Review: The Magic of Horowitz - DG, 2003, 2CD+DVD

The Magic of Horowitz

Deutsche Grammophon, 2003.

Digipak. 2CD+DVD.

Liner notes by Thomas Frost, Edward Greenfield and Vladimir Horowitz.

Contents:

CD 1 [71’32]:

[1] Schubert-Liszt: Valse-Caprice No. 6 (from Soirées de Vienne)

[2] Schubert-Liszt: Ständchen (from Schwanengesang)

[3] Liszt: Valse oubliée No. 1

[4] Chopin: Mazurka in A minor, Op. 17 No. 4

[5] Scriabin: Etude in D sharp minor, Op. 2 No. 1

[6] Scriabin: Etude in C sharp minor, Op. 8 No. 12

[7] Schubert: Impromptu in B flat major, D 935 No. 3

[8] Schubert-Tausig: Military March D 733 No. 1

[9] Scarlatti: Sonata in E major, K. 135 (L. 224)

[10] Bach-Busoni: Choral Prelude “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland”

[11] Rachmaninoff: Prelude in G major, Op. 32 No. 5

[12] Rachmaninoff: Prelude in G sharp minor, Op. 32 No. 12

[13] Liszt: Sonetto 104 del Petrarca (from Années de Pèlerinage, 2^e année, Italie)

[14] Chopin: Mazurka in C sharp minor, Op. 30 No. 4

[15] Schumann: Träumerei (from Kinderszenen)

[16] Rachmaninoff: Polka de W. R.

CD 2 [71’01]:

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488

[1] Allegro (cadenza: Ferruccio Busoni)

[2] Adagio

[3] Allegro assai

Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala

Carlo Maria Giulini

Schumann: Kreisleriana Op. 16

[4] Auserst bewegt

[5] Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch

[6] Sehr aufgeregt

[7] Sehr langsam

[8] Sehr lebahaft

[9] Sehr langsam

[10] Sehr rasch

[11] Schnell und spielend

[12] Studio chatter

[13] Mozart: Rondo in A minor, K. 511*

[14] Liszt-Horowitz: Ehemals (from Weihnachtsbaum, No. 10)*

[15] Schubert: Moment musical in F minor, D 780 No. 3*

*Previously unreleased!

DVD Video [50’14]:

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488

1. Allegro (cadenza: Ferruccio Busoni)

2. Adagio

3. Allegro assai

Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala

Carlo Maria Giulini

[1] Arrival – preparing to record (opening credits)

[2] Recording of the first movement

[3] An impromptu press conference

[4] Recording of the second movement

[5] Conversation

[6] Playback

[7] Recording of the third movement (part)

[8] Recording of the third movement – retake (complete)

[9] Conversation (end credits)

Recorded:

4/1985, Horowitz’s Home, New York (CD 1: 4-5, 10);

9-10/1985, RCA Studio A, New York (CD 1: 3, 6-9; CD 2: 4-11*);

3/1986, New York (CD 1: 1-2)

4/1986, Moscow Conservatory, Live (CD 1: 11-16)

3/1987, Albanella Studios, Milan (CD 2: 1-3**; DVD)

6/1987, Grosse Musikhalle, Hamburg (CD 2: 15)

6/1988, Grace Rainey Auditorium, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (CD 2: 14)

12/1988 & 1/1989: Horowitz’s Home, New York (CD 2: 12-13)

*Wrongly given in the booklet “1-8”!

**Wrongly given in the booklet “9-11”!

Some recordings are simply skipped in the booklet!

=========================================================

Magical playing indeed!

This handsome set presents the “greatest hits” of Vladimir Horowitz from his Indian summer for Deutsche Grammophon (1985-89). All of them demonstrate unique and compelling musical vision. Three of them had never been released before. The bonus DVD is pure delight and not available separately. The lavish booklet contains some rare photos and excellent liner notes by people who know what they are writing about. But before going into some detail about the contents, a few words about the all-important historical background.

The last years of Vladimir Horowitz are one of the great fairy tales in modern music history – except that they actually happened. In the early 1980s, Horowitz was going through the most severe depression in his life. He was taking heavy medications and his playing was becoming increasingly erratic, a mere shadow of his finest years. After the disastrous Tokyo concerts in June 1983, aptly described by his wife as “funeral”, Horowitz disappeared. This was nothing new. He had suffered from depression and retired from the stage on three previous occasions during his long life. But this time it was different. Horowitz was 80 years old. Nobody believed he would recover and play again. In April 1985, almost two years after the Tokyo affair, he resurrected himself. The movie The Last Romantic, shot mostly in his New York home, contained plenty of music (released also on CD ) and showed that, far from being dead, Horowitz was very alive and playing. Something of his virtuosity had been lost, of course, but new serenity had entered into his interpretations; they had become more relaxed and, if anything, more fascinating than before. The rest is best left in the words of Thomas Frost:

This collection of recordings from the last five years of Vladimir Horowitz’s life (1985–89) presents the phenomenal artist at the height of his musical maturity. That period, the most prolific and possibly the happiest of his life, was also filled with drama, personal triumphs and renewed world recognition. His accomplishments were astounding: at the age of 82 Horowitz returned to his Russian homeland after a 61-year absence to play recitals in Moscow and Leningrad – the Moscow recital was televised live to Western Europe and the United States, later to the rest of the world; he gave recitals to sold-out houses in New York, London, Berlin, Paris, Milan, Amsterdam, Vienna and Hamburg; he made seven CDs that included his first recording of a Mozart concerto as well as other pieces that he never committed to disc before; he was featured in three television films; he received the Medal of Freedom from President Reagan at the White House and his 23^rd Grammy award at Radio City in New York.

The variety and the quality of these late recordings are extraordinary. Horowitz was not in the least content to repeat the old repertoire in the old way. Whatever technical shortcomings he had in those years, he turned them into artistic advantages. Some of the pieces he played for decades reached their finest interpretations only in his last years. The best example is Chopin’s famous Polonaise Op. 53 (unfortunately and unforgivably not included here). Any late recording of this lovely piece (and there are one studio and countless live takes) bears little resemblance to the early versions (RCA, 1945; Columbia, 1971). In his twilight years, Horowitz slowed down and added numerous new accents. The result is a virtually new and, for my part, superior piece to his early recordings – if not indeed to what Chopin wrote himself. On a smaller scale, you can compare the late interpretations of Liszt’s Sonetto 104 del Petrarca and Bach-Busoni’s Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland with the ones Horowitz recorded in 1951 and 1947, respectively. The recordings are as different as black and white. I am not saying black is better than white or vice versa. I simply want to stress that Horowitz never grew stale: he continued to develop until the end of his life.

Then there is the new repertoire. I have heard Horowitz described as a “cowardly pianist” because he never strayed far from the so-called “standard repertoire”. I would reverse this argument. I consider cowardly pianists who deliberately keep out of this repertoire, constantly “discovering” forgotten (usually rightly so) composers and works. This is an elegant way to avoid the fierce competition in an overcrowded field and the critical onslaught from superficial journalists ever so keen on comparisons (the first evidence that a critical faculty is missing). It never occurs to such pianists that there might be a reason why the pieces they play have never become popular with the audience, for example because they are perfectly mediocre stuff. That said, all his life Horowitz played and recorded some rather obscure pieces. In his youth, back in the 1930s, he championed works like Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie, Liszt’s Sonata in B minor and Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto, all of them repertoire staples today – and all of them badly neglected back then. Later, in the 1940s, he played (and even recorded) sonatas by Barber, Prokofiev and Kabalevsky, little known then and forgotten today (except for Prokofiev, of course); still later, he did his best to popularise Scriabin, Scarlatti and Clementi. This is hardly a narrow repertoire.

Horowitz never stopped adding new pieces to his discography (his last recording, made for Sony just a few days before his death in November 1989, consisted entirely of such pieces). Three works in this set (CD 1: 1, 2, 7) were completely new to him: he had not even played them in public, much less recorded, before. It so happens that they are among his finest recordings. The famous Ständchen is played with exquisite tenderness and superb command of the echo-like effects. As usual, Horowitz invests even the most hackneyed piece with a new life. The sixth Valse-Caprice, based on Schubert but really Liszt’s composition, Horowitz loved so much that he played it on every one of his recitals in the late 1980s. It is an enchanting combination of bravura and sensuous charm. Finally, Schubert’s set of variations (Impromptu D 935 No. 3) also featured regularly in his last recitals, but there is no account of his having played it earlier in his career. (By the way, Horowitz recorded altogether six of Schubert’s eight impromptus for Columbia and DG between 1962 and 1985; only the first and the last, D 899 No. 3 and D 935 No. 4, did he never play or record.) Last but not least, Tausig’s brilliant arrangement of Schubert’s Marche Militaire (originally for four hands) he had played only twice in concert, in 1932 and 1942, before he came to record it in 1985. Light stuff and sheer fun, it is treated by Horowitz with his customary seriousness.

Actually, the three “new recordings” [CD 2: 13-15] wonderfully illustrate the breadth of Horowitz’s repertoire. One of them is famous (Schubert), one is woefully seldom played or recorded (Mozart), and one is actually never played or recorded (Liszt). Incidentally, Horowitz played only the Schubert in concert, and only in his last years; the other two are absent from his concerto- and discography. So much for Horowitz’s “cowardly repertoire”! Thomas Frost, who was the producer of nearly all recordings Horowitz made not only for DG, but earlier (1962-73) for Columbia as well, explains the origins of these recordings:

The Mozart Rondo in A minor was recorded during the several sessions in December 1988 and January 1989 that resulted in the CD “Horowitz at Home.” At that time Horowitz chose not to include it in the program in order to avoid a preponderance of Mozart. We have included some studio chatter during which Horowitz derides with sarcastic humor the very slow tempos at which this piece has been recorded by some of his contemporaries. The Horowitz transcription of Liszt’s “Ehemals” (no. 10 from his Weihnachtsbaum) was recorded during sound tests in New York on 24 June 1988. He played it through only once. Schubert’s Moment musical in F minor was an encore he played at his last public concert, on 21 June 1987 in Hamburg.  

Schubert’s Musical Moment has since been released as part of Horowitz in Hamburg: The Last Concert (2008). The other two pieces, so far as I know, have never been released elsewhere.

The DVD contains recording sessions of the complete Concerto, including a retake of the third movement. The latter is a fine piece of theatre. Mr Frost stopped the recording in the beginning and asked Mr Horowitz to play “not so Russian”. (Nice publicity stunt, Thomas!) In between there is, as Mr Frost says, “some interesting, informative and entertaining documentary material.” This includes an improvised press conference in which journalists ask their usual nonsense (“Always the same questions”, snorts Wanda) and Horowitz declares that for him Mozart is “number 1”. Volodya is charmingly childish between takes. A lady tells him she likes his tie, whereupon he goes and tells everybody that she likes his tie better than his playing. He seems obliging enough, harmlessly repeating hackneyed stories (e.g. about his frustrated ambitions as composer), but I can imagine how difficult it could have been to handle the man in private, or even during recording sessions. Once he seats himself at the piano, however, there is no more fooling around. He might warm up his fingers with bits of pieces or improvise a bit, but in a few minutes he is ready to record. In those autumnal years, the nervous tension that made Horowitz tremble at the keyboard in his prime was gone, but there was the same intense concentration and complete absorption in the music. The contrast between the artist producing heavenly sounds and the old man chattering nonsense is very effective. In short, this is a fantastic documentary indispensable for Horowitz fans.

Volodya and Francois.

The liner notes by Edward Greenfield and Vladimir Horowitz are taken from the original CD releases of Horowitz plays Mozart (1987) and Horowitz at Home (1989), respectively. Mr Greenfield quotes the pianist extensively and there is some repetition, but it's no big deal. Horowitz has a number of uncommonly interesting things to say about performance practice and musical appreciation. Those who still dismiss him as a brainless technician should read his words. Then again, probably it would be like describing the rainbow to a blind man. Make no mistake, Horowitz was not an intellectual. Like all great artists, his response to music was largely emotional and he built his interpretations on instinct and intuition rather than on reflection and scholarship. But, I hasten to add, it is totally wrong to infer from this that Horowitz, and other pianists from his generation, did not think at all about the music he played. Far from it! He was, for example, an avid reader of composers’ letters (especially Mozart’s) and drew a great deal of inspiration from them. Let Volodya explain his heretical ideas in his own words (repetition of things worth repeating is deliberately preserved):

[Line notes by Vladimir Horowitz, edited by Thomas Frost – complete:]

Classical, Romantic, Modern, Neo-Romantic! These labels may be convenient for musicologists, but they have nothing to do with composing or performing. In fact, they may be more of a hindrance than a help in the education of young performers. All music is the expression of feelings, and feelings do not change over the centuries. Style and form change, but not the basic human emotions. Purists would have us believe that music from the so-called Classical period should be performed with emotional restraint, while so-called Romantic music should be played with emotional freedom. Such advice has often resulted in exaggeration: overindulgent, uncontrolled performances of Romantic music and dry, sterile, dull performances of Classical music.

As far as Mozart is concerned, we know from his letters that he showed great concern for musical expression: he continually criticized performers whose playing lacked freedom for their “mechanical execution” and the absence of “taste and feeling”. As for Beethoven, historical accounts describe his playing as very free and emotional – the trademark of a Romantic.

All my life, ever since I was a young man, I have considered music of all periods romantic. There is, of course, an objective, intellectual component to music insofar as its formal structure is concerned; but when it comes to performance, what is required is not interpretation but a process of subjective re-creation.

The notation of a composer is a mere skeleton that the performer must endow with flesh and blood, so that the music comes to life and speaks to an audience. The belief that going back to an Urtext will ensure a convincing performance is an illusion. An audience does not respond to intellectual concepts, only to the communication of feelings.

A dictionary definition of “romantic” usually includes the following: “Displaying or expressing love or strong affection; ardent, passionate, fervent.” I cannot name a single great composer of any period who did not possess these qualities. Isn’t, then, all music romantic? And shouldn’t the performer listen to his heart rather than to intellectual concepts of how to play Classical, Romantic or any other type of music?

Of course, mastery implies control – in music as well as in life. But control that is creative does not limit or restrain feelings or spontaneity. It is rather a setting of standards, limits and boundaries in regard to taste, style and what is appropriate to each composer. In order to become a truly re-creative performer, and not merely an instrumental wizard, one needs three ingredients in equal measure: a trained, disciplined mind, full of imagination; a free and giving heart; and a Gradus ad Parnassum command of instrumental skill. Few musicians ever reach artistic heights with these three ingredients evenly balanced. This is what I have been striving for all my life.

[Liner notes by Thomas Frost:]

Spontaneity was a hallmark of any Horowitz performance. He never played a piece exactly the same way and was proud of that. “The score is not a Bible… Chopin never played his own pieces the same way twice,” he liked to say. His quick, retentive and clear mind combined with a superb musculature allowed him to indulge his aversion to repetitious practicing. This had the great advantage of keeping his performances fresh. Once he had a general concept of a piece, he rehearsed it primarily in his head, keeping his fingers in shape by improvising and playing other pieces. Of spontaneity he said: “One must have very clear intentions, a clear conception of the spirit of the music and its large framework. The Germans call it Auffassung. And when you have that, you can leave smaller details to the spur of the moment. Sometimes it is a question of color. I know the color of each section, but the exact shade is better left to the inspiration of the moment.”

[Liner notes by Edward Greenfield:]

Horowitz loved the music of Mozart all his life, and one of his favorite pastimes was reading the composer’s letters. He spoke enthusiastically about the rich body of information they contain: “I am not interested in the speculation of others on the subject how to play Mozart – only in what the composer himself had to say. We are very fortunate to have so many wonderful and instructive letters, and the key to interpreting his music can be found in them. One of the most important facts that comes to light is Mozart’s emphasis on feeling and expression in music-making. He continually criticized his contemporaries for mechanical, meaningless virtuosity and a lack of feeling and sensitivity. We can see in his letters that he was a sensuous, earthly man with a wide range of emotions. He expressed them all in his music, and in that sense he was really a Romantic composer. To approach him as if he were a pretty, rococo porcelain figurine on a pedestal is to rob his music of its essential, universal character, its power to evoke joy as well as tears. Pablo Casals once told me that Mozart should be played like Chopin and Chopin like Mozart!”

There is nothing terribly original in these remarks. But there is some pretty thought-provoking, even profound, stuff. How many modern virtuosos read Mozart’s letters? Or play Mozart’s sonatas at all?

I have but two minor complaints, one about the presentation and one about the selection. The booklet is simply tucked inside the digipak without being fastened; it is apt to slip out. To be sure, it is entirely a matter of personal taste which recordings represent Horowitz at his best. Still – do we need Mozart’s concerto twice? You can compare, if you are so inclined, both versions and determine how much of the recording sessions shown on the video actually went into the audio recording. I would rather concentrate on the music, and for this one copy is quite enough. In short, the DVD should have been retained, but the audio version should have been exchanged for something else, for example the lovely recording, made at the same time and place, of Mozart’s Sonata KV 333. That aside, this is a perfect set.

Everybody seems to be having a great time - except the baby.

The Magic of Horowitz is now some 12 years old, but used copies are still available at very decent prices. Horowitz buffs and neophytes alike are not likely to regret purchasing the set. A piece of advice to the latter group: do not forget that the late Horowitz is only one of many. There are at least three other Horowitzes through the years, conveniently separated by his recording companies (EMI, RCA, Columbia/Sony; indeed, there are two Horowitzes for RCA alone, one from the late 40s/early 50s and one from the late 70s/early 80s). Each one of these four artists, with the possible exception of the first, has his own pros and cons. Knowledge of only one or two Horowitzes, no matter how intimate, is inevitably warped. When you have surveyed the whole of his life and recorded legacy, there emerges a work of art, a genuine masterpiece. If Volodya had written an autobiography, he might well have titled it What a Life!

Review: Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen (Highlights) - Karajan, 1966-70, DG

A must for aspiring Wagnerians

[1] Das Rheingold: “Aur Burg führt die Brücke”
[2] Die Walküre: “Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater”
[3] Die Walküre: Walkürenritt
[4] Die Walküre: “Leb wohl, du kühnes, herrliches Kind!”
[5] Die Walküre: Feuerzauber
[6] Siegfried: “Notung! Notung! Neidliches Schwert”
[7] Siegfried: Brünnhildes Erwachen
[8] Götterdämmerung: “Brünnhilde, heilige Braut!”
[9] Götterdämmerung: Trauermarsch

Berliner Philharmoniker
Herbert von Karajan

Wotan: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau [1]; Thomas Stewart [4, 5].
Siegfried: Jess Thomas [6, 7]; Helge Brilioth [8].
Brünnhilde: Helga Dernesch [7].
Siegmund: Jon Vickers [2].
Loge: Gerhard Stolze [1].
Mime: Gerhard Stolze [6].

=================================================

This is a truly amazing CD. Not so long ago it was solely responsible for making me a true fan of Richard Wagner's late works. I have never had any doubts in his genius and I have always liked his operas from the so called “middle period” – Lohengrin, Tannhäuser and especially Der fliegende Holländer. But Wagner’s late works – much more aptly called not operas, but music dramas – had always terrified me with their length and complexity. Years ago a complete recording of Der Ring accidentally happened to be in my hands. I gave it a try and ended bored to extinction at the second scene of Das Rheingold – the first part of the cycle. It’s funny how things do change.

These excellent highlights showed me the real genius of Richard Wagner and made of myself an ardent admirer of his late works, especially Der Ring. Only recently have I found out how magnificent and how ingeniously composed this cycle of four music dramas really is. The numerous leitmotifs that Wagner used to describe practically every character, idea, feeling, and object are not only deeply psychological but very often extremely beautiful and combined in an astonishing way. His ability to tell an epic story with text and music in a continuous way without virtually any pauses is something to marvel at. Once one gets bitten by Richard Wagner’s genius, one never fully recovers. Nor does one want to.

The whole of Der Ring des Nibelungen runs for the unbelievable length of about 14-15 hours – the “prelude” Das Rheingold is about two and a half hours long and the three “days”, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, are about four hours long each – and a complete recording usually takes something like 14 CDs. To compress this huge masterpiece into one CD with duration of no more than 80 minutes seems to be an impossible task. And yet, whoever compiled this CD did it. The nine tracks are not only among the best of the whole cycle musically, but they also represent crucial points in the story; one can almost follow it from the beginning to the end, heavily abridged of course.

All excerpts come directly from the complete recording made by Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker together with a really magnificent cast of singers between 1966 and 1970 for DG. This is the same remaster made for the Originals reissue and the sound is astonishing – clear, rich and sumptuous, with terrific dynamic range and power, but never reduced to the bombastic heroism which many people think is the only way to interpret Wagner’s music; for my own part it’s not even the most convincing way, let alone the only one. Karajan’s ability to achieve breathtaking beauty of sound does not at all prevent him from creating tremendously dramatic and at the same time movingly lyrical interpretation. He detested the famous description of his performance as “chamber music style” – and rightly so. It’s a perfect nonsense, unless it means that the brass is powerful without being blaring and the subtlety of Wagner's orchestration is superbly revealed.

Das Rheingold is presented with only one excerpt – [1] “Aur Burg führt die Brücke” – the very last nine minutes or so, or “The entry of the gods into Valhalla” as it is more popular. Here you have the opportunity to enjoy two really great singing actors – Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as the stately, majestic Wotan and Gerhard Stolze as the exceptionally cunning and shrewd Loge. The finale is certainly one of the most glorious pieces of orchestral music ever composed.

Die Walküre occupies the next four tracks. In [2] “Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater” Jon Vickers appears as Siegmund, the son of Wotan and a mortal woman, contemplating his origins and his fate. Although I have never been fan of Jon Vickers because his specific timbre just doesn’t grip me, his powerful tenor is irresistible here. The so-called Walkürenritt [3], which Wagner himself never called with that name, is actually the famous “Ride of the Valkyries”, but not the three-minute orchestral showpiece that most people know. It is six minutes long, with a lot of singing from the flying Valkyries, and even this is by no means the whole scene that serves as introduction to the third and last act of the music drama.

The last track from Die Walküre – [4] “Leb wohl, du kühnes, herrliches Kind!” – is the final of the opera itself, much more popular as “Wotan's Farewell”. This must surely be one the most stunning pieces of opera ever composed. Richard Wagner surpassed even himself in expressing with the most gorgeous music every embrace, every glance, and every nuance of the heartbreaking scene when Wotan puts his daughter Brünnhilde to eternal sleep amidst fire until a hero comes and awakes her. The American bass-baritone Thomas Stewart gives a supreme rendition. He is tender and caressing, but powerful and majestic when it is required. Last but definitely not least when we talk about Wagner’s music dramas, his diction is exemplary. The last two lines – surely one of the most famous in the history of opera –

Wer meines Speeres Spitze fürchtet
durchschreite das Feuer nie!

are something you are not likely to forget, especially with the following orchestral tour de force. You can listen to them together with the so called Magic Fire Music because they are separated in another track – [5] Feuerzauber.

Siegfried – the third part of Der Ring – is represented by two tracks: [6] “Notung! Notung! Neidliches Schwert” and [7] Brünnhildes Erwachen, and so is the last part – Götterdämmerung – [8] “Brünnhilde, heilige Braut!” and [9] Trauermarsch. Here two Siegfrieds can be heard – Jess Thomas and Helge Brilioth – and both are so damn good that I am always left wanting more of their voices. As a special bonus from the gentle sex, here is Helga Dernesch in glorious voice as the just awakened Brünnhilde on track 7. Unlike many people, neither Thomas, nor Brillioth sounds “undercast” to me; nor do I hear any problems with Helga Dernesch’s high notes, for that matter.

In track 6 the incomparable Gerhard Stolze appears again, but this time in the role of the sinister Nibelung Mime trying to use Siegfried in his own schemes about obtaining the ring. This excerpt is also known as Schmidelied, or Forging Song, because it is connected with Siegfried’s forging his sword which is called “Notung”. Here Wagner reached new heights in describing the very Hell with music. Awesome orchestration! Track 8 is actually Siegfried’s death and is very moving with its quietness. The Funeral March that follows immediately is the only purely instrumental composition on the disc and one of the most majestic. It is a perfect finale of the CD, if not of Der Ring itself.

At the end of this very long and extremely tedious review, which you are at perfect liberty to evaluate as “uncommonly boring”, a little piece of advice. Listen to the disc with the librettos in hand. Of course the CD has no liner notes whatsoever, let alone excerpts from the librettos, and that is quite natural considering the budget price. But all of Wagner’s original texts, together with his own and very important stage directions, can easily be found with translations on the net, online or not. They immensely increase the understanding of the music and make the whole experience altogether unforgettable.

Karajan and Brahms’ Four: A Brief Comparison

The symphonies of Johannes Brahms form a curious quartet. The First may not be “Beethoven’s Tenth”, as Hans von Bülow dubbed it, but it’s a journey of epic proportions all the same. The Second may have been Brahms’ most inspired symphony, but I have always found it the least memorable. The Third, by turns wistful and grand, may be the most unjustly underrated symphonic work by a major composer in the standard repertoire. The Fourth is a perfect masterpiece. For once, Johannes let his hair down and surpassed himself.

Karajan conducted the symphonies for more than 50 years, from the 1930s to 1988, though by no means equally often. The First was his greatest favourite (143 performances), followed closely by the Second (134 performances). The Third and the Fourth managed only 50 and 61 performances, respectively. He recorded them as a set on three occasions, always with the Berlin Philharmonic for DG, in 1963-64, in 1977-78, and in 1987-88. The difference in the sound is considerable, and though Karajan was genetically incapable of playing Brahms badly, at least one set fails to reach the greatest artistic heights.

The 60s set is splendid. Unlike Karajan’s first take of Beethoven’s symphonies, which is overrated for historical reasons, this one really is one of the Brahmsian summits of his recorded legacy. The sound is sumptuous and spacious, remarkable for its age and little dated by modern standards; occasionally there is a slight shrillness in the strings and the brass, but nothing to make fuss about. Add to this the compelling musicianship, as exciting as a live concert or even a dress rehearsal, and you have a no-brainer. Essential set for Karajan and Brahms aficionados alike. The First is the superstar. It may be the finest Karajan ever did. There is a sense of spontaneity he didn’t always achieve in this elusive work. From the arresting opening (one of the greatest in the symphonic repertoire) to the sweeping conclusion, it flows as smoothly as it almost never does.

The only problem with this set is that it’s not available as a set. I don’t know about old editions, but the new remasters are spread on three different CDs. The Second and the Third are collected together. The First is coupled with Schumann’s First from 1971 in Originals series. The Fourth can be found on the Karajan: The Music, The Legend twofer (CD+DVD) or, if you don’t mind the repetition or the trouble of acquiring it, the Japanese edition of the Third and the Fourth. DG really should consider re-issuing these recordings as a handsome set. They deserve it. They sure have earned it.

The 70s set is strange. Interpretation-wise, the unbridled approach, so exhilarating in the 60s, has degenerated into questionable histrionics and tense, debilitating urgency. Occasionally, as in the finale of the Fourth for instance, this is refreshing. But for the most part it is plain awkward. It might benefit Tchaikovsky, Richard Strauss or even Beethoven, but certainly not a timid creature like the good old Johannes. Worse than that, the late analogue sound is dreadful. I wonder how it was approved for release. Flat, harsh, arid and right-up-your-face, it is nearly unlistenable. The strings and the brass have a metallic edge that grates on the ear. In short, it is the epitome of “manipulated”, “doctored”, etc. sound. I don’t mind it’s artificial; every recording is. I just don’t think the music is well served by it.

Ironically enough, this is most easily available set. It has been released on two or three discs (together with the Tragic Overture and the Haydn Variations) countless times, including in the so-called “Karajan Symphony Edition”. Avoid it anyway.

The 80s set is magnificent. I suspect I am not even in the minority here. I am probably the only person in the world who considers this set Karajan’s best. But as my favourite writer says: “Nor does it greatly disturb me to discover that my judgement is at variance with that of the majority. I have a certain confidence in my instinct.” If I am forced to choose between them, I will be very sorry to part with the 60s set, but I will not hesitate to do so.

The digital set has not a single weakness. The sound is stupendous, almost as rich and sensuous as the one from the 60s, but with marked improvement in terms of clarity and dynamics. The interpretations have matured and mellowed. They are slower and weightier, too. The near-hysteria of the 70s is toned down and there is a polish absent in the 60s set. Yet there is nothing slack or slick, nothing pretentious or soporific, in these performances. On the contrary, the dramatic intensity is shattering; the brass and the timpani are more prominent, often to a great effect, and the strings, though less lush than in the 60s, boast unheard-of commitment and precision. Just listen to the development in the first movement, or to whole finale, of the Third. The First may not be quite up to the landmark from 60s, but neither is much inferior to it. The Fourth is the superstar. It is by far the finest Karajan ever did. Note the stunning finale of the first movement where he creates something that must be heard to be believed. The trombones in the finale for once don’t blare, and the effect is chilling. In case you wondered, the good old Johannes does thrive on subtlety and sensitivity.

 Getting this set as a set isn’t easy, either. The old 1991 edition is very nice, on three discs and including the Tragic Overture and the Haydn Variations (both from 1983). It’s been out of print for ages but cheap second-hand copies can still be found (for example, here). There once was a Japanese version of this set, but it must by now be even scarcer and considerably more expensive than the original. Fairly recently, in 2001, DG released, for the first time ever, the four symphonies squeezed on two CDs in their DUO series. For some obscure reason, this is not available on the Amazons. If you search hard enough online, you may still find it reasonably priced. Look for a green cover with the young Johannes on it.

Miscellaneous recordings. Karajan first recorded the First in 1943 with the Concertgebouw. Richard Osborne has gone as far as suggesting that this is the finest of his six studio recordings. He must have smoked something really strong! The Philharmonia years yielded recordings of the First (1952), the Second (1955) and the Fourth (1955). Only the Second, recorded in marvellously vivid early stereo, can stand comparison with the Berlin remakes. (The same goes for the Unfinished from the same year with the same orchestra, also on EMI in the same superb stereo.) The Fourth is an interesting apprentice recording (in mono, by the way), but neither Karajan nor the orchestra seem to have been ready for it. If you are in love with the “Decca Sound”, the First (1960) and the Third (1960) with the Vienna Philharmonic are not to be missed.

Video recordings. The first two symphonies from the digital set have been released on DVD. How much they overlap with the audio versions is debatable, but the performances are terrific all the same; no quibbles about the sound or the picture. If we are to believe John Hunt, Karajan’s most conscientious discographer, the Third and the Fourth were also recorded on video. Why they have never been released is an enduring mystery. The Unitel DVD that was released in 2008 for Karajan’s Centenary collects incandescent live performances with the Berlin Philharmonic from 1973. Very much worth seeing and hearing!

Bottom line. Depending on your personal preferences in terms of sound and vision, the choice is between the 60s and the 80s set. The old set is rightly and lavishly praised. I don’t really know why the digital one has had such a bad press. The 70s set is for Karajan collectors only. Even if you happen to like the interpretation, the sound alone disqualifies it. The one set that everybody must avoid is the travesty in Karajan The Collection which collects the first three symphonies from the 80s and the Fourth from the 70s. The difference in the sound alone is jarring and very, very unpleasant. From the miscellaneous recordings, only the Second with Philharmonia is really indispensable. 

The set to be avoided!

Karajan and Tchaikovsky’s Late Symphonies: A Brief Comparison

Tchaikovsky’s Fourth, Fifth and Sixth symphonies, so different from one another yet so unmistakably Tchaikovskian, were cornerstones of Karajan’s career every bit as important as the symphonies of Beethoven or Brahms. They entered his symphonic repertoire before WWII and stayed there for some half a century or so. He recorded them commercially at least four times. Three of these sets, in fine recent remasters, are conveniently available as twofers.

1964-66, BPO, DG; 2003, OIBP, Karajan The Collection

These are fine performances, now available in better-than-ever-before sound. All the same, they are of mostly historical interest. Both of the next two sets have, in their different ways, vastly superior sound. This one tends to be a little muddy (woodwinds, timpani) or harsh (brass, cymbals), pitfalls of Jesus-Christus-Kirche as a recording venue which Günter Hermanns, Karajan’s Tonmeister for DG, didn’t always avoid. (Neither did Wolfgang Gülich on EMI, for that matter.) And the sound does matter – unless you still believe the old hokum about Tchaikovsky’s amateurish orchestration. Karajan’s interpretations didn’t change much over the years, but they did become more refined and better nuanced. It was all “smoothing the edges” more – according to the Karajan detractors who claim that he never made another fine recording after those DECCA sessions with the VPO in 1959-60. But that’s another story.

The Sixth is notable for the relatively slow, Karajan-wise, climax in the first movement. Also, it is the best recorded of the bunch, although it was actually recorded first (1964). The Fifth is given a very dramatic reading. I don’t know how Richard Osborne decided it is “the most gracious and urbane” of all recordings of this symphony made by Karajan. Then again, Mr Osborne is no stranger to writing nonsense in his liner notes. Again according to him, the Fifth is “less troubled (and less original)” than the other two. Ha! You bet!

On the whole, this twofer is a very good place to start. All the same, for the real thing we have to enter the 1970s.

1971, BPO, EMI; 2007, remastered

If you are used to the DG sound, this one will come as a shock. Don’t worry. Stay calm. Keep listening. Things will normalise again. Trust me, I know. I’ve been through it.

I don’t know about early editions, but the 2007 remaster boasts incredible sound: spacious, deep, natural. The strings are unbelievable! So many details for which you have to listen carefully on DG here leap to your attention. Unlike some other EMI recordings from the 1970s, the woodwinds are not distant, nor the timpani overblown. My only quibble is that the brass is not clear enough in the grand climaxes. But you can’t win them all.

Sound apart, these are leaner, more athletic performances than the ones on DG. There is a sense of abandon that’s almost apocalyptic. I use the word in its literal sense. The Berliners play as if the End of the World is coming and there is no tomorrow. All three symphonies are superbly performed, but the Sixth is special. It may be the best Karajan ever did. I do not agree, and never will, with his rather fast take of the climax in the first movement, but here, for once, it sounds almost right. The prominent strings work miracles. The Scherzo sounds totally different, the Waltz is spookier than ever, and the finale will displace your furniture. I guarantee. Just listen to the low strings after the first climax. All in all, stupendous performance in stupendous sound!

1975-76, BPO, DG; 1997, OIBP

This is, on the whole, my favourite set. The sound was already superb on the old box-set edition (4 CDs, 6 symphonies, 1975-79) and, fortunately, the remastering didn’t change that. Compared to EMI, the strings here remind one of a chamber orchestra; but the tone is rich and deep. The sound is brighter – some would say brittle – and that is not to everybody’s taste, but I have no problems with it. The dynamic range in general and the brass in particular are totally superior to EMI: the climaxes are magnificent yet clear. Just listen to the three cataclysmic chords in the end of the Fourth’s first movement, while the main theme wails high in the violins, and the following sound hurricane. Swept you out together with the armchair you were sitting in, didn’t it? The Fourth, indeed, is a standout. Karajan surpassed himself. None of his other five studio attempts comes close. The Fifth is rather different than the EMI version, but it stands well to comparison. The Sixth on EMI is unsurpassed, but this one is no slouch either.

1984, VPO, DG; 1994, OIBP, Karajan Gold, not available as set

This is the most disappointing “set”. Only the Fourth (Karajan’s forte) reminds, from time to time, of his finest Tchaikovsky. The climaxes in the Fifth and the Sixth are strangely tepid. They give the impression of routine drudgery made for the sake of the digital catalogue. This is worthy neither of Karajan nor of the VPO. The sound is, of course, crystal clear and very detailed, but awfully flat and with somewhat limited dynamic range. The balance is rather off: trumpets far too prominent, horns and trombones quite the opposite. The strings are dreadfully thin and weak! Surely the string section of the VPO can do better than that!

The best about these performances is that they were captured on video and released on DVD. They are much better seen than listened to; the camera is often revealing about some less obvious details of the orchestration. And they make for an interesting comparison with the younger and considerably more vigorous Karajan from the “bonus track”. If you are a Tchaikovsky or a Karajan aficionado, you probably won’t regret the purchase. Then again, you just might. The bad news is that the sound on the SONY DVDs, especially the 2007 editions “re-recorded at the original venues” (what for!?), is even more dreadful than the one on the DG CDs. The dynamic range is flattened to death! And the balance is by no means improved. Judging by the Fourth symphony alone, the problem with the balance was already there in the early SONY DVD (2000), but the limited dynamic range is largely a result of the re-recording procedure. Get the VHS from the 1980s if you can. They are probably superior to both DVD releases.

Bonus track: 1973, BPO, Unitel/DG, Live, DVDX2

Coming from the years between the EMI and the DG sets, these live performances are rather disappointing, at least by Karajan’s somewhat exalted standards. Neither the sound nor the performance lives up to the studio recordings. To be sure, they are hugely preferable to the videos with the VPO. But that doesn’t say much, does it?

(To be exact, there is one "set" more, with Philharmonia for EMI (1953-56), as well as isolated recordings of separate symphonies (Fourth for EMI with BPO from 1960, Sixth with BPO for DG from 1939 and with VPO for EMI from 1949), but these are of interest only to fanatical Karajan collectors who want to trace his development.)

Bottom line

Karajan’s Tchaikovsky may not be idiomatic enough for the connoisseurs, but for me great music transcends national borders (at least the ones between Russia and the West). I love Mravinsky’s grand vision, Rozhdestvensky’s devastating passion, Gergiev’s scary intensity (especially in the Pathetique) and even Svetlanov’s rushed brilliance, yet if I have to choose but one set, I have no doubt which one it will be. As a total experience, for me, Karajan from the 1970s tops them all with a vengeance. Whether one prefers the EMI or the DG sound is a matter of taste. I, for one, would love to combine the EMI strings with the rest from DG. But, like I said, you can’t win them all. Therefore, I wouldn’t want to be without either set. The other two sets are of limited historical (1960s) or visual (1980s) interest.