The 100th Anniversary celebrations in memory of Maestro Herbert von Karajan are now in full swing and properly coming to a head on the actual date of his birth: April 5 (1908). His admirers are taking the opportunity to remind everyone of his greatness and his detractors are seizing the moment to tell the world what a monster he was (“The Trouble With Karajan,” BBC Music Magazine, 3/08; Norman Lebrecht, “Don’t Turn a Monster into a Myth,” Evening Standard, 1/30/08). And the record companies – DG, EMI and Decca – are ransacking their vaults to recycle all the Karajan material they can put their hands on; it is now or never to make a few bucks more out of a catalogue favorite from days gone by.

In the interest of full disclosure I must remind readers that I have a horse in this race too; my 1975 book on Karajan has been revised and expanded and republished as Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar, iUniverse, 2007. There are other new Karajan books too, mostly of the coffee table variety with lots of pictures on glossy pages.

Among the Karajan recordings being released in 2008 there are very few that are entirely new. As far as CDs are concerned the best that DG could come up with was a Bach Double Violin Concerto with Ferras and Schwalbé from 1966. They are also issuing some live performances of Fidelio and Boris Godunov but these have been around for years on smaller labels. The DVDs scheduled for release this year by DG are from Unitel’s back catalogue and all of them were previously issued on Laser Disc or VHS.

The most interesting material seems to be from Universal Japan but it is not scheduled for North American release. Included are some live performances from 1954 with Karajan conducting the NHK Symphony, and from 1979 and 1988 with Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. But there may be more to come later this year. Look here for an up-to-date compilation of new Karajan commemorative releases.

To my mind, one of the most informative Karajan commemorative items was a conversation with conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt published in Der Spiegel (3/26/08). On the face of it, Karajan and Harnoncourt would seem to be musical opposites. Harnoncourt was and still is fanatical about studying period instruments and performance practice while Karajan apparently spent little time worrying about musicology and had no interest in original instruments. It has also been rumored for years that Karajan felt so strongly about the issue that he would not allow Harnoncourt to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic or participate in the Salzburg Festival. This ‘fact’ was taken to be evidence of Karajan’s autocratic temperament and proof that he systematically crushed his rivals. The Harnoncourt interview reveals that the truth is rather more complex than the foregoing.

In the first place Harnoncourt and Karajan knew each other rather well and often worked together. The story begins in Vienna. Karajan was the principal conductor of the Vienna Symphony in the early 1950s and the twenty-three year old cellist Nikolaus Harnoncourt came to audition for Karajan along with about twenty other candidates. Karajan put Harnoncourt through an incredibly long and taxing audition which included the entire first movement of the Dvorak Concerto. Apparently Karajan was satisfied and Harnoncourt got the job.

With Karajan conducting Harnoncourt played a Beethoven Symphony Cycle as a member of the Vienna Symphony. The interpretations were closer to Toscanini than to Furtwängler, according to Harnoncourt, and in the Beethoven rehearsals Karajan was just as demanding as he had been in the audition.

Harnoncourt also played in some of Karajan’s famous Vienna performances of the Bach B Minor Mass and the St. Matthew Passion. He admired Karajan’s hard work but disagreed with his sense of style. At the same time Harnoncourt had formed the Concentus Musicus and was beginning to give his own performances of Bach’s works and to make recordings. And Harnoncourt’s scholarly Bach was widely praised especially as compared with Karajan’s. For those in the Karajan camp scholarship be damned; Harnoncourt was seen to be a traitor for upstaging the Maestro. But Harnoncourt didn’t blame Karajan himself for the conflict between them and apparently Karajan had not spoken ill of Harnoncourt. In the interview referred to here, Harnoncourt noted that when he encountered Karajan alone (i.e., away from his entourage) hiking in the mountains he was very friendly and they got on splendidly.

As the years went by Harnoncourt began to move beyond the world of period instruments and was frequently engaged to conduct many of the major orchestras While Harnoncourt was a favorite in Amsterdam and Vienna he never seemed to appear in Salzburg or Berlin. Could it be that Karajan was indicating his disapproval of Harnoncourt’s approach to music? Harnoncourt prefers to think that Karajan’s people were more to blame. As long as Karajan’s widow Eliette controls Karajan’s papers and other memorabilia it will probably be a long time before the truth about such matters is fully revealed.

The Karajan 100th Anniversary is receiving a lot of attention but one wonders how well Karajan will be remembered in another 100 years. After all, he was only an interpreter and the only body of work he has left us is in the form of recordings and films. Will they be enjoyed and studied far into the future? Are the performances that good that they will be appreciated by those who never saw him conduct? I believe they are. In my book I have singled out a number of Karajan recordings and films: Sibelius Symphony No. 5 (1965), Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 (1976), Bruckner Symphony No. 7(1989) and Bruckner Symphony No. 8 (1988). There are many more I could have chosen.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the vast catalogue of Karajan recordings. To truly take the measure of the man and his exceptional conducting, it is best to single out just one or two of his performances at a time and give them your full attention. For April 5, 2008 let me just add an additional selection of CDs and DVDs which seem to me to exemplify extraordinary interpretative mastery:

Sibelius: Valse Triste [BPO (1983), Sony Classical SVD 46401 (DVD)]
Verdi: Il Trovatore [Kabaivanska/Cossotto/Domingo, VPO (1978), TDK: DV-CLOPIT (DVD)]
Puccini: La Bohème [Freni/Pavarotti, BPO (1973), Decca 421 049 (CD)]
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” [BPO (1982), Sony Classical SVD 48434 (DVD)]
Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 [VPO (1978), DG 073 4395 (DVD)]
Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” [BPO (1977), EMI 7 64325 2 (CD)]
Josef Strauss: Delirien [VPO (1987), Sony Classical SVD 45985 (DVD)]

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