Karajan's Nazi past a discordant note for late conductor

By Marc Shulgold, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 3, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Herbert von Karajan died in 1989, but his life and art have hardly faded from public scrutiny

Herbert von Karajan

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If there's one inescapable image of classical music, it's of the godlike conductor on the podium, arms outstretched, eyes closed, as if receiving a message of inspiration from a distant, unseen world.

And if there's one musician who epitomizes that cliche, it's the late Austrian conducting superstar Herbert von Karajan (pronounced CAR-a-yon). Saturday marks his 100th birthday, an anniversary observed with plentiful CD and DVD releases, a coffee table book, a new documentary and (in several major European and Japanese cities) giant billboards.

Karajan died in 1989, but his life and art have hardly faded from public scrutiny. The centenary has inspired a noisy backlash: Critics have revived accusations of the conductor's Nazi ties while questioning his greatness.

Ivan Hewett, in London's Daily Telegraph, wrote, "Something creepy is happening in the world of classical music. (Karajan), one-time Nazi, the most tyrannical, reviled and lavishly rewarded conductor in history, (has) returned from the dead."

"It's hard to believe, but the old monster is back," wrote English critic Norman Lebrecht, disgusted by the "hero worship" surrounding the centenary.

In Tony Palmer's film of the Salzburg Festival (which Karajan, a native Salzburger, brought to renewed prominence), American musicologist Michael Steinberg labeled the conductor "a Nazi, a true believer."

American record-buyers in the '60s and '70s seemed to harbor little resentment as they snatched up Karajan's orchestra and opera recordings, most of them for the German label Deutsche Grammophon. His Beethoven Symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic remained a best-seller for years.

A similar indifference to the Karajan controversy is shared in England, suggested James Inverne, editor of the London- based Gramophone magazine, which devoted its January issue to the conductor. "Most music lovers here are not worried about whether he was a Nazi. Look, you have characters who were Nazis, or Communist stooges or McCarthy stooges, or were anti-Semitic.

"All of them had unforgivable moral flaws. But, like Karajan, their art transcended all that. You hear in his conducting a generosity of spirit. Wagner tried to foment anti-Semitism, but his music speaks of love."

In his introduction to the impressive new book Herbert von Karajan: A Life in Pictures (Amadeus Press), Jurgen Otten suggested that the conductor's decision to join the Nazi Party (publicly in 1935, but secretly two years earlier) was motivated by a desire to further his musical career. Otten quotes former German chancellor Willy Brandt: "The paths between exceptional art and disgraceful politics are complex."

Brandt was referring to Wilhelm FurtwÃ¤ngler, another German conductor with Nazi ties, but the statement applies to Karajan as well.

Revisiting some of his 900 recordings, most for Deutsche Grammophon, brings back memories of the days when sumptuous sound and majestic performances ruled. Karajan drew extraordinary playing from his orchestras, often at the expense of flow (Sibelius' Valse Triste) or stylistic correctness (Bach's Double Violin Concerto).

No surprise that Lebrecht sniffed at some of the performances in a repackaging from Decca: "Karajan had a tendency to homogenize music, bending it to his line of beauty, suppressing its diversity of character."

Yet, even Lebrecht admitted being "exhilarated once more by his cosmic energy in Holst's Planets."

Inverne suggested that the conductor's ego finally got in the way. "It became an endless series of 'Listen to the amazing sound I can make,' " he said. "It seemed that, at the end, he got so wrapped up in the beauty and the sheen of the music."

Karajan left more than a stack of recordings. He presided at numerous legendary opera productions and opera films, attracted new fans to classical music and nurtured the careers of promising musicians such as violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter.

Inverne described the conductor as "at the epicenter of everything. He was the story of the recording age." Indeed, Karajan was even a major consultant in the birth of the compact disc.

Inverne suggested that the music world is a more exciting place because of the conductor's talent, his persona and his lofty ambitions.

"Karajan was always saying, in effect, 'We are attempting something transcendent here.' Like him or loathe him, the man aspired toward the highest achievement we can aspire."

Shulgoldm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5296

A Karajan sampler

* Karajan: The Music. The Legend. (Deutsche Grammophon). A CD with music by Liszt, Bach and Brahms, plus a DVD of filmed performances ranging from pops to Beethoven to staged opera.

* Herbert von Karajan: The Master Recordings (Deutsche Grammophon). A dizzying range of repertory in a 10-CD set ranging from 1959 to 1979 that includes works by Strauss, Stravinsky, Mozart, Beethoven, Bartok, Schubert, Ravel and Debussy.

* Herbert von Karajan: The Legend (EMI). A two-CD set featuring 16 complete works or excerpts with the Berlin Philharmonic.

* Karajan: The Legendary Decca Recordings (Decca). This nine-CD set offers complete symphonies by Brahms, Haydn and Mozart, ballet scores, operetta and readings of The Planets and Also sprach Zarathustra.

* DVD releases include a glorious 1977 concert performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Berlin Phil (EuroArts) and Karajan (Deutsche Grammophon), an intriguing new documentary by Robert Dornhelm featuring rare footage and a revealing comparison of Karajan and Leonard Bernstein.

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Comments

April 3, 2008

2:42 p.m.

Suggest removal

Brockage writes:

Easy for us to say as we contemplate another cup of Lots-O-Bucks coffee.

What is an "entertainer" to do? What was Maurice Chevalier to do when the Nazis marched into Paris? He could make his living in only one way: to entertain.

We understand if bakers keep baking; we let it go by if teachers keep teaching, but woe to the artist -- s/he is supposed to be a hero I guess and pack up the family to live in a basement somewhere and starve, since, for all the glory of art, s/he is "out of work."

If people want to hit at Von Karajan because his conducting was too fussy or his Wagner was too soft, fine. But to imply expectations of heroism from public figures who would starve if they resisted, suggests we're unable to "walk in his moccasins" -- oh, how Herbert would have been appalled by that phrase, yet, it works here.

Ironically, what the article actually argues for is observance of our Second Amendment -- keep the Nazis or other terrormongers out in the first place.

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Karajan's Nazi past a discordant note for late conductor