Karajan documentary! BBC4 Friday 5th December 2014 at 1930-2100

[Conchis]

Sociopaths are often highly intelligent and manipulative, caring little for the feelings of others. I don't think that intense musicality is a mitigating factor.

A truism, but not an argument.

[amateur51]

A truism, but not an argument.

Not by itself perhaps, but I was amplifying my post #103.

Just because he was one unpleasant person amongst many in his peer group is neither here nor there. The behaviour I have mentioned is sociopathic.

[visualnickmos]

Thanks for the excellent link, Aeolium, what a great read that is.

I second the thanks from teamsaint. Excellent article. I've always thought of Colin Davis as being a true humanist, in the broadest sense of the word. Whenever I've seen him on various documentaries, he comes across as being a very authoritative, but gentle as well. I treasure his recordings, all the more so because they were led by someone I feel I 'like', if I can put it that simply.

[visualnickmos]

But wasn't HvK the greatest of them all, anyway?

No.

[Beef Oven!]

No.

It was a rhetorical question!

Everyone knows he was the greatest conductor of all time!

[Tony Halstead]

I believe that was fairly common practice 'in those days' - Karajan wasn't the only one I'm sure. For better or worse, this was the age of the 'conductor as dictator' and people like Szell, Reiner and Toscanini were no better and, arguably, worse.

I knew Peter Gibbs quite well just after he left the leader's position in the BBCSSO. In the mid 1960s I rented a room from him in one of his enormous Glasgow properties ( dubbed 'Peter's Palaces') near the BBC Studios, and found him to be far from 'unstable', a shrewd businessman with an 'heroic streak' and a lot of charm ( when he felt like it!). My previous encounter with Gibbs had been about 2 years earlier, hearing him play - quite magnificently - the Elgar Concerto with the BBC Northern Orchestra in Manchester.

Putting the record straight: he certainly DIDN'T 'commit suicide by drowning'.
What really happened was very sad indeed... he was a keen pilot in his spare time, and on Xmas eve in 1975 he took off in a small plane from the Isle of Mull, never to be seen again until several months later when his body was found on a hillside only a mile from the airport, and the plane subsequently turned up in the sea many years later.
For a fuller account of his multi-chequered life see

http://www.byersmusic.com/resources/Peter%20Gibbs%20info.pdf

[amateur51]

It was a rhetorical question!

Everyone knows he was the greatest conductor of all time!

Time for a Forum Poll?

[visualnickmos]

It was a rhetorical question!

Everyone knows he was the greatest conductor of all time!

Was it?

Do they?

[antongould]

Time for a Forum Poll?

Just the thing for Christmas ams .....Billy Cotton??

[amateur51]

Just the thing for Christmas ams .....Billy Cotton??

sadly I wouldn't know how to set one up, Anton

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What about the example of sacking an orchestral player in front of the rest of the orchestra?

Whoah there, ami, old chap! This didn't happen. Karajan humiliated a violinist in front of his colleagues - which is contemptible enough - and made sue that that violinist never played in his concerts/recordings again. But the player wasn't sacked from the orchestra - not even the Chief conductor of the BPO had that power, the orchestra being a self-governing organisation - and he continued to play in the concerts of guest and visiting conductors.

[amateur51]

I knew Peter Gibbs quite well just after he left the leader's position in the BBCSSO. In the mid 1960s I rented a room from him in one of his enormous Glasgow properties ( dubbed 'Peter's Palaces') near the BBC Studios, and found him to be far from 'unstable', a shrewd businessman with an 'heroic streak' and a lot of charm ( when he felt like it!). My previous encounter with Gibbs had been about 2 years earlier, hearing him play - quite magnificently - the Elgar Concerto with the BBC Northern Orchestra in Manchester.

Putting the record straight: he certainly DIDN'T 'commit suicide by drowning'.
What really happened was very sad indeed... he was a keen pilot in his spare time, and on Xmas eve in 1975 he took off in a small plane from the Isle of Mull, never to be seen again until several months later when his body was found on a hillside only a mile from the airport, and the plane subsequently turned up in the sea many years later.
For a fuller account of his multi-chequered life see
http://www.byersmusic.com/resources/...bbs%20info.pdf

Many thanks for all this information Tony - it makes fascinating reading. What a life!

[amateur51]

Whoah there, ami, old chap! This didn't happen. Karajan humiliated a violinist in front of his colleagues - which is contemptible enough - and made sue that that violinist never played in his concerts/recordings again. But the player wasn't sacked from the orchestra - not even the Chief conductor of the BPO had that power, the orchestra being a self-governing organisation - and he continued to play in the concerts of guest and visiting conductors.

Many thanks ferney, my mistake.

But as far as HvK was concerned, that man no longer existed for him which is what he wanted.

[ardcarp]

I saw Nadia Boulanger do a similar thing in the 1960's. Then in her 80s, she was conducting the CBSO, not the world-class orchestra it is today, in pieces by her sister Lili. She was not happy with the fuzzy sound coming from the double basses, and got each one of them to play a phrase by himself. She chose (I think) two to continue playing, and told the rest she no longer wanted them. Fairly humiliating, I think, but she got the CBSO playing as never before.

[Conchis]

Amateur_51, the behaviour you describe is so prevalent among people who wield any kind of authority that I don't think you can get away with tarring them all with the 'sociopath' brush.

And to enlarge on the context: this isn't a shelf-stacker in Tescos we're talking about, taking home the minimum wage. It's a player in the BPO, arguably the wealthiest orchestra in Europe. Playing for them is the equivalent of playing for Chelsea - the man in question probably had a nice second home with a swimming pool, somewhere south of Munich.

And I doubt if Karajan DID get rid of him: German employment legislation being what it is, I don't think even HvK could have got rid of a player he disliked that easily.

Also - I don't think asking someone 'Do you mean that?' and then telling them to go home constitutes the Spanish Inquisition. If you're a professional playing at the highest level, you must expect some kind of scrutiny and be prepared for criticism. After all, it was HvK's 'name' over the door: if his orchestra played less than superbly, he would catch the blame, not them.