Search - Carlos Kleiber - Beethoven Coriolan Overture, Brahms Symphony No. 4, Mozart Symphony No. 33, Munich on DVD

The Best!!!

John Jeter | Arkansas | 01/18/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"All of the recent Kleiber DVD releases are simply the best! If you enjoy listening and watching orchestral concerts and enjoy watching a conductor at work during performance - there are simply no better performances on DVD. Kleiber was one of the greats and you can see and hear why on these treasures. If you are at all thinking of purchasing any of the Kleiber DVD's don't hesitate - well worth it at twice the price. My highest possible recommendation! Why Universal Music did you wait so long to release these on DVD?"

One of Carlos Kleiber's last concerts

Alan Majeska | Bad Axe, MI, USA | 08/16/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is one of Carlos Kleiber's last concerts, filmed live in 1996 in the Herkulesalle, in Munich. Kleiber looks more elderly and frail (he was just 66) than he did in the 1983 Beethoven Symphonies 4,7 with the Concertgebouw Orchestra (Philips DVD), or the 1991 Brahms Symphony 2 (Philips DVD) also in late 2004. There is a special sense of occasion here:the orchestra and audience clearly love Kleiber, the orchestra playing with a special spirit and elan for him.

Beethoven's CORIOLAN Overture is very dramatic and tragic, creating a powerful effect. Mozart's 33rd Symphony, one less often played than the later Symphonies 35, 36, 38-41, is done lovingly, yet without the slower tempo for I used by some conductors such as Bohm (DG CD, with complete Mozart Symphonies) or Wordsworth (Naxos CD). The Brahms Symphony 4 is beautifully played, although some might find the Passacaglia IV a bit poker faced nearing the end: not dramatic or emotional enough in the final bars. Kleiber seems to rush through a few passages other conductors, such as Steinberg (MCA CD) lingered over. But this is a great concert, and I would be thrilled to hear it in person.

The picture is excellent, widescreen. Camera work is terrific, and always serves the music: never invasive or distracting. Watching this makes me regret there will be no future videos or CDs from Carlos Kleiber, and I'm a bigger fan of Bohm, Furtwangler, Bernstein, and Ormandy. This is a great DVD: anyone liking Classical music videos will be pleased."

Great Kleiber, but the orchestra could be better.

Francisco Yanez Calvino | Santiago de Compostela, GALIZA, Spain. | 12/01/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This a very interesting DVD with no doubt, like all those conducted by this strange and wonderful conductor that is Carlos Kleiber. I knew his Brahms's Fourth with the Wiener Philharmoniker (DG), and some of his Beethoven concerts (some of them on DVD) and that were the reasons for buying this DVD, apart from the very interesting concerts this man use to conducts.

But what we have here is not the very high level of excellence you can listen in his recording with the Wiener Philharmoniker (DVD and CD, DG) or the Concertegebouworkest Amsterdam (DVD, Philips).

The conducting is, like in most of his performances, intense, electrifying, vivid, technical... Apart from having the sensation that you are watching a very prepared concert, probably played after having a lot of rehearsals, because of the way sometimes he conducts or don't. Kleiber is a particular case in conducting, in the sense of his feeling of the tempo is still very fresh even being an old man, when in many other cases the tempi use to get very slow when the conductors become more than 60, 70 years old (of course not all of them). Kleiber continues with his full of life and freshness versions, like the Brahms' 4th he recorded in the early `80s with the wieners.

His recording of Brahms' Fourth with Vienna is one of my favourites, together with Bernstein (Vienna, DG) and Giulini (Vienna, DG), but this DVD one could be better because of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester is not really a first class orchestra. Woodwinds and metal is not perfect technically and their musicality is not so close to Brahms' one like Vienna does. The way Kleiber understand the symphony is quite similar to the one you can listen on CD (DG), but the final result is not so good.

Mozart's Symphony is fresh and clear, but nowadays I use to prefer Mozart on authentic instruments, like Harnoncourt or Hogwood does.

Coriolan is very interesting on Kleiber hands because of the way he use to conducts Beethoven (remember his 5th and 7th with Vienna or his program with the Concertgebouworkest on DVD), a very direct and powerful version, but clear and energetic like his other recordings. But... again the orchestra is not that miracle of Beethoven's 5 with Vienna.

The film is good and offers lot of shots of Kleiber conducting, as I thought it would be with a legendary conductor like him. If you want to watch him on the stage this is a DVD for you, if you want his top performance from the technical point of view, in the highest orchestral level, you should go to his DG recordings or the DVD with Beethoven released by Philips.
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Good Kleiber memento.

Plaza Marcelino | Caracas Venezuela | 04/04/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"When Carlos Kleiber passed away in 2004, many classical music lovers went into a sense of loss, mourning the demise of the last of the special maestros. Son of an equally very special conductor, comparably fastidious and difficult, strongly centred on the central european tradition but both with particular and equally strong views on how music from the central repertoire should be played, Carlos's passing brought also a sense of despair in view of his very infrequent visits to the recording studio (his father's legacy is larger). Thankfully, a few of his public performances have begun to emerge, both on video and on cd, more often than not to complement the handful of studio recordings he left, done mostly for DG, rather than revealing new material, as research over the internet on his performances in concert halls and opera houses of many countries will yield a surprisingly narrow repertoire.

And here we face one of them, a memento of a Munich concert from ten years ago. The Coriolan Overture is swift and precise, as was costumary with both Kleibers' way with Beethoven, the Mozart also showing a conductor that, not especially immersed in the authenticist movement, was none the less acutely aware of style. But for many prospective buyers of this DVD, the Brahms item may well prove the main source of interest, in view of his famous 1980 studio recording he left with the VPO. And how revealing comparison between both turn out to be: the earlier recording is altogether more lively and vibrant, especially in the first movement, a superior reading of one of Brahms's most difficult works to successfully bring off (alongside the somewhat gruff Double Concerto) that wonderfully exposes that movement's brilliantly conceived structure and inner tensions. In Munich and fifteen years later, Kleiber took a more relaxed approach, with slower tempi and broad outlook, less fastidious with detail and structure presenting. Vienna's approximately 39 minutes are lengthened in Munich to slighltly over three quarters of an hour, a difference most noticeable, as I implied above, in the first movement but which also affects the last, although in the latter case Kleiber's sense of excitement that had emerged for the Scherzo kind of compensates for the slower pace. He again slows down noticeably for the movement's closing, a bad habit he shares with most conductors I've notice of.

Kleiber followers will of course want to listen to both, but I have the feeling that if for you Brahms is an exciting, romantic composer capable of turning out a vast amount of emotion and energy in his scores and not a pedantic, cerebral and sometimes even boring one who always calls for mostly slow tempi and a "serious" approach, you'll eventually settle for the viennese 1980 reading."