Kletzki Conducts Wagner and Brahms

Here is a return to the work of conductor Paul Kletzki, who has appeared on this blog only once before, with the Israel Philharmonic in Mendelssohn's Third Symphony. Today we explore his work in more depth, with these two 1950s recordings of Wagner and Brahms, both with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Kletzki (1900-73) worked quite a bit with the Philharmonia in the 1950s, making recordings for EMI, the source of today's two LPs. Born in Poland, he made his early career in Berlin, primarily as a composer, before moving on with the ascension of the Nazis, first to Italy, then to Switzerland, where he became a citizen. During this time he became known for his conducting. His initial recordings were in Berlin in 1932. He began his association with EMI in 1946. Later on he became the director of the Dallas Symphony and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.

Wagner - Music from Tannhäuser and Tristan und Isolde

These Wagner recordings, dating from June 1953, were made in London's Kingsway Hall. Although mono, the sound is quite good. [Note (October 2023): the sound has now been refurbished in ambient stereo.]

Kletzki programmed the Overture and Venusberg Music from Tannhäuser along with the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, two glorious pieces of music that Kletzki handles beautifully.

Andrew Porter in The Gramophone was laudatory: "[Kletzki] is astonishingly versatile and does extraordinarily well whatever he turns his hand to." However, he also thought that in the Prelude and Liebestod there wasn't sufficient ecstasy, a verdict shared by the American Record Guide's Peter Hugh Reed. The latter added, though, "Those who like their Wagner played with less emotional stress will do well to investigate this excellently recorded disc with its evidence of musical care and veracity."

Ad in The Gramophone, February 1954 (click to enlarge)

Wagner - Siegfried Idyll, Träume; Brahms - Haydn Variations

The two Wagner pieces in this program are a contrast to the previous pair in that they were written for chamber forces, not the full orchestra of Tannhäuser and Tristan. However, it's possible that Kletzki has expanded the scoring for this recording. 

The Siegfried Idyll was a present to the composer's wife Cosima upon the birth of their son Siegfried. It is tender and loving music, handsomely done here. The critic Paul Affelder wrote, "Kletzki is not a showy conductor. He allows the music to sing, to emerge frankly and naturally, and in so doing serves it best."

The second Wagner item on this program is connected to both Tristan and, in a way, to the Siegfried Idyll. It is an orchestral transcription of Träume, the last of the five Wesendonck Lieder, settings of poems by Mathilde Wesendonck. The composer originally wrote them for voice and piano, and later added a version with chamber orchestra. The arrangement without voice was done to serenade Wesendonck outside her window, as Wagner was later to do for his wife with the Siegfried Idyll.

Paul Kletzki

The composer was working on Tristan at the same time as the lieder, and the music of Träume is related to Tristan. In the recorded arrangement, the vocal part is given to violin, here played by Hugh Bean, the concertmaster of the Philharmonia.

It has been speculated that Wagner and Wesendonck were lovers (she was the wife of his patron Otto Wesendonck). Brahms' Haydn Variations were related to his own love for Clara Schumann, the wife of Robert Schumann, and it too was probably not conceived as an orchestral work. Brahms wrote it for performance by Clara and him, but also transcribed it into the orchestral guise in which it is usually heard today.

The given name of the work is the Variations on a Theme of Haydn, but it sometimes called the St. Antoni Variations because it was based on a melody called the "St. Antoni Chorale" found in one of Haydn's wind partitas. Today the theme is thought probably to have been written by one of Haydn's students.

These recordings date from August and September 1958 and are in excellent stereo. The Siegfried Idyll is a remake of a mono recording that Kletzki did for EMI in 1947.

Mendelssohn Special with Kletzki, Szell, Barbirolli, Borries and Celibidache

Rummaging through my collection a while back, I came across several interesting discs with the music of Felix Mendelssohn, and decided to transfer them for this post, and possibly one more to come.

Here are the details of today’s offering. The sound quality varies, but is never less than good.

Symphony No. 3 (Israel Philharmonic/Paul Kletzki). This particular record was among the first to be made by the orchestra, dating from April/May 1954. The download includes scans of an eight-page commemorative booklet included in the American Angel release. Kletzki leads a good performance, although the coda, marked Allegro maestoso assai, is more maestoso than allegro.

Symphony No. 4 (Hallé Orchestra/John Barbirolli) and Violin Concerto (Siegfried Borries; Berlin Philharmonic/Sergiu Celibidache). This coupling on RCA Victor’s Bluebird budget label combined Manchester and Berlin sessions that both transpired in February 1948. Barbirolli elicits a spruce performance from the resuscitated Hallé, which remained underpowered in the strings five years after the conductor revived its fortunes. Siegfried Borries, then the concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, offers an assured reading of the concerto, with an excellent accompaniment led by Celibidache during his postwar years as the orchestra’s conductor.

Symphony No. 4 (Cleveland Orchestra/George Szell) and Music from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Philharmonic-Symphony of New York/Szell). The fine Cleveland performance is from November 1947 dates in Severance Hall; the terrific New York rendition of the Midsummer Night’s Dream music is from January 1951 and Columbia’s 30th Street studio. I don’t like making comparisons, but for me the New York band of this period was second to none. This particular coupling had two different covers, both of which are in the download along with images from a 78 set and 10-inch LP.

If there is interest, I will transfer Mendelssohn overtures from Adrian Boult and Midsummer Night’s Dream excerpts from Sargent and Old Vic forces including Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann and Stanley Holloway.

George Szell blisses out to a 1951 recording session playback