Search - Beethoven, Pfitzner, Kleiber :: Great Conductors: Pfitzner & Kleiber

Erich Kleiber deserves to be remembered as much more than the father of Carlos. He was one of the greatest conductors of his time, and he would probably be even better remembered if his career had not been interrupted by the Nazi era. (He spent most of those years in South America, where he made no recordings.) Most of his postwar Decca recordings have been reissued and deleted, and a Teldec collection of short works from Telefunken 78s was poorly transferred. So we have little opportunity to enjoy his work outside of his only stereo recording, a brilliant reading of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. In this 1929 recording, Kleiber whips the ragtag orchestra into a surprising semblance of competence, and delivers a lively, engaging performance with plenty of insight and humor. Pfitzner, best known as a composer, gets no such engagement from the orchestra, and his performance of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony is rather dreary. The strong residue of surface noise left by restorer David Lennick doesn't help the performances, but Kleiber's vivacity cuts through it and is worth the (modest) price of the disc. --Leslie Gerber