In the event you’re a double-bassist or violist, the concept of a New Yr’s live performance of Strauss waltzes may nicely provide you with a case of the screaming habdabs. Hundreds of thousands of bars of ‘oom’ (bass) and ‘pah-pah’ (viola), whereas the opposite devices get to have enjoyable, can certainly be a type of torture in most orchestras. However then most orchestras are usually not the Vienna Philharmonic, and most conductors aren’t Herbert von Karajan – and when these two titanic forces met for a legendary New Yr’s Day live performance of Strauss works in 1987, each ‘oom’ and each ‘pah-pah’ appeared like magic. Thirty-four years on the magic is as vivid as ever.
Hearken to Karajan’s New Yr’s Live performance in Vienna on Apple Music and Spotify.
What made it particular?
A very powerful issue is that Herbert von Karajan takes the music significantly, and there’s not a second when he goes into ‘oom-pah-pah’ autopilot. But in addition – and it’s great to listen to in a conductor with such a fame for Austro-German seriousness – he has enjoyable. He pulls the tempi about, and retains it vigorous and dance-like. It’s sensuously playful in a approach that solely Austrians appear to have the ability to handle. Do that beautiful account of ‘The Blue Danube,’ carried out as an encore, to get a style of the occasion – and marvel on the accuracy of the idiosyncratic ‘Vienna rhythm,’ through which a teeny-tiny emphasis is placed on the primary of the ‘pahs’ within the ‘oom-pah-pah.’
My toes are tapping already. Anything?
The gamers clearly relish their relationship with the conductor. They’re having fun with themselves as a lot as he’s (sure, even the double basses), and it provides their well-polished sound an additional sparkle.
However this will need to have been one in all lots of of New Yr live shows they made collectively, absolutely?
Amazingly, no. Since 1939, solely a handful of conductors had ever taken the helm of the Vienna New Yr’s Live shows: first Clemens Kraus, then concertmaster Willi Boskovsky, after which Lorin Maazel. In 1987, the orchestra determined to shake issues up utterly, and from that point ahead, they deliberate to ask a distinct conductor yearly. The primary option to kick off the brand new system was Herbert von Karajan, who had a well known love for the music of all of the Strauss household. He was additionally considerably frail by this time (he was 79, and never in the most effective of well being), so it was necessary to e book him whereas he was nonetheless accessible. He by no means carried out one other comparable live performance, and died in July 1989. It’s apparent from the sound how happy the gamers had been to be with him.
However didn’t I learn one thing about some issues? Some acrimony with the gamers?
What a Grinch! To convey that up on New Yr’s Day, when everyone’s syne must be each auld and lang. However sure, there have been issues round this time with Karajan’s principal orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he’d been principal conductor since 1956. They had been complaining in public that they discovered him too autocratic: some even used the phrase ‘fascist’. It was all a bit bloody. Maybe the gamers of the rival Vienna Philharmonic had been pouring balm onto his wounds, and giving him an additional increase to point out their loyalty.
And even Kathleen Battle was on her finest habits?
Ah, you realize of her fame, I see. Battle was so notoriously bad-tempered that a few of her colleagues as soon as made T-shirts with the emblem ‘I Survived the Battle’ when she was fired from New York’s Metropolitan Opera for ‘unprofessional actions.’ A complete diva, to place it politely. However in ‘Voices Of Spring’, she exhibits how she received to the highest of her sport earlier than she jumped off into the abyss of diva-dom. Lusciously clear singing, excellent coloratura, an actual sense of verve and vim. All of it provides an additional sparkle to the flute of champagne.
I want I’d been there
On prime of every little thing else, Karajan’s New Yr’s Live performance is an ear-opener for individuals who are accustomed to solely the works of probably the most well-known member of the waltz household: Johann (‘Danube’) Strauss II. It’s true that his waltzes and polkas make up the majority of the programme, however there are terrific works from his brother Josef and their father, Johann Strauss I as nicely. Johann II stated of his brother: “Josef is the more gifted of us two; I am merely the more popular.” To ship you away with a smile, let’s end with Josef’s giddy ‘Without A Care’ Polka, which requires the members of the orchestra to carry out in fairly surprising methods. What a hoot.
Karajan’s New Yr’s Live performance In Vienna might be purchased right here.
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