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

[richardfinegold]

There was one thing that struck me as odd - a suggestion that HVK would not let the BPO work with other orchestras when he was ill with back trouble in the 1970s . Other conductors did of course work with the BPO during his tenure - Barbirolli for example became a regular visitor in the 1960s and Okko Kamu made recordings of Sibelius with them .

Didn't Bohm also record with them in the 70s?

[richardfinegold]

I thought it was grotesque, the shameless vanity, the unforgivable rudeness to orchestras and apparent delight in the humiliation of individual orchestral members. Indeed, his whole attitude to music-making seemed dehumanising - just as the orchestral players were airbrushed out of his carefully supervised films and only he himself and the instruments appeared, as if he alone was responsible for the sound that was made. It was good to hear of the Philharmonia violinist who had the courage to stand up to him.

I think it would have been good to have had some commentary from critics about the discography, rather than just comments from those who had been involved in the recordings - from people who admire it like Richard Osborne for instance and perhaps people who don't, like David Cairns (who wrote a highly critical review of a concert given by HvK and the BPO in London in the late 1950s).

What I mainly felt at the end of the programme was relief that the age of the tyrant-conductor is gone, never to return. Surely no orchestra nowadays would put up with the kind of behaviour exhibited by Karajan (and not just him). The conductor to whose will everything and everyone has to bend, and who sees himself as the supreme (and only) fount of musical understanding is simply not credible now.

It is interesting how the tyro conductors of that era transcended their Politics. Toscanini, Rodzinski (who carried a loaded gun into rehearsals), Szell,Reiner, von K were all over the map Politically, but standing in front of an Orchestra there was no question of who was in charge.

[Dave2002]

keep wishing , Ards.

BBC1 , (for example) has a remit to show a mighty 40 hours of music and arts programmes per year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006m8dq ??

Oops - apologies for the earlier link to a an audio cable!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Didn't Bohm also record with them in the 70s?

I don't think so - the latest date that Bohm recorded with the BPO (that I can find) is 1972; there were LPs issued during the 1970s (the Mozza and Schubert Symphonies among them) but, AFAIK these were all recorded before Karajan's exclusivity contract.

[teamsaint]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/..._ya_os_product ??

I'm alright Jack?!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... a thoughtful little essay on HvK's ambition

Hmmm.

Four things are present in ambition: you want power; you want approval; you want people to envy you; and you want to show off. To be ambitious means you want to do things to people and to have them like you at the same time.

Really?

The tragedy of von Karajan's life--and every man can learn from him--is that with all his ability at music, he preferred contempt to art.

Did he? (And do women not need to "learn from him"?)

On Brahms' First Symphony:

The strings sound strained, and there is an executive quality to the conducting. One should be hearing the warmth, confidence and depth of Brahms' great melody. In stead there is a jittery, edgy effect. The technical reason has to do with tempi: von Karajan is constantly imposing unnecessary accelerandi, rushing the music. Again and again the music lurches forward in a way that doesn't make sense. Struggling to keep up, the musicians end many phrases in a brusque manner. Though von Karajan manages to keep the orchestra together, the music seems no longer bound by a unifying pulse. It seems willful.

What the writer is doing here is reporting his opinion of a recording - he does not hear "warmth, confidence [or] breadth", so it isn't there. The documentary last night demonstrated again and again how much attention Karajan devoted to careful phrasing, but here the author has decided that, because it doesn't sound the way he wishes it to, "it doesn't make sense".

The author, with commendable candour, admits that, in the past at least, he was prone to the personality defects that he perceives in Karajan's Music-making:

My care for music was polluted by a hope to use it for contempt and superiority.

I wanted in life to act lofty and maintain a picture of myself as deeper than other people--too deep, in fact, for anyone to understand me.

... but he believes that he has been "saved":

As I write about Herbert von Karajan, I understand myself better and see with a fresh sense of gratitude how much pain I was spared because I had the god fortune to meet and study Aesthetic Realism.

As I learned how to be a critic of my purposes with people, things, and music, what I despaired of, happened: I began to write music again. My gratitude for this will last a lifetime. And even more importantly, I became a warmer person, capable of love,

But what exactly are the author's opinions of the hundreds of thousands of people who do not share his opinion of Karajan's Music-making? Has Aesthetic Realism genuinely tempered his own contempt for other people? In short, is this whole article not about Karajan, but a promo for Aesthetic Realism using himself as the paradigm: you too can have a mind like mine?!


Bruno Walter (to return to a much more interesting topic) also wrote this:

I want, however, to stress once again the fact that the decisive quality of his conducting and the source of its power was the warmth of his heart. That gave his interpretations the impressiveness of a personal message. That rendered unnoticeable the meticulous study lying behind the result that he achieved: its virtuosity and accomplishment. That made his Music-making what it was - a spontaneous greeting from soul to soul. Here, in the borderland between Art and Humanity, the nobility and potency of his mind were revealed. The secret of his lasting fame as a conductor and director is his ideal of high artistic gifts with the ardent sensibility of a great heart.

He is writing about Mahler - a conductor whose tyranny on the podium makes Karajan look like a kitten.

[Dave2002]

I'm alright Jack?!

Nice one. msg 48 now amended.

[teamsaint]

Nice one. msg 48 now amended.

I was wondering what on earth....

Always best to check your links .

[Beef Oven!]

I was wondering what on earth....

Always best to check your links .

I checked my links and I need a 3.5 to 3.5 for around 66p, preferably delivered before Xmas. Any ideas?

[teamsaint]

I checked my links and I need a 3.5 to 3.5 for around 66p, preferably delivered before Xmas. Any ideas?

[amateur51]

He is writing about Mahler - a conductor whose tyranny on the podium makes Karajan look like a kitten.

Interesting points, ferney making clear things i wish I could have written. Bravo!

Re Mahler - yeah but he got the order of the middle movts of his symphony no. 6 right in the end

[aeolium]

I find it strange how we think it acceptable for a conductor to bully his orchestra on the basis of the results he obtains. Do we accept this kind of behaviour in other walks of life? "Ah, that Wackford Squeers is a bit of a tyrant with the Lower Sixth, but just look at the A-level results..." And in the field of music, dealing with some of the finest creations of the human mind, you would think that it ought to be a collaborative endeavour.

Here is a different philosophy from the late and much-missed Colin Davis, a conductor who started out as a bit of an autocrat with a temper but who realised that this was not the way to go:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-chaos-imperative-its-almost-30-years-since-colin-davis-was-rebuffed-by-members-of-the-lso-now-after-holding-a-string-of-other-top-jobs-he-is-to-be-their-principal-conductor-he-gave-michael-white-a-candid-interview-1504301.html

I like particularly this comment of Davis': "'Making music is an ethical activity: it requires you to to work with other people for an idealistic result. And it's an adjunct to civilised existence, because it promotes a vision of order, of how it's possible to co-operate.'"

The end never justifies the means.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I find it strange how we think it acceptable for a conductor to bully his orchestra on the basis of the results he obtains. Do we accept this kind of behaviour in other walks of life? ....


...The end never justifies the means.

I agree totally. Fear generates hatred; support encourages co-operation.

[Bryn]

I agree totally. Fear generates hatred; support encourages co-operation.

"Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering."

[Beef Oven!]

Andreas Blau (principal flute, BPO) was asked if the modern, democratic way was better. He said it was easier with players getting on better, but he didn't know if they could [still] reach the highest point on the musical mountain.

Toscanini apparently said 'in life democracy, in the arts aristocracy'.