Search - Richard [Classical] Wagner, Klaus Tennstedt, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra :: Wagner: Orchestral Music

Coarse, wayward performances from an uneven conductor

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 10/03/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Klaus Tennstedt was chosen as EMI's replacement for Otto Klemperer, or perhaps it was as rival to Gunther Wand on RCA. He was the house traditionalist from the Central European tradition, but in practice Tennstedt turned out to be temperamental and erratic. He had greatness in him. Some of his Mahler cycle and Beethoven symphonies are all they could be in terms of sponaneous conducting, with more sparks than one got from Klemperer and more inspiration that one got from the straight-ahead Wand.



At other times Tennstedt could be ponderously slow, as in his recording of the Beethoven Violin concerto with Nigel Kennedy, or coarse and brusque, as on these Wagner excerpts with the Berlin Phil. If you expect that nothing could hurt Berlin's gleaming sound, wait until you hear the brash, blatty brass in the Ring excerpts--try Siegfried's funeraml March--or the wiry string sound and rough ensemble in the Magic Fire Music. The second CD, which represents another recording session of overtures and preludes, is consieralby better and contains flashes of the Tennstedt who is still beloved in London.



(For what it's worth, Tennstedt's pairing with Jessye Norman in what could have been a splendid Wanger recital of arias and scene sounds just as coarse to me.)"