My listening post this morning is the Restaurant-Chain-That-Must-Not-Be-Named where I am listening to a table of five guys conduct a Bible study, while I sip my Light Roast coffee, and eat a twice-toasted bagel with cream cheese.
Even though it’s 7:38am, it’s still pitch black outside.
I prefer being here at 6am. But I had to drop off Christmas cards at the post office and buy a few stamps to mail mundane things like bills.
But as long as it’s still dark outside it feels like I’m here at 6am. So it’s all good.
After finishing my bagel, I slipped in my earbuds and cranked up Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989), Berliner Philharmoniker, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor.
Today is Day 154. I only have eight days left in my 162-day Beethoven project.
I learn a lot when I undertake these musical explorations.
But I’m kind of looking forward to the conclusion of this one.
It’s not always easy spending 2-3 hours every day on a blog – especially at the busiest time of year, and double especially when I have a book and a screenplay to write.
But the sheer joy of discovering these symphonies in all their richness and passion overshadows whatever pain I feel in my butt from writing about them.
I’ve encountered Maestro Karajan’s legendary 1963 cycle eight times previously to this morning, on…
Day 10. Rating: “Huzzah!”
Day 28. Rating: “Huzzah!”
Day 46. Rating: “Huzzah!”
Day 64. Rating: “Huzzah!”
Day 82. Rating: “Meh!”
Day 100. Rating: “Huzzah!”
Day 118. Rating: “Meh!”
Day 136. Rating: “Huzzah!”
Even with me trying my best not to like Maestro Karajan, I still managed to rate his performances “Huzzah!” six times out of eight.
What will today bring?
I’ll know very soon.
But first, a brief excerpt from the liner notes (written by Richard Osborne) to this legendary 1963-cycle CD box set:
Sublimity is the keynote, with Beethoven instinctively recognizing the depth and inspiration of Schiller’s Ode (a poem written out of profound joy in a deep and abiding friendship – “All who can call at least one soul theirs/Join in our song of praise.”)
The result is a great spiritual drama arising out of a musical and theological dialectic already familiar from the Missa Solemnis. Here, an overwhelming sense of the majesty of God is pitted against suffering humanity, prostrate and self-abasing…
And now a brief excerpt from David Suchet’s book Beethoven: The Man Revealed:
It took Beethoven well over a year to bring his Ninth Symphony to fruition, the biggest problem being how to introduce the voices in the final movement. Aware of how ground-breaking this final movement would be, he sketched then rejected several ideas, before deciding to quote the theme from each of the preceding three movements, but rejecting it before it could be completed. A solo bass voice then articulates in words the desire to abandon these sounds in favor of more pleasing and joyful tones. The final movement therefore breaks free and takes flight. The mind of a genius at work. (pages 273, 274)
Okay. Now to Maestro Karajan’s interpretation of the Ninth.
How did it fare?
Beethoven wrote his symphonies in four parts (except for the Sixth, which is in five). The time breakdown of this particular one (Symphony No. 9 in D minor), from this particular conductor (Karajan, at age 54) and this particular orchestra (Berliner Philharmoniker), at this particular time in history (October & November, 1962) on this particular record label (Deutsche Grammophon) is as follows:
I. Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso………………….15:27
II. Molto vivace………………………………………..10:58
III. Adagio molto e cantabile……………………………..16:25
IV. Finale (A)……………………………………………..6:23
IV. Finale (B)…………………………………………….17:35
Total running time: 67:01
My Rating:
Recording quality: 4 (tape hiss and ambient sounds throughout; a bit of top end missing, instruments aren’t distinct from one another – they’re all kind of blended together)
Overall musicianship: 3 (a tad quick, perfunctory, lackluster)
CD liner notes: 5 (Nice, thick 54-page booklet with lengthy essays by Richard Osborne about each symphony, translated into English, German, and French, and all pertinent technical info)
How does this make me feel: 3 (“Meh!”)
I was bored to tears by this performance.
It never got rocking, never got off the ground, never made the hairs on my neck stand up, my head and toes to tap. It just sort of lied there, either sleeping or dead.
Only Movement II held my attention. And that’s because it’s next to impossible to suck the life out of all those dynamic passages. All the rest of this recording suffered from an awful reduction in top end (most likely from trying to suppress the tape hiss) and a lackluster performance.
Even the dynamic Movement IV was irritating in its lifelessness. The voices grated, rather than elated.
Yesterday’s performance from Eugen Jochum was spectacular. Today’s performance by Herbert von Karajan was D.O.A.
I guess the Cult of Karajan (a.k.a. Karajan Worship Syndrome) can’t fix everything, eh?
“Meh!”