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Klemperer conducts Beethoven - Missa Solemnis | Medici Masters MM0152

Klemperer conducts Beethoven - Missa Solemnis

New Item

Label: Medici Masters

Cat No: MM0152

Barcode: 0827565027026

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Vocal/Choral

Release Date: 1st October 2007

This product has now been deleted. Information is for reference only.

Contents

Artists

Annelies Kupper
Sieglinde Wagner
Rudolf Schock
Josef Greindl
Kolner Rundfunkchor
Kolner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester

Conductor

Otto Klemperer

Works

Beethoven, Ludwig van

Missa solemnis in D major, op.123

Artists

Annelies Kupper
Sieglinde Wagner
Rudolf Schock
Josef Greindl
Kolner Rundfunkchor
Kolner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester

Conductor

Otto Klemperer

About

Otto Klemperer (1885-1973) was born in Breslau and studied in Berlin making his conducting debut in 1906. He met Mahler and through him obtained an appointment at the German Opera in Prague in 1907. Through Mahler’s help he had a succession of positions, notably in Cologne (1917-24) coupled with frequent guest conducting. In 1927 he was director of the Kroll Opera in Berlin (1927-1931). With the rise of the Nazis he left Berlin and fled to Austria, then Switzerland followed by Los Angeles (1933-1939) where he conducted all the main US orchestras.

After the war, he returned to Europe coming to London in 1947. He settled in Zurich and in the mid-1950s gave a large number of superb concerts with the Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester, his old orchestra, a period when Klemperer emerged as one of the truly great conductors of his generation along side Erich Kleiber, Bruno Walter and Wilhelm Furtwängler. It was at this time Walter Legge appointed him to be principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1959, where he remained until 1971.

Klemperer was especially known for his performances of Beethoven and he recorded the Missa Solemnis commercially for Vox in March 1951 and EMI in October 1965. Testament have issued a 1963 mono live performance from the Royal Festival Hall.

This Cologne performance from June 1955 was Klemperer's first public performance in concert of the work for 22 years (or since 1933) and it catches the conductor at a very high point in his career. It is one of the most dramatic performances on record and persuaded Walter Legge at EMI to try and set up a recording soon afterwards but this came to nothing due to the costs.

As with all the Klemperer broadcasts from the WDR, it has been transferred from the original master tapes and sounds superb with all the intensity of a live occasion (particularly the wonderful choral singing) caught to perfection.

Recording:
Funkhaus, Saal 1, WDR Cologne, 6 June 1955

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