Steve Schwartz writes:

>I never cared for Klemperer's Mahler or, for that matter, his performances
>of 19th-century music in general.  I always thought him at his noticeably
>better best in modern stuff.

Which, to my view, illustrates the futility of comparing conductors on
record.

Klemperer, whom I had the good fortune to hear once as a kid, created an
immense sense of occasion around his performances.  Judging by the opinions
of others who heard him more often and maturely than I did, each concert
was (as Nikisch would have put it) 'a grand improvisation' and the concert
itself was the be-all and end-all.  If he made a studio recording, that was
merely a souvenir.

To judge a conductor's work on the basis of studio recordings is about as
useful a measure of artistic merit as comparing one picture postcard with
another.

"Norman Lebrecht" <[log in to unmask]>