# Otto Klemperer’s St John Passion



## level82rat

Unless this recording is very well hidden, it unfortunately seems that it does not exist. Are there any conductors who share a similar philosophy to Klemperer and also conducted this passion?


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## DavidA

As far as I know there is no commercial recording of him conducting this and if his St Matthew is anything to go by it certainly wouldn’t be on my shelf.


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## Marc

You might like this one... I don't know about any availability on disc though. Probably not.

It's a live recording from 1948, led by the Swiss conductor Hans Münch.






For (more or less) 'old style' recordings in stereo, I'd like to recommend either Fritz Werner or Eugen Jochum.


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## flamencosketches

Jochum is probably the one to get.


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## level82rat

flamencosketches said:


> Jochum is probably the one to get.


Listening to it now, and it is fantastic! Thanks for the suggestion


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## RICK RIEKERT

Fritz Lehmann's performance is close in style and feeling to Klemperer's 1961 EMI recording of the St. Matthew Passion.


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## Marc

level82rat said:


> Listening to it now, and it is fantastic! Thanks for the suggestion


Good to hear you enjoy it.
I myself am not into the, say', 'old style' performances of Bach and contemporaries, but in JSB's vocal/choral output I appreciate Werner, Münchinger and Jochum best.


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## Brahmsianhorn

Don’t forget Britten, even though it’s in English


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## Lordgeous

According to George Malcolm (Harpsichord continuo on Klemperer's St Matthew recording) to his & Peter Pears horror, Klemperer insisted on conducting the recitatives, and when George added a decorative ornament Klemperer told him solelmly "Not to joke with Bach"!. Apparently Pears and Malcolm went back in the studio in the evenings and re-recorded them without the conductor knowing!


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## RICK RIEKERT

Lordgeous said:


> According to George Malcolm (Harpsichord continuo on Klemperer's St Matthew recording) to his & Peter Pears horror, Klemperer insisted on conducting the recitatives, and when George added a decorative ornament Klemperer told him solelmly "Not to joke with Bach"!. Apparently Pears and Malcolm went back in the studio in the evenings and re-recorded them without the conductor knowing!


Malcolm must have been a thorn in Klemperer's side, since I've heard the same remark was made when in their 1960 recording of the Brandenburg Concertos Malcolm attempted to decorate the continuo part and was met with Klemperer's fierce disapproval.


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## premont

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Malcolm must have been a thorn in Klemperer's side, since I've heard the same remark was made when in their 1960 recording of the Brandenburg Concertos Malcolm attempted to decorate the continuo part and was met with Klemperer's fierce disapproval.


Yes, and how Malcolm imagined the continuo realizations, one can hear in the recording Malcolm himself led from the harpsichord for ASV. Quite different from the Klemperer recording.


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## Guest

I don't know Klemperer's St. John Passion but his St. Matthew is frozen solid in its own earnest lugubriousness:


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## Handelian

Christabel said:


> I don't know Klemperer's St. John Passion but his St. Matthew is frozen solid in its own earnest lugubriousness:


A style utterlysincere but slow even for its day and now best forgotten.


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## RICK RIEKERT

Handelian said:


> A style utterlysincere but slow even for its day and now best forgotten.


But only by those who find it forgettable, certainly not by those for whom it remains a compelling listening experience- and there are many.

As one well-known critic explains:

"It has been charged that Klemperer's tempos, particularly during the last years of his life, were unusually slow. This observation has some truth in it - Klemperer's approach was, in general, weighty and somewhat ruminative. But there remains a tension, and a sense of architectural command, to his finest recordings that transcends mere metronomic considerations and takes the listener to the heart of the music.

Klemperer's Bach remains controversial; in my opinion, his magisterial conception of the Baroque choral masterpieces will be remembered, with all of its romanticism, long after today's fashionable wispiness has gone the way of the hula hoop.

The conductor's real testament as a Bach interpreter is the ''St. Matthew Passion'' he recorded in the early 1960's, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Peter Pears, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Christa Ludwig, Nicolai Gedda and Walter Berry. Klemperer's ''St. Matthew'' moves slowly, heavily, and with extraordinary cumulative force; it may be the conductor's finest recording - a ''desert island'' disk if ever there was one."

_Nur jedem das Seine_, BWV 163. In the house of Bach there are many mansions.


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## Guest

RICK RIEKERT said:


> But only by those who find it forgettable, certainly not by those for whom it remains a compelling listening experience- and there are many.
> 
> As one well-known critic explains:
> 
> "It has been charged that Klemperer's tempos, particularly during the last years of his life, were unusually slow. This observation has some truth in it - Klemperer's approach was, in general, weighty and somewhat ruminative. But there remains a tension, and a sense of architectural command, to his finest recordings that transcends mere metronomic considerations and takes the listener to the heart of the music.
> 
> Klemperer's Bach remains controversial; in my opinion, his magisterial conception of the Baroque choral masterpieces will be remembered, with all of its romanticism, long after today's fashionable wispiness has gone the way of the hula hoop.
> 
> The conductor's real testament as a Bach interpreter is the ''St. Matthew Passion'' he recorded in the early 1960's, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Peter Pears, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Christa Ludwig, Nicolai Gedda and Walter Berry. Klemperer's ''St. Matthew'' moves slowly, heavily, and with extraordinary cumulative force; it may be the conductor's finest recording - a ''desert island'' disk if ever there was one."
> 
> _Nur jedem das Seine_, BWV 163. In the house of Bach there are many mansions.


I don't agree with that 'well known critic' because I think the so-called 'fashionable wispiness' of HIP really energizes the music and gives it transparency, rather than dense romanticism, which provides its own particular grandeur . The period instrumentation, for which these works were written, provides a clarity of texture and ravishing continuo sound which I simply cannot do without. Ergo, the comments from the critic are reactionary - in my opinion.


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## Handelian

RICK RIEKERT said:


> But only by those who find it forgettable, certainly not by those for whom it remains a compelling listening experience- and there are many.
> 
> As one well-known critic explains:
> 
> "It has been charged that Klemperer's tempos, particularly during the last years of his life, were unusually slow. This observation has some truth in it - Klemperer's approach was, in general, weighty and somewhat ruminative. But there remains a tension, and a sense of architectural command, to his finest recordings that transcends mere metronomic considerations and takes the listener to the heart of the music.
> 
> Klemperer's Bach remains controversial; in my opinion, his magisterial conception of the Baroque choral masterpieces will be remembered, with all of its romanticism, long after today's fashionable wispiness has gone the way of the hula hoop.
> 
> The conductor's real testament as a Bach interpreter is the ''St. Matthew Passion'' he recorded in the early 1960's, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Peter Pears, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Christa Ludwig, Nicolai Gedda and Walter Berry. Klemperer's ''St. Matthew'' moves slowly, heavily, and with extraordinary cumulative force; it may be the conductor's finest recording - a ''desert island'' disk if ever there was one."
> 
> _Nur jedem das Seine_, BWV 163. In the house of Bach there are many mansions.


This sort of pleading is just beyond reason. What we are asked to believe that the way to perform Bach is in a style he would not have recognised himself and that to perform Bach near to what he himself would probably have performed it is 'wispiness'. Absolute rubbish imo. Of course hip can be 'metronomic' but so can recordings with 100 instruments. The opening chorus of the St Matthew is a sarabande - a dance. Can you imagine anyone dancing to it at K's tempo? Mistaking slowness for reverence. If people like it that's fine but don't make this sort of case for it.


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## Guest

Handelian said:


> This sort of pleading is just beyond reason. What we are asked to believe that the way to perform Bach is in a style he would not have recognised himself and that to perform Bach near to what he himself would probably have performed it is 'wispiness'. Absolute rubbish imo. Of course hip can be 'metronomic' but so can recordings with 100 instruments. The opening chorus of the St Matthew is a sarabande - a dance. Can you imagine anyone dancing to it at K's tempo? Mistaking slowness for reverence. If people like it that's fine but don't make this sort of case for it.


Completely agree with you. The music of the Bach sacred works can be very magnificently performed by the smallest ensembles. Too many instruments and too many voices don't make a work 'better' or 'more profound'.


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## Allegro Con Brio

I think Klempy does much better with the B Minor Mass than the SMP. The Mass is a work that admits to the monumental, stoic, reverent gigantism just as much as it does the lithe period approach. But the Passion needs to move forward a little more than Klemperer allows for. It’s a hypnotic experience for some and just annoying for others. Personally, after the opening chorus in that recording, which is so riveting I don’t care about the tempo, I start to yell - “Let’s have a little more elasticity here!” I mean, compared to even some modern instrument versions like Jochum and Richter, some movements are just comically slow, almost like a farce.


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