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Date: | Wed, 4 Oct 2000 09:09:30 +0100 |
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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]>
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