Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 - Otto Klemperer conducts Philharmonia Orchestra of London

Otto Klemperer (1885-1973) was one of the great conductors of the 20th Century, with a formidable reputation for austere, monumental, and transcendental performances of the great Germanic classics. In his inscription with producer Walter Legge's Philharmonia Orchestra --from an Angel EMI 4-track tape-- Klemperer finds a perfect vehicle for his own epic personality in Tchaikovsky's last symphony of 1893, the Pathetique, which compresses the composer's personal sense of tragedy into a statement alternately melancholic and fiercely militant.

The mark of the Philharmonia Orchestra--hand picked British musicians originally organized by Walter Legge and Sir Thomas Beecham for recordings, concert performances, and opera--remains the musical acumen of its individual members. The Philharmonia Orchestra helped resuscitate Herbert von Karajan's career, and its responsive players did no less (after 1954 until 197) for Otto Klemperer. The string and woodwind sound for the visceral Adagio. Allegro non troppo quite startles us from our musical complacency. The French horns at the coda provide a noble dirge for a powerfully driven movement. Klemperer's capacity for sweet resonance permeates the 5/4 Allegro con grazia, again with fulsome interior response from the Philharmonia woodwinds. The potent Allegro molto vivace may appear superficially defiant and liberating, but Klemperer finds subversive, tragic nuances even within the fortress of sound he builds from the Philharmonia's imposing brass and battery sections. From his own mentor Gustav Mahler, Klemperer held the last movement Adagio lamentoso in high regard --since Mahler modeled his own last symphony on its example --from the prominent bassoon part to the agonized series of hugely arched string sighs that soon hurtle through the orchestra. The effect proves overpowering, a rendition of Pathetique Herculean and unfalteringly sympathetic.

Great early EMI sonics

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