7:02 That chord never fails to give me the shivers. The whole performance (live, 1983) is staggering, even better than Karajan's stupendous studio effort (1980). Hard to believe "Alpensinfonie" was new to his repertoire. It sounds like he conducted it his whole life.
He came to this work late in life actually with these recordings. I used to think it was as a demonstration of digital sound in the advent of the cd era, but now I think it was because Karajan was physically losing his ability to climb his beloved mountains.
One of the versions I enjoy is the 2010 recording with Sir Bernard Haitink conducting this piece with the London Symphony Orchestra on their LSO Live label. Additionally, Semyon Bychkov did a great rendition with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne.
Karajan hatte zu dieser Zeit permanent starke Schmerzen in seinem Rücken. Aber dennoch dirigiert er die Berliner Philharmoniker zu ihren absoluten Höchstleistungen. Welchen Willen muss er gehabt haben, welche unfassbare Schönheit muss in seinem Kopf gewesen sein! Strauss, Sibelius, Nielsen, Wagner - etwas Schöneres hat es nie gegeben.
During "at the summit" when the strings move with his every subtle twitch, I die and live again a thousand times. The connection there is so powerful that I find myself following their movements as well. Almost 40 years later and half a world away I am connected too.
Huge emotional grand old-school.....Can't say if it recalls (for me) Wagner, Gliere or Rachmaninov 'Isle of the Dead'.....Fabulous....Bravo Karajan & Berlin
Das Konzert muss Anfang der 80er Jahre in der Berliner Philharmonie aufgenommen worden sein. Ich hatte damals von der Schule eine Karte und war life dabei; leider mein einzigstes Karajan-Konzert. Ich war absolut begeistert von dieser Vorstellung, denke heute noch gerne an diesen Tag zurück. Viele Dank für diesen UL, nicht nur ein Stück Berliner Zeitgeschichte, eine schöne Würdigung an diesen großartigen Dirigenten.
@@otto9327 leider konnte sich Karajan mit Sabine Mayer nicht durchsetzen, damals war das alles bedauerlicherweise noch recht männerdominiert. Das wirbelte damals in der Presse ziemlich viel Staub auf. Beinahe täglich konnte man dazu was lesen. Ich erinnere mich, das er damals auch ziemlich viele Operationen überstehen musste. Mir ist so das ein paar Tage vor dieser Aufführung auch eine stattfand. Übrigens, die Alpensinfonie war meine erste CD die ich mir nach der Vorstellung kaufte. Auf der Berliner Funkausstellung kurz vorher wurden die ersten CD-Player vorgestellt. Die CD hab ich noch heute 😀, lieben Gruß aus Berlin und schönes Wochenende
@@1matthiasmnich Die Berliner Philharmoniker sind ein Orchester in Eigenverwaltung, da kann Niemand einfach bestimmen, wer dort Mitglied wird, auch nicht der damalige Chefdirigent, Herbert von Karajan. Sabine Meyer ist eine hervorragende Musikerin, aber passte wohl vom Zusammenspiel nicht ganz zur Holzbläsergruppe der Philharmoniker. Das auf ein Frauen/Männer Thema zu reduzieren, wird dem Sachverhalt nicht gerecht und ist unterkomplex. Kurze Zeit später kam mit der Schweizer Geigerin Madeleine Caruzzo ja auch die erste Frau ins Orchester und ist dieses Jahr nach fast 40 Jahren Zugehörigkeit in den Ruhestand gegangen.
@@1matthiasmnich Es hat wohl keiner der Musiker das musikalische Talent Sabine Mayers angezweifelt (welch große Klarinettistin sie ist hat sie seitdem bewiesen). Es ging wohl eher darum, inwieweit sie sich in ein Orchester einfügen können. Man hat wohl argumentiert (so habe ich es einer Karajanbiographie gelesen), daß sie zu solistisch sei. Ein Musiker soll gesagt haben, es wäre so, als würde man Anne-Sophie Mutter ins Orchester holen. Zeitgleich mit Sabine Mayer trat auch Madeleine Caruzzo ihren Dienst bei den Berliner Philharmonikern an. Ich frage mich, ob es für sie auch eine Erleichterung gewesen sein könnte, daß sich alles um die "Causa Mayer" drehte, und so die Aufmerksamkeit von der wirklich ersten Frau bei den Berliner Philharmonikern genommen wurde. 1979 antwortete Karajan auf die Frage eines chinesischen Journalisten, weshalb es keine Frauen bei den Berliner Phiharmonikern gebe, "Weil wir krank sind". Ich beneide wirklich jeden, der Karajan noch live erleben konnte.
@@franziskakre8309 Mein Vater hat Karajan 1967 oder 1968 live erlebt mit Bruckners Vierter Sinfonie in Ulm. Nach dem Konzert haben er und seine Mitschüler so laut geklatscht und Bravo gerufen, dass Karajan zu ihnen hochgeschaut hat.
For me - absolutely - the best version of Alpe. In some parts k version better than studio one recorder for dg. Tension and legatos are incomparables!!!
Jedes einzelne Dirigat Herbert von Karajans war ein solches Kunstwerk wie das Werk selbst. Somit gab es eine Potenzierung des Kunstwerks...... wir hören hier das Non-plus-Ultra.....
Die Alpensinfonie auf "Karan-Gold" CD, ist wirklich die REFERENZ-AUFNAHME bis heute. Unübertroffen an musikalischer Schönheit. (KOPF-KINO)🎶 🎼🌞🌤🌥🌦🌫🌬🌩🌪🌝🌜🎶 Die Berliner Philharmoniker haben -bis heute DIESES WERK- nicht so spannend gespielt, wie damals unter Herbert von Karajan 📀
@@gerontius3 Thanks for the info!!! I had heard it was marked the way you say...and many think one shouldn't vary from the composer's wishes... but... I still like Von Karajan's loud and up front horns deviation!!!
I remember seeing this around the time it came out, on a PBS broadcast. Back then you didn't see the Berlin Phil much on video so it was fascinating. I recognized Sabine Meyer, who by the the time it came out had already been denied tenure in the dispute that was one of the straws in the wrecked relationship between Karajan and BPO. This video is less gimmicky than some others - no isolation shots from the studio, etc..
The performance archive of this music is comparable to Dr.Karl Böhm, even considering this conductor, Maestro. Herbert von Karajan's mountaineering experience. Both were direct disciples of R.Strauss and were as old friends as their parents. Even so, this elaborate interlaced construction beauty and poetic phrasing, intellectual solo accents and symbolic responses. It's hard to find in other performances. In any case, this Karajan, just like a monk, wakes up at 4:00 a.m. every morning, practices yoga, and concentrates on studying scores for zazen. It is the appearance of conducting a complete memorization of his performance on the stage where you can get a glimpse of the unraveling of the score in the medicine basket. It can be likened to the "Book of Five Rings" written by Musashi Miyamoto, the greatest swordsman in Japan. Serious competition aesthetics. Amazing❤❗
Unfassbare Aufführung, ich denke unerreicht .....Die Schönheit des Orchesterklanges,die zarten Pianissimi mit den wahrhaften Forte......Der Rest ist Schweigen....
I've said this before and I'll say it again. Strauss, Furtwangler & Karajan had only one passion above others: music. If the Nazi regime (in Strauss' & Karajan's case) was going to be the conduit where they could create great music, then so be it. Their G-d (as you say, my good Jewish friend!) was music. I know von Karajan was a member of the Nazi party, but his whole life's work doesn't speak to me as a National Socialist. He was an incredibly self-absorbed vain man, to be sure, more so than most conductors. Was he a Nazi in his heart? I don't believe so. He conducted Mahler later in life, and in his "final" concert conducted the sublime Love Death from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde with Jessye Norman as soloist, and before they left the stage he took both her hands and kissed them. Knowing the infamous Hitler snub of Jessie Owens and how Blacks, like Jews, were "sub-human" in Hitler's National Socialist ideology, if Karajan was an ardent Nazi he would have never permitted Norman to perform with him. Ironically, von Karajan did much of what (my favorite composer) Gustav Mahler did. Mahler wanted to assume the post as conductor of the Vienna State Opera, and no Jew had ever been allowed to so, so he converted to Catholicism. Was von Karajan racist or anti-Semitic during the Nazi years? Perhaps. So was most of the world at the time, sad to say. But history must be judged in the context within itself. (Please don't misunderstand me. As a Jew myself, I am not an apologist for anti-Semitism whatsoever, but Europe (and America) was rampantly prejudiced against Jews in the first half of the 20th century. That's a fact.) I don't believe he remained anti-Semitic or racist, if he was. Hitler loathed the Catholic church, yet I saw a video of von Karajan receiving a blessing from Pope John Paul II late in his life. Was von Karajan a saint? Hardly. But he also wasn't the unapologetic anti-Semite that Wagner was, either. And the music he (Karajan) created speaks for itself. On the other hand, this is simply my opinion. I'm a layman who knows nothing, so take what I say in its proper context. If you disagree with me, that is perfectly fine. Let's keep music music, and leave the politics out of it. For what it's worth, and I know this sounds like shameless platitudes, but my favorite conductor of all time is Leonard Bernstein, followed by Daniel Barenboim.
v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTE0OTczMjg4.html?from=s1.8-1-1.2&spm=a2h0k.8191407.0.0 don't worry, not a spam link, it is chinese youtube. This is the recording you are looking for: Karajan 86 Telemondial video recording for Mussorgsky - Pictures with Berlin Phil. If link doesn't work try visiting the page youku and write the chinese translation of the keywords Karajan Mussorgsky to the search engine.
Thank you very much cagin! I'm looking for that video recording for years. For me it's the best video recording of this series that he did on his own with Telemondial. Don't worry I'm used to fall into chinese tubes searching for rare recordings. A documentary that i'm looking for now and can not find with subtitles is Herbert von Karajan - The Second Life of Eric Schulz, by chance you have it?
Totally impossible. And useless. What he obtains at 45.20 is simply NON-HUMAN. Put it as you like, this is the greatest lesson in conducting technique and art I have seen in my life. I saw this the first time some 27 years ago when I got the laserdisc (laserdisc...Pre-history) of this performance. Can you imagine what incredible lessons of conducting I got, at my very start of career? This is His Final Chapter. The Final peak of the Alps in his life. Everytime I go to Anif Cemetery, every given year, this Music is always with me. And He is there.
ps and your great father knew it well: what they achieved is the greatest legacy in Opera Scenery ever. Such a pity I only have some pictures of Salome and not the entire performance. As well as the Ring or Parsifal.
Th opening phrases of distant beams of light awakening, thematic Grundwerke from Wagner Rheingold, as the sudden burst of sunlight races through the mountain peaks and touches the valleys below.
One seriously wonders if Strauss did take his opening composing cues from the E flat chord that begins Rheingold, further to me having thought similar things to you and this too, further to seeing Karajan's control of the start. It's almost as if Strauss has kind of turned the Rheingold opening inside out, while 'the sudden burst of sunlight' you mention seems a metaphor for the gold itself.
The only thing I find highly disputable is that he does not use offstage brass, as Strauss demanded. It really does not sound right, if you have the brass in the orchestra play that moment.
@@yashbspianoandcompositions1042 I thought it was common knowledge what kind of special orchestral effects the Alpine Symphony asks for. In this case 12 Horns, 2 Trumpets and 2 Trombones placed offstage, preferably outside of the auditorium.
James Galway told me when he was in the BPO that when they made video recordings, Karajan made all the baldies in the BPO wear wigs and any beardies were not show on screen, a colleague of James Galway had to substitute. H v K hated baldies and beardies!
as much as people love karajan, I doubt if this was the best, there are many versions that are well performed, not to mention Rudolf Kemp one of the best interpreter of Richard Strauss
All the cosmetic surgeons in Berlin went bust when he passed on! All those face lifts, vanity of vanities. Does anyone find Strauss rather like a poor mans Wagner, almost a "wrong note" composer but not quite. Rather GF Handel myself.
Timothy, you are of course entitled to your opinion, but in stating that this performance at around 50 minutes is "too fast" is overlooking the fact that there is a recording by the composer himself that is 5 minutes faster.....
