Karajan The Vienna Years
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Johann Strauss II, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Giacomo Puccini, Franz Schubert, (Alexis-)Emmanuel Chabrier, Josef Strauss, Johannes Brahms, Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Ludwig van Beethoven, E(mil) N(ikolaus) von Reznicek, Pietro Mascagni, Bedřich Smetana
Label: Karajan Edition
Magazine Review Date: 9/1997
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 614
Mastering:
Mono
ADD
Catalogue Number: 566483-2
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (Le) nozze di Figaro, '(The) Marriage of Figaro', Movement: Overture |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| Serenade No. 13, "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Leopold Wlach, Clarinet Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| Symphony No. 39 |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| (3) German Dances, Movement: No. 3 in C (Die Schlittenfahrt) |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| (6) German Dances, Movement: No. 5 in G |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| Symphony No. 33 |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| Symphony No. 9, 'Great' |
Franz Schubert, Composer
Franz Schubert, Composer Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Symphony No. 2 |
Johannes Brahms, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johannes Brahms, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Maurerische Trauermusik, "Masonic Funeral Music" |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| Metamorphosen |
Richard Strauss, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Adagio and Fugue |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| Divertimento No. 17, Movement: Adagio |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| Symphony No. 5 |
Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer
Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Symphony No. 8 |
Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| España |
(Alexis-)Emmanuel Chabrier, Composer
(Alexis-)Emmanuel Chabrier, Composer Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Romeo and Juliet |
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Symphony No. 6, 'Pathétique' |
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Don Giovanni, Movement: Là ci darem la mano |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Erich Kunz, Baritone Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Irmgard Seefried, Soprano Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| Don Giovanni, Movement: ~ |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Maria Cebotari, Soprano Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| Don Giovanni, Movement: Batti, batti |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Irmgard Seefried, Soprano Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| (Le) nozze di Figaro, '(The) Marriage of Figaro', Movement: Non più andrai |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Erich Kunz, Baritone Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| (Le) nozze di Figaro, '(The) Marriage of Figaro', Movement: Voi che sapete |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Irmgard Seefried, Soprano Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| (Le) nozze di Figaro, '(The) Marriage of Figaro', Movement: ~ |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Irmgard Seefried, Soprano Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| Cavalleria rusticana, Movement: Intermezzo |
Pietro Mascagni, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Pietro Mascagni, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Manon Lescaut, Movement: Prelude |
Giacomo Puccini, Composer
Giacomo Puccini, Composer Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| (La) Bohème, 'Bohemian Life', Movement: Sì. Mi chiamano Mimì |
Giacomo Puccini, Composer
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Soprano Giacomo Puccini, Composer Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| (La) Bohème, 'Bohemian Life', Movement: ~ |
Giacomo Puccini, Composer
Giacomo Puccini, Composer Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Ljuba Welitsch, Soprano Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Gianni Schicchi, Movement: O mio babbino caro |
Giacomo Puccini, Composer
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Soprano Giacomo Puccini, Composer Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| (Die) Zauberflöte, '(The) Magic Flute', Movement: Bei Männern |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Soprano Erich Kunz, Baritone Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| (Die) Entführung aus dem Serail, '(The) Abduction from the Seraglio', Movement: Martern aller Arten |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Soprano Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| (Der) Zigeunerbaron, '(The) Gipsy Baron', Movement: So elend und so treu |
Johann Strauss II, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johann Strauss II, Composer Maria Cebotari, Soprano Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| (The) Bartered Bride, Movement: ~ |
Bedřich Smetana, Composer
Bedřich Smetana, Composer Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Hilde Konetzni, Soprano Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Ariadne auf Naxos, Movement: ~ |
Richard Strauss, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Maria Cebotari, Soprano Richard Strauss, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| (Der) Rosenkavalier, Movement: Da geht er hin |
Richard Strauss, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Hilde Konetzni, Soprano Richard Strauss, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| (Der) Rosenkavalier, Movement: Die Zeit, die ist ein sonderbar Ding |
Richard Strauss, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Hilde Konetzni, Soprano Richard Strauss, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| (Der) Rosenkavalier, Movement: Mir ist die Ehre (Presentation of the Rose) |
Richard Strauss, Composer
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Soprano Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Irmgard Seefried, Soprano Richard Strauss, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Salome, Movement: Ach, du wolltest mich nicht deinen Mund küssen lassen |
Richard Strauss, Composer
Gertrud Schuster, Contralto (Female alto) Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Josef Witt, Tenor Ljuba Welitsch, Soprano Richard Strauss, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| (Die) Fledermaus, '(The) Bat', Movement: Overture |
Johann Strauss II, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johann Strauss II, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| An der schönen, blauen Donau, 'Blue Danube' |
Johann Strauss II, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johann Strauss II, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Kaiser, 'Emperor' |
Johann Strauss II, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johann Strauss II, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Perpetuum mobile, 'Perpetual Motion' |
Johann Strauss II, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johann Strauss II, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Künstlerleben, 'Artist's Life' |
Johann Strauss II, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johann Strauss II, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Wein, Weib und Gesang, 'Wine, Woman and Song' |
Johann Strauss II, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johann Strauss II, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Sphären-Klänge, 'Music of the Spheres' |
Josef Strauss, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Josef Strauss, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Unter Donner und Blitz, 'Thunder and Lightning' |
Johann Strauss II, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johann Strauss II, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| (Der) Zigeunerbaron, '(The) Gipsy Baron', Movement: ~ |
Johann Strauss II, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johann Strauss II, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Donna Diana |
E(mil) N(ikolaus) von Reznicek, Composer
E(mil) N(ikolaus) von Reznicek, Composer Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Wiener Blut, "Vienna Blood" |
Johann Strauss II, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johann Strauss II, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Transaktionen, 'Transactions' |
Josef Strauss, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Josef Strauss, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Delirien, 'Delirious' |
Josef Strauss, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Josef Strauss, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Leichtes Blut, 'Light as a feather' |
Johann Strauss II, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johann Strauss II, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Pizzicato Polka |
Johann Strauss II, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johann Strauss II, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Tritsch-Tratsch |
Johann Strauss II, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johann Strauss II, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| G'schichten aus dem Wienerwald, 'Tales from the Vienna Woods' |
Johann Strauss II, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Johann Strauss II, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
| (Die) Meistersinger von Nürnberg, '(The) Masters, Movement: Da zu dir der Heiland kam |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Richard Wagner, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Vienna State Opera Chorus |
| (Die) Meistersinger von Nürnberg, '(The) Masters, Movement: Wach auf! es nahet gen den Tag |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Richard Wagner, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Vienna State Opera Chorus |
| Lohengrin, Movement: Prelude |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Richard Wagner, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Vienna State Opera Chorus |
| Lohengrin, Movement: Treulich geführt (Wedding March) |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Richard Wagner, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Vienna State Opera Chorus |
| (Der) Fliegende Holländer, '(The) Flying Dutchman', Movement: Summ und Brumm |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Gertrud Schuster, Contralto (Female alto) Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Richard Wagner, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Vienna State Opera Chorus |
| (Der) Fliegende Holländer, '(The) Flying Dutchman', Movement: Interlude |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Gertrud Schuster, Contralto (Female alto) Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Richard Wagner, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Vienna State Opera Chorus |
| (Der) Fliegende Holländer, '(The) Flying Dutchman', Movement: Steuermann, lass die Wacht |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Gertrud Schuster, Contralto (Female alto) Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Richard Wagner, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Vienna State Opera Chorus |
| Tannhäuser, Movement: Entry of the Guests (Grand March) |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Richard Wagner, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Vienna State Opera Chorus |
| (Die) Meistersinger von Nürnberg, '(The) Masters, Movement: ~ |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Hans Hotter, Bass-baritone Meinhard von Zallinger, Conductor Richard Wagner, Composer Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra |
Author: Richard Osborne
This second tranche of EMI’s Karajan Edition takes us back to the post-war years in Vienna, to the world of Harry Lime and the time of Walter Legge’s famously successful corralling of the musical talent of Mitteleuropa: conductors, singers, pianists and, most particularly, the 37-year-old Herbert von Karajan who would remain under contract to EMI, on and off, from 1946 to his death in 1989. Like Gaisberg’s signing of Caruso, Legge’s meeting with Karajan that Saturday afternoon in January 1946 in the room Karajan was sharing on the eighth floor of a Vienna tenement was the start of something rather big.
Editorially, the Karajan Edition has chosen to eschew background notes. Brief notes on the music and a short chronology “Herbert von Karajan and Vienna – career highlights” supplied by the present writer is all you get. There have been complaints about this in these columns and elsewhere, and unfavourable comparisons drawn with what EMI References or Testament would have done in such circumstances. Certainly, where Karajan is concerned selective chronologies are dangerous things, not for what they leave out, but because of what is judged to have been deliberately omitted. (Most notoriously, those chronologies which jump swiftly from 1939 to 1945.) In fact, all the information is there; it is simply that none of the writers and biographers who have written about Karajan have bothered to look for it. (Why do costly primary research when you can make a swift buck with a few sensational headline assumptions?) I hope to be putting all that right in the autumn of 1998; meanwhile, though I am bound to regret that the Karajan Edition is less than adequately documented.
The Karajan Edition is also odd in what it has dug up and what it has left out. Take the case of Karajan’s two most important post-war Vienna recordings: Strauss’s Metamorphosen and Brahms’sGerman Requiem. The Strauss is here, the Brahms is not. Nor is the very fine 1947 Beethoven Ninth. The reasoning behind this, I assume, is that the Ninth Symphony (9/88) and the German Requiem (1/90) are already in the catalogues. But it does rather make a mockery of the idea of a Karajan Edition. And why do the booklets advertise other records in the Edition but make no mention of those recordings germane to it that have not been included? (If only Legge were still alive to write one of his famous memos on the subject, how the fur would be flying!)
But enough (almost) of grousing, for there is much here that is both interesting and valuable; and since the discs are available separately, one can pick and choose. So what should one choose ?
First, Karajan or no Karajan, there are voices from those wonderful post-war years in Vienna: Cebotari, Hilde Konetzni, Kunz, Schwarzkopf, Seefried, Welitsch. What riches are here! Cebotari singing “Es gibt ein Reich” from Ariadne auf Naxos is alone worth the price of the “German Opera” CD, though there are other glories there too, not least Welitsch’s Salome. Some of these records originally went out without Karajan’s name on them. Like Karl Bohm, who would often look away when the famously old-fashioned Vienna horns embarked on some perilous passage, Karajan was apparently not willing to be held responsible for the odd bloop. Silly, really.
The CD given over to “Italian Opera” (Mozart cheekily included) is quite something, for all the seeming inconsequentiality of the programme. Was there ever a Musetta with the alley-cat allure of Welitsch? I doubt it. The waltz song is sensational. And how memorably Karajan conducts the Intermezzo from Manon Lescaut; this is great Puccini conducting, eloquent and involving, and light years away from the chilly concoction served up by John Eliot Gardiner at Glyndebourne earlier this summer.
The two records of music by the Strauss family are more or less self-recommending. This is the old Vienna Philharmonic at its incomparable best, keyed up by Karajan but not dictated to by him. I say ‘more or less’ self-recommending because I think CDM5 66396-2 is rather more or a collectors’ item than CDM5 66395-2. The latter has a good deal of previously unreleased material on it, and one can see why it was unreleased by Legge and Karajan. The sound gets rough and the conducting nervy and over-intense. (The polka Unter Donner und Blitz, which was released, is a nightmare of a performance.) By contrast, the other disc is wonderful, not least because it includes that famously scabrous recording of the overtureDonna Diana, the Vienna oboe all capers and soured cream, and two substantial pieces by Josef Strauss whose music Karajan loved with a special intensity: for the ‘finish’ of the writing and the persistent undertow of melancholy that is there.
The 1947 Vienna Metamorphosen is a must, if you don’t already have it. It was the work’s first recording; and as well as being a performance of great skill and eloquence, it is touched by the times themselves. It is, and will always be, incomparable in its way. The other big work on the disc is Brahms’s Second Symphony, the darkest of Karajan’s five recordings and the most dramatic. Here is what Malcolm MacDonald, in his marvellous Master Musicians Brahms (OUP: 1990), calls light glimpsed “as from the heart of a forest”. The famous 1955 Philharmonia remake (11/57 – nla) is rather uneventful by comparison.
The remaining four discs make rather less urgent claims on our attention. Good as the 1949 account of Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 is (Karajan’s Mozart was unpredictable, and this is very fine) it is not a priority. The Tchaikovsky disc has on it a Romeo and Juliet that was a sensation in its day – with the Vienna Philharmonic, who barely knew the music. But Karajan did the Pathetique better on other occasions, both earlier, in 1939, and later. And the previously unpublished recording of Chabrier’s Espana is a waste of space, not a patch on the 1960 Philharmonia recording (CFP (CD) CD-CFP4608 or Royal (CD) ROY6475) which should, but probably won’t, appear in the Philharmonia part of this Karajan Edition.
As for the 1946 recordings – Beethoven’s Fifth and Eighth Symphonies on one disc, Mozart’s Symphony No. 33 and the Schubert Great C major on another – here there are more substantial problems. Before the war in Germany, Karajan’s Mozart was considered rather radical: deft and aerodynamic. It is here, but it sounds so wretched. It is well known that Legge and his recording engineer Douglas Larter had terrible trouble with the equipment, with the cold, and with the unreliable electricity supply. (Karajan’s letters at this time are full of practical advice about where to get petrol to drive the generators and whether or not the coal-miners are likely to be out on strike by the winter.) The old 78s didn’t sound too bad, and if you do what Grammofono 2000 have done on their rival series “The Young Karajan”– that is, run good quality 78s past the Cedar noise reduction system – the results are not unpleasing.
EMI, paradoxically, have done wonderful work on the original material, getting back to basics, making adjustments to take account of wavering power supplies and the orchestra’s high pitch. (A=445 or thereabouts: nothing in Vienna was everexact.) This is fine where the post-1946 recordings are concerned but it has had the unfortunate effect of over-cleaning the more raucous 1946 discs. It sounds as though someone has wiped a Sheraton table (the Vienna Philharmonic) with a Brillo pad.
Grammofono 2000’s “The Young Karajan” Vol. 7 ((CD) AB78691) also has the merit of putting only the best of the 1946 recordings on one disc. EMI have two discs, which is unfortunate given the fact that the Schubert Ninth isn’t much good. Karajan himself disliked the set intensely and was always bugged by the work until, throwing caution to the winds, he busked rather a good recording of it with the Berlin Philharmonic in the summer of 1977 (EMI, 3/97). He first played it in Berlin in 1944 alongside a new work by Gottfried von Einem and thereafter always programmed it alongside a piece of ‘new’ music. The problem was, both he and the Vienna Philharmonic had fallen under the spell of Toscanini’s searingly ‘objective’ reading in the mid-1930s. It did not really work for Toscanini (no letters please, I know all about the ‘legendary’ 1941 Philadelphia recording) and it certainly didn’t work for Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic. Right orchestra, wrong interpretation. It was Karajan’s brother Wolfgang, not Karajan himself, who went in for the Loden jacket and Lederhosen side of Austrian life.
Still, four hits out of nine is a decent strike rate for any historical survey. There is a ‘bonus’ tenth disc available for those who buy the complete box. Despite being promised this ‘bonus’ disc some months ago, and despite being extremely remiss myself in getting this review written, the CD has still not arrived, so I cannot report on it.'
Editorially, the Karajan Edition has chosen to eschew background notes. Brief notes on the music and a short chronology “Herbert von Karajan and Vienna – career highlights” supplied by the present writer is all you get. There have been complaints about this in these columns and elsewhere, and unfavourable comparisons drawn with what EMI References or Testament would have done in such circumstances. Certainly, where Karajan is concerned selective chronologies are dangerous things, not for what they leave out, but because of what is judged to have been deliberately omitted. (Most notoriously, those chronologies which jump swiftly from 1939 to 1945.) In fact, all the information is there; it is simply that none of the writers and biographers who have written about Karajan have bothered to look for it. (Why do costly primary research when you can make a swift buck with a few sensational headline assumptions?) I hope to be putting all that right in the autumn of 1998; meanwhile, though I am bound to regret that the Karajan Edition is less than adequately documented.
The Karajan Edition is also odd in what it has dug up and what it has left out. Take the case of Karajan’s two most important post-war Vienna recordings: Strauss’s Metamorphosen and Brahms’s
But enough (almost) of grousing, for there is much here that is both interesting and valuable; and since the discs are available separately, one can pick and choose. So what should one choose ?
First, Karajan or no Karajan, there are voices from those wonderful post-war years in Vienna: Cebotari, Hilde Konetzni, Kunz, Schwarzkopf, Seefried, Welitsch. What riches are here! Cebotari singing “Es gibt ein Reich” from Ariadne auf Naxos is alone worth the price of the “German Opera” CD, though there are other glories there too, not least Welitsch’s Salome. Some of these records originally went out without Karajan’s name on them. Like Karl Bohm, who would often look away when the famously old-fashioned Vienna horns embarked on some perilous passage, Karajan was apparently not willing to be held responsible for the odd bloop. Silly, really.
The CD given over to “Italian Opera” (Mozart cheekily included) is quite something, for all the seeming inconsequentiality of the programme. Was there ever a Musetta with the alley-cat allure of Welitsch? I doubt it. The waltz song is sensational. And how memorably Karajan conducts the Intermezzo from Manon Lescaut; this is great Puccini conducting, eloquent and involving, and light years away from the chilly concoction served up by John Eliot Gardiner at Glyndebourne earlier this summer.
The two records of music by the Strauss family are more or less self-recommending. This is the old Vienna Philharmonic at its incomparable best, keyed up by Karajan but not dictated to by him. I say ‘more or less’ self-recommending because I think CDM5 66396-2 is rather more or a collectors’ item than CDM5 66395-2. The latter has a good deal of previously unreleased material on it, and one can see why it was unreleased by Legge and Karajan. The sound gets rough and the conducting nervy and over-intense. (The polka Unter Donner und Blitz, which was released, is a nightmare of a performance.) By contrast, the other disc is wonderful, not least because it includes that famously scabrous recording of the overture
The 1947 Vienna Metamorphosen is a must, if you don’t already have it. It was the work’s first recording; and as well as being a performance of great skill and eloquence, it is touched by the times themselves. It is, and will always be, incomparable in its way. The other big work on the disc is Brahms’s Second Symphony, the darkest of Karajan’s five recordings and the most dramatic. Here is what Malcolm MacDonald, in his marvellous Master Musicians Brahms (OUP: 1990), calls light glimpsed “as from the heart of a forest”. The famous 1955 Philharmonia remake (11/57 – nla) is rather uneventful by comparison.
The remaining four discs make rather less urgent claims on our attention. Good as the 1949 account of Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 is (Karajan’s Mozart was unpredictable, and this is very fine) it is not a priority. The Tchaikovsky disc has on it a Romeo and Juliet that was a sensation in its day – with the Vienna Philharmonic, who barely knew the music. But Karajan did the Pathetique better on other occasions, both earlier, in 1939, and later. And the previously unpublished recording of Chabrier’s Espana is a waste of space, not a patch on the 1960 Philharmonia recording (CFP (CD) CD-CFP4608 or Royal (CD) ROY6475) which should, but probably won’t, appear in the Philharmonia part of this Karajan Edition.
As for the 1946 recordings – Beethoven’s Fifth and Eighth Symphonies on one disc, Mozart’s Symphony No. 33 and the Schubert Great C major on another – here there are more substantial problems. Before the war in Germany, Karajan’s Mozart was considered rather radical: deft and aerodynamic. It is here, but it sounds so wretched. It is well known that Legge and his recording engineer Douglas Larter had terrible trouble with the equipment, with the cold, and with the unreliable electricity supply. (Karajan’s letters at this time are full of practical advice about where to get petrol to drive the generators and whether or not the coal-miners are likely to be out on strike by the winter.) The old 78s didn’t sound too bad, and if you do what Grammofono 2000 have done on their rival series “The Young Karajan”
EMI, paradoxically, have done wonderful work on the original material, getting back to basics, making adjustments to take account of wavering power supplies and the orchestra’s high pitch. (A=445 or thereabouts: nothing in Vienna was ever
Grammofono 2000’s “The Young Karajan” Vol. 7 ((CD) AB78691) also has the merit of putting only the best of the 1946 recordings on one disc. EMI have two discs, which is unfortunate given the fact that the Schubert Ninth isn’t much good. Karajan himself disliked the set intensely and was always bugged by the work until, throwing caution to the winds, he busked rather a good recording of it with the Berlin Philharmonic in the summer of 1977 (EMI, 3/97). He first played it in Berlin in 1944 alongside a new work by Gottfried von Einem and thereafter always programmed it alongside a piece of ‘new’ music. The problem was, both he and the Vienna Philharmonic had fallen under the spell of Toscanini’s searingly ‘objective’ reading in the mid-1930s. It did not really work for Toscanini (no letters please, I know all about the ‘legendary’ 1941 Philadelphia recording) and it certainly didn’t work for Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic. Right orchestra, wrong interpretation. It was Karajan’s brother Wolfgang, not Karajan himself, who went in for the Loden jacket and Lederhosen side of Austrian life.
Still, four hits out of nine is a decent strike rate for any historical survey. There is a ‘bonus’ tenth disc available for those who buy the complete box. Despite being promised this ‘bonus’ disc some months ago, and despite being extremely remiss myself in getting this review written, the CD has still not arrived, so I cannot report on it.'
Karajan The Vienna Years
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