Karajan: In a Class by Himself

The recent death of conductor Herbert von Karajan ended a recording career that spanned a full half-century--exceeded in duration only by that of Leopold Stokowski. Quantitatively, Karajan was--and is likely to remain--in a class by himself, having made an estimated 800 recordings, with sales of 150 million copies.

He recorded at least a bit of nearly everything including, forgettably, the Baroque staples. But while one reads over and over of a primary identification with the core 19th-Century symphonic repertory of Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Bruckner and Richard Strauss, listeners who grew up in the 1950s associate the name of Karajan above all with opera. It is in that field that he may well have made his most enduring contributions to discographic history.

Consider the following mid-1950s trio from EMI/Angel, studio-made with London’s magnificently responsive Philharmonia Orchestra, and now on CD: Verdi’s “Falstaff” (49668, 2 discs)--Tito Gobbi in the title role--an interpretation of such darting lightness, wit and precision as to put all subsequent recorded efforts (including Karajan’s remake, c. 1980, for Philips) to shame. Then, with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf as prima donna, the first commercial edition of Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos” (69296, 2 CDs), an unbeatable combination of suavity and sinew. And the dazzlingly bright “Cosi fan Tutte” of Mozart (with whom Karajan would prove increasingly uncomfortable in coming years) featuring a dream ensemble including Schwarzkopf, Leopold Simoneau, Rolando Panerai and Sesto Bruscantini (69635, 3 CDs).

Indispensable too are a couple of souvenirs of live performances: the shatteringly intense 1956 Berlin “Lucia di Lammermoor,” with Callas, di Stefano, Panerai (available on several different labels), and the white-hot 1962 Salzburg Festival “Trovatore,” with Price, Corelli, Simionato and Bastianini (Price-Less 20791, 2 CDs).

These opera recordings disclose an incisiveness, an ear for dramatic pacing and just balances that would in subsequent decades give way to an obsessive desire for thickly textured, rhythmically sluggish washes of sound, irrespective of a specific score’s requirements. This soggy aural picture begins to assert itself in Karajan’s mannered Wagner “Ring,” made between 1967 and 1972, now available on a mass of Deutsche Grammophon CDs.

Better to recall the Karajan of the keen rhythmic edge and crystalline sonority or, broadly, treatment of the composer as an individual rather than as a reflection of the conductor’s ego. Cherishable examples--and there are some from the later years--include a grand and stormy 1959 Brahms Fourth Symphony, with the Philharmonia Orchestra (EMI/Angel 69228); the searing 1985 Vienna Philharmonic Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony (Deutsche Grammophon 415 348); hypnotically mysterious Sibelius, the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, from the late ‘70s with the Berlin Phil (EMI/Angel 69244).

To these should be added the somber but unfailingly mobile Berlin ’69 Prokofiev Fifth Symphony (DG 423 216); the sumptuous coupling (on EMI/Angel 69242) of Hindemith’s “Mathis der Maler” Symphony and the Bartok “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta” dating from the late-1950s; and the noble yet taut 1965 Brahms “German Requiem” (DG 427 252), the second of his four recordings of that work.

With his career so exhaustively documented by the microphones at every stage of its unfolding, certain scores were done over and over again, giving Karajan the opportunity to refine the life out of them. To cite the most obvious example, he recorded the Beethoven symphonies so often--the entire cycle at least five times--that only the most manic comparison shopper is able to keep them straight, or to care.

The Brahms symphonies approach this sort of death by multiplication as well, as do select works by Dvorak, Schubert and Richard Strauss.

Karajan achieved some of his finest latter-years work with repertory new to him. For instance, the Mahler Sixth and Ninth symphonies (DG 415 099 and 417 726, respectively, 2 CDs each), both dating from his last decade and both combining spontaneity with depth of expression. Remarkable too are the warmth and vigorousness of his 1979 recordings of the first three Tchaikovsky symphonies (DG, various packagings).

Karajan was, in his later productions, noted for manipulating singers to conform to his vision of opera as basically an orchestral form. If he did not go quite so far with his instrumental soloists, their individuality was nonetheless more often than not subordinated to his will.

Yet on one occasion he was confronted with talent so intimidating that he had no choice but to become part of an ensemble, joining Sviatoslav Richter, David Oistrakh and Mstislav Rostropovitch to create the monumental 1969 version of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto (EMI/Angel 69032).

At other--equally distant--times less glamorous associations produced felicitous results, such as Karajan’s DG teaming with the late Christian Ferras in the violin concertos of Sibelius (419871) and Tchaikovsky (423 224).

And, as further evidence of the humanity suspected to be lurking behind that parched-leather face, imperiously eyeing us from countless record jackets, try the Offenbach overtures supermaestro did, ever so lithely and insinuatingly, with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1981 (DG 400 044).