Carlos Kleiber, as seen by friends and musicians

Carlos Kleiber, as seen by friends and musicians

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norman lebrecht

December 25, 2011

Instead of wasting the day on Christmas television, watch this hour-long German documentary on the mystery of the most perfect conductor of modern times.

Comments

  • Chin Kim says:

    Indeed. when my master Josef Gingold saw him conduct the new year’s eve concert many years ago, he claimed “There is still hope in music!” I agree.

  • Dexter Edge says:

    Absolutely the best Christmas present. Thanks so much for the link.

  • oakmountain says:

    Incidentally, does anyone REALLY know what happened during the recording of Kleiber’s Tristan? There are lots of stories going round that CK walked out towards the end and that the recording was finished using bits from rehearsals and re-recording much of Kollo’s contribution.
    However, that would imply that either all rehearsals took place under strict studio conditions and discipline (scary) or that it was planned to record orchestra and singers separately (very scary) because there is no way removing a singer – even from a multitrack recording – if he was recorded in the same room as the orchestra at the same time.
    Can anyone shed some light?
    It does remain a unique recording, no matter how it came together …

    • TC says:

      Actually There is a way to remove Vocals from Multitracked recordings , I am an Audio engineer , and we do have tricks , that work VERY well .
      Now to say these tricks existed back then would probably be reaching , because I don’t know
      But we definitely can do it now .

  • He reminds me of Andris Nelsons! Fantastic documentary.

  • Duncan Reed says:

    I think they recorded it ‘seriatim’, with the exceptions of the act I and act II preludes, according to Barber, but the microphones were deliberately left all open and the recorders running throughout. Kleiber and Kollo came to blows (almost) during the recording of Tristan’s delusions in act III. Clever editing allowed a full version to be stitched together. Kleiber never forgave DG for releasing it two years later, and never entered a recording studio again.

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