While Otto Klemperer’s formidable conductorial talent is indisputable, his compositional gifts were marginal at best. The works on this new CPO disc are all highly derivative, epitomizing the term “conductor’s music”. Symphony No. 1 evokes the world of Raff, and to a far lesser degree early Mahler–this despite its being composed in 1960-61. Klemperer’s pleasing melodic ideas complement the music’s post-romantic gesturing, but once heard the whole thing fades quickly from the mind.
In his Second Symphony Klemperer turns to a more dissonant, modernist language. He does create some interesting orchestral textures in the first movement (particularly his use of winds and strings), but overall the symphony’s melodic content is uniformly bland. Worse, Klemperer engages in the bad practice of ending cadences with unexpected dissonant chords in a transparent attempt to assert his “originality”. After this dim, grey mood, the Merry Waltz, with its echoes of Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, comes as a relief. The following Marcia funèbre and Recollections offer additional reactionary pleasures, but the program ends with the melodically inert, drearily dull Scherzo.
Klemperer himself recorded the Second Symphony and Merry Waltz for EMI, and while Alun Francis doesn’t score any significant points over the composer, he does impress by getting the musicians of the Rheinland-Pfalz State Philharmonic to play as if they really believed in the music. CPO’s full-bodied, dynamic recording relays the venue’s somewhat bright acoustic.
