Daniel Barenboim's 1968 EMI recording of the five Beethoven piano concertos with Klemperer and the New Philharmonia is one of the most illuminating and characterful of all the post-war cycles. It was an inspired piece of casting, the ageing master and sage acolyte locked, like characters in a novel by Hermann Hesse, into a quest of mutual self-illumination. Even today, the performances retain a remarkable dynamic charge, emotionally and intellectually. But the old master is dead and the pupil must make his own way in the world; a journey which after such companionship is bound to be a lonely one. In this sense, by taking on the near-impossible task of directing as well as playing the concertos, Barenboim testifies to Klemperer's irreplaceability as well as conforming the strength of his own inner musical life and that feeling of virtual withdrawal from the world which is recent years has given his Beethoven playing a self-communing quality devoid of all taint of the merely narcissistic.
Barenboim is, then, not only a greatly experienced Beethovenian, he is also a pianist to whom one is bound to listen. The joy of these performances is in the quality of the musical discourse: the fine limning of line and harmony, the timing and dynamic shading, all wonderfully judged, felt from within, sensitively and generously, at the moment of release. The C minor Concerto (No. 3), which perhaps suits the pianist/conductor formula best of all, is particularly fine, though still very leisurely in its first movement.
There are those who will ask whether it is in fact physically possible to play and direct the Emperor or something as critically divided as the slow movement of the G major Concerto (No. 4). Here we must assume some division of responsibility with the orchestra, though none of the players if named on the records' titling, not even the leader. If any group of musicians could be entrusted with this task it is the Berlin Philharmonic whose playing is remarkable, not least for their ability to mirror and sustain Barenboim's flexible and immensely patient rhythmic detailing.
Where there are problems and where the Klemperer set is difficult to replace is in those passages and movements where Beethoven's music is at its most deteminedly dialectical. If Barenboim the conductor is stating the premises in his own way, Barenboim the pianist either honour them, which is potentially tautologous, or query them, which may seem merely perverse. Time and again, and especially in the Emperor Concerto, there is a relative loss of musical interest where in the Klemperer, set Barenboim is warily and creatively on guard, obliged to fight his corner, justify his case. One misses that other voice speaking through the orchestra. In the G major Concerto Barenboim catches in the ritonello a quality of romantic pathos which Klemperer never aimed at. It is marvellous but as the movement unfolds I find myself listening less and less to a creative debate, more and more to a solo discourse with orchestral backing. I must also say that there's less fun, fewer high jinks, in the finales of the earlier concertos where Klemperer's wind players and Barenboim were at their most waggish.
The recording made for the Berliner Philharmoniker/Musibar team give the piano an unmistakable strength and immediacy, and close, warm orchestral sound. It is quite satisfying but there is not the depth of perspective or sense of delighted interplay between instrumental groups which we have on Robert Gooch's older EMI set. The new set is, none the less, well worth hearing through for the unbroken eloquence of Barenboim's solo playing and for the consistency with which he explores the more reflective, Apollonian side of Beethoven's nature.'