Josef Krips's Requiem

INTERIM UPDATE (Monday afternoon): I've begun raiding the SC Archive for the promised Krips music files, which should have been just a copy-and-paste job, in itself way more laborious and persnickety than it sounds (I can't help rethinking things), and totally stalled when I came to Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder. I've wound up not just remaking the three existing clips from Part I -- to ensure contextually fuller lead-ins and lead-outs (in some cases overlapping them), and while I was at it resampling them at a higher rate -- but in addition making a new and larger clip: the climax of Part I, with Christa Ludwig singing the transfixing "Song of the Wood-Dove."

That's still a work in progress, but I have added some music: (a) the start of the Meistersinger performance from which we were already hearing the start of Act III, and also the scene change in Act III, and (b) our first Mozart: as full-throated and open-hearted a performance as I've heard of the Marriage of Figaro Overture. -- Ken

Maestro Krips (1902-1974)

MOZART: Requiem, K. 626:
i. Introitus: Requiem aeternam


Lucia Popp, soprano; Margaret Lilowa, mezzo-soprano; Anton Dermota, tenor; Walter Berry, bass-baritone; Vienna Singverein, Vienna Philharmonic, Josef Krips, cond. Live perforamnce from the Musikverein, Dec. 13, 1973
[Note: FWIW, this isn't the CRQ edition.]

by Ken

Sorry about the long silence. But even as I was reconciling myself to yet another week's failure to bring to completion my latest brainstorm for a publishable post, I clicked through a link to a "New release from CRQ Editions," which describes itself as "a specialist label devoted to the re-release of unusual out-of-copyright recordings which are of interest to collectors world-wide," available via "Streaming + Download," which "includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more." The "unusual out-of-copyright recordings," include both out-of-copyright commercial recordings and live peformances, often never-previously-released ones.

From CRQ I've bought a download of long-OP Sibelius by Alexander Gibson, as a result of which I'm on their e-mail list, and since then I've been motivated a number of times by notices of new releases to learn my way a bit around their website -- enough to know that the page for each release includes, along with lots of other information, a complete list of tracks with "play" icons, and I've been under the impression that clicking "play" for Track 1 enabled me to hear for free not just Track 1, as I would have expected, but the whole blessed release.

Recalling this, I decided that -- even as I had other important matters to tend to, like sealing the lid on yet another failed-to-post Sunday -- I just had to click through to find out more about:

CRQ 591 JOSEF KRIPS: THE FINAL PERFORMANCE: MOZART REQUIEM: VIENNA 13 12 1973

As long-time readers may recall, I have a special affection for Krips (see, for example, the March 2013 post "Our 'J' and 'K' conductors shine in Mozart's Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte" (the other "J" and "K" conductors, fyi, were Eugen Jochum and Rudolf Kempe), who despite (or maybe because of?) a life marked with serious hardships, had an innate kindness, geniality, and generosity that often lifted his performances to a special realm, and if there's any composer whose music thrives on such qualities, it's Mozart. Krips's now-ancient Decca recording of Don Giovanni is still the performance that more than any other I've encountered (in a substantial lifetime of Don Giovanni encounters) embodied the full dimension of this centerpiece of our musical heritage, including its celebration of the power of human interconnectedness.


SO THERE I WAS, ON THE CRQ 591 WEB PAGE --

And I started Track 1, and was listening to the "Introit" of the Mozart Requiem (like we heard up above), with Josef K conducting the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna Singverein in the Vienna Musikverein, with a not-to-be-sneezed-at quartet of soloists (see the listing above), and the performance seemed to me quite glorious. Rooting around the Web page, I found this explanatory note:

In the autumn of 1973 the great Austrian conductor Josef Krips was diagnosed with cancer. The concert with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by him in Vienna on 13 December 1973 was to be his last public appearance. After the concert Krips confided to Alfred Prinz, clarinettist with the Vienna Phiharmonic, 'that was my Requiem'. Krips died of cancer several months later, in Geneva during October 1974.

From December to October seems to me more than "a few months," but this background makes clear that on December 13 our Josef knew he was facing a death sentence, and felt this special significance to the concert. I'm still listening to the performance, and it's pretty clear that the conductor was still in full possession of his conductorial faculties.

[Go know: I see the performance has been on YouTube for nine years. Well, better late than never. -- Ed.]


STILL TO COME: A GALLERY OF KRIPS PERFORMANCES
DRAWN FROM THE SUNDAY CLASSICS ARCHIVE

Off which here's a taste:

WAGNER: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Act III,
Prelude and David's stealth entrance into Sachs's workshop


Gerhard Stolze (t), David; Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond. Live performance from the August 1961 revival of Wieland Wagner's 1956 production

And in case you were wondering how the Meistersinger performance began --

For one thing, it began pretty darned quickly! (For another, unrelated thing, there were only two Meistersinger performances at the 1961 Bayreuth Festival, so ours happened on either August 8 or 12.)

WAGNER: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Act I, Prelude
and opening chorus, "Da zu dir der Heiland kamm"


["Da zu mir" at 9:33] Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond. Live performance, August 1961

And maybe a little more of Act III, like the scene change?

It's in the archive: the transformation from Sachs's workshop to the open meadow, with Nuremberg just visible in the distance, where the St. John's Day celebration, including the Mastersingers' competition, is coming together.


Josef Greindl (bs), Hans Sachs; Gerhard Stolze (t), David; Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond. Live performance, August 1961


NOW, AS PROMISED IN THE UPDATE: OUR FIRST MOZART

What I called up above "as full-throated and open-hearted a performance as I've heard of --"

MOZART: The Marriage of Figaro: Overture


Tonhalle Orchestra (Zurich), Josef Krips, cond. Adès, recorded in Geneva, 1960

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