Memories - Karajan in London 1988

In 1987 I had fulfilled what seemed to be a dream at the time, I went to the Royal Festival Hall to hear the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karajan.  The programme was the Fourth and Second Symphonies by Brahms - in that order.  Karajan regarded the Fourth symphony as one of the two or three works which end in utter tragedy and the Second with its sunnier disposition was a better end to the concert.  The Berliners played without concert dress as their luggage was stuck somewhere.  It was spellbinding, enthralling, exciting and monumental.

But Karajan was old, 79, and frail.  The readings showed none of that.  I took my Mum - she was bowled over by the occasion.  We saw huge Karajan's Rolls Royce arrive.  It was a glamorous affair and redolent I dare say now, of a lost age of both classical music making and the classical music business.  In the audience were Haitink and Goodall coming to see a man Karajan bestrode the music business despite being disliked, distrusted and maligned.  And, curiously in my eyes, continually brought back to his wartime past by the UK press.

In 1988 I saw him again.  Things were somewhat different then.  The frail old man was a cause for concern.  Whereas in years previously the entourage was no doubt to keep people away from the super star conductor, this time this was protective vigilance.  His wife was a constant presence flitting on and off stage.  I'd brought a small pair of binoculars and could watch the preparations for the concert.  There was much buzzing about because the instruments were delayed by fog in their journey up from Dover.  I think an hour past before we settled down.  Much has been made of the gasp from the audience when Karajan seemed to stumble as he walked out to the podium.  He was very frail but only in those moments.  

Once perched on his seat (built into the podium) he launched into a reading of Schönberg's Verklarte Nacht which was a marvel of concentration, sweep and intimacy.  The work mixes full string orchestra and individual string soloists to paint a tone poem inspired by Dehmel's poem which begins:

"Two people are walking through a bare, cold wood,
the moon keeps pace with them and draws their gaze..."

The full Berlin String section measured some 100 players and yet at times the tone was a mere whisper and so delicate it seemed like gossamer. Equally in the strident yearning of the work full strings - including the renowned Berlin Basses had an almost terrifying power. I don't think even Karajan would have described himself as in full command - despite all that was said when he and the orchestra parted ways later that year - Karajan was a pilot: essential but he required co-operation.

The reading he had given in his DG recording has won high praise.  But what struck me hearing the Berliners live is that no studio recording adequately captured their sound: the sound that Karajan had cultivated since taking over the orchestra in the 1950s.  This remains the case - DG & EMI did their best but it was essentially unrecorded. NB - we are hearing some of that sound recovered in new hi-res recordings of the master tapes, but still.....

 

Back at base, someone tried to record this concert on a cassette - Radio 3 were broadcasting it.  The BBC had not broadcast the Brahms concert the year before and I was keen to have a personal memory this time NB - as comments show below it was broadcast on the continent.  But a C90 tape with sides of 45 minutes was inadequate for Brahms First Symphony that followed the Schönberg - my recording was partial.  And I'm sorry to say so was much of my musical memory - so often its the sights of concerts I recall not the sounds. 

Update: 2017 - imagine my delight and trepidation when I discovered that Testament had released this concert - along with others by Karajan in London - on CD. Last week - nearly 25 years later - I sat down to enjoy the full concert again.

There are three overwhelming feelings I have - and we know that music is the art of feeling - on listening to this Brahms First (one of six different recordings I have of Karajan conducting it 1940 - 1988):-

First, orchestra's playing is even more magnificent than I remember and the BBC recording reveals so much more than one's attention could muster on the night and ALSO so much more than any of his studio recordings.  There are breathtaking moments such as the lead into the first movement recapitulation, the ever so slow chorale at the beginning of the last movement and the end of the last movement which is bold, brutal and redemptive.  But there is so much more - the playing is of a different order and the sound that Karajan gets is unlike anyone else's.

Second, it is a near perfect reading for me.  It is more powerful than either symphony he had delivered a year earlier and although he was frail this is a reading of ferocious passion, befitting Brahms the lion.  The nuances reveal all those years of familiarity but also conductor and players pushing even further than before. I have a perfect Brahms 1 in my head - this comes closest to it.  Maybe more has stuck sub-conciously than I admit.  

Thirdly the audience exploded at the end of this triumphant work knowing, we sensed, that it was the last time they would have that particular rush.  No one I have heard subsequently could hold an audience like that with music making of that quality.  It is dramatic and holds people on the edge of their seat - some come close - Grazinyte Tyla, Roth, Vanska and maybe Currentzis make an event out of a concert: a visceral buzz. Within a few months of the concert Karajan had parted ways, acrimoniously, with the orchestra that had made him conductor for life.  

In the early months of 1989 he gave his last concerts - with the Vienna Philharmonic - with whom he had recorded fantastic readings of Bruckner's Seventh and Eighth symphonies recently.  He died preparing opera in Salzburg in July 1989. As Andrew Porter said of the New York concerts that Spring "you may never hear music making like that again, but at least you know it can be done". That final Bruckner 8 was, and still is if you can find it, a monument.

My feeling is that this Brahms 1 reading demands to be heard, despite some untidiness in a BBC recording which must have been a trial for them without any rehearsals to sound check and balance.  It is playing of a different order, at least caught without the artifice of the studio.

A final personal note: It is a concert to which I bring a lot of baggage.  I was shocked the morning I heard Karajan had died, I believed whilst he could produce readings like that Brahms 1 he might go on for a few more years.  The woman who sat beside me at the concert, my beloved 'Nita, has left us too.  And no one has made music that excited me as much as this concert - though several have come close.  But this was truly a unique occasion and I thought I should record it's importance to me.  Age had dimmed the memory but now and to my surprise technology has revived and even enhanced it.