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In Reply to: RE: You make excellent points! posted by Brian Cheney on October 18, 2009 at 10:14:39
I haven't said that Karajan was spotless, only that I've never seen any authoritative evidence to suggest that he was rabidly pro-Nazi, which is what you've suggested below. He may have been; I just haven't seen the evidence.
Furtwangler was also snubbed after the war by many, and rightly so. Yet today, for some strange reason, he has many apologists.
I'll recast my original question: Why vilify Karajan, who may well have been a Nazi, but a relatively small-fry Nazi, while giving Furtwangler, who was more closely linked with Hitler and the Nazi hierarchy than any other musician, and was a big fish indeed, a free pass?
To put the question in a different way: Why can Music Lane have long threads about the artistic merits of people like Furtwangler, Mengelberg, Bohm, Jochum, Krauss, and many others, without anyone bringing up their close links to the Nazis, whereas almost any thread about Karajan takes a sharp detour on this subject?
Cheers,Ivan
"Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life." Mark Twain
Follow Ups:
Well, you got me there. I went off the deep end when the subject matter of Osborne's book (which appears to me a shameless whitewash) came up.
I know posters here who consider me a Karajan apologist, because I find merit in his recorded legacy and hold fond memories of the live performances with the VPO and BPO under vK I attended in Munich during the Sixties. Some of these posters are Jewish, and knowing what I know, I can't fault their stances.
...offer you a couple of Karajan anecdotes, Brian?
The first time I heard him conduct was with the BPO at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris, spring 1972. I was in one of the cheap-o seats, up where the oxygen was thin, so when the concert ended, I hurried downstairs to get a closer look at von K.
I arrived to stand at the side of the stage, just as he was leaving after his first round of bows. He exited via a side door, where he was greeted by two assistants, one of whom stood behind him and draped his shoulders with an overcoat, the other of whom stood before him, offering him two hairbrushes, and holding a small mirror up to him. He brushed his hair, checked his appearance in the mirror, then gave a curt nod. The assistant behind him removed the overcoat. The assistant before him took the hairbrushes. Karajan went out for his second round of bows.
I was the only member of the audience who could see this little ceremony. I was vastly amused by what was clearly a practiced drill, catering to K's vanity.
The last time I heard him conduct was at the Royal Festival Hall, also with the BPO, in London, June 1987. (My wife was with me, only a couple of weeks away from giving birth to our first child.) Karajan was extremely ill (he died just two years later), and had difficulty walking and standing, but was determined to make his own way, unassisted. He had the members of the first violin section hold out their arms as he made his way to the podium, gripping one arm after another for support.
At the podium, he'd had a small leather pad installed on a bar behind him. He leaned against it to conduct, so that technically he was standing, not sitting, for the whole of the concert.
Again, this was clearly a practiced drill catering to his vanity--yet this time, there was something very moving about it. The concert (Brahms Second and Fourth) had both of us in tears.
I'd love to hear of your experiences hearing him conduct in the 60s.
Cheers,Ivan
"Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life." Mark Twain
Before I relate my personal experiences, the following true story is most apropos:
An elderly distinguished violinist dies and ascends to heaven. St Peter recognizes who he is immediately and invites him to join the Heavenly Philharmonic. The man notices the entire violin section is filled with great virtuosi from the past and agrees to take a last row chair.
Before he can sit down the violinist sees a quite aged, stooped figure with a baton heading slowly for the podium. He turns to St Peter and asks: "Who is that?"
St Peter doesn't bother to look and explains: "That's God. He thinks he's von Karajan!"
...the punchline would have been "Toscanini".
Cheers,Ivan
"Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life." Mark Twain
Well, I always heard that story with Karajan's name, but no matter.
My personal best Karajan story dates from the 1963 VPO/vK concert in the Kongressaal of the Deutsches Museum, a squarish, dry sounding 3,000 seat auditorium designed for conventions. After a smashing "Don Juan", the conductor took bows long enough for us music students to rush the stage. I had no qualms elbowing people aside, and ended up holding onto the podium while standing directly in front of first row center seats. Then amazingly, vK signalled for an encore and gave the downbeat for the "Blue Danube" The VPO strings sat an arm's length away and the performance was magical. While soaking that up, I found myself nose to heel with the conductor's small feet, shod in exquisite patent leather, no bigger than a size 7. I then noticed he was sporting 2" heels. The man had lifts on!! Stupified, I paid little attention when vK sprang into the air for a sweeping gesture and landed squarely on my left hand.
I didn't wash it for a week.
Cheers,Ivan
"Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life." Mark Twain
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