Audition: Beethoven - Symphony No. 3 - BPO/Karajan pp 8/9/1953, Titania-Palast #Karajanlive

 

SACD Berlin Philharmoniker Box set, l 2025

This is not as fast or furious as HvK later recordings or concerts, but it exciting, more dramatic and in good shape.

Sound is good but the strings are a bit scrappy at time. There’s some excellent wind playing and Karajan is a tad more careful about dynamics. There’s a lovely stasis about the orchestra before the development of the first movement - treading water. The timpani are very nice, hard and not too boomy.

The funeral march is less assured at the beginning than it was to be in later live recordings. The strings don’t have the Karajan “lustre” but they are beautifully disciplined. It’s neither declamatory or in a hurry, but the wind interjections are so delicate. When the March moves to it’s more fluid phase we hear a different more delicate orchestra, punctuated with those heavy interjections. More pronounced than it was to be in his DG recordings. This is nearer to Karajan’s Philharmonia style except some intrusive timpani rolls.

As we approach the climatic fugal section there’s some glorious playing, though the clarinet is almost swallowed by the acoustic. And in his enthusiasm Karajan gradually side lines most of the woodwind in the approach to the climax. The third episode with its bottomless bass chord is timed to perfection - longer pause than later.

The coda (always ambiguous as I hear it) is rich and slow (or at least it feels slower). The tentative final bars seem to me to be too slow but they make up for it in exquisite playing

It’s important to remind ourselves this is still Furtwangler’s orchestra and one wonders how his devotees reacted to the 45 yo Karajan. We do know that Furtwangler was wary.

The scherzo starts with tentative uneven winds but soon gets into its stride. Its a happier buoyant pace lighter than later recordings. It’d fast too. All the better.

The horns in the Trio mark an older style of playing (much missed by some). Infallable too - quiet a feat. 

A ferocious end to the scherzo is met - almost attaca Finale - though this is on the disc but who knows what happened in the hall.

The finale pans out like most of Karajsn’s recordings and concert air checks. It’s a feiry monstorous movement which never stops. The playing is glorious no doubt, but the conducting is notable. This mixture of blunt force, finesse, virtuosity, and full throated playing. Every section of the orchestra is jaw dropping. It is as exciting af.

What did the audience - in Karajan’s first appearance since WWII - make of it? 

And all this after a concert first half of Bartok’s still relatively new Concerto for orchestra.

As the performance reaches it’s apotheosis, the great hymn-like passage offers a might climax to this orchestra one feels in that place of admiration which distilled of Beethoven. 

And the legacy of Toscanini and almost a rejection of Furtwangler. Karajan - despite what he said - never achieved Furtwangler’s level of spontaneity. Bit he sought better player, a unified ensemble and a signature reliability in this work only spoiled in the last minute by boomy timps and a recording flub.