Audition: Brahms Symphony No. 1, RCO/Karajan
Recorded: Concertgebouw, Amsterdam 1942 Released by Polydor, DG and latterly, Naxos The Nazi’s occupied Amsterdam in 1940, this recording came from a time when German artists were deployed in a kind of cruel cultural assimilation. We know many musicians including Karajan had to be members of the Nazi party and Karajan was also a growing cultural asset to certain members of the Nazi high command. Furtwangler was in competition with his younger colleague and so a deal of tension, he would, it is said, refer to the younger conductor only as “the K man”. Mendelberg’s Orchestra had a formidable reputation stretching back to their championship of Mahler and the recording attests to their virtuosity and the recognisable corporate sound. Karajan takes advantage of this and the recording engineers produce a reading that’s noteworthy. It’s astonishing also because we have so many recordings of this work from this conductor. And Karajan performed it in concert 143 times (according to the HvK Arch...
