I would like to hear his 2nd and 8th, the immense power in his conducting will work very well...
He considered doing the 8th, but according to Osborne's biography, gave up that plan after hearing Maazel conduct it in London. I don't recall why though, or if it even gives a reason.
Karajan only came late to Mahler. It is often forgotten today now that the music is so totally overplayed and seen more as virtuoso showpieces than the complex and deep musical expressions of Mahler's very personal world view, how radical and unique his musical thinking was at the time, and how controversial and hard to figure out.
Karajan was born 3 years before Mahler died and grew into a musical world which just started to digest these works. In a musical way, Mahler had expressed the many inner tensions of his world and times and predicted the catastrophical clash and collapse of many important elements of that world. For those people who understand that cultural background on a deeper emotional level and who feel these tensions and the looming, unsettling predictions behind it, his music is much more shattering and disturbing than just the great orchestral thrill ride it is reduced to mostly nowadays.
Mahler was played much more in the 20s in Germany and Austria though than many believe. But then the forced hiatus of 1933-45 (1938-45 in Austria) when the music was "banned" because it was considered "un-Aryan" by the NS regime further delayed the process of internalizing the music and what it stands for. And it's not just the performance ban which caused that. It is the very nature of the music and its particular position in the German-Austrian music tradition which made it very hard for many people to digest the music and come to terms with what it really means in that context. Many people, ban or not, were only beginning to get ready for that in the 50s.
Karajan, as technically brilliant as he was, basically never conducted anything he felt he hadn't completely internalized in his own way. That's why it took him so long to approach Mahler. Which he did by way of Das Lied von der Erde, which was the first of the symphonic scale compositions he conducted (he had done some of the orchestral Lieder in the 50s). It took him a long time to form his own image of the music, and when he started conducting it, he spent a lot of time rehearsing it with the BP, sometimes by looking at one of the symphonies in rehearsal, then putting it aside, picking it up again until he felt ready to portray the inner musical complexity of the work, then finally performed and recorded it. Why he didn't do all of them, I don't know, if he couldn't find his way into some of them, if he simply didn't have enough time, hard to say.
But he also approached other repertoire, like the Second Viennese School, in that same, very careful and slow way.
There are also pieces of the very standard repertoire that he, interestingly, never conducted in concert, like some of the Schubert or Schumann or Bruckner symphonies (although he did actually evntually record all of them). He also never did Sibelius 3 because, as he said, he felt he didn't understand the music. Even though he did all of the other Sibelius symphonies. What he didn't understand about the music we can't know.
I would have liked most to hear the 3rd and 7th symphonies from him.
Most interesting M. Karajan and his whole generation of conductors didn't casually breeze through the great works but I'm sure thought more seriously about a lot of music, only adding works to their own repertory when they felt some real confidence for what they stood for and had something to say. I've probably said this before but I certainly think some of the younger names conducting all sorts of major works across different centuries and countries is typical of the contemporary lack of understanding if not respect.
Interesting about K not understanding Sibelius 3- it's a formally odd piece, perhaps the oddest, but not much more so than Tapiola, 6 or 7- which he did record...
EDIT- composer mix up there.
Yes, good and interesting points M and Sean.
Yet further reason to consider Karajan a deeply devoted and passionate music lover, not a meglomaniac as some of the more upright, insecure and more gimpy losers on the board accuse him of.
That was very informative, M.
Quote from: M forever on August 22, 2007, 02:42:33 AM
I would have liked most to hear the 3rd and 7th symphonies from him.
It's the 8th for me. Karajan is my favorite conductor of opera (whether Puccini, Wagner or Verdi), and I consider Part II to be the opera Mahler never composed. I would have loved to hear what Karajan would have done with it.
About the reasons he didn't complete a Mahler cycle: you bring up good points. I wonder if his fascination with the then new digital technology didn't have something to do with it too. He wanted to get his basic repertoire recorded digitally and so he spent years re-recording (sometimes for the third or fourth time) Strauss, Brahms, Beethoven etc. It left him little time for anything new. The pity is that very few of those digital recordings are better than his previous efforts...not even sonically improved. In a sense he wasted his last decade. At least that's how I see it.
Sarge
I think it's so much better that way. You could turn the question around and ask "Why did Solti record a complete Mahler set? " (or Maazel, Chailly, etc).
Obviously, music making should be a question of quality, not quantity. Personally I think the Mahler symphony Karajan was most suited to conduct (other than those he actually did) would have been the second.
But one thing about Karajan that has always intrigued me is that choral paeans were not his strong suit. Apart from some carefully chosen religious works by Verdi, Beethoven, Haydn, Bach, Mozart, Brahms or Bruckner. No Berlioz or Dvorak requiem, no Bach JohannesPassion, no Messiah, no Haydn or Bruckner masses, no other Beethoven (Christus am Ölberge, C major Mass), no Gürrelieder, no Kullervo, the list could go on. And yet, all these particular composers were prominently featured in his repertoire.
I think the older generation of conductors would have blanched if one suggested they "should" conduct music they didn't like or empathise with. Klemperer was a big Mahler fan (and acolyte) but only ever conducted certain works of Mahler -- never everything. And Furtwängler obviously (like me) preferred to use his talents elsewhere. Beecham, to my knowledge, never went near Mahler in his life.
A certain type of performer, however, asks "what is fashionable at the moment?" when choosing repertoire.
Quote from: Lilas Pastia on August 26, 2007, 07:49:01 AM
But one thing about Karajan that has always intrigued me is that choral paeans were not his strong suit. Apart from some carefully chosen religious works by Verdi, Beethoven, Haydn, Bach, Mozart, Brahms or Bruckner. No Berlioz or Dvorak requiem, no Bach JohannesPassion, no Messiah, no Haydn or Bruckner masses, no other Beethoven (Christus am Ölberge, C major Mass), no Gürrelieder, no Kullervo, the list could go on. And yet, all these particular composers were prominently featured in his repertoire.
Karajan did actually conduct Gurrelieder (without the ü though ;) ), but there is no recording of that.
Again, I find the notion that he should have conducted all these works in addition to the enormous repertoire he had, and the idea that the fact that he didn't makes choral conducting somehow "not his strong suit" a little strange. I think people don't take into account how much time it actually takes to study all these works really thoroughly, it's not a matter of just reading through the score once or twice and then conducting it. Although that is the way a lot of posers do it. Would you have preferred Karajan to work in this way to instead of taking his time to study selected repertoire?
Quote from: Harry Collier on August 26, 2007, 08:13:25 AM
Beecham, to my knowledge, never went near Mahler in his life.
Neither did
Carlos Kleiber.
Wrong - Carlos Kleiber conducted Das Lied von der Erde. There is even a recording of that.
OK, ok, you are right, - as usual :P - my mind was on Mahler's symphony output. Now of course you'll come back and inform me 'Das Lied von der Erde' is a symphony! :)
Care to tell me how or where to find the recording you mentioned? Thank you! :-*
Lis
Das Lied von der Erde is indeed a symphony, not any more or less than any of Mahler's other symphonies, and that's what he referred to it as himself.
I have the recording from 1967 with the WS but I am currently away from home, so I can't rip and upload it (which I think I could because I don't think any label has the copyright for that). But the Memories CD of the recording is currently available from BRO.
M, do you know the recording by Erich Kleiber, highly rated by some...
Quote from: M forever on August 26, 2007, 04:32:11 PM
Karajan did actually conduct Gurrelieder (without the ü though ;) ), but there is no recording of that.
Again, I find the notion that he should have conducted all these works in addition to the enormous repertoire he had, and the idea that the fact that he didn't makes choral conducting somehow "not his strong suit" a little strange. I think people don't take into account how much time it actually takes to study all these works really thoroughly, it's not a matter of just reading through the score once or twice and then conducting it. Although that is the way a lot of posers do it. Would you have preferred Karajan to work in this way to instead of taking his time to study selected repertoire?
No, no, of course not. But please don't read things into my post I never intended to write. What I did say is that he
carefully chose some works, not others. Isn't that the same thing as 'selected repertoire' ? That's his choice of St-Matthew instead of St-John, b minor Mass over Chritstmas Oratorio, Verdi Requiem over Berlioz. His
choice. Period.
I see. Apparently I misunderstood you. I thought you meant that the fact that he didn't conduct these choral works indicated to you a lack of ability in that area. I think he was actually very good in the way he worked with choirs.
Quote from: M forever on August 27, 2007, 10:42:29 PM
I see. Apparently I misunderstood you. I thought you meant that the fact that he didn't conduct these choral works indicated to you a lack of ability in that area. I think he was actually very good in the way he worked with choirs.
I'd even add that "pretty good" might be an understatement; wasn't it
Furtwängler, out of all people, who acknowledged that Karajan had the ability to produce "legato" in choral sound, and that it was something you couldn't learn?
Quote from: M forever on August 22, 2007, 02:42:33 AM
He considered doing the 8th, but according to Osborne's biography, gave up that plan after hearing Maazel conduct it in London. I don't recall why though, or if it even gives a reason.
Karajan only came late to Mahler. It is often forgotten today now that the music is so totally overplayed and seen more as virtuoso showpieces than the complex and deep musical expressions of Mahler's very personal world view, how radical and unique his musical thinking was at the time, and how controversial and hard to figure out.
Karajan was born 3 years before Mahler died and grew into a musical world which just started to digest these works. In a musical way, Mahler had expressed the many inner tensions of his world and times and predicted the catastrophical clash and collapse of many important elements of that world. For those people who understand that cultural background on a deeper emotional level and who feel these tensions and the looming, unsettling predictions behind it, his music is much more shattering and disturbing than just the great orchestral thrill ride it is reduced to mostly nowadays.
Mahler was played much more in the 20s in Germany and Austria though than many believe. But then the forced hiatus of 1933-45 (1938-45 in Austria) when the music was "banned" because it was considered "un-Aryan" by the NS regime further delayed the process of internalizing the music and what it stands for. And it's not just the performance ban which caused that. It is the very nature of the music and its particular position in the German-Austrian music tradition which made it very hard for many people to digest the music and come to terms with what it really means in that context. Many people, ban or not, were only beginning to get ready for that in the 50s.
Karajan, as technically brilliant as he was, basically never conducted anything he felt he hadn't completely internalized in his own way. That's why it took him so long to approach Mahler. Which he did by way of Das Lied von der Erde, which was the first of the symphonic scale compositions he conducted (he had done some of the orchestral Lieder in the 50s). It took him a long time to form his own image of the music, and when he started conducting it, he spent a lot of time rehearsing it with the BP, sometimes by looking at one of the symphonies in rehearsal, then putting it aside, picking it up again until he felt ready to portray the inner musical complexity of the work, then finally performed and recorded it. Why he didn't do all of them, I don't know, if he couldn't find his way into some of them, if he simply didn't have enough time, hard to say.
But he also approached other repertoire, like the Second Viennese School, in that same, very careful and slow way.
There are also pieces of the very standard repertoire that he, interestingly, never conducted in concert, like some of the Schubert or Schumann or Bruckner symphonies (although he did actually evntually record all of them). He also never did Sibelius 3 because, as he said, he felt he didn't understand the music. Even though he did all of the other Sibelius symphonies. What he didn't understand about the music we can't know.
I would have liked most to hear the 3rd and 7th symphonies from him.
nice....
btw, how do you learn all that stuff? Is this all from information you get from CD booklets, or are there actually books about Karajan out there you read?
Quote from: greg on August 28, 2007, 07:50:24 AM
btw, how do you learn all that stuff? Is this all from information you get from CD booklets, or are there actually books about Karajan out there you read?
He's a professional musician, and he's obviously a highly intelligent person with a very good education (musical and otherwise), as well. He puts two and two together, and he analyses the information he does have in a coherent way. ;)
(Of course, I trust M forever will correct any oversight I might have made, in the above guess.)
There
are books about Karajan, by the way! In fact, I'm currently reading Richard Osborne's biography of the aforementioned, myself. And it's quite a good book, being read in tandem with three or four others as it currently is, by personal "quirk". ;D
Quote from: Renfield on August 28, 2007, 03:46:44 PM
He's a professional musician, and he's obviously a highly intelligent person with a very good education (musical and otherwise), as well. He puts two and two together, and he analyses the information he does have in a coherent way. ;)
(Of course, I trust M forever will correct any oversight I might have made, in the above guess.)
There are books about Karajan, by the way! In fact, I'm currently reading Richard Osborne's biography of the aforementioned, myself. And it's quite a good book, being read in tandem with three or four others as it currently is, by personal "quirk". ;D
That, or he just copied and pasted that from some online dictionary.
Of course, I'm kidding.
Quote from: M forever on August 27, 2007, 10:42:29 PM
I see. Apparently I misunderstood you. I thought you meant that the fact that he didn't conduct these choral works indicated to you a lack of ability in that area. I think he was actually very good in the way he worked with choirs.
With good reason, I now realise. I checked the meaning of 'strong suit' and it's not what I meant. I wanted to convey the sense of selective inclination, not lack of ability.
lol, i shoulda reread the first sentence with the word "biography" ;D
Just for the record, I am not a professional musician anymore. That was in a former life, a long time ago, an important phase in my life that I woulnd't want to miss, but I now excel in another professional area ;D 8) 0:)
Anyway, the Osborne biography is indeed an excellent book, probably the best about HvK, certainly the most detailed (it's a really heavy volume!). It appears to me to be very well researched and generally reliable. Osborne also knew Karajan personally. He has interviewed him on several occasions (some of the interviews are in a former book by him, "Conversations with von Karajan"). It also contains a lot of interesting and balanced information about the times in which HvK lived and worked. Osborne paints a broad picture of the events, the cultural and political environment in Austria and Germany during the first half of the century, so the reader can get a good feeling for HvK's background, what it was like to live and work there during those times, and also addresses the questions about HvK's relationship to the NS regime in great detail.
My own comments here about HvK and Mahler are partially what I gathered from a number of sources, too many to name just a few. If you come from the cultural environment in which all this happened and if you are interested in these subjects, you basically learn many things about all that over many years, that doesn't just come from reading one or two books or a few CD booklets. Partially, my comments are my own interpretation. That part is based on my own perception and understanding of Mahler's place and role in the complex cultural spectrum of the place I come from, and the relationship some people may have had to the music in earlier decades.
I take the fact that Karajan didn't record a complete Mahler cycle as evidence that God still works miracles. ::) >:D ::)
Quote from: RebLem on August 31, 2007, 12:55:08 PM
I take the fact that Karajan didn't record a complete Mahler cycle as evidence that God still works miracles. ::) >:D ::)
Would you say that about Barbirolli also?
Quote from: BorisG on August 31, 2007, 07:28:18 PM
Would you say that about Barbirolli also?
yes, i would.
Man, it is so violently sickening to see complete ignoramuses like these make such statements about highly accomplished muscians such as Barbirolli and Karajan.
I thought it had gotten a little better, but this is really just a forum for primitive, completely ignorant and respectless people.
People like you are the scum of the earth. I feel physically tainted by being in your virtual presence.
I am off again.
I have never understood this conceit that Barbirolli was a poor conductor. I get the impression that is all about taking a stance and ignoring the evidence.
But guys......now see what you've done.
Mike
Quote from: RebLem on August 31, 2007, 12:55:08 PM
I take the fact that Karajan didn't record a complete Mahler cycle as evidence that God still works miracles. ::) >:D ::)
You overlooked a long list of gifted conductors who also have benefited from god's miracles and never got around to doing a Mahler cycle. Or is your mental capacity so limited capable only to retain the name of one or two conductors?
Though I don't feel especially obliged to champion M forever's presence here (welcome as it definitely is, from my part), I'll agree that considering Karajan and Barbirolli worthless Mahler interpreters, which we were "graced" not to have a complete cycle from, is weak.
Both of them were conductors with a reputation for excellence, both of them were outstanding proponents of the composers and compositions they did champion, and neither of them was a "random" addition to the long list of people who have recorded Mahler.
Now, I generally have a stance of "live and let live", in terms of even opinions that, as M forever implied with somewhat stronger terminology, are so ill-considered; but this is a bit too much, really. ::)
I am a bit surprised at the animosity some here have for Karajan and Barbirolli's Mahler. Forget Barbirolli for a moment, but Karajan's recordings of the 5th, 6th and 9th (especially the later account) are some of my favorite readings of these works. They are not the most spontaneous readings out there. But they are rehearsed, extremely detail, superbly contrasted dynamically and show great pacing and organization. In HVK's hands these don't appear to the the monstrous, long-winded scores that some make them out to be but symphonies that are superbly constructed structurally. Of course you do not get the ravishingly shocking revelation of a Bernstein for example but if you know these works well Karajan makes you reassess these works.
In short I think no Mahler discography would really be complete without HVK's readings. And I am not really a HVK fan, but I think he is a great Mahler conductor.
I take RebLem's use of the >:D icon as an indication of playing the devil's advocate, rib-elbowing us or otherwise provocatively stating his dislike of these conductor's Mahler.
I really don't see why there should be such an outlandish reaction from MForever or public expressions of outrage as what I read here. Should I, too, feel "physically tainted" by their virtual presence? This forum would become a no man's land in no time... Come on, guys, come to your senses...