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A Great Tribute To Carlos Kleiber

dv_forever | Michigan, USA | 11/07/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Kleiber brings the same insights of his classic recording of Beethoven's 5th to bear on Brahms's 4th symphony. This is an all-time great recording, probably the most furious and passionate performance since Furtwangler's transcendental account during World War II.



The entire first movement is played wonderfully and the coda is astonishing in it's drama. In the second movement Kleiber is perhaps not as warm as other conductors but overall he's a success. The glitter and gold of the scherzo is brought out in full and the finale, the passacaglia is truly masterful, rising to a magnificent close. Kleiber surpasses all of Karajan's performances here as well as any other competitor except the great Furtwangler.



The Schubert 8th is a very dignified and strikingly dramatic traversal of this perennial favorite. Some people won't take to the forceful accents but it's great to hear Schubert played this way from time to time. The excerpts from Kleiber's recording of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde are a nice compliment to Brahms and Schubert. Kleiber's soprano in the Liebestod is the fresh voiced Margaret Price and she sounds great but hardly approaches the depth and power of Birgit Nilsson or Jessye Norman in this spectacular end to Tristan and Isolde.



Not everything is perfect, the sound on this CD is still somewhat edgy in climaxes, lacking lushness and warmth as to be expected in the early digital recording of the Brahms symphony and the Wagner excerpts. These date from 1980 or thereabouts. The analogue Schubert is also similiar sound wise, typical Deutsche Grammophon stuff from the 1970s. All of these performances were previously part of several CDs in the DG Originals series and they are all remastered using Original-Image Bit-Processing, DG's signature remastering technique. This CD is a great purchase even though the sound is not the greatest by modern day standards, the performances are exceptional and must be a part of any serious collection."

One of the finest bargains in the entire classical catalog

Robert Moore | Chicago, IL USA | 04/09/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One in a while one of the classical labels does something a bit more than right. I owned Kleiber's famous version of Brahms's 4th back in the heady days of the LP and would have bought just that on CD. But to commemorate the career and extremely limited recording career of Carlos Kleiber they repackaged Brahms's 4th with Kleiber's nearly as excellent version of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony along with excerpts from Wagner to produce a horn of plenty for music lovers. Kleiber produced fewer recordings than any other great conductor of his generation, but despite his rather meager output will be remembered for generations to come on the basis of the amazing quality of a few of these discs. There are several candidates for the best recording of Brahms's Fourth, but this is one of them and is certainly one that one has to take into account when evaluating the finest versions on record. All Kleiber's recordings will, of course, always take a bit of a back seat to his very famous recording of Beethoven's Fifth and Seventh symphonies.



Even if one already owns multiple versions of both the Brahms and Schubert this is a disc that any classical music lover should get. Rarely will you see two such classic version of major orchestral works coupled together on at a bargain price. This disc truly should be in the library of everyone who doesn't already own the works on their original CD releases."

DG did the right thing!

Xiangyi Li | 11/22/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"here i think it is unnecessary to go to lengths to comment on how great these performances are. i just want to say DG did the right thing in commemoration of great Carlos Kleiber (1930-2004). i also wonder what DG will do with the Brahms's 4th in its originals. it is obvious that no one will buy that in the future.



so if you still haven't got the Brahms' 4th by Kleiber, don't miss this any more!"