The Klemperer and Walter recordings (to say nothing of the old and eccentric Hermann Scherchen set) were my education in the case of Mahler's Second Symphony. But I confess it has been some time since I sat down and listened to the Klemperer, start to finish, in detail. Reappraisal has been illuminating—in many respects inspiring, and I should preface the remainder of what I have to say with an immediate vote of thanks to EMI for the superb quality of this digital remastering, for 79 minutes of vintage Kingsway Hall sound on a single mid-price CD. No one can afford to be without it, whatever personal reservations they may have about this or that aspect of Klemperer's now almost legendary reading—and I have a few myself.
Now more than ever, I emerge from his first movement unharrassed, unbruised, unsettled in the knowledge that this extraordinary music has something much more to yield. I accept, of course, that over the last few years one has become almost immune to anything less than the radical stance adopted by the likes of Bernstein and Tennstedt in this music. None the less, I do miss those elements of high-risk, the brave rhetorical gestures, the uncompromising extremes, in Klemperer's comparatively comfortable down-the-line response. He knocks minutes offmost of the competition (yes, it is a fallacy that Klemperer was always slower), paying little or no heed to Mahler's innumerable expressive markings in passages which have so much to gain from them. I would cite the magical shift to remote E major with the ppp emergence of the second subject where Klemperer allows himself no lassitude whatsoever in the rubato despite Mahler's explicit requests to the contrary. Likewise the grisly procession of cellos and basses which begins the approach to the awesome climax of the development. How little Klemperer makes of their cadaverous first entry or Mahler's long backward glance just prior to the coda—music which, with all its rosy portamento, positively begs you to linger yet awhile; Klemperer resolutely refuses.
But then, come the deceptive second movement minuet, something happens, the performance really begins to find its space. Klemperer's scherzo is ideally big-boned with fine rollicking horns and a lazy trio with lovely old-world close-harmony trumpets. And the finale, growing more and more momentous with every bar, is possessed of a unique aura; I cannot think of any other way to describe it. Not everyone is convinced by Klemperer's very measured treatment of the Judgement Day march, I am. The grim reaper takes his time but the inevitability of what is to come is somehow the more shocking as a result. Klemperer's trumpets peak thrillingly in the bars immediately prior to the climax itself—and what a seismic upheaval (literally terrific) he and his orchestra pull off at this point. The rest is sublime: marvellous spacial effects, off-stage brass and so on, an inspirational sense of the music burgeoning from the moment the chorus breathe life into Klopstock's Resurrection Ode. My final words are for the supreme quality of the Philharmonia forces of the day, though I still think it a pity that in those days so many technical blemishes were allowed to make it through to the final master: the glaringly early bassoon entry in bar 12 of the first movement is something to make you wince in anticipation each time a less desirably unique aspect of a justly famous performance.
I can be brief about Mehta's Israel Philharmonic performance recorded live amidst the illuminated rock-faces of the desert at Masada: clearly a breathtaking setting for anyone present at the event itself but of small consolation to those of us attempting to listen at home through insurmountable technical handicaps. The sound is horribly thin and inadequate with erratic, fluctuating balances, remote woodwinds, strident brass, percussion that can unexpectedly take your head off, offstage effects that come and go, a chorus that quite simply goes, receding disastrously in its final moments of glory. Add to this appalling stage creaks and groans, ruinous in the transition from that last sepulchral chord of the scherzo into the Urlicht. And so on. Better not to attempt a detailed value judgement on the performance, I think. It struck me as rising only fitfully above the mediocre. Strictly souvenir value.'