# tell me about Kleiber's Beethoven 7



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

So, what do you think of this one?

#3. Beethoven: Symphony #7 in A, op. 92 - Carlos Kleiber: Vienna Philharmonic (DG) 1976 (http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=209)










Complete list as of 2 rounds: http://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/science/1285-talkclassicals-greatest-recordings-all.html


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

I much prefer the Beethoven 5 performance.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I like both performances. The 5th is more famous, but the 7th is nice and "raw" for people who like that. Neither is my favorite, but both are right up there.


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## isridgewell (Jul 2, 2013)

The BBC Music Magazine asked 100 of the top conductors, composers, performers and critics to rate 3 recordings they to consider to be the greatest. The unanimous results were:

1 Solti Ring Cycle
2 Kleiber Beethoven 5 & 7
3 Britten conducts his War Requiem 

If you listen on high quality headphones the detail that you can hear at the end of number 7 is astonishing, each voice sings though in an incredible balance. KenOC says "Raw," I kind of agree however it has refinement in equal measure. Elliot Gardner is much more raw and has the increased tempo.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

There is nothing particularly outstanding,like Callas and like Klemperer in their time--it's a marketing department invention.


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## JCarmel (Feb 3, 2013)

I'm with moody on this...sorry, moody?!!


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

moody said:


> There is nothing particularly outstanding,like Callas and like Klemperer in their time--it's a marketing department invention.


The question then becomes, why did the marketing department inventions succeed so outstandingly in those three cases, but not in so many others?


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

science said:


> The question then becomes, why did the marketing department inventions succeed so outstandingly in those three cases, but not in so many others?


On another forum, unrelated to classical music, someone asked what are some of the "must have" classical recordings. As no one was replying I decided I would help and I was going to suggest this Kleiber disc. I realised though I would just be repeating the received wisdom and being part of the echo chamber that places it at number one.

I am certainly not denigrating it, as it sounds a good performance to me, but I don't think I am at all qualified to say it is far better than any other. It might really be the best, as the survey isridgewell quotes suggests, or it might just be a self-sustaining hype train fed by people like me agreeing because to disagree is to appear culturally ignorant.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

quack said:


> On another forum, unrelated to classical music, someone asked what are some of the "must have" classical recordings. As no one was replying I decided I would help and I was going to suggest this Kleiber disc. I realised though I would just be repeating the received wisdom and being part of the echo chamber that places it at number one.
> 
> I am certainly not denigrating it, as it sounds a good performance to me, but I don't think I am at all qualified to say it is far better than any other. It might really be the best, as the survey isridgewell quotes suggests, or it might just be a self-sustaining hype train fed by people like me agreeing because to disagree is to appear culturally ignorant.


Maybe. I'd be surprised if a thing like that can really sustain itself without _any_ actual quality to back it up.

The closest analogies I can think of might be Coke or Pepsi. Perhaps there is nothing at all separating them from any other cola, except marketing and hype and the momentum of the images they've created. But of course they spend so much money maintaining those images... there's nothing like that in the world of classical music recordings. Maybe you can buy off the Penguin Guide and the Gramophone Guide and a few influential critics and with a bit of luck you get a thing going. But if it were that easy....

Sorry, I can't buy into the conspiracy theory here. I can concede that hype and marketing must have had some effect, but I can't see that it could all come down to nothing but marketing. Everything is marketed, but for some reason or other not everything becomes Kleiber's Beethoven.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

I don't think of it as a conspiracy, there probably wasn't a plot thrashed out in a smoke filled room to place Kleiber at the top. My point was that marketing isn't just carried out by marketing departments, it is carried out by everyone unconsciously which is why we are talking about Kleiber's Beethoven and none of the other recordings from around the same year.

It's not entirely some marketing illusion, Kleiber wasn't an amateur who bribed DGG management into the job, he produced a very good reading. But how it is above 10-20 other recordings is never clearly explained, certainly not explained in a way that all can agree with, probably because it can't be explained.

While some get as many versions as possible of a work, many just try to find the one they like best and one of the obvious choices for Beethoven's 7th would be Kleiber, as he is often mentioned and his reading is easy to buy compared to some lesser known contemporary. People who express a dissent or simply suggest another conductor will get lost and it isn't about the marketeers crushing unthink but about another reading already being beneath the monument of Kleiber in the power ranking.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

quack said:


> I don't think of it as a conspiracy, there probably wasn't a plot thrashed out in a smoke filled room to place Kleiber at the top. My point was that marketing isn't just carried out by marketing departments, it is carried out by everyone unconsciously which is why we are talking about Kleiber's Beethoven and none of the other recordings from around the same year.
> 
> It's not entirely some marketing illusion, Kleiber wasn't an amateur who bribed DGG management into the job, he produced a very good reading. But how it is above 10-20 other recordings is never clearly explained, certainly not explained in a way that all can agree with, probably because it can't be explained.
> 
> While some get as many versions as possible of a work, many just try to find the one they like best and one of the obvious choices for Beethoven's 7th would be Kleiber, as he is often mentioned and his reading is easy to buy compared to some lesser known contemporary. People who express a dissent or simply suggest another conductor will get lost and it isn't about the marketeers crushing unthink but about another reading already being beneath the monument of Kleiber in the power ranking.


If it's not merely a creation of the marketing departments as moody argues, then it's a circular thing: people like it because it's popular; it's popular because people like it. I doubt it could often ever be more than that.

I can imagine deconstructing this recording's popularity, at least a little, in terms of "the Kleiber cult." There probably is something to that.

Anyway, I won't hold myself up as an expert or anything, but I've heard some worthy competition - Karajan 66, Gardiner, Zinman: all three marketed by major labels, featuring famous and popular musicians, and endorsed by at least some of the great official institutions of classical music marketing - and I really do enjoy Kleiber the most, both in #5 and #7. Explaining it runs into the usual problems of talking about music, but in short Kleiber's recordings are at least as exciting as the others, and they highlight a lot of details with clarity that I don't hear in the others. That doesn't mean that if I were the only person in the world whose opinion counted, it'd have been my selection, but it does mean that I find it hard to believe that its popularity is _entirely_ reducible to marketing.

I'm willing to say that "greatness" in almost any field reduces to successful hype, but not to reduce hype to marketing in many of them, with exceptions such as soft drinks. I mean, we can spend billions marketing freshly squeezed asparagus juice, but it still won't be as popular as alcohol. The contrarians of the world can probably rest easy, in that sense: they'll always enjoy the privilege of scorning the masses for preferring alcohol. I'll stay out of that. But I can't see that the masses' choice can be attributed entirely to clever alcohol marketers.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

It's not just marketing when a person is marketable. We've all seen clips or whole performances of Kleiber, and maybe read interviews. He was very strange and charismatic as hell. He could have conducted an ensemble of vacuum cleaners and it still wouldn't suck--even if you couldn't hear everything he brought to the performance when listening to the cd. 

When I read articles about how people can accurately judge the winner of a piano competition just by looking at video without sound, I'm totally unsurprised.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Blancrocher said:


> It's not just marketing when a person is marketable. We've all seen clips or whole performances of Kleiber, and maybe read interviews. He was very strange and charismatic as hell. He could have conducted an ensemble of vacuum cleaners and it still wouldn't suck--even if you couldn't hear everything he brought to the performance when listening to the cd.
> 
> When I read articles about how people can accurately judge the winner of a piano competition just by looking at video without sound, I'm totally unsurprised.


There must be something to this as well. My wife loves watching Kleiber conduct.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

JCarmel said:


> I'm with moody on this...sorry, moody?!!


That's OK, I had no idea that you were so young.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

I imagine that the first reason that he was given a chance was based on his father's fame.
There is nothing particularly wrong with theses recordings but that's all.
His "Freischuetz" was thrust down our throats ,but that's no big deal either.
How do you explain an ancient man conducting with one finger at a snail's pace selling millions i.e.,Klemperer ?
How about a fairly ordinary pianist's great success--Brendel?
I have no examples of Kleiber Jr in my collection and before you jeer I certainly would have,I seem to have nearly everyone else.
Lastly,
it's often the perceived wisdom thing,here's an example.
A neighbour of mine who had pretty well no knowledge of music said to me:"Of course Maria Callas is the best soprano isn't she?" I enquired whether he'd ever heard her and he replied in the negative,so I played an example.
At the end he looked quite concerned and asked: "Whatever is wrong with that poor lady?"--Interesting1
Music is like most things certain artists are "in" and others out. But who quotes Klemperer ad nauseum now ?


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## JCarmel (Feb 3, 2013)

(Yep, I just look Old!...)

I _do_ have a couple of his cd's, where he garners the necessary attention.. but does a fair conducting job at the New Years Strauss Concerts....though not a patch on my favourite Willi Boskovsky, who did an _authentic_ job. And then I have the aforementioned Beethoven cds that I never play...& his La Traviata, which I do & do like.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

science said:


> The question then becomes, why did the marketing department inventions succeed so outstandingly in those three cases, but not in so many others?


Well,how many new actors,sit-coms and new foods,not to mention books and musicals have fallen after great fanfares!!


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

If you're talking about legendary performances I thought the Toscanini NYP Beethoven 7 has been far more famous over the years. Not that I'm saying it's necessarily the greatest, in fact I haven't even heard it for a long while, but there's no doubt it's been very famous. And these threads are more about fame than anything.


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## Rangstrom (Sep 24, 2010)

I learned early that popular doesn't necessarily mean good. It took longer to grasp that popular doesn't necessarily mean bad. It is better to decide for oneself, and for me both Kleiber and Klemperer (hype or not) made some amazing recordings. The Beethoven 7s from both (more the mono 50s for Klemperer) fit that category. Add in the Toscanini/NYPO and the Casals (my favorite) and you will be in 7th heaven.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Carlos Kleiber didn't go out of his way for gigs, sadly for us. Who was it that said he only conducted when his refrigerator was empty?


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## AlexD (Nov 6, 2011)

Just listened to it again. Thoroughly enjoyable. 

When I was young, this is what my father played on his new hi-fi (this is the 70's), so to me this was Beethoven. 

I've heard worse versions, and there may well be better ones these days, but you know this one isn't terrible.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

starry said:


> If you're talking about legendary performances I thought the Toscanini NYP Beethoven 7 has been far more famous over the years. Not that I'm saying it's necessarily the greatest, in fact I haven't even heard it for a long while, but there's no doubt it's been very famous. And these threads are more about fame than anything.


I went looking for this, and I want to make sure you don't mean the NBC Symphony Orchestra. I've known about that for a long time, but the NYP Beethoven 7 doesn't appear to be very popular - I can only find it available on a Naxos historical disk.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

science said:


> I went looking for this, and I want to make sure you don't mean the NBC Symphony Orchestra. I've known about that for a long time, but the NYP Beethoven 7 doesn't appear to be very popular - I can only find it available on a Naxos historical disk.


The greatest Toscanini 7 is with the NYPO from 1936. Better recorded than the later NBC as well!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Carlos Kleiber didn't go out of his way for gigs, sadly for us. Who was it that said he only conducted when his refrigerator was empty?


I think it was Karajan who said this.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I remember when Kleiber's Beethoven seventh came out it was given more guarded reviews than the generally ecstatic views on his fifth. Now they are together on one disc one can see that they are both tremendous performances. Whether they are the best is a matter of personal opinion. Of course Kleiber's performances are greatly prized because he made so few of them. No doubt if he had made as many as say Karajan then the critics will be just as vitriolic towards him as some of them are to HvK. 
Of course critics are slaves of fashion like everyone else. When I was a lad it was Klemperer's stately Beethoven that was the fashion. But how fashions change! Now it is Chailly's breakneck speeds that are praised!
I'd certainly put Kleiber among the great sevenths on disc along with Toscanini 1936, Klemperer 1955 (get the stereo to hear the divided violins), Karajan (63 or 77) and Harnoncourt.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

starry said:


> If you're talking about legendary performances I thought the Toscanini NYP Beethoven 7 has been far more famous over the years. Not that I'm saying it's necessarily the greatest, in fact I haven't even heard it for a long while, but there's no doubt it's been very famous. And these threads are more about fame than anything.


Yes,but how does something become famous,usually because of the effect it has on people.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

science said:


> I went looking for this, and I want to make sure you don't mean the NBC Symphony Orchestra. I've known about that for a long time, but the NYP Beethoven 7 doesn't appear to be very popular - I can only find it available on a Naxos historical disk.


I've looked at classical music lists since the mid 80s and I've seen it mentioned plenty. Maybe because it is such an old performance it isn't mentioned so much now, the smooth inevitably better recorded Kleiber recording is more fashionable I expect. But taking the longer view of things that hasn't always been the case. And what is fashionable to recommend does change over time, and not necessarily with that much logic.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

DavidA said:


> The greatest Toscanini 7 is with the NYPO from 1936. Better recorded than the later NBC as well!


Thank you. Do you have this on Naxos, or what?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

science said:


> Thank you. Do you have this on Naxos, or what?


I had the old LP. However, you can't usually go wrong with Naxos transfers. They are very good.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

DavidA said:


> I had the old LP. However, you can't usually go wrong with Naxos transfers. They are very good.


Ok, thanks.

(20 chars.)


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## Alydon (May 16, 2012)

Its very good compared with most.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

starry said:


> , the smooth inevitably better recorded Kleiber recording is more fashionable I expect. .


Frankly the last word I would apply to the volcanic Kleiber 7 is 'smooth'!


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Well I don't use the word in a very narrow extreme way like some people might now. The modern recording will most likely make it sound richer and smoother compared to some earlier recordings. I know he is sometimes described frequently as volcanic but if I compare for instance Furtwangler to him in Brahms 4 I definitely know which I think has the more passion, even if the Kleiber one is better recorded.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

To the archives!


Chi_townPhilly said:


> ... I think the original and best continuously great Romantic symphony is Beethoven's 7th. AND-- I think one of the keys to a successful interpretation of it is that it be *conducted* that way!! If you look through its score (and I was delighted to have the opportunity to do so, while contrasting Karajan's and Kleiber's versions), you'll find that a frequently repeated performance enjoinder is "dolce." Of all of Beethoven's symphonic canon, I believe this work may be the LEAST responsive to period-instrument astringencies.


Kleiber is a really good "live-with-it" version of 7. I just like Karajan a little more...

And by the way (if the text of "The Armchair Conductor" has any veracity), it was Kleiber _himself_ who stated "I only conduct when I'm hungry."


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

There's something about a symphony that some conductors "get". Like, I think Kleiber's 5th is very good, but Karajan's is better. Karl Bohm's 6th is amazing.

But Carlos Kleiber's 7th is something else. This symphony is so much about rhythm and a fast tempo does it a world of good. Beethoven's symphonies give you that knockout punch sometimes because of their dynamic range. The dynamic is where it ceases to be pretty music and actually becomes a menacing stomp which is oh so irresistible. And the 7th is exactly that kind of symphony, it's on the happier, idyllic side of things.

To cut myself short, I would say this is probably the definitive recording of one of all-time great symphonies.


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