# Karajan - Myth and Magic



## DavidA

A 90 minute documentary 'Karajan Myth and Magic' is being shown at 7-30pm on friday december 5th. Set the recorders!


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## Vaneyes

We need a little more information.

Later edit: Here 'tis. BBC4. Don't know whether others outside of the UK will be able to view it at BBC website after the TV showing December 5.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04tfvwp


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## hpowders

Country? Time zone?


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## Pugg

hpowders said:


> Country? Time zone?


*BBC four is The UK *, timezone over there is *Greenwich Mean Time.*


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## Pip

Thanks for the Heads-up David.


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## DavidA

Pip said:


> Thanks for the Heads-up David.


Sorry I forgot to include the channel. The Radio Times says it is brilliant documentary. We shall see!


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## Haydn man

Pip said:


> Thanks for the Heads-up David.


I second that also


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## Guest

Here's an article on the subject:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/to...rajan-film-john-bridcut-controversy-continues


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## DavidA

Anyone see the documentary? It was very good as they concentrated on the people who actually worked with him and played under him rather than a load of whinging critics who had an axe to grind. What came across from the players was the sheer musical power of the man, his ability to create music. Of course, he was an egomaniac, no-one could deny. But no-one who actually played under him had a bad word to say about his music making. I heard something on the radio afterwards with some cringing critic compl;aiming that they needed people who could give an 'objective' assessment. No doubt the critics were miffed that they were left out for eh discussion. But it was good to hear from people who were actually doing the job - Harnoncourt, et al, rather than a load of self-opinionated 'experts'!


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## DavidA

Edited as double post


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## Pip

I watched this with ever growing admiration, for the way it was made, for the selection of the musicians, conductors and record producers who were chosen to recount their experiences and to see the Great man still held in high esteem by his peers and co-workers. Like DavidA, I was very glad at the complete lack of critics to throw cold water over everything.
I grew up with Karajan, I first saw him in 1967 and have been a devotee ever since. One of the greatest of Opera conductors ever and a great interpreter of the symphonic repertoire.
I loved the programme.
It is already up on YouTube for anyone wanting to see it.


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## bigshot

I think that Karajan is mostly reviled by basement dweller internet types and wanna be experts.


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## Tsaraslondon

I watched it last night too. I thoroughly enjoyed the programme and found my views chimed very much with those of Pip and DavidA. I liked that they interviewed people who had played with him. Nor did they gloss over the last sad years with the Berlin Phil, and you certainly got a feeling that some of them regretted the way the orchestra behaved towards the end.


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## JACE

I just watched this documentary on YT. I found it very interesting & well worth watching.


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## DavidA

GregMitchell said:


> I watched it last night too. I thoroughly enjoyed the programme and found my views chimed very much with those of Pip and DavidA. I liked that they interviewed people who had played with him. Nor did they gloss over the last sad years with the Berlin Phil, and you certainly got a feeling that some of them regretted the way the orchestra behaved towards the end.


I think the orchestra definitely regretted their fall in salaries pits Karajan!

I think the bust up wasn't all one way ax the documentary showed. Karajan had stepped beyond his brief in some things. Pity it ended that way though.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

I just think Karajan is meh


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## Pip

As for "exceeding his brief", he felt that after almost 30 years leading the BPO, he had the right to insist upon which new principal or First chair player was going to join the orchestra. The lady in question was Sabine Meyer, clarinetist, and the " good old mysoginistic BPO" were not up for having a female first chair player at that time. Karajan felt that she was far and away the best candidate, and insisted on her being hired. After a big fight, she was given a probationary year in the job( the normal way of doing things in Germany) after which the whole orchestra would vote upon her election. Her year was a "year in hell", most of her colleagues went out of their way to make her time as uncomfortable as possible, culminating in her resignation almost a year later 
thus avoiding the ignominy of being voted out. This destroyed all further good relations between conductor and orchestra, only already binding contractual obligations kept them together for a time. The orchestra lost out all the way around. They lost the best clarinet player in Europe, at that time, who went on to make a wonderful career as soloist and leading her own ensemble, teaming up latterly with Abbado at the creation of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra(which included many other principal players of Karajan's and Abbado's BPO.) They also lost a tremendous amount of personal revenue due to Karajan switching as many projects as he could to the VPO instead. They never recovered this recording domination under any of Karajan's successors.
I feel that having led such an organisation for almost 30 years and having made them the richest orchestral players in the world,
It was really small-minded of them to act like this, but, they had, at that time, such a ridiculously high opinion of themselves, that they relly believed that THEY were bigger than the conductor!!
For a much better and fuller description of all these shenanigans , the Richard Osborne biography of Karajan really gets to the heart of it all.


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## Tsaraslondon

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I just think Karajan is meh


And we're all really pleased that you shared that with us


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## ptr

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I just think Karajan is meh


And I think that that is giving him way to much credit! :devil:

/ptr


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## Tsaraslondon

ptr said:


> And I think that that is giving him way to much credit! :devil:
> 
> /ptr


We can all play that game. I happen to think Boulez is a bit meh, though that's also probably giving him too much credit. That said, I probably wouldn't see the need to tell everyone that in a Boulez thread. But I'm not really into **** stirring! It's so undignified. :devil:


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## DavidA

Pip said:


> As for "exceeding his brief", he felt that after almost 30 years leading the BPO, he had the right to insist upon which new principal or First chair player was going to join the orchestra. The lady in question was Sabine Meyer, clarinetist, and the " good old mysoginistic BPO" were not up for having a female first chair player at that time. Karajan felt that she was far and away the best candidate, and insisted on her being hired. After a big fight, she was given a probationary year in the job( the normal way of doing things in Germany) after which the whole orchestra would vote upon her election. Her year was a "year in hell", most of her colleagues went out of their way to make her time as uncomfortable as possible, culminating in her resignation almost a year later
> thus avoiding the ignominy of being voted out. This destroyed all further good relations between conductor and orchestra, only already binding contractual obligations kept them together for a time. The orchestra lost out all the way around. They lost the best clarinet player in Europe, at that time, who went on to make a wonderful career as soloist and leading her own ensemble, teaming up latterly with Abbado at the creation of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra(which included many other principal players of Karajan's and Abbado's BPO.)
> I feel that having led such an organisation for almost 30 years and having made them the richest orchestral players in the world,
> It was really small-minded of them to act like this, but, they had, at that time, such a ridiculously high opinion of themselves, that they relly believed that THEY were bigger than the conductor!!
> For a much better and fuller description of all these shenanigans , the Richard Osborne biography of Karajan really gets to the heart of it all.


Yes you are basically right in this. I have the Osbourne biography which is superb and makes this point. Although HvK was right about the clarinettist the decision was actually the orchestra's to make. Obviously they wanted to make that point to HvK. It's the whole point that if the Meyer appointment -whether right or wrong musically - caused so much resentment it was better all round not to go ahead with it.


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## Pip

Agreed David, but unfortunately neither party would budge one inch and it all went irrevocably sour from then on.
Interesting that Sabine Meyer was not the first female in that orchestra, there was a viola player who was mostly hidden amongst her colleagues, however Karajan would never use her (like James Galway) on any of the films or live TV broadcasts of that period.
I saw her on occasions when I attended live concerts, with Giulini and Tennstedt, as memory serves.
Coming back to the original point, Karajan was the one man who moulded the Berlin sound, even through years of natural personnel changes, he managed to maintain his orchestral sound. Szell did this also with the Cleveland.
It seems ridiculous that the orchestra would not acquiesce to his wishes, when there was a considerable amount of work still to do.
The orchestra had such an overblown idea of their own importance, that they were trying to arrange concerts in New York, A la the
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, without conductor! This plan came to nothing, 1, because of the orchestra's own constitution and 2, more importantly, there was not enough interest among the New York agencies to go ahead with it.


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## DavidA

Pip said:


> Agreed David, but unfortunately neither party would budge one inch and it all went irrevocably sour from then on.
> Interesting that Sabine Meyer was not the first female in that orchestra, there was a viola player who was mostly hidden amongst her colleagues, however Karajan would never use her (like James Galway) on any of the films or live TV broadcasts of that period.
> I saw her on occasions when I attended live concerts, with Giulini and Tennstedt, as memory serves.
> Coming back to the original point, Karajan was the one man who moulded the Berlin sound, even through years of natural personnel changes, he managed to maintain his orchestral sound. Szell did this also with the Cleveland.
> It seems ridiculous that the orchestra would not acquiesce to his wishes, when there was a considerable amount of work still to do.
> The orchestra had such an overblown idea of their own importance, that they were trying to arrange concerts in New York, A la the
> Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, without conductor! This plan came to nothing, 1, because of the orchestra's own constitution and 2, more importantly, there was not enough interest among the New York agencies to go ahead with it.


The orchestra shot itself in the foot and so, if I might say, did Karajan. It was a power struggle with over-inflated egos. Osbourne's biography shows how idiotic the orchestra were in that they all effectively took a huge pay cut while the VPO were exultant!


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## Marschallin Blair

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I just think Karajan is meh


There's no accounting for tastelessness.


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## DavidA

Marschallin Blair said:


> There's no accounting for tastelessness.


Like when the critic a Rodney Milnes called Karajan (after his death, of course) a 'bad conductor'. Just proves how useless and pointless a critics opinion is! One wonders in the light of what the players like Galway said about HvK whether Milnes can actually hear music! Thank goodness the documentary was bereft of such pointless whingers!


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## Marschallin Blair

I was engaged until late last night at a party, so I couldn't see the entire documentary, because I was just too tired-- but I loved the first two sections of the Karajan documentary that I've seen so far.

What I especially like about the documentary is that it focuses on the man's achievements as an artist and not all of the political and rivalrous nonsense that he had to endure his entire life.

If anyone had an exquisite ear for beauty, clarity, line, and texture, it was Karajan. . ._ first. . . and. . . foremost_.

If there's ever a _Festschrift_ done on, say, 'Pierre Boulez,' I rather tend to doubt that his professional colleagues will remember him for being the Wizard of Beauty that Karajan was. . .

Thank you for mentioning the existence of this documentary, DavidA. I love it.


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## KenOC

Marschallin Blair said:


> I was engaged until late last night at a party...


You broke it off? At a party? My condolences...


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## Marschallin Blair

KenOC said:


> You broke it off? At a party? My condolences...


Karajan's a mere afterparty to my party. _;D_


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## Badinerie

Great documentary. I liked the examination of his relationship with the BPO and the contributions from individual musicians.
The BPO as an entity have always demonstrated an air of arrogance and self importance, not to mention misogyny. There have been other documentaries in the past in which this has been demonstrated including interviews with Sabine Meyer and other past women members. This documentary concentrated on the music though, and told the story of HvK's rise to power with honesty integrity an of course humour. Loved it!


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## DavidA

One thing I particularly liked was the revelation (from the players) that HvK hardly rehearsed standard repertory, which makes a bit of a nonsense about the critics charge of 'perfectionism'. 
The other thing was his rehearsal with the EYO where he took the young players through with so much care and concern. He was obviously consciously training them for better things! He took all his meals with them and they were delighted with the care and concern HvK showed in their future prospects for employment. Showed a different side to the man. Osbourne notes in his biography that Karajan did everything with this orchestra at his own expense with no fee charged. As Osbourne says, "Of course he could afford it" but then makes the point that so could other maestri who did not conduct the ECO as their fees were prohibitive.


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## realdealblues

I read about this a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately I had no way to watch it on TV, but I see it's been uploaded on to YouTube so maybe I'll finally get to see it.

I've got a couple of the other fairly recent documentaries about Karajan on DVD, "Karajan or Beauty As I See It" and "Karajan: Second Life". I remember in Second Life they also had interviews from people who played under him who missed him and the way he did things and wished they had someone like him again in Berlin. Growing up I heard all these stories about how the orchestra hated him. Also I remember hearing how he was supposed to be so cold towards other people but then you hear from Anne-Sophie Mutter and a lot of younger musicians he worked with about how warm he was towards them in trying to help them. There's constantly these contradictions about the man.

Sometimes I think the only "Myths" about Karajan are the ones that were created by people who were less ambitious than him or didn't like the way he got to where he was so they started rumors about him or pointed to his past. Karajan knew what he wanted. He had his own personal vision and wasn't afraid to work towards his goals. Half the critics and even other conductors I've read who really put him down in the media couldn't conduct their way out of a paper bag and I'm sure half of them were just jealous of his fame and fortune and the fact he wasn't willing to compromise his own vision for what they thought of as "correct".


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## DavidA

realdealblues said:


> I read about this a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately I had no way to watch it on TV, but I see it's been uploaded on to YouTube so maybe I'll finally get to see it.
> 
> I've got a couple of the other fairly recent documentaries about Karajan on DVD, "Karajan or Beauty As I See It" and "Karajan: Second Life". I remember in Second Life they also had interviews from people who played under him who missed him and the way he did things and wished they had someone like him again in Berlin. Growing up I heard all these stories about how the orchestra hated him. Also I remember hearing how he was supposed to be so cold towards other people but then you hear from Anne-Sophie Mutter and a lot of younger musicians he worked with about how warm he was towards them in trying to help them. There's constantly these contradictions about the man.
> 
> Sometimes I think the only "Myths" about Karajan are the ones that were created by people who were less ambitious than him or didn't like the way he got to where he was so they started rumors about him or pointed to his past. Karajan knew what he wanted. He had his own personal vision and wasn't afraid to work towards his goals. Half the critics and even other conductors I've read who really put him down in the media couldn't conduct their way out of a paper bag and I'm sure half of them were just jealous of his fame and fortune and the fact he wasn't willing to compromise his own vision for what they thought of as "correct".


No question that Karajan was not a man to get the wrong side of. John Culshaw was right when he called him, "ruthless and unpredictable." He was absolutely ruthless in getting what he wanted and where he wanted. But there was also another side to him as the documentary showed. But however many faults in his character the power of his musicianship was unquestionable. People who questioned this were frankly stupid!


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## Vaneyes

How busy was he? HvK's conducting life was 1928 to 1989, or 61 years. He conducted over 3,000 concerts. That's an average of one concert a week.

ArkivMusik lists 1,085 recs. for him. Let's say 300 are duplicates, and another 100 are live which require no studio time. That leaves 600 distinct recs. A 3-day recording session at 12 hours each was pretty normal. That's roughly 3 years spent in the studio.

Now let's talk preparation and travel.


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## Guest

We Yanks just have to pray that it comes out on DVD soon.


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## DavidA

Vaneyes said:


> How busy was he? HvK's conducting life was 1928 to 1989, or 61 years. He conducted over 3,000 concerts. That's an average of one concert a week.
> 
> ArkivMusik lists 1,085 recs. for him. Let's say 300 are duplicates, and another 100 are live which require no studio time. That leaves 600 distinct recs. A 3-day recording session at 12 hours each was pretty normal. That's roughly 3 years spent in the studio.
> 
> Now let's talk preparation and travel.


Just add to that the opera productions in which he produced and conducted.

Karajan once said: "If you've achieved all your goals in life you've probably set them too low!"

Just to add most people thought he should have spent rather less time on his productions. Someone once said: "Karajan the conductor deserves a better producer than Karajan!"


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## realdealblues

Got to watch the Myth And Magic documentary last night. Enjoyed it. I think a few of the interviews towards the end were in the Second Life Documentary.


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## Vaneyes

realdealblues said:


> Got to watch the Myth And Magic documentary last night. Enjoyed it. I think a few of the interviews towards the end were in the Second Life Documentary.


I watched two or three additional YT HvK docs after this one. I hafta say that afterward I was flat Karajaned out. Yes, some of the same interviewees, and ideas prevailed.

The doc that emphasized HvK's childhood impressions helped me understand his psychology. Throughout all, I never felt that HvK had a philosophy or spiritual guidance. He was simply motivated by what others did or didn't do. Such as his older brother getting all the attention and praise. Such as the talent, fame, and charisma of Toscanini.

It was mentioned more than once, primarily by Mutter, what an acute listener he was. That easily couples with observation and intuition.


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