Top 25 desert-island recordings

[Deleted]

Thanks for the correction! Should have said Don Jose Carreras.

Needless to say, but since we are on Liszt, want to repeat the comment on K's splendid Liszt album. I find myself going back to this time and time again, transcriptions (the Liszt-sanctioned Rhapsodies) and originals (Tasso, Mazeppa, Mephisto). (Prefer Furtwangler VPO in Les Prelude - the solo violin is part of the reason). HvK did play the Liszt 1st Concerto in 1925 (17 y.o.)

I prefer the original piano versions especially in Rhapsodies #6, 9, 10, 16, 17 (Are there orchestral versions for 10, 16, 17?). In fact just in the last couple of weeks I got hooked on #16 for some reason.

Tasso is another interesting point. There is also a version issue, but different than transcriptions. Namely, which revision version? My documentation says there are 2 earlier verions of Tasso. This is like Bruckner.

By the way, the Sibelius Pelleas has 10 numbers original, 9 numbers in the suite (sanctioned by Sibelius). This is a strange thing.

Regarding playing a composition in whole, I do believe that there is a financial reason why Gazza Ladra is not recorded complete (I am not familiar with the opera).

[Deleted]

Golovanov's Liszts are pretty hot too.

I think the short voilin passage after the middle in Les preludes is more effective solo rather than tutti, but K opted for the more common approach. (Same phenomenon in Dvorak Cello Cto mvt III). On records, the number of vocal soloists appeared with K far surpassed instrumental soloists. He did a lot of concertos in concerts, though. (Pollini, Arrau, Ashkenazy, Lupu, Brendel, Starker, etc.) Would be nice to have K playing Mozart's triple concerto recorded. But then, measure for measure, composers wrote more vocal music than instrumental anyways.

By the way, still enjoying that video of the maestro taking over Weissenberg's seat in K 467.

Yes, the maestro didn't conduct Liszt that much. But then he was a Wagner fan but not the Rienzi overture (conducted once in 1935). There is a thread on pieces he might have conducted.

I do like Trommel geruhret! in Egmont. In fact I come back to this more often than the overture and find it one of the most interesting of Beethoven's. K seemed to like the Symphony 7's mvt II, which I find boring.

[charlesb]

Karajan did make a video recording of Mozart's Concerto for 3 Pianos with the Orchestre de Paris but unfortunately it has never been released commercially. It was recorded the same month as the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique video so presumably EMI could have released it on the same DVD as the Berlioz.

In the 1980's, the Curcio-Hunt label issued the June 1969 London performance of the 3 Piano Concerto on CD. Perhaps Testament will release it soon?

Other live Karajan performances of the 3 Piano Concerto have also been circulated unofficially, including a performance from 22nd September 1974 with the International Youth Orchestra - this performance is not listed on the www.karajan.org database or in John Hunt's Concert Register.

I think that it is a pity that DGG never released live recordings of Chopin's 2nd Piano Concerto or one of the Berlin performances of Bartok's 3rd Piano Concerto (they did release a live recording with the Dresden Staatskapelle but recordings of the Berlin performances that I have heard are better).

Also, I hope that one day someone will officially release DVDs of the 1978 Paris TV concert (this includes the recording of K467 mentioned by tjh212). The DVD copy I have seen of this concert had poor mono sound and was incomplete.

[Deleted]

Hi charlesb,

Would you know who were the soloists in the Youth Orchestra triple concerto concert?

Thanks.

[charlesb]

Pommier, Frantz and Karajan were the soloists. As far as I know, this was the only time that Pommier performed the work with Karajan, but Frantz was also involved in other performances of the work (including the video).

Pommier played the K488 concerto with Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic a few days later, on 25th September.

[Deleted]

Once upon a time I had a desire to collect all Svetlanov recordings, an urge I didn't have even with Karajan. Later it was found that not all of Svetlanov are the kind that seem to shake the speakers, but his Islamey (transcription) comes close in doing just that. It remains the most electrifying non-solo recording in my collection.

There is a youtube video of Svetlanov in Manfred Symphony. The voltage is significanly lower though.

And speaking of Maazel VPO specialties, I treasure this team's Sibelius 1, and the Fledermaus overture

Also I prefer Svetlanov over HvK in Tchaik 1. Unfortunately our maestro's Russian repertoire is dwarfed by Svetlanov.

[Deleted]

Hi Alexander,

We can hear Golovanov Tchaik 6 on May 11 9PM PST,

www.kusc.org

(the Karajan detractor's show).

Tchaikovsky was briefly the most Twittered word last Friday thanks to the Google logo!

[Deleted]

It wasn't as exciting as I thought. I find Mazeppa more technically dazzling. There were interesting tempo fluctuations, and some Simon Rattle / Abbado idiosyncracies - 3 extreme crescendos in the 3rd mvt.

Jim Svejda is mentioned in "A Life in Music," where Osborne discusses one of his hour long programs criticizing our maestro. I emailed Svejda regarding Osborne's comments, but he did not address it. The last 3 comments I heard from him on the air were (paraphrased): "Happy to give away all Karajan records for a chance to hear Furtwangler conduct Bruckner 8"; "I was a naive kid when I owned Karajan's Temporum Comoedia", and, during a fundraiser where the donor would receive CDs including HvK LvB 9, "...I know, I know, but I don't have to listen to it"

By the way, you don't like Jansons' Manfred?

[thitch]

Hi Alexander, hope everything is going great for you these days lately, hope you've gotten your hands on a better video of Karajan in Salzburg - let me know if not. Jansons's recording of Manfred is really my favorite too, and I would also recommend his award-winning reading of the Shostakovich 13 with Symphonieorchester und Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks with Sergei Aleksashkin from 2005 ... definitely worth your time and money!

Tim.

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The predisposition to the first recording one heard of a piece of music is an interesting topic. This is also the case with Jim Svejda as he has admitted. This also involves issues like da capo - many great recordings are let down for me because of lack of repeats and my first recording has repeats. But then there are other pieces which I can tolerate without repeats because, again, the first recording I owned doesn't.

I think why I like Karajan has a lot to do not only, of course, with his style, but also because I got familiar with many works thru his recordings. I don't like Karajan's Brahms, Mahler, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky (Symphony 3 and the Serenade are fine) probably because of this reason as well. (For Brahms I find his chambers much more interesting than his orchestrals, just like the case with Beethoven).

I noticed a similarity of Karajan's Tchaik 4 1st mvt ending and the Fidelio Overture ending - that repeated 2-note rush

Just went to see Alpine Symphony. Not the BPO, but at least saw a wind machine for the 1st time.

[Deleted]

Another example is Karajan's Overture, Scherzo & Finale, which I will be listening to tomorrow for the 200th birthday: Despite skipping the da capo in the Finale (as well as the da capo lead in passage), I still consider this Karajan's greatest Schumann, and one of the most interesting orchestral pieces. I honestly would rather go hear this work played by a student orchestra than a Brahms symphony played by a top orchestra. I can't explain this, but the 2nd mvt (Scherzo) contains ostinato-like phrases, just like the Beethoven 7 2nd mvt, yet I find the Beethoven much more boring.

Interestingly not only did our maestro avoided the Tchaikovsky Manfred, but the Schumann as well.

Speaking of commenmorations, the radios here used to dedicate speical programs to the recently deceased, but nowdays not even a word is mentioned, for example, Taddei, Simionato, Langridge, etc.