Mahler: Symphony No. 9 / Wagner: Siegfried Idyll / Strauss: Metamorphosen [Original recording remastered]

Richard Wagner (Composer), Richard Strauss (Composer), Gustav Mahler (Composer), Otto Klemperer (Conductor), Philharmonia Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Philharmonia Orchestra
• Conductor: Otto Klemperer
• Composer: Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler
• Audio CD (June 8, 1999)
• SPARS Code: ADD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Angel Records / EMI
• ASIN: B00000J28S
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #382,853 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece in Every Sense, July 24, 2004

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Joel Rafi Zabor (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mahler: Symphony No. 9 / Wagner: Siegfried Idyll / Strauss: Metamorphosen (Audio CD)

I only have a brief note to add to this discussion. There may be superior performances of individual movements of the Mahler Ninth-Tennstedt's first movement, Horenstein's last movement-but for a wholly conceived, front-to-back performance of this masterpiece, I have come to feel, after many years, that Klemperer's is the best that has been recorded. (This was written before the release of Jascha Horenstein's BBC Ninth, which has taken first place for me, but let my words stand: this is a great interpretation.) It is also, I think, a deeply mysterious performance. To go no further into Mahler and Klemperer's highly bipolar psychologies, it may be enough to point out that while Klemperer reins in Mahler's most extreme expressive gestures-and Mahler is nowhere more deeply and intimately extreme, I believe, than in the Ninth-he yet achieves a performance that is more inclusive of Mahler's essential artistic-spiritual-expressive thrust than any other on record. How or why this is possible must probably remain a mystery, but it is one worth listening to again and again. There are more famous recordings of this symphony out there, certainly, but they sound slightly ridiculous in comparison with Klemperer's towering achievement on these discs. The Metamorphosen is on the same exalted level of conception and execution, and, you know, the Wagner's not too shabby either.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stoically moving, November 17, 2004

By 

Paul Bubny "Paul Bubny" (Maplewood, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mahler: Symphony No. 9 / Wagner: Siegfried Idyll / Strauss: Metamorphosen (Audio CD)

The contrast between the valedictory recordings of Mahler's valedictory Ninth Symphony by Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer--both of whom were Mahler proteges as young men, and both in their 80s when they recorded this work in stereo--probably has to do with the differences between the men themselves as well as the differences in how each perceived this score. Walter has Mahler bid farewell to life with serenity and confidence in what is to come. Klemperer's account is sterner, more sardonic--and when we get to the final pages, the sense of leave-taking is more ambivalent even as a hard-won acceptance breaks through. The "victory" is all the more moving for having been achieved through stoic struggle.

There are other ways to play Mahler's Ninth than Honest Otto's dry-eyed integrity admits, but few if any achieve the craggy heights of this performance. The slowish tempi in the two middle movements take some getting used to, yet they fit in with Klemperer's overall conception and emphasize the bitter humor. For me, what sets the seal on this release is that the Ninth is the centerpiece of a 2-CD program that begins with Austro-Germanic Late Romanticism in full flower (Wagner's "Siegfried Idyll") and ends with its utter dissolution as the culture that gave rise to it lays in ruins (Strauss' "Metamorphosen"). The performances of these shorter works are on the same level as that of the Ninth.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best Mahler Ninths on CD, April 11, 2003

By 

Alan (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mahler: Symphony No. 9 / Wagner: Siegfried Idyll / Strauss: Metamorphosen (Audio CD)

Klemperer's performance of the Mahler starts in a rather straightforward fashion, but it doesn't end that way. As you might expect for a late Klemperer performance, it is on the slow side, though by present-day standards for the Mahler Ninth there is nothing here that sounds eccentrically slow (unlike Klemperer's Mahler Seventh).

In the first movement, Klemperer seems to let the music unfold in the most natural fashion possible. There is nothing showy here, but he is constantly adjusting the tempo just slightly. And the phrasing is full of touches that do not call undue attention to themselves or try to whip up forced drama. That does not mean it is an understated performance. Klemperer and the Philharmonia do not hold back. The playing is full of character and unforced power.

Klemperer makes the second movement especially grotesque and nightmarish, slow and lumbering. The third movement is even more on the slow side, but this makes it sound like another dance, a drunken, clumsy dance, rather than just an essay in contrapuntal dissonance. For the interlude, he doesn't adjust the tempo much. Some might prefer performances that make this section more of a contrast, but the only slight change in tempo highlights that the theme of the interlude is just a variation on the main theme of the movement. And as it moves along it becomes clear that Klemperer doesn't view the interlude as all that peaceful. It is much more anguished than in most readings, more of a piece with the rest of the movement. And bravo to the New Philharmonia oboist for a very daring and effective bit of phrasing in this movement (though this may have just been a happy accident).

I find Klemperer's reading of the last movement the least resigned performance I've ever heard. In Klemperer's vision, Mahler is trying to convince himself to accept death with grace and peace, as a longed-for rest, but doubts and anguish and longing keep flooding back. Though the movement is certainly not taken at a fast pace, it is not as slow as with some conductors. Until near the end, there is always a forward motion here that suggests that Mahler is searching, searching for peace and the willingness to accept death, but never quite finding it. There are moments of understated beauty, but overall this is one of the least understated and peaceful readings of this movement out there. It is unsettling, with a disturbingly unresolved feeling at the end.

After that, the comforting opening notes of the Siegfried Idyll are so welcome that it's a good idea to keep listening when the Mahler is over. There are moments when the orchestral version of this piece may work better than the chamber version heard here, because the winds at times do overwhelm the strings a bit in the chamber version, at least in Klemperer's low-key performance. On the other hand, there are times when hearing just a few strings in this music creates an even greater feeling of intimacy, warmth, and tenderness than you get in the version for larger forces.

But the main thing here is the Mahler. There are many great performances of this symphony on disc, among them those by Karajan, Horenstein, Walter, and Kubelik. But I usually turn to Klemperer and the New Philharmonia when I want to hear the Mahler Ninth.

I have an earlier CD release that just contains the Mahler and the Wagner, so I can't comment on the Strauss.