Richard Osborne recently
recalled how Herbert von Karajan frequently
visited William Walton in the early
1950s. It transpired that the rising
conductor paid attention to Walton’s
music after World War II because he
wanted to establish credibility with
the British forces as well as with a
public who might still be harbouring
anti-German feelings.
In the 1950s Karajan
conducted works by Britten and Vaughan
Williams - as rites of passage to get
in with the British establishment as
well as to become popular with English
music lovers. Karajan’s ambition was
to make recordings with Walter Legge’s
newly formed Philharmonia Orchestra
- and thus establish his conducting
career in London. Later in life Karajan
said to Osborne that he would only conduct
the Philharmonia providing all the players
were white and that there were no Jews,
homosexuals or women included.
What was kept secret
and locked in the vaults for over fifty
years was Karajan’s ‘trial’ studio recording
session of Walton’s First Symphony
in B flat minor recorded with the
Philharmonia on 15 January 1951 - and
recorded again with the RAI Rome (Italian
Radio Symphony) Orchestra on 5 December
1953 (which was recently issued: Karajan:
EMI Great Conductors of the 20th Century
36 5 62869 2 79:52; 79:41).
Osborne recalled that
only Legge and Walton were allowed to
attend the ‘closed’ trial recording
sessions. The composer walked out after
the first movement because of Karajan’s
re-touchings and the addition of extra
orchestral parts for brass and woodwind.
To Walton’s horror and surprise Karajan
even added four Wagner Tubas.
Whilst Walton was annoyed
about Karajan’s re-writing of his work
he did compliment the conductor after
the session for bringing out the dark
dissonances and sheer savagery of the
score. He said that it was easily the
"best performance he had ever heard"
- even despite his reservations about
Karajan’s re-scorings. It is well known,
however, that Walton always said the
most recent recording he heard of his
First Symphony were "the
best he had ever heard" – including
the recordings by Boult, Sargent, and
Previn.
Even so, Walton refused
to give Legge the right to issue Karajan’s
‘touched-up’ account - despite the session
- taped in one day - being a total success
where conducting, orchestral playing
and recording were concerned. EMI played
safe and issued Walton’s own account
recorded in October 1951 - just
ten months after Karajan’s – and again
with the Philharmonia at the Kingsway
Hall, London. Although authoritative
it lacked the manic drive and white
heat of Karajan’s account.
Whilst the tapes remained
the property of EMI, Karajan had not
been officially paid for the recording
sessions because it was just a ‘trial
run through’. He insisted on taking
the tapes as his fee and donated them
to Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft
(DGG) after signing a life-time contract
with them. There the tapes remained,
long thought lost – and certainly forgotten
– until early this year (2006) after
some reels were recovered from a fire
at the DG archive in Hamburg. It is
through the courtesy of EMI that DG
have now been allowed to release this
highly important historical document.
Also as the Philharmonia now record
for DG they were only too pleased for
them to make this historic document
available to the public for the first
time.
The tempi throughout
are on the brisk side – even quicker
than Previn’s renowned LSO account.
Karajan’s reading is not slick and superficial
but beautifully measured, mastering
the structure of the score and making
it sound Germanic; more Bruckner than
Walton.
The First Movement:
Allegro assai is the embodiment
of evil, bursting with the energy of
a volcanic eruption with the brass sounding
like explosive lava. Karajan gives the
processional coda thrusting drive and
radiant power - as he does in the closing
moments of the first movement of Bruckner
8. The colossal closing climax with
a shattering succession of stamping
brass chords and hammering timpani conveys
an unrelenting savagery which makes
the music sound strangely Nazi-like
under Karajan’s brute direction. Uncannily,
the CD cover sports Karajan making what
looks like a Nazi salute.
The Scherzo
is marked Presto, con malizia
(very fast, with malice) – and is similar
in mania and malice to the second movement
of Shostakovich 10. Here Karajan is
at his brilliant best. Never has this
music sounded so cutting and brutal
with spellbinding playing from the Phliharmonia.
The slow third movement's
Andante con Malincolia, has a
serene and sometimes severe mood with
the superlative Philharmonia strings
sounding sublime. Certainly they do
not sound like this anymore.
Karajan gave the Andante a sense
of nervous urgency and underlying pulsation
as if anticipating some dramatic trauma
to come. Here the conductor evokes an
ever-evolving stream of sensations,
shape-shifting multiple moods. These
range from sweet sentimentality to black
bitter sweetness, to dark dread, to
alien anxiety.
The: Maestoso; Brioso
ed Ardemente is taut and tough with
Karajan securing jagged and buoyant
rhythms that make the menacing music
seem to dance wildly to death. In the
closing passages the accompanying two
timpanists – playing perfectly in unison
- have a shuddering intensity I have
never heard before.
This is by far the
greatest account that I have ever heard
of this symphony on either LP or CD
easily surpassing the anodyne, anaemic
and etiolated performances by Ashkenazy,
Gibson, Litton, Rattle, Slatkin, Thomson,
and Haitink. Karajan’s dramatic and
powerful account is only matched by
a ‘live’ recording made by Sir Charles
Mackerras and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
from their 1980/81 concert season.
This ‘historic’ performance
is very well recorded for its age, sounding
spacious and full bodied despite the
mono sound. Very highly recommended.
Alex Russell
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