Karajan "The vienna Years"

He who cares to read this thread may come to the conclusion that it deals with a debate between Karajan admirers against his detractors. But this is not what has been discussed here, at least for my part. My previous post is full of compliments re HvK's legacy. 

First of all, I repeat: I don't care about HvK's narcisistic side nor his eventual oportunistic political alliances. As to the flow of negative comments about this I can only think that he had them coming: many musicians played and/or keep playing by the market rules w/o arising so many reactions. Anyway, I can dodge this and I think this should not take precedence over what really matters: music. But as I said earlier,it is much harder to bypass the political bias or philosophical stands of some composers (or even that another plague called nationalism): that subject imo deserves a thread of its own and by composer.

So what is really at the center of debate here? It is simply how good Karajan was as a conductor (I repeat:good). What I (perhaps "we") refuse to accept is the presumption that everything that comes from HvK, notably w/ BPO on that yellow label, is of the highest quality, the presumption that those recordings are normally the reference which the others have to be measured with, the presumption that everything they touched became gold (specially when it comes to lesser known composers). 

Far from it, imo! They are generally of a good level as we could expect from such a conductor and orchestra. But to say that all those recordings are references is proof of one's bad taste imo.As I said in my previous post HvK gets many composers right and has left us many reference recordings, particularly in the opera field. But he usually failed to give a proper reading of many other composers' works: no problem: the same occurs to all conductors, with some being more orless versatile: what's wrong w/ that? 

HvK w/ his broad gesture and rounded notes delivers an euphonic, polished and enticing sound that suits perfectly well some composers and can easily induces the (careless)listener to take it as the reference in an almost addictive process. However w/ many other composers it doesn't fit and sound clearly pseudo-refined to me. If within the German repertoire I have serious reservations - though we have good renditions- (his Brahms for instance lacks among other things the inner tension so important to make those works shine) things get very complicated when it enters the foreign composers' domain as he preferred to stamp his trademark sound instead of trying to be  just a little bit more idiomatic: sometimes worked, sometimes not.

This is it. Everyone is entitled to his\her opinion and should be respected for that, but, please, when arguing against some reservations made here about HvK's recordings don't say those people are detractors of the conductor, this is too easy and too cheap: I am sure you can do better than this.

I repeat my comment in the previous post: a great conductor despite all those misconceptions (to which he unfortunately made so much).

1987 New Year's Concert (in English)

All over the world our dearest wish is peace, peace, and once more, peace.

At least hopefully that faked scare after the rifle shot of Donner und Blitz can make some amends...
(Before anyone makes wisecracks - Richard Osborne already did).

The former segment is not available on the Sony DVD version (not the only Karajan concert where the video contains cuts), but both (and the rest) available on youtube and other sources.

BTW - china was one of the last words from his mouth (A Japanese and a college alumini of mine were the 2 witnesses to his death - obviously Richter was not present).

.. And ferrari and Fido (8:00 - 8:15)

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

Probably what you are alluding to is the difference between myth (or aura) and reality. Furtwangler was extremely modest himself, most certainly not in any way intending to "market" himself or his music. The reputation that he now has is largely based on his legacy to those who haven't heard him live, i.e. his recordings. So, this I would call a healthy legacy, based on substance (and for simplicity I leave out my reservations about recordings in general - they don't reflect everything - but we have only those to go on now, plus his writings). I think Furtwangler's reputation is where it belongs and not over-blown.

Following the comments in this discussion this very aspect is probably where the problem lies. The "Karajan critics" have such extreme views because they want to fight against this myth, this aura that surrounds him still today, largely a result of the marketing machinery of the recording industry. 

The "Karajan supporters" argue that when you take all that marketing away you are still left with an extraordinary conductor and musician. 

Hopefully with time the two sides will converge towards a common ground. Personally, I don't think he was as bad as the critics say he was (and I refer to his life as musician only), many recordings are very good, some even excellent, and at the same time I am appalled by some of his recordings - the later ones in particular - which are just bad, bad, bad. However, I would say the same for many other musicians. On balance he's one of the better ones for sure, but there are many others who in my view exceeded him in their musicianship.

Meanwhile, back to the serious discussion.

There IS a problem now with Karajan's interpretations and we need to look at this as objectively as possible. I would say that it was the dead-seagull LPs which really got me interested in Bruckner - particularly the explosive finale of the 8th with the BPO. Still a good test for a proper hi-fi system.

However, there are certain problems which have been highlighted by Stephen Johnson in the columns of Gramophone magazine. In Karajan's last performance of the 8th, with the VPO, SJ suggests that the 2nd run of the scherzo is a direct copy of the pre-trio version. There is also supposed to be an error in the 2nd symphony, and question marks over the 4th and 5th.

I think in time, opinion will evolve again, but at the moment he does seem to be out of favour.

DSM

DSM wrote "In Karajan's last performance of the 8th, with the VPO, SJ suggests that the 2nd run of the scherzo is a direct copy of the pre-trio version."

It's not a rarity. I was first alerted to the practice of artificially incorporating repeats on CDs years ago with a Hyperion CD of Victoria Responsories for Tenebrae, where sections are repeated. It was commented on in a review. Since then, I've noticed dozens more cases where the repeat is so identical (including background sounds) that it must be a duplicate. But is it any more artificial than the regular practice of stringing together a recorded performance from multiple takes.  As Klemperer said to his daughter when advised how it could be done - "Lotte - Ein Schwindel!" 

Chris