Program: Symphony No. 33 in B-flat Major, K. 319; Symphony No. 28 in C Major, K. 200; Symphony No. 29 in E-flat Major, K. 543;
Bonus: Serenata Notturna, K. 239
Performers: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Karl Boehm
Studio: DGG DVD B0006903-09 (Distr. by Universal)
Video Format: 4:3; Color, Black&White (Documentary)
Audio: PCM Stereo, DTS 5.1
Extras: Documentary: Karl Boehm–“I Remember”
Length: 68 minutes; Bonus: 72 minutes
Rating: ****
The Symphony No. 33 (1779) with Boehm dates from 14 April 1969, directed by Arne Arnbom as a studio recording with no audience. The camera is thus free to roam among the participants, zooming in quite close for Boehm’s placid demeanor, as well as for the various instrumental soli, as in the lovely wind choirs of the Andante moderato. Mozart composed the B-flat Symphony is his less preferred venue of Salzburg. Alternately sophisticated and bucolic, the music sings under Boehm with a facility of execution entirely stylistic. Mozart himself added the jaunty Menuetto and Trio in 1785 to the three-movement form. The oboes and bassoons stand out nicely in the video. The last movement bubbles in Mozart’s typically (Viennese) fashion, the spirited figures and melos easily echoing aspects of the C Major Symphony K. 200.
Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 from April 17, 1968 is another studio performance, the orchestra on a green platform against a light blue-gray backdrop. Boehm plays this symphony, whose grand lines adumbrate Beethoven’s Eroica in the same key, without the first movement repeat. The tempo set by Boehm is quite brisk, and the opening camera work keeps us at a distance. Only when the Allegro enters does the camera frame Boehm’s methodical gestures, The camerawork could have been stolen from Bell Telephone Hour kinescopes. Again, the model for the phrasing and leisurely panorama may well have been Bruno Walter, whose fourth assistant Boehm had been in Munich. The Andante exploits the wonderful ambiance between woodwinds and strings of the VPO, a silken experience, requiring only the barest glance or acknowledgment from Boehm. Hearty, assertive Menuet, with lovely camera from the clarinet in the Trio to Boehm’s baton hand. The metrically knotty Allegro finale has pace, energy, cosmic wit, and clearly defined bustle. Boehm’s cues are a model of expert finesse.
I myself discovered the tender beauty of Symphony No. 28 from a Bruno Walter CBS LP. For Boehm’s performance from 1970 we are before a live audience at the Musikvereinsaal, Vienna. Gorgeously smooth string running figures break off for woodwind melodies. This lovely symphony was composed for Mozart’s often abhorred Salzburg in 1774. Various commentators have compared its gossamer wings to incidental from Mendelssohn. Glib and light-hearted, the rocket figures race and then halt for the two-bar phrases. Boehm’s slow movements in Mozart have been consistently elegant, and this is no exception. This Andante glows with regal affection. A gentle march rhythm informs the Menuetto; then we are off to the charming races for the Presto, with its own rarified melody. “Passionate but always without sentimentality” is Boehm’s definition of the Mozart style in the accompanying documentary. This maxim Boehm lived and breathed.
The Bonus track is hefty: first, we have the ceremonial Serenata Notturna, forceful without becoming austere. Two first violins provide some intimacy, the camera picking up the plucked strings against the tympani. The martial Menuetto drips with Vienna style. The concertino string quartet could be carved in whipped cream. This lovely sound comes back in the Rondo-Allegretto, extensive and stately in its quiet grandeur.
The documentary I Remember proves to be a rather “selective” memory, covering the highlights of Boehm’s artistic pedigree, his musical parents and influences, but ignoring his decidedly National Socialist political leanings, for which Boehm remained staunchly unapologetic to the end of his days. Boehm mentions in talks he gave in 1969, 1975, and 1980 several influential musicians: Hans Richter, Bruno Walter, and his personal mentor, Richard Strauss. We have rare black and white movies of Richard Strauss conducting Der Rosenkavalier (1948) and playing an excerpt from Daphne (dedicated to Boehm) at the keyboard. Boehm moved from Graz, to Hamburg, to Munich, to Dresden, and then to Vienna, even Bayreuth (1962). His refusal to relinquish international venues strictly for Salzburg led to a rift, but later Salzburg wanted Boehm for precisely his international prestige.
With no subtitles, the documentary has commentary in English, but all of Boehm’s and Karajan’s remarks (in tribute) are untranslated and test your German. The word “redlichkeit” (integrity) appears more than any other word to describe Boehm’s scrupulous, even pedantic commitment to Mozart – to any score in fact. Nice excerpts from Abduction from the Seraglio (with Maria Ewing), Fidelio, Rosenkavalier, Mozart’s Requiem (in a heavily “Romantic” interpretation), and lastly, Boehm’s dying project, a fully etched performance for posterity of Elektra, given two months before his death in 1981 at age 86. A dutiful, conscientious musician, we might still have reservations about the man. The photo of his being embraced by an aged Leonard Bernstein bespeaks some kind of forgiveness, I think. (But remember, Bernstein hugged everybody…Ed.)
— Gary Lemco
