These Klemperer/Philharmonia recordings were made in 1955-6 and were replaced by the stereo performances which I reviewed in May when they were reissued in digital remasterings. These monos have been put through the same process and emerge very well. (How they compare with the originals I cannot say, but on my equipment I can detect none of the untoward electronic 'side-effects' that some listeners complain about with remasterings, though there always seems to be some loss of spaciousness.)
The stereo Klemperer Eroica is one of the great recorded performances (ED290271-1, 5/85), but this 1956 record runs it close. Only the inevitable restrictions of mono prevent my bracketing it with its successor. the Philharmonia was at its peak at this period and the bloom on the horns in the trio of the Scherzo is a glorious sound, as it will was on the later recording. All the playing has alertness and flexibility, and Klemperer's conducting seems more relaxed, less grandeur-conscious. This is especially marked in the Fifth Symphony. The stereo re-recording was a disappointment (ED290252-1, 5/85), but this 1955 performance is a joyous celebration of the music—living up to Beethoven rather than to the image of being a legend. The Seventh is a more exciting performance than the later one (ED290328-1, 5/85), though I cannot say that Klemperer would ever be my Desert-Island choice in this symphony. There is more electricity in the finale, but the tempos in the second and third movements are on the stately side. James Loughran's 1977 Halle record (ASV ALH904, 2/82) and Sir Colin Davis's 1961 RPO reading (HMV SXLP20038, 6/62) to name only two, capture the daemonic element in this work more successfully than Klemperer.
The performances of the three Leonore Overtures are very fine—why don't we hear No. 2 more often? Issued for the first time in the UK is a really splendid account of The Consecration of the House, Beethoven in Handelian mood. This is a work that is sometimes dismissed as hackwork, but Klemperer invests it with a power, nobility and spring that make it an outstanding example of the ceremonial overture.
A reader complained after my review of the stereo remasterings that I had not pointed out that the very last chords of the third and fourth movements of the Eroica had been cut short before the reverberation had ceased. A re-hearing confirms this to be so, though it is infinitesimal. The end of the Scherzo of the Eroica in this mono remastering has also been clipped very tightly in the same way.'