Ying Liu wrote:
>I realised that Kempe has seldom appeared in this list or I missed posts
>regarding him but per my understanding, he should be ranked somewhere on
>the Great conductors board, I have only heard about his other two pieces
>from Great German Tradition Album except this one, one is Wagner's Die
>Meistersinger, another is Richard Strauss' Tod und Verklarung. Do any
>memebers know more about him and recommend more of his conducting works
>and give me some advice?
You may be right about Kempe not appearing on this list very often. My
guess is it's just circumstance.
That said, Kempe was a great Strauss conductor. I would try for the entire
EMI series with Dresden if you like Strauss.
Kempe's Lohengrin is classic. EMI with the Vienna Philharmonic.
A lot of people liked his Beethoven Symphony set with the Munich Phil on
EMI. I haven't heard it in two decades or more. I don't remember liking
it much then but that was long ago.
His Bartered Bride is very good, but is in German, I'm pretty sure.
You might try his Brahms Symponies on BASF. I've never heard it, though,
so this is a lame recommendation. But it's out there.
His Janacek Slavonic Mass is not all that idiomatic, but it's very
romantic, kind of like Strauss. (London) I like it a lot, but it wouldn't
be my first recording of the work.
The Korngold Symphony in F# is terrific but has no coupling. There are
others as good, but if you see it cheap. . . .
There's a Bruckner 8 with the Tonhalle Orchestra that is quite good, though
the sound is a bit murky. The Fifth with Munich got good reviews: never
heard it.
This is off the top of my head. In the end, I'd just say that Kempe was a
fine conductor, a real musician. I haven't heard all his work, obviously,
but I'd at least consider almost anything he did, particularly the German
repertoire.
You'll get plenty of suggestions. I'm sure there are a lot of Kempe fans
out there.
By the way does anyone know the Kempe recording of Britten's Sinfonia da
Requiem and Stravinskhy's Firebird?
Roger Hecht
|
