Karajan

[mathias broucek]

It's easy to be blasé about Herbie, isn't it? Too many (re)recordings, too smooth, too big an ego etc. etc. And although I have a great many of his recordings there aren't many I would instinctively grab as a first choice.

But I picked up some Wagner overtures (DG, Digital era) in a charity shop yesterday for £1.50, ripped it and am listening to it at work. And it's just..... stunning. I have more Prelude/Liebestod recordings than is truly necessary but this was probably the best I've ever come across. What an amazing conductor. I think I need to revisit some more of his work!

[Alison]

I’ll chuck in his Prelude a l’apres-midi, peerless.

[cloughie]

It's easy to be blasé about Herbie, isn't it? Too many (re)recordings, too smooth, too big an ego etc. etc. And although I have a great many of his recordings there aren't many I would instinctively grab as a first choice.

But I picked up some Wagner overtures (DG, Digital era) in a charity shop yesterday for £1.50, ripped it and am listening to it at work. And it's just..... stunning. I have more Prelude/Liebestod recordings than is truly necessary but this was probably the best I've ever come across. What an amazing conductor. I think I need to revisit some more of his work!

Mathias, following my bargain purchase of the Big Karajan box late last year I have a large number of HvK DG and Decca recording surplus to my requirements.

[Alain Maréchal]

I have spent most of my life being resistant to HvK: perhaps I was permitting my non-musical feelings about him influence my listening, even on the occasions I heard him in the hall. I have recently revisited his legacy and decided I have been misguided. There are recordings where I dislike the reading while admiring the execution, and the contrary is often the case, but at his best he convinces.
His best, for me: 1. the last EMI Schubert "Unfinished", dark, sombre, possibly perverse but mesmerising. 2. The Berlin Analog Sibelius 5, chilly and mysterious, which is how I like my Sibelius (coupled on LP with a terrifying Tapiola). 3. The Ravel recordings in Paris, with an O. de P. that had not yet lost its French sound.
Special mention: The Philharmonia Beethoven, and a Respighi "Pines" (Philharmonia again) that is so ravishing in the central sections it almost convinces you it is superb music.
Bête noire: Heldenleben, in fact most of his Strauss R. (But it may just be personal connotations, again).

afterthought: he made too many recordings solely for the sake of the sales, and it debased the coinage. Nobody needed him to record the Nutcracker Suite.

[visualnickmos]

Dvorak
Symphony no. 8
Wiener Philharmoniker (Decca) rec. 1961

[jayne lee wilson]

Good to see another genuinely musical thread again.... Collectors' Corner!

I was one of those 1970s LP-purchasers and Radio 3 listeners who followed everything Karajan did... so often I recall wonderful Sunday morning relays or recordings from Salzburg, RIAS or ZF Berlin, with both the VPO and the Berliner Philharmoniker. It was through those that I first thrilled to - Mahler 5 and 6, Bruckner 8 and 9, Brahms 2, an almost apocalyptically dark Schubert Unfinished ....there was a relay of, of all things, Schoenberg's Pelléas et Melisande, live from the Philharmonie during a Radio 3 German Weekend.
Live from Berlin! You could scarcely believe it was happening.

Of those early LP purchases, the Nielsen 4th stands out (whatever I might think of it now - haven't heard it for ages...) as a musical discovery and (along with the BSO/Berglund 5th) the start of a lifelong passion for Nielsen. The 1975 BPO Bruckner 8th and incandescent 1980 3rd (1889 Novak) (with what seemed state-of-the-art stereo sound for the time), the BPO Parsifal... when it appeared, the Mahler 6th seemed far ahead of the recorded competition from Solti, Haitink, Levine and so on.. (I found the CSO/ Abbado slightly too Romantic at the time but admired it far more off CD).
I bought the BPO Saint-Saens' 3rd Symphony, adored it, and used to pay it unfeasibly loud with the windows open!

Oddly though, I never really got on with what I encountered of his EMI LP Catalogue: I recall returning 1970s Berlin boxsets of the Brahms and Schubert Symphonies after struggling to enjoy either sound or interpretation. But then his readings of Romantic or Classical repertoire - of Beethoven (perhaps with the partial exception of the 1962 BPO set), Schumann, Mendelssohn, never really appealed to me - at least, the little I heard of them back then. Listening to streamed excerpts recently hasn't changed my mind.

***

Fast-Forward to my late-90s-aquisiton of a CD player, and it would be the 1960s BPO DG Sibelius 4-7, the Franck D Minor Symphony and Ravel anthology with the Orchestre de Paris, Debussy Pelléas et Melisande (EMI evidently more aurally-sympathetic off of CD) but above all the Berlin Honegger 2 & 3 and the Stravinsky set of the Symphony of Psalms, Symphony in C Major and Concerto in D.... I should note, too, his early mono 1947 recording of the Roussel 4th with the Philharmonia; it does not have, for me, such classic status as say, Robert Layton afforded it, but remains a wonderfully pioneering record.

A limited list perhaps, and I don't revisit his recordings much now; but he was one of those classic-age-stereo recording artists that made me fall in love with Classical Music, and Orchestral Music especially.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Karajan was a life-changing influence on me. After the '60s, Pop Music was never as attractive to me, so I started exploring the Classical repertoire - getting as many of the cheapest recordings that I could find. and going to orchestral concerts in Blackburn and Manchester. Many of them were splendid and enjoyable performances, from the likes of Charles Groves, Raymond Leppard, James Loughran (especially) and many other fine Musicians - and, with these, I would have kept "Classical Music" as an indispensable hobby alongside whatever career I had subsequently chosen to follow.

But, in 1974, I heard my first recordings by Karajan and the BPO. I was totally astonished - the power and intensity of the Music-making was beyond anything I had ever previously imagined possible, and it was this intensity of dedication that determined that I quite simply must devote my life to making Music and passing on this Joy to others. The sort of Music that I "make" is beyond what Karajan himself would have understood as "Musical", and many, many other Music-makers have come to stand as highly as he does in my affections and admiration. But I am still a Karajan fan, and can never express sufficiently my thanks to this great Musician (and, of course, deeply flawed man) for the influence he has had on the course of my life.

[Stanfordian]

I know I'm only referring to a single overture but I wrote last Friday about hearing a most superb recording of Wagner's Tannhauser overture on CFM the previous evening (5th). I was thrilled and couldn't imagine it ever being played better and consequently I was keen to discover who the performers were. Played on his anniversary on his birth (5th) it was a 1974 recording of Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmoniker on EMI. He certainly made many excellent recordings!

[Richard Barrett]

His Ring des Nibelungen is still the best recording overall, in my opinion, and I still prefer his Apollon musagète to any other I've heard. I used to like his Strauss symphonic poems, though I haven't listened to them for some time, being a bit off Strauss these days, and I used to love his Lied von der Erde with Kollo and Ludwig though my preferences there have changed over the years. I don't have that many of his recordings. I have the impression there was something a bit production-line about them, possibly mistakenly, but in any case large parts of his repertoire don't appeal to me that much.

[vinteuil]

.

... my anti-Karajan prejudices were overturned by a conversation with Kenneth Gilbert, in which he explained why Karajan's performance of the B minor Mass was the one he turned to. This was back in the late 70s / early 80s, and subsequent more 'authentic' performances might have changed his view. But his opinion caused me to think again, to my great benefit.

.

[richardfinegold]

There are several CDs that I have that are as good as any alternatives. Best remains open to interpretation, mood, etc.
He hada Sibelius disc of tone poems (Finlandia, En Saga, Tapiola, I forget what else) that was hard to beat. His Mahler 6 is my favorite.

[Conchis]

'If you see a beautiful woman wearing a ball gown, you would be shocked if she wasn't wearing make-up as well.'

That quote (or something like that) was Karajan's defence of his 'suave' music-making. Though one person's 'suave' will be another person's 'refinement'.

I like Karajan's Ring cycle from an orchestral point of view but I'm not convinced by some of his small-voiced singers; what bothers me more are the strange balances on some of his operatic recordings - particularly (for some reason) the EMI ones.

I think I agree with those who reckon his Philharmonia years were his best years.

I'm also convincedthat if Beethoven, Bruckner et al could rise from their graves and hear Karajan's performances of their works they would prefer them infinitely to those of 'rag and bone' authenticists like JEG.

[Petrushka]

I found myself nodding my head in agreement with much of what both JLW and Ferney say. I, too, recall those Radio 3 relays, some of them live, from Berlin and Salzburg, perhaps the greatest of them a live Bruckner 9 from Salzburg on July 25 1976 that, being familiar only with his 1966 DG recording at the time, shook me to the core. Happily, that very performance appeared on CD as part of a VPO series on DG in 1992 and if pushed to choose just one recording to rescue from the flames I fancy it would be that one. An awesome performance.

I saw Karajan just once, on June 19 1979 in the RFH, in an incandescent account with the BPO of the Bruckner 8 which ranks as the greatest concert hall experience of my life. It was recorded by Capital Radio for broadcast the following Sunday but the only recording to have so far emerged is an imperfect affair, full of pops and crackles with a cut in the Adagio where it's clear that's where someone changed cassette! The search goes on...

[Petrushka]

I'm also convincedthat if Beethoven, Bruckner et al could rise from their graves and hear Karajan's performances of their works they would prefer them infinitely to those of 'rag and bone' authenticists like JEG.

[Bergonzi]

I'm also convincedthat if Beethoven, Bruckner et al could rise from their graves and hear Karajan's performances of their works they would prefer them infinitely to those of 'rag and bone' authenticists like JEG.

I would agree up to a point, but as I'm not that keen on H von K either, I must say I certainly can't stand JEG.