# Karajan and the Second Viennese music



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Just curious; I've noticed a lot of members listening to the Karajan versions of these works; Schoenberg, Webern, Berg.
What is it about Karajan's approach do these listeners find appealing? I've noted that Karajan is a forceful conductor, which comes through in his Beethoven the most for me. I also notice that he is capable of restraint, as in the Strauss Ein Heldenleben recording. Are these the qualities?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I prefer Boulez usually. And for Berg, Abbado is very hard to beat. I don't have any problems with the Karajan recordings, though, and they are often the cheapest alternative, along with Rattle's.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

I no longer care to hear either Herbie or Pierre all that much. Nowadays the orchestral stuff is less interesting than the chamber for me. Webern, like Cage, demands a kind of listening that I rarely sit down for at home anymore, and the rewards are elusive without that. Karajan's Webern always seemed plumped up in a good way, one can actually hear some drama that is often missing from Boulez. But the same treatment is too much IMO for his Berg and Schoenberg...

Seems we have few orchestras attempting to program this repertory on stage and records nowadays. I really liked the Berg on Barbara Hannigan's Girl Gone Crazy, lean and transparent rather than slushy, but the Gershwin was a dud...

I once worshipped Karajan's Sibelius, but finally succumbed to the lighter interpretations. Herbie's Strauss is still pretty good too but there is more competition. i hate the way he does Bruckner, loud and obnoxious, no mystery at all.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

I really like Karajan's Webern, and his Verklärte Nacht for strings is really good. Haven't heard any Berg. I like it because he kind of brings out the strings. Oddly, the only other music I like from his conducting is Beethoven.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

I also enjoy HvK's Verklärte Nacht (and Metamorphosen by Strauss, which is somewhat similar). I think the main idea most people express for his treatment of dreamier works is that he "maintains the line" throughout. I tend to agree. Very rarely in a Karajan performance do I ever drift off and forget what I'm listening to. There never seems to be any aimlessness.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> I also notice that he is capable of restraint


but wasn't he about it in the first place?


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

philoctetes said:


> i hate the way he does Bruckner, loud and obnoxious, no mystery at all.


what 'mystery' to be sought in Bruckner?.. he was all about violence, war & reckoning.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Zhdanov said:


> what 'mystery' to be sought in Bruckner?.. he was all about violence, war & reckoning.


Could you cite something in this wiki that confirms your statement?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Bruckner

Or perhaps you can justify it some other way? I think Celibidache fans especially would be scratching their heads over this, given their idol's reputation for "zen" Bruckner performances...


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

philoctetes said:


> Could you cite something in this wiki that confirms your statement?


its in the music, not in wiki.



philoctetes said:


> Celibidache fans especially would be scratching their heads over this


he used to gloss Bruckner music over, better listen to Knappertsbusch, despite the choice of versions.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

Bruckner contains multitudes.

It had better, with 25 minute movements.

And Karajan's Bruckner is superb, for quite similar reasons. He never loses the plot.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

HvK grew up in a Vienna where Berg, Webern, Schoenberg were still alive. Did he know them or even work with them? I don't know. But he probably heard for himself how this music should be played. It is ferociously difficult, and he had the ability to make it sound utterly natural. Long lines, well-balanced orchestral colors, correct tempos - HvK brings a certain stamp of authority that's hard to beat. The recording of Schoenberg's Pelleas and Melisande is magnificent - it's not the clinical precision of Boulez at all. He brings out the deep romanticism of this amazing score better than anyone.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

mbhaub said:


> HvK grew up in a Vienna where Berg, Webern, Schoenberg were still alive. Did he know them or even work with them? I don't know. But he probably heard for himself how this music should be played. It is ferociously difficult, and he had the ability to make it sound utterly natural. Long lines, well-balanced orchestral colors, correct tempos - HvK brings a certain stamp of authority that's hard to beat. The recording of Schoenberg's Pelleas and Melisande is magnificent - it's not the clinical precision of Boulez at all. He brings out the deep romanticism of this amazing score better than anyone.


I'm actually listening to that recording right now for the first time. It's indeed excellent, but as for the music, I don't like it as much as Verklärte Nacht. Whoever mentioned that he maintains the "line" of the music was right on the money.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Interesting comments. What I like about Karajan's interpretations of the Second Viennese School is, they keep my attention. I never really dug deeper into them to figure out why.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

philoctetes said:


> Could you cite something in this wiki that confirms your statement?
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Bruckner
> 
> Or perhaps you can justify it some other way? I think Celibidache fans especially would be scratching their heads over this, given their idol's reputation for "zen" Bruckner performances...


I agree, philocetes. When I listen to Bruckner, I want to hear "timelessness" and a sense of tranqwuility, at least in parts.

Now, I'm listening to Karajan's Variations for Orchestra op. 31.



MatthewWeflen said:


> I think the main idea most people express for his treatment of dreamier works is that he "maintains the line" throughout. I tend to agree. Very rarely in a Karajan performance do I ever drift off and forget what I'm listening to. There never seems to be any aimlessness.


I agree with this. The Variations are highly abstract, and Karajan makes it sound like late-Romantic music, by seeming to follow the lines. 


mbhaub said:


> HvK grew up in a Vienna where Berg, Webern, Schoenberg were still alive. Did he know them or even work with them? I don't know. But he probably heard for himself how this music should be played. It is ferociously difficult, and he had the ability to make it sound utterly natural. Long lines, well-balanced orchestral colors, correct tempos - HvK brings a certain stamp of authority that's hard to beat. The recording of Schoenberg's Pelleas and Melisande is magnificent - it's not the clinical precision of Boulez at all. He brings out the deep romanticism of this amazing score better than anyone.


Yes, I hear this quality in the Variations. It sounds as I think Schoenberg intended it, and Karajan shares this same sensibility and tradition.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Just curious; I've noticed a lot of members listening to the Karajan versions of these works; Schoenberg, Webern, Berg. What is it about Karajan's approach do these listeners find appealing?_

I don't find him appealing in that music. I generally find him unappealing -- flaccid, lame and without tension. I far prefer Max Rudolf, Ormandy, Horenstein and Hans Rosbaud whom Gramophone once called the unsung hero of modern music.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

error..................


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

What is maybe hard to remember here was the novelty at the time of these recordings. It may be a gross generalisation, but Karajan seemed to be the first "mainstream" conductor to show these works as belonging to the "mainstream", a nod of approval from the Establishment, if you like.

For that, immense thanks are due.

What Karajan does is make closer connections between these three's sound world and that of late romantic Viennese music, Strauss et al. Pelleas - and even more so - Verklarte Nacht, both have their lush Straussian sound, and seeing as I like Herbie's Richard Strauss, I like these. Maybe it works less well with Op.31, or with Webern's pieces?

In some ways, admirers of Schoenberg and chums are so much more black and white in their demands of performance practice. Does their music really have to be cold, clinical and mathematical? Well, it works, it brings out the stunningly modern aspects of it all. But all three worked fundamentally with human emotions - I'm sorry, but it's true - and their music did not suddenly appear out of nothing, it all has its roots in the music of others who went before them; so why can't Karajan show Pelleas and Melisande as the missing Strauss tone poem? Why can't Solti ask his players to play Moses und Aron as if Brahms had written it?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I just started listening to hear what he had to say about it:


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

MatthewWeflen said:


> I also enjoy HvK's Verklärte Nacht (and Metamorphosen by Strauss, which is somewhat similar). I think the main idea most people express for his treatment of dreamier works is that he "maintains the line" throughout. I tend to agree. Very rarely in a Karajan performance do I ever drift off and forget what I'm listening to. There never seems to be any aimlessness.


Yep. Totally agree. Karajan's readings are often 'all about the line'. He had a great sense of pulse and forward momentum and, for the most part, it's why j like more of his accounts than not. Its an approach that's not succesful in some of his recordings but really pays dividends in his Beethoven, for me. And yes i really enjoy his Verklarte Nacht too. He had his critics but the man sure could keep time.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

With his head down all the time, never looking at the orchestra, what else could he be doing on the podium?


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

philoctetes said:


> With his head down all the time, never looking at the orchestra, what else could he be doing on the podium?


Looking at the score, perhaps? :devil:


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Zhdanov said:


> its in the music, not in wiki.
> 
> he used to gloss Bruckner music over, better listen to Knappertsbusch, despite the choice of versions.


We're on the same boat there. Kna is my top choice for Bruckner, I've made that obnoxiously clear to others . But I don't assign political impressions to music unless there is a reason outside of the music. I don't really care that Hitler liked Bruckner. That he liked Furtwangler is another matter.

For mystery I go for Kna, Furtwangler, Paternoster, or Guilini.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

CnC Bartok said:


> Looking at the score, perhaps? :devil:


Where is it? On the floor?


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

He didnt need a score anyway. He memorised every piece.:devil:


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Merl said:


> He didnt need a score anyway. He memorised every piece.:devil:


He even had some of the long opera scores memorised! (I'm sure there was an interview about this somewhere...)


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

Who cares where he's looking, as long as the music sounds good? I don't see much criticism of Dudamel, for instance, for his spastic gyrations on stage, or for Bernstein's over the top bathos. All three guide orchestras that sound good, even great.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

philoctetes said:


> We're on the same boat there. Kna is my top choice for Bruckner, I've made that obnoxiously clear to others . But I don't assign political impressions to music unless there is a reason outside of the music. I don't really care that Hitler liked Bruckner. That he liked Furtwangler is another matter.
> 
> For mystery I go for Kna, Furtwangler, Paternoster, or Guilini.


Good Bruckner doesn't have to be always mysterious though - I'm happy with Karajan's. I'm not even sure whether it's possible to develop a good method for determining how 'mysterious' a recording is. It's very individual matter - what sounds 'mysterious' to you, might not sound 'mysterious' to me and etc.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

annaw said:


> Good Bruckner doesn't have to be always mysterious though - I'm happy with Karajan's. I'm not even sure whether it's possible to develop a good method for determining how 'mysterious' a recording is. It's very individual matter - what sounds 'mysterious' to you, might not sound 'mysterious' to me and etc.


Indeed. I find Karajan's Bruckner plenty mysterious (as well as booming and "warlike" on occasion).


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

At risk of derailing the thread even further, what is an example of a passage in Bruckner that sounds "warlike" or "violent"? This doesn't really match up with the impression I got from what little of his music I've heard, yet I keep hearing it repeated.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

9.2 is pretty volcanic in its intensity.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

flamencosketches said:


> At risk of derailing the thread even further, what is an example of a passage in Bruckner that sounds "warlike" or "violent"? This doesn't really match up with the impression I got from what little of his music I've heard, yet I keep hearing it repeated.


I've heard no associations whatsoever. That particular individual has associated war and violence with extreme prejudice with Bruckner, though he doesn't exactly spell it out, because of the Nazi's appropriate of Bruckner for their own dubious war-like purposes. Bruckner himself was not a violent or war-like man; he was just the opposite: a spiritual-religious man. He was a very shy and humble man, and what control did he have over the use of his music by a bunch of thugs after his death by the nefarious Nazis? The Nazi's appropriation without the composer's approval is the only way his music could ever possibly be associated with war and violence, made perfectly clear by reading his biography and background about the shy kind of man he was. Just because someone thinks that Bruckner's music has an association with war and violence doesn't make it true and it's up to the newcomers to eventually know the difference. The power in his music is unrelated to war and violence except in the imagination of those who are inappropriately reading 20th-century history into it. War and violence are not in his music, but spiritual force and power is. But considering what the Nazis did to Russia during the second world war it's not surprising that Bruckner and war, whom the Nazis venerated, became associated in the minds of some listeners. That's the only possible reason that such things could be associated with each other because the violence is not inherent in his music though some will say that it is.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> I want to hear "timelessness"


and you will hear it, as related to 'Eternal Return' at least, in his 2nd part of 8th symphony, this rotating swastika-like pattern:


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

philoctetes said:


> I don't really care that Hitler liked Bruckner.


if he did, then he got the message. Bruckner mainly portrayed the violent history of Europe in his music; destruction of The Holy Roman Empire, wars for The Spanish Inheritance, and German civil wars.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> considering what the Nazis did to Russia during the second world war


why single out Nazis every time? Russia fought against the entire West in that war, not only Nazis.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

There's admittedly a bit of violence in the Scherzo of Bruckner 7, And I've even seen it used in a documentary showing bombers during the Blitz. And maybe some in the last couple of movements of No.3? But the idea Bruckner is all about war and destruction is risible beyond words. I look forward to some more fanciful takes on WWII as well, and am expecting a highly convincing - irrefutable proof included - that Stalingrad was a Japanese-American conspiracy, and the entire population of Sweden - every man woman and child - were involved in the first attack.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

CnC Bartok said:


> the idea Bruckner is all about war and destruction is risible beyond words.


only if you didn't listen to his music well enough... and here you go, there of course are peaceful episodes in the 9th symphony, but only to succumb to military force and mustering of armies to deal a blow to enemies when they least expect it -


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> only if you didn't listen to his music well enough... and here you go, there of course are peaceful episodes in the 9th symphony, but only to succumb to military force and mustering of armies to deal a blow to enemies when they least expect it -


If it is about war, it is about the war in his head. As James 4:1 says, "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?" Bruckner is more about the struggle within himself until he finds the peace of God. His 9th symphony was dedicated to God, not to the arms of Krupp.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Great. Open ears (Bruckner was *all* about violence, war & reckoning) and an open mind (Tchaikovsky's sexuality). Impressive.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Manxfeeder said:


> If it is about war, it is about the war in his head.


composers back then did not have luxury to express what's in the head, they wrote music to order.



Manxfeeder said:


> His 9th symphony was dedicated to God


the God of war, that is.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Zhdanov said:


> if he did, then he got the message. Bruckner mainly portrayed the violent history of Europe in his music; destruction of The Holy Roman Empire, wars for The Spanish Inheritance, and German civil wars.
> 
> ]


That's a new one on me. How come we're discussing this on this thread apart from the fact someone is intent on making a point?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Zhdanov said:


> composers back then did not have luxury to express what's in the head, they wrote music to order.
> 
> *the God of war, that is.*


Please give over. We know your opinion.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Getting back to the subject matter, Karajan actually invested his own money in the recordings he made of the Second Viennese School and they sold extremely well as a four LP boxed set. I've got the CDs. I know these days it has become fashionable among the so-called 'knowledgable' crowd to dismiss HvK's recordings of everything but I must confess these are the only performances of this music I can ever sit down and listen to.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I admit, I'm becoming more receptive and sympathetic to Karajan, even his Beethoven. You know how it is, sometimes things just "break through."


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

I hear storms in Bruckner - thunderstorms, gales, even tornados - and chapel bells tolling in the distance - sounds of nature that have influenced composers for almost a millenium. The scherzo of the 9th is all that sounds military to me, but I hear a lot more of that in Shostakovich, and historians say that's what I am supposed to hear, unlike Bruckner. Does anybody revile Shostakovich for reproducing sounds of war? Sometimes I do, it gets on my nerves. I approach both composers with caution according to my moods, but between the two of them Bruckner's 8th is my favorite. I don't hear war at all, despite the stormy scherzo, and the following adagio is one of the most sublime things I know.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

millionrainbows said:


> I admit, I'm becoming more receptive and sympathetic to Karajan, even his Beethoven. You know how it is, sometimes things just "break through."


One of us... one of us...


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Revile Shostakovich for the sounds of war? Not after Stalingrad and what Russia went through after the brutal assault by the Germans who were trying to annihilate them. By the end of 1941, the Germans had been at war and a threat in Europe for over a year and I believe Shostakovich knew what was coming for his own country. He captured that catastrophic period in history. I also believe that he was inspiring his comrades to resist with some of his sounds of war, especially in the first movement of his Leningrad Symphony. It was a terrible war that left millions of Russians and Germans dead and I hope it’s never forgotten with his exceptionally long symphony. I believe that what he did has to be heard in context and not just as a standard symphony unrelated to anything that was going on at the time. So I don’t resent or revile his occasional sounds of war.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

I quite like the mentioned recordings, also compared to Boulez/Sony + DG, and others. They are emotionally engaged IMO, but Boulez did do a more effectful Webern _Passacaglia_ in his early Sony, as far as I remember.

A _Gurrelieder_ would have been interesting too ...


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

On Bruckner, some have told us what they hear in the music but many others have told us what the music is about. I don't think Bruckner devised programmes or subjects for his music (correct me if I am wrong) so it can only be the former - personal reflections of what individual listeners hear. And, I think, even if Bruckner did want his music to reflect an idea of war or nature or God he would not have done it with narrative coherence. For him, surely, the coherence was musical development rather than being a literal picture or a story.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

There is evidence of a - somewhat kitschy, by today's standards - programme for the 4th symphony:

"_Several years after the premiere Bruckner sought to sum up or reconstruct his program for the Fourth Symphony by describing the first movement as a scene from the days of chivalry, the second as a rustic love scene, and the third as a hunt broken by a dance interlude; but when pressed for details on the finale he could only say, I'm sorry, but I have forgotten what it was about. Since the music came before the program, it is just as well that Bruckner forgot parts of his after-the-fact scenario and thereby relieved listeners from being concerned with it. The title Romantic is program enough, and it suits the spirit of the work in both its original form and its subsequent ones._ "
http://www.kennedy-center.org/artist/composition/2872

https://books.google.dk/books?id=A8...AB#v=onepage&q=bruckner romantic hunt&f=false

https://books.google.dk/books?id=ZD...AB#v=onepage&q=bruckner romantic hunt&f=false


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## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

Let's discuss music. Russia has an enormously excellent history of music which cannot be denied. That's what's important here.


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## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

Larkenfield said:


> Revile Shostakovich for the sounds of war? Not after Stalingrad and what Russia went through after the brutal assault by the Germans who were trying to annihilate them. By the end of 1941, the Germans had been at war and a threat in Europe for over a year and I believe Shostakovich knew what was coming for his own country. He captured that catastrophic period in history. I also believe that he was inspiring his comrades to resist with some of his sounds of war, especially in the first movement of his Leningrad Symphony. It was a terrible war that left millions of Russians and Germans dead and I hope it's never forgotten with his exceptionally long symphony. I believe that what he did has to be heard in context and not just as a standard symphony unrelated to anything that was going on at the time. So I don't resent or revile his occasional sounds of war.


I am confused as to how this all relates to the Second Viennese School?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I have Karajan's orchestral disc of Verklarte Nacht, and Pelleas und Melisande. I'm not crazy about it. I think it's overdone. Too much German big romantic orchestral glitz and polish. I haven't heard the other recordings.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

haydnguy said:


> Let's discuss music. Russia has an enormously excellent history of music which cannot be denied. That's what's important here.


Exactly. Please avoid politics except in the groups. Some off topic posts have been removed for moderator discussion.


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