Karajan

[Bryn]

Rosemary Brown lives.

[Bergonzi]

So does Fred.

[Richard Barrett]

I like Karajan's Ring cycle from an orchestral point of view but I'm not convinced by some of his small-voiced singers

That is something I absolutely do like about it, as well as the fact that the singers and orchestra are in what I would call a perfect balance for this music. There's usually too much shouting and screaming in Wagner performances in my opinion.

I'm also convinced that 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 don't believe JEG has ever recorded any of Bruckner's symphonies, but if he did I'd want to hear it. Anyway, given that composers generally don't rise from their graves and state their interpretative preferences, let's use what they actually heard as our starting point, rather than what a few generations later heard...

[jayne lee wilson]

'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.

JEG has made one sole Bruckner record, of the Mass in D Minor and Five Motets, for DG with the Wiener Philharmoniker et al. Very highly regarded by, among others, that doyen of Bruckner reviewing, Richard Osborne (Gramophone, 8/2001).

And there's nothing either ragged or underfed about - Norrington's Bruckner Symphonies with either the SWR Stuttgart or the LCP, let alone JEG's stunning live recent recordings of Beethoven's 2nd, 5th, 7th and 8th Symphonies or the Missa Solemnis on his Soli deo Gloria label with the ORR/MC etc., the climactic moments of which leave shock-waves in their trail.
Phillippe Herreweghe is another whose period-instrument Bruckner (with the Champs-Elysées) is more readily characterised by its freshened beauty and agility, rather than any textural paucity or malnourishment.

[mathias broucek]

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.

Having read your(?) previous comments about that B9 I forked out £25 on a second hand copy which was worth every penny. Outstanding music making!

[Conchis]

What about von K's venture into the 2nd Viennese School? Lebrecht lambasts him for 'prettifying' the music and 'smoothing' over the rough edges and he may - I hate to say it - have a point. It's years since I last listened to that famous box set ('If you stack all the boxes that were pressed on top of each other', Karajan told a friend, 'you would reach the Eiffel Tower!') but what I remember is the astonishing virtuosity of the playing (and a rather murky recording, which may have been entirely appropriate).

I suspect Berg, Schoenberg and Webern would have loved it.

The only copper-bottomed disaster in the Karajan repertoire was Rhapsody In Blue - I find it hard to believe he ever conducted this but, apparently he did and Richard Osborne says it was awful. Was there a recording?

[jayne lee wilson]

Surprised - well, stunned - that I forgot to mention this in #6, as it was a great favourite on both borrowed-LP (lost in adoration for both music-making and cover-art, I kept renewing at the library, and never once did anyone else reserve it over many months...) and CD, with both beauty and terrific dynamic impact to commend it. Spaciously evocative recorded sound too, divided between the Jesus Christus-Kirche and the Philharmonie, (among the best from that recalcitrant hall).
Lebrecht has it very wrong indeed. No less a modernist/contemporary reviewer than Arnold Whittall had high praise for it - very deservedly so. I would add it to my previously-listed favourites of the Honegger and Stravinsky sets.

So, a clear highlight of his recording career. I recall reading that he reseated the orchestra for each of the Schoenberg OP.31 Variations.
So, see what your hifi makes of that....

[Richard Barrett]

What about von K's venture into the 2nd Viennese School? Lebrecht lambasts him for 'prettifying' the music and 'smoothing' over the rough edges and he may - I hate to say it - have a point.

Lebrecht as usual doesn't know what he's talking about. (As opposed to Arnold W as mentioned by Jayne, who most certainly does.) The performances are beautiful of course, and the only thing that stops me from listening to them more often is the murkiness of the recording that you remark on. I've been meaning for a while to give them another listen actually. I'm not sure they're going to shift my preferences away from people like Abbado, Boulez and Sinopoli, all of whom after all spent a lot more time and thought on this music than HvK did. But why do you return again to whether the composers "would have loved it"? Why is that so important? Stravinsky is known to have disliked HvK's recordings intensely, but (quite apart from the aforementioned Apollo) his recordings of the Symphony in C and Concerto in D for strings are still my favourites.

His recording of Honegger's 2nd and 3rd symphonies was mentioned the other day, that's a fine piece of work.

Back on the subject of HIPPness, one of the first LPs I bought was his recording of JS Bach's 2nd and 3rd "orchestral" Suites, which I spent a lot of time with before wondering why I couldn't really hear the continuo harpsichord and thinking there must be something seriously wrong with this way of doing things!

[Petrushka]

What about von K's venture into the 2nd Viennese School? Lebrecht lambasts him for 'prettifying' the music and 'smoothing' over the rough edges and he may - I hate to say it - have a point. It's years since I last listened to that famous box set ('If you stack all the boxes that were pressed on top of each other', Karajan told a friend, 'you would reach the Eiffel Tower!') but what I remember is the astonishing virtuosity of the playing (and a rather murky recording, which may have been entirely appropriate).

I suspect Berg, Schoenberg and Webern would have loved it.

The only copper-bottomed disaster in the Karajan repertoire was Rhapsody In Blue - I find it hard to believe he ever conducted this but, apparently he did and Richard Osborne says it was awful. Was there a recording?

I have every one of Karajan's orchestral recordings, Decca, DG and EMI and mercifully perhaps there's no Gershwin! The 2nd VS set is included in the 1970s DG box and miracles have been achieved in terms of the re-mastering of the sound in the 1960s, 70s and 80s boxes which is no doubt the same as the complete box.

Karajan's Mozart 40 & 41 with the VPO recorded for Decca are absolutely outstanding, much better than his later BPO recordings of them.

[Conchis]

Lebrecht as usual doesn't know what he's talking about. (As opposed to Arnold W as mentioned by Jayne, who most certainly does.) The performances are beautiful of course, and the only thing that stops me from listening to them more often is the murkiness of the recording that you remark on. I've been meaning for a while to give them another listen actually. I'm not sure they're going to shift my preferences away from people like Abbado, Boulez and Sinopoli, all of whom after all spent a lot more time and thought on this music than HvK did. But why do you return again to whether the composers "would have loved it"? Why is that so important? Stravinsky is known to have disliked HvK's recordings intensely, but (quite apart from the aforementioned Apollo) his recordings of the Symphony in C and Concerto in D for strings are still my favourites.

His recording of Honegger's 2nd and 3rd symphonies was mentioned the other day, that's a fine piece of work.

Back on the subject of HIPPness, one of the first LPs I bought was his recording of JS Bach's 2nd and 3rd "orchestral" Suites, which I spent a lot of time with before wondering why I couldn't really hear the continuo harpsichord and thinking there must be something seriously wrong with this way of doing things!

I think a lot of 'groundbreaking' composers had a struggle obtaining satisfacotry performances of their works. Bruckner, in partciular, had to deal with conductors hwo thought his music was unplayable and orchestras who were either not competent to play it, or disinclined to adequately rehearse it. I could, of course, be wrong but I think their (the composers) instanteous reaction to hearing the BPO under Karajan would be stunned disbelief that their music could be played so well, even if they might have some niggles over interpretative choices.

I know Stravinsky had some devastating criticism of von K's Rite but I'm not aware of his opinons on other Karajan performances of his works (were there any others, apart from Jeu Des Cartes and Appollon Musagete?).


'Karajan Soup' - has anyone ever been able to define it?

[jayne lee wilson]

Murkiness? Murkiness?

That really surprises me - which (re)-issue are you going off? Just trying the Schoenberg Op.31, then the Berg Op.6 now, from the 3-CD boxset https://www.amazon.co.uk/Schoenberg-...karajan+webern, I was struck again by the sparkling, crystalline purity of the former (unusual for the Philharmonie!) and the shocking weight, clarity and dynamic impact of the Berg. Both come across with a very vivid, atmospheric, differentiated sense of the acoustics around them too (less spacious, but with almost brutal immediacy, in the J-C-K OP.6).

[Beef Oven!]

Murkiness? Murkiness?

That really surprises me - which (re)-issue are you going off? Just trying the Schoenberg Op.31, then the Berg Op.6 now, from the 3-CD boxset https://www.amazon.co.uk/Schoenberg-...karajan+webern, I was struck again by the sparkling, crystalline purity of the former (unusual for the Philharmonie!) and the shocking weight, clarity and dynamic impact of the Berg. Both come across with a very vivid, differentiated sense of the acoustics around them too (less spacious, but with almost brutal immediacy, in the JCK OP.6).

Same mileage here .........

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I have every one of Karajan's orchestral recordings, Decca, DG and EMI and mercifully perhaps there's no Gershwin!

Do you have this, Pet:

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2010/07/karajan-conducts-ives.html

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcjcVRCDg48

[Stanfordian]

I have every one of Karajan's orchestral recordings, Decca, DG and EMI and mercifully perhaps there's no Gershwin! The 2nd VS set is included in the 1970s DG box and miracles have been achieved in terms of the re-mastering of the sound in the 1960s, 70s and 80s boxes which is no doubt the same as the complete box.

Karajan's Mozart 40 & 41 with the VPO recorded for Decca are absolutely outstanding, much better than his later BPO recordings of them.

The Jesus Christ Church in Berlin/Dahlem has a renowned acoustic which Karajan and many other conductors would use for their recordings. Karajan was using it at least up to 1973.

Designed by architect Hans Scharoun the new Philharmonie in Berlin had its acoustic improved quite early at Karajan's instigation and is now used for many live recordings. The Philharmonie is still criticised for the sound quality of the recordings made there and the Jesus Christ Church is still extremely popular today for recordings.