Customer Reviews

Beethoven: 9 Symphonies / Overtures ~ Karajan

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Reviewers often certify that the 1963/4 Karajan/Berliners cycle is far and away the best. I suspect this general opinion is based mostly on their awe for that version of the 9th symphony, and such an opinion is reasonable. The debate rages on, however. I personally think that each of Karajan's recorded cycles was a substantial improvement on the previous version, for two reasons: the steady improvements in recording technology which gave greater transparency to the sound, and the evolution of the interpretation by the most incredible marriage of conductor and ensemble in modern musicmaking history. By the way, there is a fourth cycle by Karajan with the Philharmonia (producer Walter Legge's creation in London, and also led by Klemperer) recorded in the 50s by EMI. It is even swifter than the 60s Berlin version, but not "better."

Karajan's forte was with the 7th and 9th symphonies. They "make" each of the sets, and the last versions could not have conceivably been "better." They are not to be dismissed. They are arguably the best performances ever recorded, ranking with the best performances by Furtwaengler, Walter and Klemperer, his only rivals. (Toscanini was the Horowitz of the symphony orchestra; his creations were of something else, not quite what was intended by the composer -- but that's another story.) Klemperer's "live" 9th from 1961 (on BBC Testament) is, I'd say, the truer, more authentic realization: the 3rd movement remarkably (and perhaps exclusively) up-tempo and musical, the 4th showing its debts to earlier masters (even Haendel) as it forges the modern form.

While Klemperer is unadorned pure music, Karajan is the master of power. When the music demands it, say in Bruckner and Beethoven especially, he is unequalled in creating the maximum effect. His tempi are less flexible than Klemperer's which clearly embrace the dance elements. Instead Karajan can be described as purposeful in his rhythmic progressions, always feeding a larger theme. In the classical terms, Klemperer is more Dionysian; Karajan, more Apollonian. Both approaches result in glorious renditions, never surpassed, only rarely equalled. Bruno Walter's renditions either in mono with the NYPO (Phila. Orch. in the 6th) or in stereo with the Columbia Symphony are arguably as wonderful and definitive as any others, and more subjectively, even lovingly handled. A few of the performances of the handpicked-for-Walter (largely LA Phil) Columbia Symphony Orchestra have been held in diminished regard by some, unfairly I think. Certainly most, I would say all of the Walter/CSO recordings are among the most beautiful recordings of the Romantic repertoire ever made. Perhaps detractors are responding to the close miking employed by CBS, and perhaps because Walter discouraged showy playing some feel they sometimes lack a certain edge when compared to Walter's recordings earlier in life. (Recorded rehearsals show his later recordings were exactly what he wanted from the CSO, not some unintended shortcoming.) It could also simply be the result of comparing an unretouched recording of a top-rate orchestra to the patched-if-necessary perfect recordings of probably the best orchestra ever, the BPO. It should be noted in this regard that the first Karajan/BPO undertakings in the early sixties were not nearly as polished, the orchestra showing it was not so unlike the Philharmonia, NYPO or CSO. Of the Walter/CSO recordings, the least favorite seems to be the Ninth. A couple of missed trumpet notes to mention, and a very slow, or perhaps heavily indulged third movement. The last movement is taken slower than most until the end, but that is not necessarily wrong. I happen to enjoy it. Klemperer was known for "ponderous" tempi, and I disagree with the aspersion. In those days, flashy, edgy interpretations were somewhat frowned upon, which made the renditions by Toscannini stand out all the more. I compare Toscannini unfavorably for what I consider flashy, often bombastic performances. On the other hand, Karajan can be quite slow, say in Mahler compared with Walter; and Klemperer can be quite swift in concert particularly in the 3rd movement of the Beethoven Ninth.

For technical sonic reference, the Karajan/BPO recordings win hands down, and the Walter/CSO recordings are a distant second. The others mentioned suffer from the technical limitations of their times, Furtwaengler's suffering the most, but remain very enjoyable notwithstanding.

These performances are precious, and I hope they remain in the Amazon catalogue for a very long time.

Most critics these days favor Karajan's 1963 integral cycle, but I prefer this, his final of his 4 complete recordings of the symphonies, made in the early to mid-80's. Sound quality is stunning, and the BPO achieves a beauty of sound rarely surpassed, due primarily to K's leadership. This cycle will probably go out of print soon, since DG is heavily promoting the '63 set, so get it now especially if you are a Karajan fan.

Karajan recorded the complete cycle of Beethovens 9 symphonies no less than three times: first, in the early sixties, next in the mid seventies and finally in the mid eighties, this recording. Karajan was always at the cutting edge of recording techniques. It was only natural for him to be among the first to embrace the new digital technology, that was the basis of the compact disc - incidentally, his "Zauberflöte" (Mozart) became the first DDD recording to be released on CD by the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. One of the main reasons for Karajan to do no less than three cycles of Beethoven-symphonies was his desire to leave a state-of-the-art legacy on record (or CD), and as he died in 1989, it became a race against time. It is potentially interesting to be able to view the approach to these hallmark works by the same conductor at three stages of his career. Sadly, it is all too obvious that Karajan had nothing to add to the previous cycles. The only advantage is the polished, deluxe sound that comes from the all-digital DDD recording techniques. The music-making itself has an almost rheumatic quality to it - Karajan's approach to Beethoven was always a rather dry, polished one, far from that of his predecessor as "conductor-in-chief" of the BPO, Wilhelm Furtwängler. At this advanced stage of his career, there was hardly anything left but the polished sound and the precise conducting - no joy or life. This is not to say that Karajan wasn't a great conductor. To my mind, he was perhaps the greatest, also as a conductor of Beethoven. But get the recordings he made during the sixties and early seventies, which, I believe was his best period. Many of those recordings - and there are LOTS of them - are available on disc under the "Originals" label by DGG.

This recording shows the mastery of a lifetime of superb conducting by Karajan. The orchsetra is perfectly balanced; the technical execution is top knotch. And the voices are perfect. In my opinion this is still one of the finest symphonies ever written. And this recording by Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic is one of the best there is.

"Scarlett, before the war, life was beautiful. There was a glamor to it, a perfection and a completeness and a symmetry to it like Grecian art..."

Somehow this captures Karajan's view of music and what he devoted his life to create, or to preserve. I think that some people misunderstand Karajan as cold or too mechanical because they see music from a different perspective from the get-go. Karajan worshiped music as an objective beauty that is essentially transcendental. He was its slave. He made it and spread it. He promoted it. He considered it a privilege to be making music. Ah, music --- conceived by composers who heard imaginary sounds in their head (and since they were imaginary, they were perfect sounds - especially valid in Beethoven's case, one might argue), wrote them down the best as they can to transmit this beauty, and the conductor, along with his orchestra, was supposed to reproduce this ideal sound that originally sang inside the composers' heads. Listening to this recording of Beethoven symphonies, I can't help but feel that this is ultimately how Karajan viewed music. Christa Ludwig said that "Bernstein was music; Karajan made music." This was not meant to degrade Karajan as an inferior musician - as some suppose - but to capture the fundamental difference in their approach to music. If you view music as an instrument used to transmit human emotions and human thoughts, you would easily appreciate Bernstein's approach (or for that matter, most conductor's approach, including perhaps Furtwangler's). But if you view music as a goddess who expresses itself through human instrument, then you can better see where Karajan comes from. His music is like a statue of a Greek goddess, with her big round eyes, chiseled nose, coral mouth, and a perfect symmetry to her entire figure. There is a sense of grandeur and glory in this kind of beauty. Nowadays we might think this approach superficial, even hypocritical, and so we reflect whatever is in our hearts and call them equally good just because they are genuine reflections. This is post-modernism at work. This is why the newer generation of conductors often conduct Mahler better than they do Beethoven. Anyways, perhaps Karajan's own defense works the best:

"Many of my critics write, and will go on writing, that I conduct too lavishly. That may be so. During my day people have been somewhat extravagant in terms of art and music. I believed this was the right attitude to adopt, and so I've supported it. It has something to do with respect towards art, and if this respect is old-fashioned, so be it, I've no intention of dissociating myself from it. When I was young, we approached music with a sense of awe and celebrated each such approach as a special event. I can see, of course, that times have changed, that people don't want to know about respect any longer, and that it is not in keeping with the times to celebrate a concert. People are going to great lengths to make themselves ugly, to wear ugly clothes, and to feel precious little enthusiasm for beauty. I've been observing this for years...I know there's nothing that can be done at present to change all this. But no one can expect me to seek a polite or understanding explanation for this, still less that I should agree with it and conform. I belong to a different age. And what I want to preserve for myself and posterity also belongs to a different age."

So I guess we know how he would respond to certain celebrities of our day... He is probably not the only one, though. Furtwangler reportedly told Kempff that he cannot conduct if it did not sound beautiful. Kempff himself was mesmerized by the sheer sound that the piano made.

But one may argue: can Karajan truly be objective? He analyzed musical scores to no end, getting a grasp of its conceptual structure and flow through both logic and intuition. He built his idol and poured himself into it as well. Still, his approach remains distinct from what is popular in our own time. I do wish we had more sense of standard and absoluteness nowadays, not just in music, but in many other ways as well.

Now back to this recording. It is imperfect in many ways. It has lost some of the terrifying drive/energy in the 50s/60s recordings, and is not so light on its feet. But it still has that profound sense of pulse. His treatment of these symphonies in general is very serious. There is a degree of grandeur and majesty in the 2nd and 4th symphonies, for example, that I did not quite expect these works to exhibit. For his fifth, the notes are held out quite long, and my first impression is that Karajan does not want the music to stop. He wants no pause in between the notes, but wants them all to be connected. The result is quite interesting. By the way, my mom likes this approach better than the 60s recording, saying that she can feel it more - whatever that might mean.

The 3rd is great. The 7th is especially magnificent, perhaps the best done among the popular symphonies.

Unlike the majority, I've always liked Karajan's take on the 6th. I heard Bernard Haitink's version once and could not stand his fourth movement, which had none of Karajan's ethereal qualities that made it so sublime for me. This particular 6th is less evocative of imagery, but rather conveys the feelings. I can't help but feel that this is actually closer to Beethoven's original intentions, which was not to paint a picture but convey his feelings. Yet I loved the picture that the 60s Pastoral painted. Which do I prefer then? I don't know...

The 9th --- true, as SFL says, from a Beethovenian symphony point of view, it is very much lacking, especially the sublime 4th movement. The orchestral beauty is what truly comes through. Everything that Beethoven wrote is faithfully portrayed, in all layers, with an expressive and beautiful orchestral sound. But the 9th needs the human voices that sing together to make it truly profound and inspiring.

What is special and striking about this set is definitely the orchestral sound. Its expressiveness, its fullness, and the tonal beauty are simply mesmerizing. When I first started listening to this set, I kept on being distracted by the sound itself, and had to listen repeatedly to get back to the music. In this Karajan is like a master violin-maker, (say, Stradivarius, who polished his violins no less than 7 times - if I remember correctly). He found the best starting material for himself - the Berlin Phil, and for 35 years polished it repeatedly to make it the orchestra that it was. Karajan idolized music, true, but he also adored his orchestra. Vladimir Ashkenazy once said that the only fault Karajan had was that he trusted his orchestra too much. Perhaps. Karajan's tyranny made Berlin Phil into what it was, and it probably had the most number of reasons to complain against him. But it also had the least right to do so. Listening to this recording - whether you like Karajan's conducting/interpretation or not - you would have little doubt that this orchestra is at the very top. Just look at where it is today - no longer controversial, and no longer so distinct.

I reviewed most of these performances in their individual CD releases but I wanted to put together my opinion on this cycle as a whole. By the early to mid 80s, a lot of critics had had enough of the Karajan machine. I can't blame them. Karajan build a massive fortress just on Beethoven alone. There were dozens of other composers he performed and recorded endlessly but Beethoven was a Karajan industry all it's own. Apart from the few one offs he recorded of symphonies 7 and 9 for Decca and EMI respectively, he really started the production line of the cycle proper with the mono set on EMI in the late 50s.

That EMI cycle with the Philharmonia was quickly superseded just a few years later with the powerhouse Berlin Philharmonic production on DG in the early 1960s. The DG set has become a primary recommendation in this repertoire and has not been surpassed by anyone including Karajan himself for almost 50 years. Creating a sensational Beethoven summary wasn't enough for Karajan and in the late 1960s to early 70s he switched his attention to filmmaking. He wanted to create and preserve a new Beethoven cycle on film. However this time Beethoven's music played second fiddle to Karajan's massive ego. Sure the performances were almost as good on film as on record but the filming techniques exposed Karajan's fascination with himself above that of the music. The orchestral musicians were obscured and dehumanized in favor of many lingering shots of Karajan in close up, eyes closed. He finally does open his eyes in the finale of the 9th however.

But Karajan wasn't done. In the mid to late 1970s, Quadrophonic sound was a brief buzzword as the next step beyond mere two channel stereo. Karajan seized the opportunity and decided to record another Beethoven cycle! But when Quad sound fell through, Karajan went ahead and recorded a new cycle anyway... the reason was he thought the Berlin Philharmonic had grown in their abilities to create the sound he demanded. He was probably right as the BPO was even a finer ensemble in the 70s than the decade prior, but the new Beethoven recordings failed to say anything new at all. The sound quality actually was a step down from the previous cycle because of the difficult acoustics of the Berlin Hall, in contrast to the spacious acoustics of the famous church where the 60s cycle was made. Some listeners do favor the 1970s Karajan 9th over his others. I do not. As plush and energetic as the records from the 70s are, they sound like gray copies next to the youthful, vigorous 60s set.

Now we come to the main topic of this review. In the early 1980s, digital was all the rage and Karajan scrambled to record YET ANOTHER Beethoven cycle for posterity in the best possible sound. The original releases were horrid, restricted, edgy digital nightmares. Just a few years later, DG did Karajan proud with the remastered re-release in this fine Karajan Gold collection. It sure does look fancy on the shelf, but is it really gold or tinfoil? Let's compare the final Karajan Beethoven to the earlier achievements.

SYMPHONY 1 - Definitely a step down from the 60s version, lacking inner life and some precision. I would take this Symphony 1 over most of today's conductors but the older conductor is not a match for his younger self.

SYMPHONY 2 - Same story here. Lots of adrenaline and yet I still miss the fire and charisma of the earlier Karajan.

SYMPHONY 3 - This is a major success on the other hand. Perhaps Karajan's finest Eroica? It's all up to each listener but I reach for this over the other Karajan Eroicas. The digital sound is very good. The brass are blistering. The first movement is very heroic. The funeral march grim and intense. The scherzo could use a tad more brio but I can live with that. The finale is outstanding. Overall, a highlight of this digital cycle.

SYMPHONY 4 - Very well done but not as special as the 60s version, which was really fantastic.

SYMPHONY 5 - Massive and brutal just as usual but lacking in some finesse. Some of the ensemble is sloppy. The transition into the finale has no mystery. The 60s Karajan is superior clearly and one of the greatest ever put on record. The 70s version is just too slick and smooth for my tastes.

SYMPHONY 6 - This is definitely Karajan's worst Pastoral. The first movement is even more breathless than before as if he wants get it over with. The scherzo repeat is deleted unlike in the 70s version. The thunderstorm rages but the heart is missing in this Pastoral.

SYMPHONY 7 - Sloppy work here in the alegretto, slurred string lines, the famous Karajan soup is ever present. The brass and timpani in the finale are mushy and hidden underneath a sheen of strings. The 60s version is far better articulated and overall more exciting. That's one of the best 7ths ever made.

SYMPHONY 8 - Fantastic performance. Just as intense as his previous work but with digital sound! I just wish the inner movements were faster in the manner of Toscanini.

CORIOLAN, FIDELIO, LEONORE 3 OVERTURES - The overtures fill the gap on the CD with symphony 8 and they are all superb. Karajan can't match Furtwangler's intensity in the Coriolan but it's still fine work. Fidelio is well done and as I have a fondness for the 3rd Leonore Overture, I'm glad to say this is an outstanding performance with a manic, house flattening coda!

SYMPHONY 9 - Karajan always did an inspired 9th and he's no slouch here either. The first movement is ferocious and cataclysmic. The scherzo tough but lacking in some accents from brass and timpani. The adagio is very beautiful but some may think it too glossy compared to the spirituality of Furtwangler. The finale is rather aggressive instead of joyous. Karajan finally got a good sound out of the chorus here. In the 70s version, the chorus is closely miked and sounds like it's barking into the microphones. In the 60s version, the chorus is somewhat murky and spread around. Here in the 80s, the chorus sounds acoustically right, finally, even if they don't sing joyfully. However, they must have forgotten about the soloists because these are the weakest singers Karajan ever worked with in any of his many 9ths. The previous accounts are far superior in this respect.

Although many critics would say this cycle was an unnecessary luxury on Karajan's part, what with the glut of Beethoven recordings already at the time, I think the years have acquitted this cycle very well. It is perhaps the strongest of the traditional big orchestra sets made in the digital era. That doesn't mean it's the most important of the digital era since the time from the 1980s to now has been dominated by the period instrument and historically informed fads. Gardiner is likely the most important of the period cycles and take your pick of the others. I find a lot of Beethoven since the 1980s to be very shallow. Just to think, critics of the time thought Karajan's last musings on this music were shallow! We have lost a lot with this great conductor's passing. There will probably never be another perfectionistic over-achiever like him as far as classical music goes.

I think that this is a technically outstanding recording. There are those who argue that Karajan's 1960 series is better from a purely performance standpoint, but the all digital process really shines here. If you are considering getting one or the other, get the Karajan Gold.

Herbert von Karajan recorded the entire cycle of Beethoven symphonies four times during his long career, and this, the final one, summarizes his attitudes about both Beethoven, and recording technology in general.

Karajan was always keen to explore new recording technologies, and was the first major conductor to champion the compact disc. His recording of "The Magic Flute" was Deutsche Grammophon's first digital release, and in his final years he made a special effort to record much of his core repertoire in the new digital format. At the center of this repertoire was the set of Beethoven symphonies.

As a Beethoven interpreter, Karajan presented listeners with consistent, if not overly passionate readings of the symphonies. His "creamy" orchestral sound is very smooth, but not to everyone's taste. Most critics agree that his 1963 cycle is the best of the four that he recorded, and yet this final digital cycle has its own merits, and should not be overlooked entirely.

This set arguably contains his finest rendition of the 5th symphony, along with a stunning and powerful 9th, and a very successful Eroica. Karajan's choice of tempos for the Pastorale has always been controversial, so those who disliked his earlier recordings of it will probably not like this final one either. Finally, his refusal to observe most repeats will probably offend some purist listeners.

Overall, then, this is an outstanding Beethoven cycle that remains a first choice for those wishing to own a complete set of the symphonies in lush digital sound.

You'll not here playing this virtuosic and beautiful anymore. Tempos are right and the sound of the Berliners is awesome. A great set. Listen to the audio samples here and I'm sure you'll agree. Norrington? Jarvi? Vanska? Gardiner? Maybe so, but check these out. Unmatchable playing and conducting. Thanks HvK.

Although the 1963 performance is considered by many the best of Karajan's cycles of the Beethoven symphonies,I won't get into that as is all purely based on personal tastes. However, the sound quality of a cd is easily ranked, and I, and most people for that matter, find the sound of this 1980's set is much better than the older one.

I own both cycles and I find myself listening to this newer set most of the time, when I have made my own comparisons this one always comes on top.