Sibelius' Birthday

[stuartg]

Dear all

Monday is Sibelius' birthday and this evening I'm celebrating it early with the EMI box set that contains many Sibelius recordings. I am currently listening to Symphony number 7.

Are any of you gonna reflect on this great man over the next few days with a Karajan recording?

[john]

Hi Stuartg

I did not realise it was Sibelius birthday soon, I have just chosen a CD to play and it is Sibelius 4th with Beethoven 7th 'live' from Berlin 28-1-78 BPO/Karajan, I then switched on the Laptop and read your post, spooky!

My favourite Sibelius is the 7th closely followed by the 5th, however the DG disc with Pelleas et Melisande coupled with the Grieg Peer Gynt Suites 1 & 2 is a bit special.

John

[stuartg]

Hello John

Synchronicity! Funnily enough, I was looking to play Sibelius 4, but happened upon 7, so stuck it on.

Like the rest of the world, 5 is my fave!

Have moved through 1, 6 and 2 since my earlier posting. A most enjoyable evening (helped along with a few cans of Cobra!).

I note your continued preference for live recordings.

Best wishes

Stuart

[~Linda~]

Hello stuartg and john

As you will have seen on the website I am a great admirer of Sibelius’ music and was pleased to see a reference to his birthday on the Forum. The other evening I played the Seventh Symphony (DG 1967) followed by the 1984 version of Tapiola ……..truly magnificent performances that live on in the mind days after listening to them. The Fifth symphony is also a favourite with the Fourth and Sixth following close behind.

If only these interpretations had been filmed ! We only have the “Valse Triste” from the 1983 New Years Eve Concert in Berlin

Best Wishes

Linda

[lee]

Hi Linda

I commend your choices ! In particular, that 1984 Tapiola is quite exceptional and in my humble opinion, is the finest recorded performance of this incredible work by any conductor, of any time, period. I also share your disappointment about how little of this important part of Karajan's repertoire got filmed - I'm sure that you know that on his death he still had outstanding recording commitments for the the Sibelius 3rd with EMI and the Violin Concerto (with Mutter) for DG. I also had a friend who had tickets to see Karajan and the Berlin PO in the Sibelius 5 for autumn 1989, so I guess that might have been filmed and recorded too had things turned out differently....

Stuart and John - have you heard the first Sibelius 5th which Karajan taped with the Philharmonia in 1951/52 ? I find it quite extraordinary, what do you think ?

With best wishes, Lee

[Rosy]

Dear All,

a few years ago, when I was a regular visitor of Linda's Site, I knew that her favorite composer was/is Jean (Jan) Sibelius. Of course, sometime I listened with pleasure the Finnish composer's work, but it was Linda' merit if I started to have attention about this great artist. I especially liked his way of expressing his interpretative intentions to the composer- conductor Robert Kajanus; I refer to Bengt von Törne book "Conversazioni con Sibelius" (Conversations with Sibelius), very interesting ! Our Herbert von Karajan was one of the interpreters who deeply understood the spirit that animates Sibelius' symphonies. How many of you, my favorite is the symphony No 5, and I like Tapiola, Valse triste etc..

**********************

Thank you, Linda!
Rosy

[stuartg]

Dear Linda

I agree totally about Tapiola - one of the best recordings of this awesome work, ever!

Karajan was a champion of Sibelius in the immediate post-war era when his misic was unfashionable. Did he not programme the 4th or 6th at his inaugural BPO concert?

I think that Karajan also did much for Bruckner's work during this period, carrying on alongside and beyond people like Knapperertsbusch.

And back to Sibelius, today's his birthday - happy birthday Jean!!

Stuart

[stuartg]

Dear Lee

I love that December 1951/July 1952 Sibelius 5 with our Philharmonia.

Sometimes I wonder how things might have worked out if HvK had stayed with the orchestra.

The September 1960 recording is also great but my fave is the February 1965 recording on Deutsche Grammophon.

I have not played the 1976 EMI enough to access it properly.

Regards

Stuart

[lee]

Hi Stuart

The 1976 EMI performance is notable for the most magnificent and splendid sounding orchestral playing that this wonderful symphony has ever received. That said, to my ears, this recording seems to have been made in a bit of a rush by Karajan and his Berliners - the first movement transition isn't handled with the care of his previous recordings and there are moments of (surprising) lapses of ensemble which one does not normally associate with this team. Still the sound the orchestra makes is unbelievable ! Which kind of answers your speculation about Karajan staying with the Philharmonia - I don't think a British orchestra could ever replicate the depth of sonority that is achieved almost effortlessly by the great central European ensembles in Amsterdam, Berlin, Vienna, Leipzig and Dresden - what do you think ?

Best regards,

Lee

[jhgaulard]

Direct reply to Lee -- if slightly off-topic. I agree that when you listen to the Philharmonia of 51-56 and compare it to the Berliner Phil of the same period, you're in for a shock:

1/ Compare the Heroica of 1953 with Berlin (audite) that does not move, is very heavy and tonely uncertain with the beautiful recording made by the Philharmonia some months earlier;

2/ Compare the 1955 Brahms #1 (taped in Washington with the Berliner Phil) with the Philharmonia recording of the same symphony also some months earlier...The last movement is amazingly slooooow...in Washington, Karajan tries to "Fürtwanglerize" an orchestra he didn't really have the time to perpare properly so that they all feel at home and don't blow it -- same perception by the journalist who wrote the review for the Washington Post on 28/02/1955). With the Philharmonia, he plays with the less intense sound of the orchestra to create an airy, very transparent and very successful version of this symphony.

3/ But but but...the scarier comparison: compare the Mozart piano concerto #20 (with Kempff) from 56 in Berlin which is lyrical, polished, very musical (Berlin had already made a lot of progress during the first year of Karajan's tenure since these 53-55 concerts) (AUDITE), and the same concerto played one week later with Clara Haskil and the Philharmonia: NIGHT and DAY. As I said the Berlin performance was really good but the Philharmonia performance is simply perfect, rhythmic and very very dramatic...just AWSOME (you'll find this concerto in a Haskil CD published by Tahra). The most curious among you will put their hands on a very risky Mozart's #39, absolutely "in your face" as second part of this program with the last movement lasting the best pat of 3 minutes: a furious exercise, and very very satisfying!

And then no need to emphasise the orchestra apex, in my view, of the Philharmonia/Karajan cooperation: the rich, luscious, detailed recordings of Rosenkavalier and Falstaff...

So in French we say "avec des si, on mettrait Paris en bouteilles"..we can speculate for ever but if Fürtwangler had stayed alive a bit longer, we would have seen the Philharmonia growing and growing even more I think..

[~Linda~]

Dec 9, 2008 0:01:55 GMT 1 stuartg said:

Did he not programme the 4th or 6th at his inaugural BPO concert?

Hello Stuart,

The second concert Karajan conducted in Berlin with the B.P.O. (27th September 1938) started with a performance of Sibelius' Sixth Symphony.

Best wishes

Linda

[stuartg]

Thanks Linda, I thought Hvk featured Sibelius early on.

Stuart

[stuartg]

Dear Lee,

you may be right, but it might not be as simple as that!

I've attended concerts by all these orchestras and they are hard to beat (I never saw HvK). The Dresden were the most impressive, closely followed by the Royal Concertgebouw.

However, about 15 years ago I was fortunate to attend a few performances of the Philharmonia conducted by the controversial Giuseppe Sinopoli R.I.P. As I'm sure you know, he went on to the Dresden Staatskapelle after the Philharmonia.

Rattle had publicly condemned Sinopoli and tried to block his appointment to the Philharmonia (perfidious man - I've never forgiven him).

Anyway, these concerts were amazing - I was totally knocked sideways by the orchestra under Sinopoli. You can check for yourself how good they were by listening to the Deutsche Grammophon release of them doing Schubert 8 and Mendelssohn 4 with him - perfection!

Anyway, the point is, although the Philharmonia have slipped, they were clearly capable of tremendous results under a master-musician; so who knows what heights HvK might have taken them to.

Regards

Stuart

PS I'm glad you mention the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. I've seen them several times and they are so underrated and overlooked.

[lee]

Hi Stuart

You are correct, things aren't that simple ! But I'll nail my colours firmly to the mast. I agree that the Philharmonia has had a rather chequered history, hitting heights under the leadership of Karajan and Klemperer during the 1950's and early 60's, the likes of which were only subsequently recaptured under Muti before he left them for Philadelphia. I agree that Sinopoli was a most interesting conductor, a conclusion I've drawn from both attending his concerts as well as listening to his recordings, albeit sometimes controversial (I think Ashkenazy too refused to conduct the Philharmonia once Sinopoli was elected their principle). However, I think that in comparison to the venerable European institutions that I listed previously, they are a relatively young orchestra and I think anyone would be hard pressed to recognise this orchestra from it's sound alone from a "blind sitting", whereas you probably could with the ensembles from Berlin, Vienna etc... who have developed a distinct sound over many decades, often in tandem with a performing hall (for example, the Concertgebouw). So whilst it is interesting to speculate the direction the Philharmonia could have taken had Furtwangler lived longer and Karajan stayed with them, I think that for this aforementioned reason coupled with the typical British parsimony towards the arts, the Philharmonia could never have achieved the heights that the Berliners achieved under the great HvK. And to be fair, very few ensembles have !

Fair comment ? Lee

[lee]

Hi JH

Thank you for your interesting reply. I agree with you wholeheartedly that like for like, the Philharmonia was a better ensemble than the Berlin PO for most of the 1950's. However, the BPO's former timpanist, Werner Tharichen (no Karajan admirer) stated that Karajan wanted this orchestra for it's sound. And it's a sound that is hard to replicate - whilst I think the musical examples you have listed a very shrewd, I would add a couple more - the Bruckner 8 on EMI (1957), Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture (1957) and Ein Heldenleben (1959), all with the Berlin Philharmonic. There's no way the Philharmonia could ever have matched the depth of sonority that the Berliners produce for Karajan on these recordings, even if they could have matched and even exceeded the corporate execution. Or do you disagree ?

Lee