Herbert Blomstedt (born July 11, 1927), seen here at 90-plus
R. STRAUSS: Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Op. 28
Staatskapelle Dresden, Herbert Blomstedt, cond. Denon-Deutsche Schallplatten, recorded in the Lukaskirche, Feb. 5-9, 1989
Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989)
DVOŘÁK: Symphony No. 9 in E minor (From the New World), Op. 95: ii. Largo
Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded in the Musikverein, Feb. 9, 1985
by Ken
This isn't so much "a post tease" as "a post so's I can -- as you're no doubt sick of hearing me whine about -- see and listen to the embedded versions of the audio clips and thus actually see and hear them together at will.
For now you'll have to trust me that there's a reason why we're hearing these particular selections. (Like as if we needed some damned reason.)
OKAY, MAYBE A COUPLA BACKGROUND NOTES,
KIND OF RELATIVE TO THE MARCH OF TIME
Yeah, time, with its merciless forward movement, on and on and on (that is, until for each of us it stops, as it were, dead).
Taking them in reverse order, as we can see from the dates this New World recording presents Herbert von Karajan a few days less than two months before his 77th birthday, and is in fact the last of the extant 14 recordings of the symphony listed in the official HvK discography. That's right, 14! Now this doesn't mean the maestro set about 14 times to make recordings of the piece. In fact, there are only four "studio" recordings listed, plus two films. (This one is listed for the same date as the second film, which leads me to believe that it's the same performance, and is a "studio" production in the same sense that the film was.) The other listings are all "radio" performances, which I assume exist in one form or another.
This is not, by the way, the Karajan New World performance I'll be referencing, which is almost 20 years earlier, but this Karajan New World, dating from four years before the end for him, is the only one I had handy on CD, so it'll have to do. So maybe I shoulda looked for an older HvK pic to go with this clip. Just as maybe I shoulda looked for a younger Herbert Blomstedt, even though at the time of this Till Eulenspiegel recording -- with that potentially so-special Strauss orchestra the Staatskapelle Dresden (15 or so years after Rudolf Kempe led them through the legendary 16-LP survey of Strauss orchestral works coproduced by EMI and Deutsche Schallplatten, eventually issued on 9 CDs) the already-veteran HB was a mere 61.
You'll note that HB celebrated his 94th birthday in July, and while I haven't researched his other activities, I know from foraging in the Berlin Philharmonic's Digital Concert Hall that he has been conducting the Berlin Phil regularly; the DCH lists 12 concerts going back to 2010, including a 2012 Beethoven Missa solemnis, and most recently a June 2021 program of Sibelius 4 and Brahms 3. I've heard exquisite Mozart piano concertos (No. 22 with Leif Ove Andsnes, from 2020, and No. 23 with Maria João Pires, from 2017) and a couple of glorious Bruckner symphonies -- the DCH offers performances of Symphonies Nos. 3, 4, 6, and 8 and the Mass No. 3, and on October 2 the DCH is scheduled to live-stream him conducting, at age 94, no less than Bruckner 5!
FREE! FREE! FREE!
By the way, all of the Blomstedt concerts include interviews, and all of the DCH interviews, nearly all conducted by orchestra members, either in English or with subtitles, are offered free to anyone who's registered, which is also free, and there's a generous assortment of other free material, a blessing for those of us who are feeling deprived after the half-price year's subscription offered to those of us who took advantage of the several months of free access offered during the height of the pandemic but decided we just couldn't afford to reup, even with the 10-percent "early bird discount" available to one and all until August 27.
One great deal to watch for: On a regular basis the DCH puts together a "playlist" culled from the archive, and if I've got the system right, for a certain period after a "themed" playlist goes up it's free for all. At the moment, or example, there's a Karajan one, with eight pieces ranging from Beethoven's Coriolan Overture and Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (a spectacular performance, with all its exceptionally well-organized notes played for maximum expressive content) up to complete performances of Richard Strauss's Don Quixote with soloists Mstislav Rostropovich and Ulrich Koch (EMI made an audio recording at the time), and, yes, the Dvořák New World Symphony -- in black-and-white and mono, from 1966. (The video and audio technology evolved pretty rapidly. In the new season, in fact, it'll be possible to receive regular streams, and eventually the live-streamed performances as well, with lossless audio!) From the same vintage as the New World (1966, b&w, mono) there's a Beethoven 5 that's the one thing I haven't watched yet. I just took a quick peek, and the first movement is off to a stunningly dynamic start.
More recently still, the DCH has put up a new playlist (better watch the Karajan one quick!), called Meet Kirill Petrenko and the Berliner Philharmoniker, documenting the early stage of the relationship between the orchestra and its chief conductor since 2019 with their really gripping performances, both grand and individual, of Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony (from March 2017) and the Mahler Sixth (just pre-pandemic, from January 2020), and a Beethoven Ninth I haven't heard yet, an open-air performance from the Brandenburg Gate from Aug. 24, 2019, plus an interview.
UPDATE: I'M THINKING, ESPECIALLY SINCE I MADE THIS
POST "JUMP," WE OUGHTTA HAVE MORE MUSIC, NO?
Well, just as we'd actually previously heard the Blomstedt Till Eulenspiegel, we've also heard the late-late Strauss Metamorphosen from the same CD. And while I added the New World Largo specifically for this post, we've already heard the first movement from this performance. So how about a coupla encores? Only in the opposite order, I think.
DVOŘÁK: Symphony No. 9 in E minor (From the New World), Op. 95: i. Adagio -- Allegro molto
Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded in the Musikverein, Feb. 9, 1985
R. STRAUSS: Metamorphoses (A Study for 23 Solo Strings)
Staatskapelle Dresden, Herbert Blomstedt, cond. Denon-Deutsche Schallplatten, recorded in the Lukaskirche, Feb. 5-9, 1989
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