Search - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Herbert von Karajan, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra :: Mozart: Symphonies 33 & 39; Eine kleine Nachtmusik

EXQUISITE PRE-SLICK, PRE-GLOSS KARAJAN

Mark E. Farrington | East Syracuse, NY | 03/17/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Herbert von Karajan, like Eugene Ormandy, had a penchant for beautiful sound, and was accused (often rightly) of putting surface-over-substance. And although Ormandy never approached HvK's alleged lust for power, the tragedy of both men was that each stayed at his post too long, and recorded (and re-recorded) way WAY too much. I don't care who you are, or with what level of genius you may be endowed...NOBODY can be in top-form for more than half the time, when committed to grinding out "product" like so many sausages.



Still, there is no denying the freshness of much of HvK's pre-60s EMI work. The best among it includes some of his post-war Vienna Mozart; his 1953 Mozart Horn Concerti with Dennis Brain and the Philharmonia; the 1951-55 Philharmonia Beethoven cycle (see my review); his 1951 Bayreuth MEISTERSINGER (not to mention his 1952 Bayreuth TRISTAN, best transferred on Orfeo); and the 1957 Bruckner 8th & Hindemith MATHIS DER MALER Suite.



The 33rd and EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIK remain the twin jewels of HvK's post-war Vienna Mozart. Until now, to get decent transfers of these, one had to purchase two discs from the earlier 1997 KARAJAN EDITION (i.e., with the teal green covers)- which meant putting up with his excrementally bad 1946 Schubert GREAT (among other "fillers").



Both the 33rd and the NACHTMUSIK were produced by Walter Legge, and give off the same kind of "roundedness-and-radiation" as Beecham's LPO Mozart 34th thru 38th - which were also produced by "Herr Leg-guh." (Sir Tommy apparently thought little of the 33rd. And he did not record NACHTMUSIK until 1945; his NACHTMUSIK is superb until the Finale, which he takes at an eccentrically slow tempo- as he did the first movement of the 29th.)



HvK re-recorded the 33rd and NACHTMUSIK in Berlin in 1966, but for all their clarity and excellence, they cannot hold a candle to these earlier, more GEMUTLICH recordings from 1946. This 33rd sports springy rhythms married effortlessly to rich tone, and the NACHTMUSIK has finer rhythmic pointing and even greater beauty of tone than the fabled 1936 Bruno Walter / Vienna version. Maybe it was HvK's youthful energy and his certainty that he had an extraordinary career ahead of him. Maybe it was an ELAN on his part, from knowing that (apart from Bruno Walter's pre-war NACHTMUSIK) he pretty much had the market to himself in these works. Maybe it was the post-war atmosphere of Vienna, which (in spite of the slow, hopeful recovery from war) made the players create a world-of-pleasure in sound that was yet unmatched by the drabness still around them. Maybe it was ALL of these things. In any case, this is music making which could fearlessly sit at the higher end of the "banquet table," along with Beecham's and Bohm's best Mozart.



This disc has essentially the same transfers as the 1997 discs, except that in the 33rd, the jarring volume increase from the end of the Andante to the beginning of the Menuetto has been "tamed" for greater listening pleasure. And unlike the 1989 CD transfer, this version of the 33rd has not been "no-noised" to death, and the strings have TEXTURE. This increase in tonal luster is especially important in the NACHTMUSIK (which of course is "all strings")- because it was not recorded as vividly as the 33rd. (Due to rationing of raw material and other problems, wax matrice quality in post-war Europe could be variable, even within the same sessions). Still, neither recording has ever sounded better than it does here.



So, enjoy. You can almost SMELL the Sachertort and Kaffee mit Schlagobers."