Search - Gustav Mahler, Johannes Brahms, Otto Klemperer :: Gustav Mahler: Kindertotenlieder; Brahms: Liebeslieder-Walzer

Good but...

Ryan Kouroukis | Toronto, Ontario Canada | 05/09/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Although this cd features the great Klemperer and Ferrier, it suffers from the most terrible sound imaginable!Decca screwed up on the restoring of this cd because they left all the hiss and made the sound and volume very low and unclear.Not only that but the full price cd is only 40 some minutes!It's disappointing, but nevertheless it is an important document to the discography, and more the worthwhile if you have a system with an equalizer to fiddle around with the settings."

Which of Ferrier's Kindertotenlieders to buy?

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 01/20/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Kathleen Ferrier left so few commercial recordings that despite its scratchy, AM-radio sound, Decca was fully justified in releasing this inspired Kindertotenlieder from the Holland Festival. Sonically it can't compare with Ferrier's studio recording, now refurbished on EMI, with the Vienna Phil. under Bruno Walter. But there are significant differences that can only be appreciated by hearing both versions.



The two orchestras are placed backward in both recordings, with considerable loss of inner detail. The focus is entirely on Ferrier, who sounds darker and more sombr under Walter. Her voice is brighter and her mood less tragic for Klemperer. Contray to his reputation for slowness, Klemperer is also considerably faster in the second and fourth songs. The other reviewer here complains about the surface iss and scratches that weren't removed in Decca's remastering, but given that this was an early venture into historical recordings for them, the fact that they didn't rob Ferrier's voice of high frequencies is one advantage over the EMI engineering, where both orchestra and singer sound a bit muffled.



In the end, we are fortunate to possess both recordings, and one can hope that another label will redo the sound now that remastering technology has improved by leaps and bounds."