serious view indeed of the latter at an unexpectedly slow speed, bringing out the ominous nature of the writing but at the expense of some of the more abrupt violence that Stravinsky himself revealed in his recording of the score. Pulcinella, on the other hand, has a lighter touch which allows for Klemperer’s sly and mordant humour to come through. Klemperer paid his own compositional tribute to Stravinsky’s take on Pergolesi in his own orchestral suite on pieces by Rameau, which has a similarly quirky and consciously ‘modern’ approach to the music.

— Paul Corfield Godfrey

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Kurt Weill (March 2, 1900 – April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer. He showed early musical talent and received formal training in Berlin, studying under teachers including Engelbert Humperdinck and Ferruccio Busoni. Weill rose to prominence in Germany through collaborations with playwrights like Georg Kaiser and especially Bertolt Brecht, with whom he created The Threepenny Opera (1928). However, as a Jewish composer, his career in Germany was cut short by the rise of the Nazi regime. Fleeing to the U.S. in 1935, Weill became a key figure on Broadway, collaborating with top American writers.

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Paul Hindemith (16 November 1895 – 28 December 1963) was a German composer and theorist. Studied in Frankfurt, he gained early experience as a violinist and became a prominent composer by the late 1920s. His works range from chamber music and song cycles to operas such as Mathis der Maler. He taught in Turkey, the United States and Switzerland. Opposed to twelve-tone techniques, he sought to revitalize tonality, developing his own harmonic theory, outlined in The Craft of Musical Composition. Hindemith also promoted Gebrauchsmusik ("utility music"), viewing composers as craftsmen serving social needs

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Igor Stravinsky (June 17, 1882 – April 6, 1971) was a Russian composer. Son of an operatic bass, he studied privately with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov from 1902 to 1908. Soon after the impresario Sergei Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky to write three ballets for the Ballets Russes: Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913). The last of which, with its shifting and audacious rhythms, was a landmark in music history. Later Stravinsky also adopted Neoclassicism and serialism in his composition. His major Neoclassical works include Oedipus rex (1927) and the Symphony of Psalms (1930).

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Otto Klemperer (14 May 1885 – 6 July 1973) was a German conductor. Studied in Frankfurt and Berlin, he gained early recognition with support from Gustav Mahler. He held conducting posts across Europe, promoting modern composers including Hindemith, Krenek and Stravinsky. He later directed the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Budapest Opera. His most celebrated period came in London with the Philharmonia Orchestra, where he produced numerous influential recordings of music by Beethoven, Bruckner and Mahler. Klemperer was also a composer; his works include symphonies, string quartets and vocal works.

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