A famous photograph taken at the 1929 Berlin Festival shows five great conductors at a reception to mark the visit of Toscanini and the La Scala Company. Toscanini himself is unmistakable, as are Bruno Walter and the towering Otto Klemperer and Wilhelm Furtwangler. But the figure at the center, the youngest of the five, with a distinctively bald cranium and wide-set eyes, will be less familiar to many present day music lovers. He is Erich Kleiber, at that time head of the Berlin State Opera and, for those in the know, every bit the equal of his four colleagues. Orphaned at the early age, Kleiber had a disrupted upbringing between the twin capitals of Vienna (where he saw both Mahler and Strauss conducting) and Prague, but this first post was in Darmstadt. Here Kleiber learned his craft, initially in operetta, at which he excelled and for which he never lost his touch or affection. Above all, he developed as a man of the theatre, and it was the opera house that was his natural metier. The young Kleiber listened in amazement at the sound Arthur Nikisch produced from the Court orchestra in Tristan. Later he stepped in to conduct a final rehearsal of Der Rosenkavalier at sight, a feat that gave an explosive start to his career. After s string of appointments in Darmstadt, a last-minute engagement to conduct Fidelio at the Berlin Staatsoper in 1923 secured for him one of the most prestigious posts in the operatic world: Generalmusik-director at the Berlin Staatsoper. For the next 11 years he led it through arguably the most brilliant period in its history, heading great ensembles, and conducted the world premiere of Berg"s Wozzeck. During the 1920s and 30s he made a host of recordings with the Berlin Staatskapelle, Berlin, Vienna and Czech Philharmonics. These were mostly of shorter works - overtures and Viennese dance music - but also included sym- phonies by Beethoven and Dvorak and early recordings of Stravinski - on Vox, Victor, Telefunken and Polydor labels.

Uncompromising

Initially seen as a lightweight appointment, Kleiber soon ruffled feathers in Berlin. Quite apart from daring to introduce the waltzes of Johann Strauss to Berlin and its highbrow critics he programmed on the one hand uncompromising modern music, on the other plucking obscure works from the dustbins of history. The premiere of Berg"s Lulu suite, for example, was preceded by a Concerto a due cori by the unknown Stolzel. It was Kleiber"s determination to premiere Lulu itself that brought his conflict with Nazi authorities to a head, and in December 1934 he resigned, leaving Germany. He had already established a foothold in South America, and it was here that he and his young family settled during the war years, taking Argentine nationality. Cast lists of the seasons he led at the Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, read like a Who"s Who of great singers of the period: Rose Bampton, Emanuel List, Herbert Janssen and Alexander Kipnis were stalwarts, and others included the Konetzni sisters, Set Svanholm, Flagstad and the great Hans Hotter. Here he conducted all the great Mozart and Wagner operas, as well as Strauss (Richard and Johann), Gluck and Honegger. After the war he made a brief, unhappy return to Berlin - 1955 - where his determination that music should be free from political interference gave him trouble with the authorities in both sectors of the city. His Covent Garden appearances were revelation, matched only by those of his son a generation later, and he raised the company to new heights, but he found the English climate disagreeable and left London on the Eve of Coronation in 1953. In a just world, the Staatsoper in his native Vienna would surely have been his but, as he once said, "People ask me why I never conduct in Vienna. The answer is quite simple: because I come from there."

In 1951, after his return from exile, Erich Kleiber conducts his first »Rosenkavalier« performance in Staatsoper  Berlin, and June 22, witnesses his first symphonic concert with the Staatskapelle Berlin. He endorses the reconstruction of the Lindenoper and assumes his position as musical director of the Deutsche Staatsoper.  In an open letter on March 15, 1955, Erich Kleiber protests against the removal of the inscription »Fridericus Rex Apollini et Musis« on the Lindenoper architrave. He resigns from his contract the same year, having realized that »an unbiased artistic expression will no longer be possible in the future.«

Repertoire

For those who know Kleiber only from his late Decca recordings, the sheer range of his repertoire comes as a shock. Though based on a foundation of Austro-German classics, it was highly eclectic, and his enthusiasm for the new was balanced by a keen awareness of tradition. Works by Frederick the Great and Spontini were in his Berlin programs, while in South America he played music not just by Ginastera and De Falla but a host of less-known local composers. Among the English music he conducted during his Berlin years were works by both Purcell and Lord Berners. In the opera house, works by Mozart, Beethoven and Strauss rubbed shoulders with Berg, Tchaikovsky and Bizet. Kleiber"s 1951 Italian debut came in celebrated production of the rarely- heard / Vespri siciliani with Callas and B.Christoff(now on Urania), followed by the world premiere of Haydn"s L "anima del filosofo with the same singers.

In 1955 Kleiber writes the preface to "Decca book of the opera". Here is part of it: 
"It is a personal pleasure for me to give assistance to this preface, marking an achievement, considered as impossible 10 years ago. When I first started to make records in 1924, the record of the opera had already been a fact. Not by accident the quality of my records could seem not quite good, but at that time they were heavy and clumsy. Even the most expensive technique can not hide the fact that in the record of four minutes and a half there are "damaged" fragments. Even the today"s devices can not make something more. And yet the record creates for the admirer the atmosphere of an opera you can see once in your life. The standards for remastering have been considerably improved, which helps for the easier arrangement. Thanks to the records, today even the best performances can reach every city and village all around the world. These records are talked over even down to the present day, but I am sure that historians will determine the 1950s as a period, in which an exigent audience is formed even in places, where high quality concert performances are impossible. Each generation should preserve such performances. My own records will continue this circle, creating the next generation of audience, due to which the future of this kind of music is certain. The influence of records over the admirers of the classic is enormous. The today"s musical industry has the honor, and some shall say the obligation - to present authoritative performances at new heights. In this way the companies achieve the musical equivalent of "first edition of a new work". We can say that the more famous a certain composer is, the more problems appear at his interpretation. And while a gramophone record with performances of Beethoven and Schubert, with all stylistic characteristics, is possible, such record of composers from XX century is almost impossible... 
The opera is the most complex from all forms of music. The characters are so different that even a record of the best performance is difficult to be called acceptable. The greatest contribution of the musical industry to the Music is exactly this - high quality record of good performances. The experience and the qualification of our specialists, presenting the great interpreters most accurately and the performances as perfect as possible, convince the admirer. What is more, hearing the most famous passages, the listener dips into the real atmosphere at the stage. And yet, not every record can present to the listener all nuances and special features of our best singers - many of them are also perfect actors. No one can reproduce these inner vibrations, these impulses, this excitement, these "colors " at the stage, which are so dif- ferent even from other performances of the same performers". And yet I think it is exactly the atmosphere of theatre and stage, influencing more that ever, that will give the greatest pleasure in our records. A well-deserved compliment for Decca!" 
Erich Kleiber

Technique

Kleiber"s early conducting style was lively and agile, with a palpable sense of excitement, but he developed a remarkable economy of gesture that generated a focused energy - a quality evident in all his recordings. Archive footage from the 1930s shows a man somewhat self-conscious in front of the camera, with a straightforward, robust beat nevertheless capable of real wit, grace and expressiveness. Later film shows increased authority, a contained but confident style in which tiny nuances contain real purpose and power. Curt Prerauer, who worked with Kleiber in Berlin, suggested it was because he felt the music so intensely that he had to control this exuberance with a classical sense of discipline. This is the secret of Kleiber"s success with Mozart and Beethoven, where his sense of style was years ahead of its time, combining poise with intensity. More than any other conductor of his time, Kleiber succeeded in reclaiming Beethoven as a radical (above all in Eroica and Fifth symphonies), while consolidating his place in the classical tradition. Similar qualities marked out his Richard Strauss. The celebrated Vienna Der Rosenkavalier for Decca - still a top recommendation - is remarkable for its clarity in even the busiest pages, and manages above all to convey sentiment without a trace of sentimentality.
Where orchestral players and singers were concerned, Kleiber was a master of psychology. Those who remembered him from his days with LPO and at Covent Garden spoke of him with the greatest respect and affection. "Don"t get nervous at the concert", he once told the Cologne Radio orchestra, "that"s what the rehearsals are for. Just sit quietly down and make music: I won"t disturb you." Time and again, the miracles he accomplished in the pit are singled out in reviews of his opera performances. He had similarity close bonds with his singers, coaxing from them performances the like of which they have never before achieved, and forging lifelong friendships with many. Sadly, this affection did not extend to intendants and managers. The price for Kleiber"s transforming powers over singers and players was his exacting insistence of rehearsal time, and this coupled with the high fees he demanded in later years, earned him hostility and reputation as a difficult and even capricious man. Instead of the permanent operatic post he hankered after, his later years were spent as guest conductor in Amsterdam, Prague, Budapest and, increasingly, with German radio orchestras who could give him the time he needed. Alongside his Decca recordings, radio broadcasts from these years show Kleiber at his best, both live (on IMG reissue in Great Conductors of the 20th Century) and in the studio recordings of Der Freischutz and Fidelio for Koch label. Many of Kleiber"s live performances from Buenos Aires and even London await issue on CD.

Erich Kleiber was renowned for his performances of the music of WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART and LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. He also composed, numbering among his works a Violin Concerto, a Piano Concerto, orchestral variations, Capriccio for orchestra, numerous chamber music works, piano pieces, and songs.

A TALK WITH ERICH KLEIBER ABOUT HIS RECORDINGS
(La Prensa, Argentina; October 6,1929)

We could not imagine that Erich Kleiber, one of the most valued conductors making records wouldn"t think much about the phonograph. He is very far from the enthusiasm shown by many of his colleagues, but that does not prevent his recorded output to include such interesting works as Smetana"s Moldau; Mozart"s Dances and Stravinsky"s Firebird, which we have reviewed favorably. 
On occasion of his actual visit to Buenos Aires we had a talk with him about his feelings and opinions regarding recording. He receives us in his apartment at the Plaza Hotel. As we talk he walks from one side to the other of the room. 
- We have just heard your Firebird - we said to begin the conversation - It"s really good. Is it a long time since you began making records? 
- Yes - answered Kleiber - since the first stages of the phonograph, when we had to play in front of a big horn, with a small orchestra, five or six first violins in all. It took great pains to put on wax any work! How much effort and rehearsals to get a good record! 
- Which record did you make at that time? 
- I don"t remember now. These were for the Vox label. 
- Yes, it"s different. We make a record as we wish, with the full orchestra, as in a concert and the microphone picks up the sound. 
- Leaving aside the records we know: which other works have you recorded? 
- Several ones. I do not record exclusively for any label, but make records for five or six of them. For Victor I have finished Mozart"s E flat Symphony that has already arrived in Buenos Aires, and three Viennese waltzes, with the Vienna Philharmonic in their old and beautiful concert hall. For Polydor I"ve recorded Beethoven"s Second Symphony and Dvorak"s New World Symphony. Now they"ve asked me for the Ninth Symphony, a Mozart cycle and a few others... But I do not have enough time. With the theatre, the concerts, the travels, there"s little time for recording left. 
- It"s a tiresome work making records, isn"t it? 
- Certainly. Each performance must be heard, repeated, corrected several times. It"s a very heavy work. 
- Now - shall we ask - what is your opinion about the phonograph? 
- I like it very much - says Kleiber, not very convinced. - It"s interesting, but still very imperfect. Slow tempi and pauses do not come out well. For example at the beginning of the Tristan prelude, after the first sigh of the cellos, there"s a silence written by Wagner. It is not possible to do it on records. Instead of silence you hear the needle noise. Another example is Strauss" Don Juan, after the fortissimo, there"s a long silence, a "vuota" meant to be a big contrast. You cannot get that on records. It"s a silence without any sense. 
- But those faults are being corrected. 
- Yes, they"re being corrected - repeats Kleiber, again without much conviction, - but the bad thing about a record is that it fixes forever a certain performance, a unique emotional moment when, really never two musical performances are the same. One day I feel music in a way, next day it"s otherwise. Which is the true one that should remain on the record? It"s a matter of state of mind. Blood doesn"t flow every day at the same speed. A record fixes that which is versatile, the living thing. 
- This will make the artist have to search "his" day to record... 
- No, that"s impossible. It will always be a certain moment in the artist"s life, and he is the opposite of any fixed rule. 
- So you make records without really believing in them? 
- I like it, I like it, but it is more than simple entertainment. On records one misses the rapport between the public and the artist, that understanding, that spiritual communication which creates an emotional atmosphere, an "astral atmosphere", as a theosophist would say. 
- Yet... 
- It will never be compared to music at a concert hall - continues Kleiber, not giving any time to contradict him. - A record is canned music. If I want to eat asparagus, I"ll try to get fresh ones, and if I can not get them, then I"ll eat canned asparagus. A record is that, canned music. A man who only listens to records in a phonograph and does not go to concerts is like one who only eats canned meals. And it"s good for people to eat fresh food. Now, if we were in winter and we could not get any fresh food, then we should get the records and open the phonograph. But the concert is indispensable. 
- As a musical education for people? 
- It"s very useful to the artist and the singer. In twenty or thirty percent of the cases a record will be an authentic document of the way Strauss or Stravinsky have played their own music. For the singer it"s very useful. I learn from Caruso"s records his method of breathing. You see? 
- What do you think of your own records? 
- They entertain me, I like them. I present them to some of my good friends. I have friends who live in the mountains, in far away villages. When I visit them I take my records with me and they are always well received, with enthusiasm. Thus, the recall what we have done is there, and this refreshes us, they are very useful. 
- Is that all? 
- That"s it for the moment. But I believe in the technical development of the phonograph. In Germany we are recording a lot, especially with English sound producers. They"re the best experts in this field...

Making copies for non-commercial use is permitted!

Check the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ-NxgAodtc