Unkle Normy Nukes Karajan: "A Discreditable Life"

Waking up in the morning to Herbert von Karajan on the radio, I have to rub my eyes and check the calendar to make sure that Mao Tse-tung is not alive and the Soviet Union still a world power.

There was a time, defined by dictatorship, to which Karajan provided the musical backdrop.

Il Dottor Lebrecht unloads some new ammo on HVK.

Comments

[Andrew Powell]

There was nothing new in Unkle Normy's comments, and he discredits himself more than Karajan.

[Jason]

Not unlike Karajan's recordings, Lebrecht's writing is a mixed bag. He has some interesting insights on the world of music, but he sometimes lets his self-righteousness get the better of him.

Yes, the Nazis were horrible. But who in the civilized world doesn't think that, aside from a few nutjobs? Currently, I'm much more concerned about the Neo-Cons currently trying to maintain their grip on the western side of the Atlantic. Fox News strikes me as much more dangerous than Karajan commemorations on DG.

I will also agree with Lebrecht that corporatization of music can make it too safe. However, his subjective assessment of what constitutes "artificial beauty" (versus "authenticity") seems as useless as the "greatness" applied to Karajan. Plus, classical music and opera still remain at the margins of society overall, no matter how "corporate" and "elitist" Karajan may have made it... certainly when compared with the Britney clones cranked out by other corporations. And puh-leeeze... classical and opera was considered "elitist," sissy, and effete long before Karajan waved his velvety-iron meathooks in front of Hitler.

As for flogging "profit from a dead lion," Lebrecht has been getting additional mileage out of Karajan's Palpatinesque ways. In the past few months, he has already written The Monster and the Myth, along with the less subtle Karajan Year Will Honor Musical Autocrat. Seems as though Lebrecht is commemorating the man he despises in his own way as well.

(Note to Lebrecht and DG, along with EMI and London: The 20th anniversary of Karajan's death is coming up next year. Have another go at it?)

[Henry Holland]

I don't have strong feelings about Karajan one way or the other --love some recordings of his, don't like some others-- and Jason beat me to a lot of the points I was going to make but I just can't stand simple errors of fact by journalists that are easily checkable:

"Reactionary by nature, he stuck to the classical and romantic mainstream, excluding non-tonal music"

Right, that 3 LP boxset of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg --those noted writers of instantly memorable tunes-- that I owned for years and was my introduction to the second Viennese school was just an illusion on my record shelf. Was he conducting Stockhausen, Xenakis or Nono? No, of course not, but so weren't/aren't a lot of other conductors. How is that Saint Toscanini joined the Fascist Party and had a similar narrow rep and a real aversion to anything remotely challenging but he's considered a god?

And speaking of despicable, that's the perfect description of Unkle Normy's constantly dishonest way of saying in as many different ways as possible "Well, sure Karajan didn't really *do* anything as a Nazi except be a careerist and he married a 1/2 Jewish woman, but I'm CERTAIN that he was vile".

Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who played the cello in Karajan's Vienna orchestra, was shut out of Salzburg and Berlin once he started conducting with period instrument ensembles in a manner that contradicted the Karajan orthodoxy

Or: maybe Harnoncourt is a sh tty conductor who would never have made it to the podium conducting even the Kaiserslautern Philharmonik or whatever if he didn't jump on the original instrument bandwagon. Karajan at his worst can't even begin to match the sheer awfulness of some of Saint Nik's recordings.

[Opera Chic]

Hank, Hank, Hank!

(can I call you Hank?)

You are one of OC's favorite commenters but don't abuse your priviliges OK? Toscanini, despite a very bad decision in 1919 to run, lamely and very casually, as candidate for the then just-born Fascist Party is one thing -- and anyway Mussolini took power by force more than 3 years later and Toscanini was already out of the party. But Toscanini was harassed, often physically, threatened, and beaten. Mussolini boycotted his concerts and operas because he refused to play the Fascist anthem as far back as 1922-23.

Toscanini was a commited anti-Fascist who conducted the first performance of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv, and was always proud of his support for the Jewish people, a people he supprted with generosity in their time of maximum danger. Toscanini left Italy as an exile and only came back after the war.

To compare "Saint" Arturo -- who, if Jews had indeed saints, he'd frankly deserve to be sainted, yes -- with someone who quickly became one of the Reich's point men in the musical field and was rightly tried after the war and generously let off the hook, well, to compare Toscanini and Karajan when it comes to politics borders on the grotesque.

Karajan didn't "do" anything as a Nazi?

Really?

Then Leni Riefensthal didn't do anything either, I guess.

That is, if the litmus test to be considered a Nazi is having personally operated an oven. But it's probably unwise to discard the seriousness of the charges against people who gave cultural legitimacy to Hitler. One can find mitigating circumstances for Furtwaengler, maybe. Karajan? With two party membership cards?

Your box set of 3 LPs notwithstanding, Karajan remains a constituionally conservative -- when musical taste is concerned -- conductor; Toscanini was one, too. He was also, like, 50 years older than Karajan. And yes Toscanini's taste was not only conservative but sometimes decidedly middlebrow (cue his obsession for the horrible Catalani).

Having said that, I completely agree on the Harnoncourt stuff.

hugs + kisses

OC

[fignaz]

Just to expand a bit on what OC said-- Mussolini's party in 1919 was still characterized by its leader's original incarnation as a socialist & appealed to other left of center types besides Toscanini. It was then something quite different from what it became scant 3 years later. Also, I think it's somewhat unfair to judge conductors by what they choose to perform in their old age. They all seem to revisit their favorites & therefore seem more conservative. Toscanini, in his prime, was a champion of contemporary composers. Think of all the world & local premieres he conducted during his tenures at La Scala & the Met. Off the top of my head, the only conductor of AT's generation who continued exploring new & contemporary music to the end was Koussevitzky.

[Henry Holland]

[cowers in corner] Don't hate me, OC, don't hate meeeeeeeee! [curls up in ball]

:-)

Points taken about Toscanini, I threw in the Fascist Party bit as a jibe, reading it again with your background info, it *is* grotesque to make a comparison, I retract that. To be honest, I know almost nothing about his personal story because I can't stand his recordings, so I never felt compelled to read about it.

What about Richard Strauss, who Toscanini famously dissed?

[EinWiener]

I Think that Mr Lebrect should be careful, not to byte his tongue. If he accidentally bytes his tongue, he will be poisoned. :-)