Sunday, February 15, 2009

Karajan - Or Beauty as I see it.

Finally, a biographical film that does justice to Herbert von Karajan after the awfully pretentious and apologetic version I reviewed some time ago. This documentary made by Oscar-nominated director Robert Dornhelm simply delivers Karajan as he is without airbrushing controversies surrounding the Man himself or sugarcoating his myth paraphrasing a quote of Simon Rattle, "enough bullshit to cover whole Middle Europe". Throughout almost 90 minutes of the film, there is no narrator instead all narration are done by compilation of interviews from famous musicians and contemporary of Karajan including Anne-Sophie Mutter, Seiji Ozawa, Evgeny Kissin, Mariss Janssons, Christa Ludwig and orchestra musicians who worked under him.
No question Herbert von Karajan is the most recognisable conductor in history of music, whose concerts and records with Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras were household bestsellers in classical music. The "Karajan Sound" which the maestro cultivated with his Berliners for 30 over years cast divided opinions between music lovers and critics call what you may - plush, homogenous or as Harvey Sachs add "highly refined, lacquered, calculatedly voluptuous sound". Some music benefitted with maximum effect as result of "Karajan sound" - hypnotising sensuality in Daphnis et Chloe suite no.2 (Ravel), cathedral organ-blocks in symphonies of Bruckner, terrifying Bernard Herrmann-like horror in 2nd Viennese orchestral works and disastarous results also - Saint-Saens Organ Symphony (with "dubbed" organ lol), Brandenburg Concertos of Bach and some music of Beethoven which its silken homogeneity is anathema to the composer himself. No doubt as Karajan ages over the years he became even more obsessed with producing the most beautiful sound possible from his orchestras. He detests an ugly note in a rehearsal of Beethoven 9th, likened it to "throwing sack of coal from a wagon". Nevertheless whether one agrees with his approach I digress.

Testimonies and interviews confirm the Karajan persona; he is a "discipline incarnate" who sets incredulously high standards to himself and obviously people around him. For starters, Karajan wakes up at 4 a.m every morning to study his scores, or whenever he has spare time especially on rail journeys. He is also a egoistic "hands on" person who knows how to direct an opera from a Directors chair, flying his own airplane and navigate his own yacht. Christa Ludwig (if not mistaken) jokes,"The plane won't crash, if Karajan is in it".

Interviews and most imporantly, rehearsal footages exposes Karajan as feared control freak. In his early days in Ulm, his uncomprimising hand in artistic matters almost got him assasinated by a scorned former concertmaster, because Karajan demoted incompetent 1st-desk violinists to 2nd desk. In footage of orchestral rehearsals, Karajan speaks and nobody else does, even throwing insults when the players doesn't give what he wants. Anne-Sophie Mutter could not get some of the Berliners on her side when she had a brief brush with the maestro over her insistence of tempi in a concerto, and Kissin found out as well nobody can try to be bigger than the "Dirigent".

Interestingly in one segment of the film Karajan is compared with "Lenny" Bernstein who is diametrically opposite of himself; Lenny is unabashedly hedonistic, loves life and is an expressive man. Karajan doesn't drink alcohol (he claims in an interview), is a cold, detached man and his only vice is his fascination with airplanes, yachts and sport cars. Both men were compared conducting Mahler which is fascinating. Ironically for a man whose controversy was his Nazi membership, Karajan has no interest in politics; Lenny supports Black Panthers, lobby support for Israel and had a brief time in trouble with the FBI.

Bright side of the "maestro" shows he can be a humourous, wicked joker. In one rehearsal with the Vienna Philharmonic Karajan praises an oboist, telling him to discard his "inferiority complex". The results afterwards was priceless! Obviously the Maestro knows how to use his humour to diffuse tense situations in rehearsal.

Controversy about Karajan serves to rather fortify instead dismissing the fact that he is a fiercely devoted musician in pursuit of his craft. In spite of his Nazi membership, his ruthless pursuit for power, Karajan's devotion to his craft is unquestionable. For that, Robert Dornheim deserves praise for what I see as the greatest documentary of classical music I have ever watched period. Its the best tribute for the Karajan centennary year.

1 Comments:

Blogger Anthony Campanella said...

Great Review!
Looking forward to seeing this

1:50 am  

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