Karajan "The vienna Years"

As far as I can understand "film music" is properly appreciated by the specific mavens and not only, whenever the score in question is worthy enough.

Besides, Korngold wrote plenty of wonderful music outside the "film music" industry and he is well appreciated for his output (wonderful songs, creative Chamber Music, marvelous Orchestral works) by some other "mavens" worldwide (gradually in Germany too).

Parla

So sorry for the delay in posting this - I didn't realise one had to "disable rich text" to post. Hope it is still relevant - this is what I had originally hoped to say:

Hello Eyeresist !

I do hope you are well and you are still enjoying your Prokofiev ?!

You have asked for some evidence with regards to our fellow forumite's, 50milliarden, story about Karajan's involvement with Georg Ludwig Jochum; permit me to intervene.

There is a book by the respected German historian Hanns Kreczi, entitled "Das Bruckner-Stift, St Florian und das Linzer Reichs-Bruckner Orchester" (published by Graz in 1986), which details Hitler's plans to create an annual Bruckner festival at St Florian's, not too dissimilar to Bayreuth and Wagner, which mentions this incident. The original idea for the Bruckner-Festival actually came from a radio executive named Heinrich Glasmeier, who set up the whole thing in 1939 and was put in charge of the project. Initially, standards were not high until the appointment of Georg Ludwig Jochum in 1941, who raised the standard of the orchestra to a level whereby the Nazi authorities began to consider giving the idea of the Festival serious thought and its orchestra parity with Germany's "premier" ensembles - the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Berlin Staatskapelle and Bavarian State orchestra were the only other orchestras granted this status, which meant increased funding and for the players to be exempted from military service. It was at this point that Glasmeier decided he wanted a more charismatic conductor to lead the ensemble, rather than the ever-dependable GL Jochum and duly approached Karajan, who eventually applied for the position in the summer of 1944.The problem of removing GL Jochum was recounted by Jochum's widow, who when interviewed by Kreczi told him it was Glasmeier who informed her that he had obtained the paperwork for her husband's call up to the military (ie not Karajan), so that he himself could then replace GL Jochum with a conductor of his own choosing. It wasn't just Karajan who was being considered at this stage either - Clemens Krauss was as well. In the event - and to his credit - when Furtwangler got wind of what was happening, it was he who used his influence to keep Jochum, quite rightly, at St Florian's. Typically for events in Germany at that time, in the end the Bruckner Festival didn't happen, nor was the orchestra given any special status or privileges.

So that's the story, Eyeresist. I'm sorry, 50Milliarden, to have demolished your anti-Karajan tale; I guess you can always choose to disbelieve the conductor's own wife and persist with it, but if you did I suspect most people would conclude that it said more about yourself than the subject you are trying to degenerate. You may likewise be interested to note that GL Jochum, unlike his brother Eugen, also belonged to the NSDAP (member number 5.79468 million), and although his membership was revoked in 1941 for non-payment of membership fees, he was still blacklisted for a short time at the end of the war until, like Karajan, he was acquited as having no case to answer. That said, I do agree with you about Georg Ludwig's recording of the Bruckner VI - not my first choice for this work, but certainly one of the best. The way he draws the coda of the Adagio to a close has to be heard to be believed; every Brucknerian should hear it !

LD1

Thank you for your reply - you are right yourself though, there is much that we'll never know about what really happened during those dark days in Germany.

I should be placing the rest of this posting in the historical Bruckner thread, which I have been reading with considerable interest and have been impressed by your seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of historical Bruckner recordings. One which has passed my way recently which has caused much surprise was that of the Second Symphony, a live performance from 1952 with the Berlin RSO conducted by Konwitschny; to my ears he takes the polar opposite approach to the much lauded Horst Stein/VPO recording - and gets away with it quite spectacularly ! I would be most interested in your own views on this "dark horse" of a recording ? Thank you.

LD1

True enough, as far as it goes, sir. I believe, however, that we already know more about those days than we shall ever know about the very same and at least equally dark days in Britain and the USA.

As even the monster Curtis LeMay noted wryly, were the Allies to lose the war, he would justly be hanged for war crimes. The same morally appropriate gallows should have been the fate of FDR, Churchill, and Bomber Harris, too.

It is now 68 years since VE Day. So quite enough time has elapsed for there to be no longer any reason or excuse for continuing to pretend that the Second World War was a righteous struggle between Good Guys and Bad Guys, between Light and Darkness. Those in Hollywood, Washington, and other seats of political and commercial might who push this fantasy are liars and scoundrels.

Au gibet with them all! As a pis aller, how about a surcease of pharisaic nonsense about Karajan? It's well past time to like or dislike his work—or both, since his work was no monolith—on strictly musical grounds.

Encyclopedic? Hardly. I just got interested in "historic Bruckner" a couple of years ago when I got my hands on a dirt cheap cd-box (Centurion Classics) with pre-1950 recordings, which included Furt's 7th, 8th and 9th (true relevations, specially the stunning 1949 7th...) Abendroth's 4th and 5th (fascinating), Kna's 3th (crazy), and G-L Jochum's 2nd. It struck me that these performances had so much more personality and life than the Haitinks and Wands in my cd-collection - which faded as boring and sluggish in comparison.

I recently tried some of the top recommendations from Gramophone and was severely disappointed in what people think are benchmark Bruckner recordings. For instance, Wand's 2001 BPO 8th, which was even slower and holier-than-thou than all those Haitink 8th's I grew to hate - and Sinopoli's 5th, which made me just want to punch a hole in the wall. So completely misguided, tasteless and generally bad it should serve as an example how NOT to conduct a Bruckner symphony.

Still, the style these recordings present appears to be the norm nowadays. Bruckner must sound slow, stiff, solemn and sonorous, it's what people grew to expect from the composer. I remember listening to Schuricht's 8th, and that recording, very fast and powerful, made me realize for the first time how good this music is (I always regarded the 8th as an overripe excercise in Wagneritis - an idea confirmed by the "mainstream" recordings I had at the time). Barbirolli's 8th (1970) came a bit later and was even more of a revelation.

So you made me curious about Konwitschny - a conductor lamently underrepresented in my collection. I see the 2nd is at youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNX7tLm0EUE

Will listen to it tomorrow, thanks for the tip!

50milliarden, I agree re the general dullness of Haitink, Wand and Sinopoli, but luckily have found benchmark recordings of all the symphonies, actually in stereo.

Conveniently overlooking that whole "exterminating the subhumans" policy.

Conveniently overlooking that whole "exterminating the subhumans" policy.

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We stayed away from confrontation with Hitler for long enough, we tried appeasement. But when we considered the nazis a threat to Britain and it's trade empire, we took action. We did nothing when the soviets invaded Poland at the same time that the nazis did. We didn't consider the soviets a threat to us. The extermination policies of the nazis were only discovered after the war. We will be remembered for doing the right thing in confronting the nazis but it should also be remembered why we did 'the right thing'.