Rare audio: Klemperer’s last notes in Jerusalem

The founder of the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, Yehezkel Beinisch, has just told me that he played trombone in Otto Klemperer’s Mahler Ninth, in August 1970.

Klemperer had refused to work with the Israel Phil, for all the usual reasons, and chose the Israel Broadcasting orchestra, which was not of the same calibre, though you can hardly know by the intensity of its playing here.

Beinisch, a musician who had become a successful lawyer, moved heaven and earth to get into the orchestra in order to experience the wisdom of a master who had worked with Gustav Mahler.

This was Klemperer’s last visit to Israel He died in Switzerland in July 1973.

Here’s the recording: