Klemperer’s Choral Symphony, London 1957
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About
In the autumn of 1957, London’s musical landscape was dominated by a legendary Beethoven cycle given by the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall under the magisterial baton of Otto Klemperer. This live recording, captured from a concert relay on 19 October 1957, stands as a monumental historical document. It caught the orchestra at the absolute peak of its powers, just weeks before they entered Kingsway Hall to record their famous EMI studio version.
While Herbert von Karajan had spent the previous decade moulding the Philharmonia into a sleek, virtuosic instrument, Klemperer brought a distinctive architectural gravitas. Unlike the polished perspective of studio multi-miking, this raw live broadcast captures the genuine acoustics of the Festival Hall. It showcases Klemperer’s celebrated orchestral balance: a lean, structurally transparent texture where the woodwinds and hammering timpani are thrust into sharp relief over the strings. The concert also features the newly-formed Philharmonia Chorus, trained to an unprecedented standard of discipline by Chorus Master Wilhem Pitz.
The symphony opens not with a theme, but with an open-fifth whisper—a mysterious, rhythm-less string tremolo that mimics the sound of an orchestra tuning or cosmic elements forming. Klemperer’s steady, unhurried pulse rejects cosmetic excitement in favour of a massive, granitic momentum. The movement builds purposefully into a shattering D-minor main theme that plunges across the octaves. Klemperer avoids temporal shifts, allowing the structural friction and sheer weight of the Philharmonia brass to generate a terrifying, apocalyptic climax.
Beethoven famously subverts symphonic tradition by placing the Scherzo second. This movement is built entirely upon a driving, obsessive three-note rhythmic motif. Rather than treating it as a manic, frantic dash, Klemperer adopts a sharply articulated, teeth-gritted tempo. By springing the syncopated rhythms with immense rhythmic precision, he reveals the movement’s dark, daemonic energy without letting it descend into chaos. The radical left-right separation of the Philharmonia first and second violins creates a stunning stereophonic dialogue as the fugal entries chase each other across the stage.
The slow movement is a sublime, deeply spiritual variation set that acts as a structural sanctuary before the finale’s upheaval. Klemperer guides the music with direct, unaffected warmth and nobility, avoiding sentimental indulgence. The Philharmonia woodwinds—led by principal oboist Sidney Sutcliffe—attain a numinous, vocal quality in their phrasing. The performance builds a seamless arc of continuous melody, broken only by solemn, terrifying brass fanfares that warn of the drama to come.
The finale erupts with what the critic Heinrich Schenker called the Schreckensfanfare (horror fanfare)—a discordant orchestral shriek. Beethoven reviews and systematically rejects the main themes of the preceding movements before the cellos and double basses softly utter the famous “Ode to Joy” melody.
The instrumental textures are abruptly shattered by the entrance of the human voice. Legendary bass Hans Hotter delivers the opening recitative (“O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!”) with awe-inspiring, operatic authority. He is followed by an exceptional, tight-knit quartet of soloists, featuring a young Christa Ludwig. When the Philharmonia Chorus enters, singing Friedrich Schiller’s utopian hymn to universal brotherhood, Klemperer binds the episodic variations—including the famous tenor military march sung by Waldemar Kmentt—into one sweeping, monumental utterance. The performance drives forward with blistering, unified intensity to a manic, ecstatic prestissimo finish.
Contents
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Symphony No 9 in D minor, op 125
Track 1: Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso
Track 2: Molto vivace
Track 3: Adagio molto e cantabile
Track 4: Finale
This recording
This recording was made from a relay of a concert at the Royal Festival Hall, London 19 October 1957.
The recording is in the Tolansky-Tschaikov Collection at Music Preserved.
Performers
- Soprano Aase Nordmo-Lovberg
- Mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig
- Tenor Waldemar Kmentt
- Bass Hans Hotter
- Philharmonia Chorus
- Philharmonia Orchestra
- Conductor Otto Klemperer
