Customer Reviews

Overtures

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Here is a happy instance of the best performances coming on a generously filled CD which is also budget priced. Hallelujah. George Szell (1897-1970), one of the greatest conductors of the twentieth century, was born in Budapest, studied piano, conducting, and composing in Vienna and Berlin, and learned his craft as a conductor in the opera houses of Europe. World War II brought him to America, where he conducted at the Metropolitan Opera (1942-1946), and finally led the Cleveland Orchestra from 1946 until his death, "molding the ensemble into one of the world's finest," as the Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music notes. Szell and the Cleveland became as distinguished a collaboration as Toscanini and the NBC or Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. Szell brought the Cleveland Orchestra to such a peak of perfection that many good judges considered the Cleveland under Szell the premier conductor/orchestra team in the world.

In the late 1950s and the 1960s, the procession of marvelous Szell recordings with the Cleveland Orchestra that came rolling out of Severance Hall became for discerning music lovers a benchmark of excellence; many of them have never been surpassed. (My own list of these nonpareils would include the complete Beethoven symphonies, the complete Beethoven piano concertos with Leon Fleisher, the Mahler Fourth Symphony, Strauss's Don Quixote, the Dvorak Slavonic Dances, the Wagner orchestral highlights from the Ring, and the Beethoven overtures under review here, but there are plenty of other worthy candidates from the extensive Szell/Cleveland discography). Szell's hallmarks as an interpreter were vigor, tension, clarity, avoidance of extremes, excess, and eccentricity, complete lack of sentimentality, and masterful control of an orchestra that had become awesomely virtuosic and perfectly responsive in his hands. In sum, a typical Szell/Cleveland performance was taut, disciplined, bristling with energy, insight, and conviction, and immaculately played. His performances virtually never sounded routine, usually had a fresh-minted quality, and had a way of unfolding with an uncanny sense of rightness, of inevitability, conveying the impression that this is the way this music ought to be played.

This CD contains the eight Beethoven overtures, recorded in 1963-1967. (One of the overtures, Creatures of Prometheus, is conducted by Louis Lane, Szell's assistant conductor at Cleveland; all the others are conducted by Szell.) Szell was second to no one as an interpreter of Beethoven, a composer who brought all his best qualities to the fore: the performances here are superb, as fine as any in the catalog. This disc received a top recommendation in the Penguin CD Guide. The sound is good, clear and full, and perfectly acceptable and listenable, if not up to the best standards of today. As noted, the CD is very generously filled (over 73 minutes of music) and budget priced. Talk about a good deal! So what are you waiting for?

Szell's recording of the Beethoven overtures were usually included as fillers for the original LP collection of the Symphonys. Here they are in all their glory - you will look long and hard to find a similar set of this quality

Beethoven's overtures are perhaps the best ever written, despite their few numbers, besides those of Mozart. Beethoven's overtures are powerful and full of emotion, showing Beethoven as the revolutionay composer leading into the romantic period. This particular recording is one of Beethoven's complete overtures, and it is fabulous. It is conducted by one of the century's great conductors, George Szell, and performed by one of the great orchestras of the world, the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. As a result, the performances are top quality performances, some of the best overtures recorded. Plus the sound quality is quite good and the price is a bargain price. THe combination of performance and price make this disc a must have in any collection, and definitely needs to be part of all Beethoven collections.(disclaimer: all my reviews are 3 am reviews sorry bout the grammar and spelling if any mistakes are here)

THIS IS FINE COLLECTION OF BEETHOVEN'S OVERTURES. IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN THIS MUSIC. I PERSONALLY LIKE BEETHOVEN A GREAT DEAL AND I WAS GLAD TO FIND THIS COLLECTION ON CD. THE QUALITY IS GREAT......

It is difficult to pass up a recording of the Cleveland Symphony, especially on peices that rely so heavily on the string section, that orchestra being wrold-renowned for its strings. Being a huge fan myself, I couldn't resist the recording, but I was quite dissapointed with the quality. The interpretation is absolutely fabulous, but the intonation is simply terrible in some places, especially the Corolionus Overture. There are also rhythmic problems in a few of the peices, something that astounds me, coming from an orchestra of such high regard. This is probably worth the money if you can't find a better recording, but I wouldn't pay a cent more.

What is missing here is a recorded sound that blooms on loudspeakers...even my old LP of Karajan Overtures is warmer and more tonally enticing...what is wrong with the pitch in the horns in the Fidelio? It is all over the map in terms of pitch accuracy...excruciating horn work for some reason here...

go to Berlin and Karajan for a better concept of tone and technique....