# Bruckner 5 - Van Kempen 1941?



## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

I stumbled upon this recording (at John Berky's invaluable Bruckner website):
https://www.abruckner.com/downloads/downloadofthemonth/march21/

It's a bit of a mystery. I can't find any proof of the existance of a Van Kempen Bruckner 5 recording online. Since his other documented Bruckner is uniformly marvellous, I was very excited to hear this recording - and it didn't disappoint. Gripping, oldfashioned Bruckner with the wartime Concertgebouw Orchestra (if it's that) in top form, and with some pretty eccentric tempo choices. The adagio starts very slow, then speeds up considerable with the 2nd theme, which is actually a pretty convincing effect. The scherzo and finale are fast and furious. In every note you hear the conviction and dedication of a true Brucknerian.
The mono sound is not that bad, surprisingly spacious even, but quality of the source is abominable, scratchy shellac (?) that renders large chunks of the recording unlistenable.

So my questions remain:
- Is this really Van Kempen and the Concertgebouw? Or some other wartime recording that got mislabeled? But which one? There aren't that many Bruckner 5th's from that era (I can only name Böhm, both Jochum brothers and Furtwängler...)
- I'd love to own this recording but in restored sound, with the "gravel path" distortion removed as much as possible, I guess they can do that nowadays with their fancy computers. Does anyone know if it's commercially released in some form?

Alternatively, we could use this thread to discuss some other great recordings from Berky's treasure trove (hint: Georg Ludwig Jochum!)


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

I realize I posted this in the wrong forum. Sorry, newbie error.
Could a mod please move the thread to "recorded music"?


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

RobertJTh said:


> I realize I posted this in the wrong forum. Sorry, newbie error.
> Could a mod please move the thread to "recorded music"?


They do not read every post, you better send one of them a P.M
Names under every sub forum.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I can’t help you regarding any of the questions about the provenance of the recording, but you can do your own editing. There are programs out there that you can launder the files through that will decrease the distortion and noise. Many of them are free. It’s been years since I’ve done it but I used Audacity, which is (was?) free, and Garage Band, which used to be free on Mac Computers.
Most of the distortion lives in a few audio bands so without getting to fancy on learning these programs you can scrub 80% of the noise and lose perhaps 5% of the music, which might tip the balance to make it more listenable. If you spend more effort the results get better yet. If you don’t like the results you still have your copy of the original files


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

That's a great idea, but I'm afraid it'd be far beyond my skills...
I guess it would be a perfect job for one of those youtube wizards who regularly post cleaned-up versions of old public domain recordings.


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