Great Conductors: Karajan = BRAHMS: Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68; BEETHOVEN: Leonore Overture No. 3 in C, Op. 72a; R. STRAUSS: Salome: Dance of the Seven Veils – Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam/Herbert von Karajan – Naxos

by | Dec 15, 2008 | Classical Reissue Reviews | 0 comments

Great Conductors: Karajan = BRAHMS: Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68; BEETHOVEN: Leonore Overture No. 3 in C, Op. 72a;  R. STRAUSS: Salome: Dance of the Seven Veils – Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam/Herbert von Karajan

Naxos 8.111298, 69:18 [Not Distr. in USA] ****:

Record producer Mark Obert-Thorn has resuscitated some of the early Polydor inscriptions of Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989), those dating 6-17 September 1943, when the Nazi occupation held Holland captive, and the flamboyant Willem Mengelberg reigned supreme over the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Karajan had begun his recording career in 1938 with the Staatskapelle Berlin; but even here, in a foreign venue, the Karajan penchant for quick, slick, unruffled lines makes itself immediately apparent. The Toscanini influence takes palpable form in the driven linearity of the Brahms figures, only occasionally softening to permit a tender phrase to intrude on its tragic journey. The muscular rhythmic pulse having been established, it does not very, even while Karajan exploits a gorgeous sonority for its own virtuosic effect.

The seamless side joins by Obert-Thorn add to the streamlined tension and graduated propulsion that Karajan gleans from the Concertgebouw, that particular quality as much obligated to Furtwaengler as to the Italian master’s furious style. The Andante proceeds with expressive finesse, the strings, flute, and oboe emitting nary a rough edge or false note. The occasional slide Karajan permits–given the luxury of sound–might well bear comparison to Stokowski’s Philadelphia period. An easy fluency marks the Un poco Allegro third movement, the woodwinds chirping over the five-bar phrases with bucolic gentility. The brief excursion into martial energies segues forth and back again, da capo, with barely a diaphanous ripple. Classic, chiseled restraint rules the last movement, a study in graduated tempi and dynamics. Thoroughly contrived, every note been pre-conceived into a divine plan, a wordless drama of darkness and light. Pizzicati and pedal points yield to huge, rhetorical gestures and lithe, tripping figures, the chorale theme and its subsequent development. Karajan manages to generate crisp excitement as well, not just girth and rounded periods. Huge gestures, heroic nobility, claims the final pages, a rousing performance that marked the first of four subsequent perspectives on this seminal work.

The Beethoven Leonore Overture No. 3 and the Salome excerpt comprise two of the four remaining inscriptions Karajan made at the Concertgebouw, the others having been the Strauss Don Juan and the Overture to Der Freischuetz. The Beethoven balances solemn, finely modulated (political) ceremony and the incremental calls to freedom, the latter of which reaches a seething, abandoned fury in the coda. Karajan had performed the Strauss Salome in 1929, his debut year; so this sensual excerpt comes to him as a natural exponent of the Strauss style. Virtuosic, slinky, eminently coloristic, the music moves suavely, fully exploiting the instrumental and dynamic range of the ensemble Mengelberg had honed into one of the pillars of an ill-fated Europe.    

–Gary Lemco

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