Otto Klemperer in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony

When it comes to Beethoven symphonies, I am choosy. I like the 3^rd, 6^th, and 7^th. Also the first three movements of the 9^th, but I turn off at the bombastic finale. Otherwise for me, Ludwig van Beethoven is the string quartets, the sonatas for piano and violin, and many of the 32 piano sonatas.

By chance, I listened today to the 6^th symphony, in a recording from 1951 (Vox XPV 1068, in origin) sent to me long ago by a very good Dutch friend. The orchestra was the Vienna Philharmonic (labelled as the "Vienna Symphony Orchestra", possibly for contractual reasons). The conductor was Otto Klemperer. For the sound of that vintage, I feared the worst, but I was pleasantly surprised. The warm, silky sound of the Vienna Philharmonic came over loud and clear.

Otto Klemperer (born in Breslau, Germany, in 1885. Died in Zürich, Switzerland in 1973) was, arguably, the last of the great conductors of the central German repertoire (Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler). He, with Wilhem Furtwängler – with whom Klemperer refused to speak after 1945 – were probably the last two great conductors of that music, at that era. Now, we have Robin Ticcati, Gustavo Dudamel, or Daniel Barenboim. As a German Jew, Klemperer had an increasingly miserable life in Germany after 1930. As a staunch left-winger, he had an increasingly miserable life in America after 1940, culminating in the Americans refusing to re-issue his passport to enable him to travel internationally; he was saved (ironically) by the Germans who re-issued his German passport, freeing Klemperer – I don't recall him ever going back to America thereafter.

Whatever the racial affiliations and the politics. My two favourite recordings of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony are Furtwängler with the Vienna Philharmonic (1952) and Klemperer with the Vienna Philharmonic (1951). There is something about the Vienna Philharmonic in the early 1950s, with a very special and distinctive warm, seductive sound. And with Wilhelm Furtwängler, and Otto Klemperer. We can note in passing that Klemperer in 1951 was noticeably faster in the Pastoral than in later recordings, particularly in the Landleute third movement. We can also note that Klemperer's preference for having his woodwind to the fore pays excellent dividends in the Pastoral. This is a recording I had overlooked for many years (like so many on my shelves, alas). I shall overlook it no more.