Review: A Really Fine Box of Krips

[@bikejack1]

I lived in Buffalo and attended several concerts Krips conducted and they were top notch. I later moved to San Francisco and Krips followed and little later. I attended a reception for Krips arrival in SF. When I met him briefly I mentioned I was from Buffalo and all I got was a blank stare.

[@maximisaev6974]

Ah, great memories! I've got Krips' Schubert and Mozart, and "The Don" and still regard them as the finest versions of all. It's so nice, so fitting that at long last Krips is finally, what now, 50 years after his death, receiving the recognition he richly deserves. Thanks Dave!

[@timyork6150]

I'm so glad to hear you praise these Krips recordings, especially the Mozart symphonies with the Concertgebouw. You say that these performances were widely admired at the time but Gramophone and the English musical media paid scant attention to them. I have always found them deliciously alert and elegant and recently repurchased many of them on CD when my original cassettes became unplayable. I think much of the credit belongs to the Concertgebouw who also did some excellent "big band" Haydn with Colin Davis at about the same time. However, one difference was that Gramophone praised this Haydn with Davis to skies. Incidentally I got to know Schubert 9 in a mono Krips version with the Concertgebouw, which gets little mentioned nowadays. I still have his wonderful LSO version on LP.

[@christopherjohnson2422]

As a college kid in the 70s, I owned the Krips/Concertgebouw Schubert 9 in a cheap fake-stereo version. I greatly enjoyed it. I should have kept it.

[@jensguldalrasmussen6446]

​@@christopherjohnson2422 Buy the boxes before you regret that, too! 😂

[@davideqiu1020]

The Schumann symphony 1 recording is the only recording I know so far of this work which started one third lower than any other recording of this symphony ! Anyway great review!

[@morrigambist]

The opening was originally lower, but Schumann rewrote it because he had no valve horns in his orchestra. Krips just restored the "original".

[@grantparsons6205]

He is often acknowledged as having establised in Vienna the tradition, which became general through the 50s, of using leaner, cleaner, smaller voices in Mozart operas, with the focus on clarity, accuracy etc. This had its opponents, who preferred more dramatic voices, especially in the soprono leads in Don Giovanni. Clemens Krauss once quipped that in a Krips Mozart performance all the female leads "had the vocal weight of Zerlina".

[@chutton988]

Thanks for the great content, Dave. You’ve helped me get out of my piano silo and enter a deeper appreciation of the standard orchestral literature. I once enjoyed the London Beethoven cycle and agree that it would be good to hear it again remastered in order to reassess. Is there an error in the booklet at 6:30 or is this box set replicating a coupling of Krips and Zubin Mehta? My ears perked up at the surprising Mehta tangent. Or perhaps it’s simply a misspoken moment.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

No, it retains the coupling.

[@Richard-b5r9v]

I remember when I lived in San Francisco Joseph Krips conducting the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra

[@UlfilasNZ]

I'd love to get hold of the Mozart symphonies alone - it's a shame how expensive this box is, considering the number of CDs.

[@viningscircle]

I have the Beethoven cycle with the LSO on a budget release, (because why not have another cycle?) Not bad really, and perhaps could be polished up with a fresh remastering. Will definitely want to hear his Schubert 9th.

[@leestamm3187]

Dave is right. His LSO Schubert 9 is one for the ages.

[@sidesup8286]

Was Krips Beethoven cycle with the LSO in stereo. He said he led them from 1950 to 1954. Did he come back and do the Betthove Symphonies cycle at a later date in stereo?

[@michelangelomulieri5134]

I’ve recently bought his don Giovanni with what I consider the greatest cast don Giovanni has ever been served with!

[@mgconlan]

It was supposed to be conducted by Erich Kleiber as a follow-up to his "The Marriage of Figaro," but Krips took over the project after Kleiber died.

[@michelangelomulieri5134]

@@mgconlan yes.. I knew it. The result would have been wonderful as well

[@maximisaev6974]

Simply put: It is!

[@jensguldalrasmussen6446]

It's a wonderful recording and ditto cast, but THE "greatest cast Don Giovanni has ever been served with"? Hardly! Certainly up there with the best, but better than the unbeatable cast on the live Mitropulous recording from Salzburg, 1956 (Siepi/della Casa/Gottlob Frick/Grümmer/Simoneau/Streich/Berry), or Böhm in a 'gastspiel' in London, 1954, with Vienna forces (George London/Grümmer/Simoneau/Jurinac/Kunz/Emmy Loose), or at the Met in 1959 (London/Steber/Valletti/della Casa/Ezio Flagello/Wildeman/Theodor Uppman/Hurley), to mention but three other glorious casts from the golden 1950s. The cast Bruno Walter had gathered a generation earlier, for a Met- performance in 1942, can hardly be said to be bettered, probably not even rivalled by the Krips-crew either (Ezio Pinza/Rose Bampton/Kullman/Novotná/Kipnis/Cordon/Mack Harrell/Bidú Sayão).

[@hubert8694]

I hope his „Entführung aus dem Serail“, recorded for Decca in the early 50s, will be part of Box1. ❤.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

It is.

[@pianomaly9]

Heard him at Hollywood Bowl early '70's . Zippy Figaro ovt. and can't remember what else. Glenn Gould said he was the only conductor who really understood Bruckner.

[@jensguldalrasmussen6446]

I'm happy, that I first became acquainted with the Krips/Concertgebouw Mozart symphonies when they came out on cd. Had I known them in the LP-era, they would probably have been worn out completely, as was the case with a few of my other favourites, e.g. Walküre, Act 1 with Walter/Melchior/the uncomparable Lotte Lehmann; Vier Letzte Liederand other orchestral songs with Szell/Schwarzkopf - both ready for the scrapheap, when I was saved by the arrival of the compact disc! Seen as an entity, Krips is unbeatable in the earlier and middle symphonies (21-34). For individual symphonies there are other performances, that I like and cherish (25: Klemperer and Britten: 31: Martinon; Maag with the LSO in everything parrallel - but for Heavens sake shun his recordings with the scrawny, scruffy, absolutely substandard Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. In the last six symphonies (35, 36, 38-41) my allegiences lay with others (Walter, Klemperer, Szell). I've seen Krips been described by others as a 2nd tier conductor who on occasion could rise to the first rank. With the COA in Mozart and with his recordings of Schubert's 8th and 9th (LSO and VPO, respectively) he went beyond that, and, if only temporarily. entered the pantheon of the truly greats!

[@davidmayhew8083]

I love krips! Try them with a good salsa! Ummm...

[@martinhaub6828]

I've been reading Harvey Sachs newer biography of Toscanini. the Maestro had nothing good to day about Krips and was quoted as having said some really disparaging, rude remarks. But I always enjoyed the Krips recordings that I bought, both on LP and CD. I just wish a tape were found of his performance of Schmidt's Book with Seven Seals in Cincinatti.

[@bbailey7818]

Did Krips ever conduct the NBC Symphony? I haven't been able to find a concert. OTH, Toscanini did like Erich Kleiber who did quite a few NBC concerts.

[@wilsonfirth6269]

I never fail to be surprised at how often 'good' kapellmeisters make better records than 'great' conductors, or ones that are at least as good. Well known examples are Krips in Schubert 9 and Mozart, Sawallisch in the Schumann symphonies, Schmidt Isserstedt's Beethoven cycle, Suitner in Dvorak and Bruckner 8, Maag in Mendelssohn. I would add Konwitschny in most things. Also - for most of his life Gunther Wand was regarded as no more than competent and second rank until he was suddenly 'discovered'. The list goes on. It might be interesting to compile a list of standard repertoire that goes out of its way to avoid the usual suspects.

[@jensguldalrasmussen6446]

Maag wasn't a Kapellmeister (at least not in the pejorative sense)...he was a truly great conductor, whose recording carreer flunked, probably because of his withdral from the world (to a buddhist monastery, if I remember correctly) at a time when Decca was putting its ressources into building him up as a first rank maestro of his generation. It seems either that his selfimposed inner/spiritual exile or maybe his reluctance to engage in the hullaballoo of carrermaking and stardom after he returned to the world, made the mainstream labels somewhat weary to engage with him.

[@deVriesOP125]

Thought it said Krisps and it was gonna be some joke review about potato chips 😂