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

[Beef Oven!]

Just like his 2nd Vienna school and Mahler recordings, Tchaikovsky 1-3 are works to which he only turned to in the 1970s.

Mind you, Karajan started his career in an environment in which Mahler was not particularly popular, and the same applies to Berg, Schönberg and Webern. Tchaikovsky 1-3 were until the 'seventies considered to be inferior works, just like Dvorak (new numbered) 1-4 and Bruckner 1, 2 and 6. (and even Beethoven 1+2 were quite a lot of time only performed as part of a cycle, hardly otherwise).

Understandably, much is said about Karajan's recordings, but what about his concerts? Especially concerts of music that he didn't record like:

Tippett's A Child Of Our Time
Britten's War Requiem
Walton's Belshazzar's feast

[amateur51]

Just like his 2nd Vienna school and Mahler recordings, Tchaikovsky 1-3 are works to which he only turned to in the 1970s.

Mind you, Karajan started his career in an environment in which Mahler was not particularly popular, and the same applies to Berg, Schönberg and Webern. Tchaikovsky 1-3 were until the 'seventies considered to be inferior works, just like Dvorak (new numbered) 1-4 and Bruckner 1, 2 and 6. (and even Beethoven 1+2 were quite a lot of time only performed as part of a cycle, hardly otherwise).

Barbirolli performed Mahler symphonies with the BPO in the 1960s/70s - I wonder if this was what prompted HvK to perform them

[Petrushka]

Understandably, much is said about Karajan's recordings, but what about his concerts?

I agree. Some of Karajan's live concerts have surfaced, most notably on the Testament label, though all that we currently have are recordings coming from the Salzburg Festival or from concerts in London, Vienna and Moscow amongst others. There is nothing, as far as I know, of Karajan and the BPO in live concerts given in the Berlin Philharmonie, apart from a Beethoven 9 which was the first concert give in the hall in 1963. This suggests that there are rights issues involved.

The archives of the old RIAS and SFB radio stations must be stuffed full of a treasure trove of live concert recordings.

I wonder if any if these will see the light of day? It would be tragic if they never do.

[Maclintick]

Understandably, much is said about Karajan's recordings, but what about his concerts? Especially concerts of music that he didn't record like:

Tippett's A Child Of Our Time
Britten's War Requiem
Walton's Belshazzar's feast

Good call, Beefy ! Of course HvK performed very little British music. Even the perenially-popular "Planets" received an outing once or twice with the VPO when the Decca recording was in the offing, & the Tippett, Britten & Walton on tour with Philharmonia in the 50's when an association with these particular works may have assisted his post-war rehabilitation. Good PR for an ex-Nazi party member to perform pacifist material such as the Tippett & Britten, or another in which the enemies of Israel are SLAIN !! fortissimo.

What I find more intriguing is that he returned to VW's "Tallis Fantasia" so often in concert, with both the VPO & the BPO, over a period of 25 years.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

http://www.karajan.co.uk/britishcomposers.html

[Karafan]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/11274309/Karajan-the-conductor-who-lived-in-the-fast-lane.html

I had missed this....

[Barbirollians]

Watched this again tonight . For all HVK's ghastly self-importance he comes across as a strangely vulnerable figure .Moreover for every autopilot recording of the 1980s there are three or four bloody good ones.

[Nick Armstrong]

For all HVK's ghastly self-importance he comes across as a strangely vulnerable figure

I watched it again too. The attitude to the filming side of his operation (all instruments parallel; bald players to wear wigs, even though only their instruments would be in vision ; cardboard cutout audience members who wouldn't move or cough) - all that seems just as bizarre second time round, and the resulting films (with their perfect lines of trombone slides and trumpets, and soft focus, star-filter camera-work) terribly dated and sterile now. Galway and the other flautist told the stories very well.

But you can't argue with some of the music-making and the single-mindedness it needed in that department to get the results.

First time around I'd missed the gem of an anecdote about him repeating a passage during an opera rehearsal with increasingly angry complaints about some players being late over and over again with their entries... to be told that it was his own pre-recorded tape of the work, made to assist the rehearsal process

[Beef Oven!]

I watched it again too. The attitude to the filming side of his operation (all instruments parallel; bald players to wear wigs, even though only their instruments would be in vision ; cardboard cutout audience members who wouldn't move or cough) - all that seems just as bizarre second time round, and the resulting films (with their perfect lines of trombone slides and trumpets, and soft focus, star-filter camera-work) terribly dated and sterile now. Galway and the other flautist told the stories very well.

But you can't argue with some of the music-making and the single-mindedness it needed in that department to get the results.

First time around I'd missed the gem of an anecdote about him repeating a passage during an opera rehearsal with increasingly angry complaints about some players being late over and over again with their entries... to be told that it was his own pre-recorded tape of the work, made to assist the rehearsal process

Funny enough, I missed that anecdote first time ‘round. Hilarious!

Galway was a hoot! (I didn’t pick up on it so much first time - maybe need to watch it a third time!).

[Beef Oven!]

Watched this again tonight . For all HVK's ghastly self-importance he comes across as a strangely vulnerable figure .Moreover for every autopilot recording of the 1980s there are three or four bloody good ones.

I watched it again too, but I don’t see the ‘self-importance’ bit, let alone ‘ghastly’.

For example, if you followed the interview sections with Jessye Norman and what she says, plus Ann Sofie von Otter’s interview, it shows Karajan as the opposite of ‘self-important’.

It needs to be remembered that Karajan’s day-job is one of the most egotistical, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, roles on the planet! I think he comes out of that quite well!

He is an easy target, and tall poppies and all that, but we of all people should cut him enough slack on this. After all, there was so much music-making of the very highest quality on show, and so many fascinating insights into the art form we love, for other considerations to be irrelevant.

[Richard Tarleton]

I watched it again too, but I don’t see the ‘self-importance’ bit, let alone ‘ghastly’.

John Culshaw nails it in his book "Putting the Record Straight", which contains several fascinating insights into Karajan in the recording studio.

Karajan's main problem, and it was a minor issue, was that he always thought himself smarter than anyone else in matters not concerning music; and to keep on the right psychological terms with him we had, occasionally, to show him that that was not always the case

He then tells a lovely story in which, during the recording of Otello, HvK said he couldn't manage an evening recording session because he was committed to a choir rehearsal elsewhere. In fact Culshaw knew HvK was due at a prestigious cinematic event to be attended by the Austrian Chancellor and the Mayor of Vienna. So Culshaw's Vienna fixer blagged him and his team some tickets, and they were waiting at the foot of the grand staircase when HvK made his grand entrance. HvK was aghast, and had the good grace to shake their hands sheepishly. What annoyed JC and team was not that HvK wanted to attend this event, but the elaborate fabrication of the choir rehearsal.

...you cannot keep on proper terms with someone like Karajan if you ever allow him to score points off you. Szell and Reiner were the same.....

[Beef Oven!]

John Culshaw nails it in his book "Putting the Record Straight", which contains several fascinating insights into Karajan in the recording studio.
He then tells a lovely story in which, during the recording of Otello, HvK said he couldn't manage an evening recording session because he was committed to a choir rehearsal elsewhere. In fact Culshaw knew HvK was due at a prestigious cinematic event to be attended by the Austrian Chancellor and the Mayor of Vienna. So Culshaw's Vienna fixer blagged him and his team some tickets, and they were waiting at the foot of the grand staircase when HvK made his grand entrance. HvK was aghast, and had the good grace to shake their hands sheepishly. What annoyed JC and team was not that HvK wanted to attend this event, but the elaborate fabrication of the choir rehearsal.

None of which is in the documentary, so accusations about self importance and descriptions of ’strangely vulnerable' have no basis.

Not sure what’s being ‘nailed’. Nice anecdotes, though. Seems like a good book - I’ve not read it.

[Richard Tarleton]

There's another Culshaw anecdote which I can't find about HvK sweeping into the room (in which were the Decca crew), telling them not to stand up, which they had no intention of doing anyway (he was rather short, and self-conscious about it) and threw his coat grandly to (I think) Gordon Parry, who (not wishing to be mistaken for a flunkey) let it fall to the floor.

[Beef Oven!]

There's another Culshaw anecdote which I can't find about HvK sweeping into the room (in which were the Decca crew), telling them not to stand up, which they had no intention of doing anyway (he was rather short, and self-conscious about it) and threw his coat grandly to (I think) Gordon Parry, who (not wishing to be mistaken for a flunkey) let it fall to the floor.

It’s beginning to sound made up.

[Nick Armstrong]

There's another Culshaw anecdote which I can't find about HvK sweeping into the room (in which were the Decca crew), telling them not to stand up, which they had no intention of doing anyway (he was rather short, and self-conscious about it) and threw his coat grandly to (I think) Gordon Parry, who (not wishing to be mistaken for a flunkey) let it fall to the floor.

Love it!

I'm going to remember the coat gambit (not that anyone's ever thrown me their coat...)