Two CDs in this batch are particularly valuable in that they provide useful comparisons with later recordings featuring the same two conductors. Erich Kleiber races hotfoot through Beethoven's Eroica, and the 1950 Concertgebouw makes a valiant effort to keep up with him. String ensemble is sometimes untidy, there is a small and slightly irritating pause before the Scherzo's trio (a gesture that Kleiber abandoned in his later, 1955 Decca Vienna Philharmonic recording, 2/92), a damaging edit at 4'29'' into the finale and a conspicuous absence of the first movement's vital exposition repeat (restored by Kleiber in Vienna). All in all, it's a breathless but exciting performance—Toscanini without the furrowed brow, perhaps—but the 1955 VPO version is more considered, more warmly played and far better recorded.
Munch's Romeo extracts are similarly hightension; the playing of the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra mightn't have the Boston Symphony's sheen and refinement (RCA, 4/93), but it does succeed in communicating the conductor's passionate response to this most original of romantic Romeo and Juliet settings. Munch in Paris is highly excitable, where his later Bostonian persona sacrificed forward momentum and spontaneity for the sake of surer execution. The rest of the concert is equally volatile, with a particularly thrilling Le corsaire—but the sound, even by 1949 standards, is scrawny and constricted.
Sonic considerations hardly matter in the case of Ansermet's Debussy and Ravel, but then I wouldn't have written that had the sound proved a stumbling block. As it happens, the 1953-4 Decca team achieved startling presence, with the Martyre sequences in particular yielding generous bass sonorities within the context of an impressive aural canvas. L'enfant et les sortileges is almost as vivid, but the laurels must surely go to the mono L'heure espagnole which, although lacking in specific directional detail, springs to life as if it were half its age. Ansermet's only limitations are those of his orchestra: sour woodwinds, rather thin violins and massed tuttis that lack the lightning precision of a really crack ensemble. But no other shortcomings are worth mentioning. What most strikes the listener here, quite apart from the idiomatic nature of the singing (especially in L'heure espagnole, and from Danco and Rehfuss in particular), is Ansermet's intuitive understanding of each score's subtler aspect, whether it be L'heure espagnole's tenderness, L'enfant's mystery or the disturbing darkness in the substantially complete Le martyre music. Add the conductor's customary care for balance and colour, his sense of pulse and timing (which transcends minor orchestral imperfections) and the general warmth of his approach, and you have the basis of a unique and durable mastery. Music-making of this calibre should never be out of the catalogue.
Some would argue that Wilhelm Kempff should enjoy similar catalogue longevity, and when it comes to Beethoven sonatas I would normally agree. Kempff's Schumann Concerto, however, is a little too muted for my taste, although far surer than his DG version with Kubelik (nla) and full of quietly meaningful points of interpretation. Krips's neat accompaniment cushions the soloist with obvious respect, but taken as a whole I would rather opt for the more assertive 1948 Lipatti (EMI, 7/89) or the 1964 Serkin (Sony Classical). The solo works exhibit a similar care and conscientiousness; there is much thinking behind Kempff's playing, and his imagination has a good deal to teach us about the music—but I sense that all these performances would have been far more involving and spontaneous had they been given before a live audience. The sound is fairly good in the concerto, but sadly emaciated in the solo works.'