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Otto Klemperer/Janet Baker/Philharmonia Orchestra
BRAHMS: THE FOUR SYMPHONIES, ETC.
(EMI)
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Klemperer’s traversal of the Brahms symphonies is one of the greatest such cycles ever set down on tape. These recordings have rarely been unavailable to the music-buying public, so there’s no great need for this reissue; still, it can claim a deserved place in EMI’s "Great Recordings of the Century" series. All four symphonies show off Klemperer’s ability to shape a work with absolute solidity but make it move and sing as well. And then there’s the famously "granite-like" sonority (with divided violins) of the Philharmonia under his baton, a sound that commanded attention for its own sake but also set off its glorious soloists in high relief. Among the many highlights here: the entire First Symphony, a great combination of toughness, lyricism, and architectural precision; a beautifully lyrical Second, with a deeply felt slow movement; a Third that’s full of forward momentum and sheer swing. The Fourth is a slight disappointment; it feels more like a run-through than a committed performance. In compensation, there’s the Alto Rhapsody, Brahms’s extraordinary setting of a Goethe fragment that moves from painful isolation to the hope for transcendence, with the incomparable Janet Baker and an accompaniment that’s ideal.
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