Roger Vaughan's Biographical portrait

[Rosy]

Hi Alexander!

I completely agree with you about this book, also we don't forget that Karajan himself has authorized the writing of his biography! In the italian edition they have chosen the second picture; I prefer the first photo, the other is too static, not very expressive!

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

Rosy
.........continues..........

[Rosy]

Jan 13, 2009 22:05:09 GMT 1 @waldstein said:

Hi, dear Rosy
I am curious about the Italian edition - does it contain any photos? Especially the one with Agnes Baltsa in rehearsal. Unfortunately, I don't have it on file to post it because that's the funniest expression of Karajan's face I've ever seen.

Hi Alexander,

in the italian edition there are N° 18 photos, also the one with Agnes Balsa in Der Rosekavalier rehearsal ;D What a funny expression!

[~Linda~]

Jan 14, 2009 2:35:28 GMT 1 Rosy said:

also the one with Agnes Balsa in Der Rosekavalier rehearsal ;D What a funny expression!

Here is a scan of this photograph:

Best wishes

Linda

[jhgaulard]

If I am authorised a small joke in this new year -- and by the way HNY to each and every forum members, I think the picture posted by Linda is absolutely phenomenal, probably one of the funniest of the maestro....Now what could they have possibly talked about/thought about at that particular moment...We should all try and guess.
I'll start:

BALTSA (Singing at full voice, purportedly out of pitch): NEIN NEIN, NEIN NEIN...ICH' DRINK KEIN WEEEEEEEEIIIIN...

KARAJAN (to himself): Gott...why did I hire her in the first place?

Other ideas?

[lee]

Hi Waldstein

Nice to see you on the Forum again and trust all is well.

Am touched that you like Roger Vaughan's biography so much, although I do not share your enthusiasm. As a "biographical portrait", a snap shot of Karajan during the mid 1980's, it is tremendously revealing. Certainly, as you have pointed out previously, it helped that Vaughan was allowed access by Karajan to both his working and personal life, much of which is described by the author in enchanting detail. Yet, if the error on Karajan's age vexes you so much, what are your thoughts on Vaughan's section on Karajan's Nazi past ? This has been wholly discredited by the work of Gisella Tamsen that is featured in both Osborne's biography and the Philharmonic Autocrat, which reveals Vaughan's work in this area to be at best careless, a re-hash of previous incorrect research and at worse, deliberately controversial. I also find his ending somewhat, probably deliberately, strange - that Karajan feels that he would return to earth reincarnated as a bird, an eagle if I remember correctly. The first time I read this ending - and it was hot off the press, so quite a long time ago! - I remember that I was distinctly left with the impression that HvK was, well, somewhat weird, an impression that I certainly don't hold about this man. There is a further, very critical biography of HvK which was published around the same time by Robert C Bachman that you may be familiar with (it was originally published in German, the English version being released in the early 1990's). In this book, Bachman reveals that he too was invited by HvK to spend some time with him with a view of writing a biography (he was present during the Parsifal rehearsals) and also describes how he bumped into an American journalist who had also been invited by Karajan to do the same thing and was very unhappy to learn that Bachman was there too. The American journalist's name isn't mentioned, but clearly it must have been Roger Vaughan - if he was unhappy about the presence of Bachman, this may explain why I find much of his book written somewhat unsympathetically. Indeed, it may also be pointed out that Karajan himself was of a similar opinion - this was the reason why the hastily put together (and therefore not very good) book by Franz Endler was released, a direct response to Vaughan and Bachman.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion and I fully respect your own Waldstein, but I am fascinated that our responses to Vaughan's book are so different and would be most interested in your opinion on my comments above.

With best regards, Lee

[lee]

Hi Alexander

Thank you for your interesting response ! I think that we may have to beg to differ about Vaughan's book - whilst I accept that much of it is charming, I do find its general tone to be slightly provocative about it's subject matter. I don't think Vaughan is helped in this regard by his - admittedly self confessed - lack of knowledge on music, although to be fair, he was approached by Karajan to write the book (for example, he goes to inordinate lengths to explain the plot and characters of Rosenkavalier, which most music lovers would know already). Admittedly, Richard Osborne's own style is drier, more serious, as befitting his more scholarly tome but, in contrast to yourself, I found him to be a more objective judge. For example, the chapters dealing with Karajan's life and work during the Third Reich are not only better researched and evidenced compared to anything that has gone before, but its conclusion in showing Karajan in far better light than anything that has previously been written, was for 1998, very brave; fifteen years earlier, Vaughan seemed happy just to regurgitate the usual anti-Karajan propaganda. Similarly, the final chapters of Osborne's book, detailing the break-up between Karajan and the BPO, is very sympathetic towards the Maestro, far more so than anyone else before or since. The final chapter of all, describing Karajan's final hours, is very moving in Osborne's objective and dry style - contrast this to the Mills and Boon version of Eliette von Karajan on the DVD "Beauty as I see It", or indeed Vaughan's who I feel deliberately ends his own book "off key."

So no, I disagree with your assessment of Osborne. With the Robinson book, I have to defer judgement as I have the first edition which was published in the 1970's and was reissued last year with additional material. Doesn't the most recent edition contain a chapter on a Karajan conducting class ? I read a review that this was worth the price of the book alone; what do you think ?

As for further reading, I would urge you to seek out (if you haven't already) Richard Osborne's "Conversations with Karajan", which is exactly that and nothing else, as well as Helena Matheopoulos' book "Maestro" - there is another posting on this book in this section by Darkehman who describes it quite marvellously. I dare say that you would get closer to the real Karajan in these books than Vaughan's own somewhat skewered version.

With very best regards, Lee

[thitch]

Hello everyone, happy New Year.

The good thing about having so many Karajan books now available, is that I think it gives us such a well of different opinions and viewpoints to draw from regarding our favorite subject. For example: For many years Paul Robinson's book was the only one I had in my library - I got my copy way back in the late 1970s, and that was the day when in my neck of the woods, you pretty well had to rely on something showing up in a bookstore or maybe a public library, which wasn't very often. Luckily now, we can go on-line and instantaneously locate sometimes dozens of books on the same subjects, and be able to obtain them easily. Compared to recent books, Robinson's offering was not as weighty - but it was, I have to say, the book that really piqued my interest in the maestro to begin with - or maybe moreso, since it was the first real book I'd ever been able to get my hands on at that point many years ago.

I think that by drawing from this well we can take what we need to know or want to learn about Karajan from whatever source, and be willing to reject or take with a grain or two of salt the conclusions of some, depending on when the book was written in the light of what we now know ... or maybe what we personally feel about the maestro based on our own subjective tastes. Personally, I didn't mind the Roger Vaughan book, and enjoyed many of the personal stories and insights ... accepting that it is of course written by a musical outsider, which naturally gives it that different slant, which is okay when added to the pile. I agree with the comments regarding the scholarly tone of Mr Osborne's book (this is still my personal favorite of the lot, along with Conversations with Karajan as a companion) and am very thankful for the dispassionate research included about the Nazi era. True, the Franz Endler-edited "autobiography" also left me slightly disappointed, wishing it was 'grander' somehow. There is also Klaus Lang's Karajan Dossier, a collection of essays on various aspects of Karajan's career, although it has been so long since I last skimmed through it that I'm not really qualified to comment on it.

Last, and definitely least in my view, is Robert Bachmann's KARAJAN: Notes on a Career. I've mentioned elsewhere here that I just simply found this book bizarre - what the motivation behind such a mean-spirited, dare I say attack, on the maestro could have been is beyond me. I would be interested if anyone has more insight into Mr Bachmann's Lebrecht-esque motivations for writing this book, and what he hoped to achieve by publishing these ideas? Was there something personal he had against Karajan? It was mentioned in a post here previously on this topic about the maestro's interest and belief in reincarnation. Bachmann took it upon himself in his book to proclaim that since Herbert von Karajan was an artist entrusted with the preservation and interpretation of works in many cases of a religious nature exclusive to the western, Judeo-Christian tradition, then it behooved him to remain loyal to the Christian religion and western cultural traditions, and not be messing about with "foreign" ideas like Buddhism and reincarnation ... another one of many character flaws no doubt denoting some sort of evil intent on the part of the maestro that Mr Bachmann felt it important to enlighten us about. But see, this aspect of Karajan's non-musical life is just one of the things that makes him all that much more fascinating to me. Personally, I have an interest in this reincarnation topic as well, so I can relate to it. And artistically, maybe saying his "non-musical" life is a misnomer too, since I think it behooves an artist to take inspiration from wherever he thinks is legitimate, since it all goes into the pot of his artistic vision somehow or other. A strange book, but again, no less worthy of being added to the collection to give a rounded view - in my humble opinion.

If there's anything close to 'definitive' it may be Mr Osborne's effort - but again, I don't think any one book will be able to achieve that, unless we're talking something along the lines of de la Grange's multi-volume Mahler biography. I think its good to have a number of books by different authors who bring a different flavor to the topic, but we can still enjoy or reject on one level or another.

Best wishes,

Tim.

[~Linda~]

Jan 14, 2009 15:59:35 GMT 1 jhgaulard said:

If I am authorised a small joke in this new year -- and by the way HNY to each and every forum members, I think the picture posted by Linda is absolutely phenomenal, probably one of the funniest of the maestro....Now what could they have possibly talked about/thought about at that particular moment...We should all try and guess.
I'll start:

BALTSA (Singing at full voice, purportedly out of pitch): NEIN NEIN, NEIN NEIN...ICH' DRINK KEIN WEEEEEEEEIIIIN...

KARAJAN (to himself): Gott...why did I hire her in the first place?

Other ideas?

Thank you jhgaulard for this idea and I find your caption extremely amusing and a hard act to follow! I was hoping that other members would add their contributions.

Anyway, my husband came up with this one. (Unfortunately, this phrase may only have a humorous meaning to British members of the Forum)

Karajan bemoans: “Well, it’s all Greek to me!”

Best wishes

Linda

[~Linda~]

Jan 21, 2009 12:57:31 GMT 1 @waldstein said:

But I wish you would not underrate the non-British members of this Forum. We may not be fortunate enough to have been born on English soil and our English language may very well be very bad, but we do know how to use dictionaries in order to understand a word game that cannot be translated.

Regards,
Alexander

Alexander

I take on board your put down.

Linda

[lee]

That sounds like double-dutch to me Linda !

Lee

[john]

No apologies for any of our non UK members, if you don't get the joke then you probably do not get the TV advert in your country.

My caption is:-

Karajan thinking he is to audition a Tenor for a new production of La Boheme shouts 'I should have gone to Specsavers'


John