Erich Kleiber's Eroica recordings

[vih...@protonmail.com]

I understand that there are two. Any clear preferences here?

Thanks.

[drh8h]

I have always thought the VPO better recorded and a more powerful performance. Not sure why its release was delayed. There may have been a few things Kleiber did not like, but just as with the Szell Tchaikovsky 4, nobody cared once he was dead.

DH

[vih...@protonmail.com]

On Friday, March 6, 2020 at 1:27:45 PM UTC-8, drh8h wrote:
> I have always thought the VPO better recorded and a more powerful performance. Not sure why its release was delayed. There may have been a few things Kleiber did not like, but just as with the Szell Tchaikovsky 4, nobody cared once he was dead.
>
> DH

Thanks very much for your input!

C

[Dontait...@aol.com]

On Friday, March 6, 2020 at 3:27:45 PM UTC-6, drh8h wrote:
> I have always thought the VPO better recorded and a more powerful performance. Not sure why its release was delayed. There may have been a few things Kleiber did not like, but just as with the Szell Tchaikovsky 4, nobody cared once he was dead.
>
> DH

Michael Gray told me years ago, per his research in the Decca archives, that the recording was made in stereo (at the time of Kleiber's recording of The Marriage of Figaro) but that the stereo master was accidentally erased. Kleiber died in early 1956; stereo LPs began to appear the following year. Kleiber's VPO version would almost surely have been Decca's initial stereo LP Eroica, but since all they now had was a mono master, they waited a bit and quietly issued the mono by itself. I remember when it was issued in the USA, on the low-priced ($1.98) Richmond label, Decca/London's US subsidiary. In 1958 or '59, if I recall correctly. I also remember wondering at the time why what was advertised as a first release and "new recording" should appear about three years after Kleiber's death. The technical problems might well have been the reason.

Don Tait

[vih...@protonmail.com]

Good stuff! Going off on a tangent, it's surprising to me how good some of those early stereo recordings sound, like the Reiner/CSO Also Sprach Zarathustra.. to my ear, as good as it's gotten.

[Bob Harper]

I believe I had read that, and can only lament that the stereo version
is lost. Did the same thing happen with the Reiner Eroica, or was it
just before stereo or the availability of stereo recording equiplemnt
for those sessions?

And further on Kleiber, it's a great shame that the Rosenkavlier is mono
rather than stereo.

Bob Harper

[stanpu...@gmail.com]

My understanding Bob re Reiner Eroica was that the equipment wasn’t available for stereo. Sigh....

Stan Punzel

[Dontait...@aol.com]

On Friday, March 6, 2020 at 8:08:41 PM UTC-6, stanpu...@gmail.com wrote:
> My understanding Bob re Reiner Eroica was that the equipment wasn’t available for stereo. Sigh....
>
> Stan Punzel

That is what I was told by people who had talked about it to Richard Mohr and John Pfeiffer, the two RCA producers who had worked in Chicago at that time. RCA had a limited amount of stereo recording equipment in late 1954/early 1955, when the Eroica was to be recorded in Chicago, and some had been sent elsewhere (perhaps Boston). So the Reiner/CSO Eroica was recorded in mono only.
This recording issue affected some other Reiner/CSO titles recorded at that time, among them ones by Mozart.

Don Tait

[gggg...@gmail.com]

On Friday, March 6, 2020 at 9:40:46 AM UTC-8, vih...@protonmail.com wrote:
> I understand that there are two. Any clear preferences here?
>
> Thanks.

According to this:

- Erich Kleiber, Concertgebouw (Decca, 1950) – While the interpretation is much praised, for me the real star of this show is Decca’s justly acclaimed “full frequency range recording,” which, even in its monaural sound, enabled listeners to appreciate the interplay of instruments and their textures and thus foster appreciation for the effectiveness of Beethoven’s orchestration, which often is unfairly maligned as merely functional, as if that were a problem – the alternative would have been a showy display that would have detracted from the need to express his ideas in the most direct and efficient way.

http://classicalnotes.net/classics3/eroica.html

[Al Eisner]

On Fri, 6 Mar 2020, vih...@protonmail.com wrote:

> I understand that there are two. Any clear preferences here?
>
> Thanks.

Both are terrific, and both can be found on this set (which I picked
up on CD years ago):
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7930242--erich-kleiber-decca-recordings-1949-1955
I vabguely recall prefering the Vienna, but if I took notes I can't
find them. The set also includes 2 Pastorals, but in that case the
marvelous Concertgebouw performance was the clear winner. Downloads of
individua; symphonies are pretty cheap at Presto.

--
Al Eisner

[fomalhaut]

There is a difference between the twu recordings. In 1955, Erich Kleiber and the Vienna Philharmonic did take the repeat in the first movement.

The repeat in caption was not taken in both the 1950 Concertgebouw recording and in the NBC concert (10 January 1948). It was however taken in the Stuttgart Radio concert (31 December 1955).

To my knowledge, Willem Mengelberg was the the first conductor to take the repeat in a recording with his recording with the New York Philharmonic recording (January 1930) and Kleiber in Vienna was the second.

fomalhaut

[vih...@protonmail.com]

Thanks for all this. CW