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Curious things happen when anniversaries come round and Karajan Year is no exception as three versions of Beethoven's Ninth give battle on DVD.
All three performances, drawn from Karajan's extensive filmed archive, are quite different in approach albeit in mainly visual terms. The first of these, available on Deutsche Grammophon DVD, was made in 1968 as part of Karajan's complete Beethoven Symphony cycle for Unitel. Made under tightly controlled studio conditions, this dates from the conductor's experimental phase in film-making where having worked with Henri-Georges Clouzot, Karajan translated the style of the 'new wave' into his own productions.
Those used to the standard TV concert will find this film, with its dramatic use of closeups, changing perspectives and multiple angles something of a shock. Now, such methods reside in the world of pop video where picture and sound share equal value. Karajan, quite consciously, applied these methods to symphonic works paving the way for a new approach to filming classical music in the process.
From the outset, Karajan placed high priority on actual production values. Using 35mm colour film and up to 60 different angles the film has a genuinely cinematic look to it and although it's the oldest of these three Beethoven Ninths, it's the one best suited to the age of the wide-screen plasmascreen. Yes, it looks contrived at times and the staging of the actual Ode to Joy has something of the Nuremburg Rally about it - not to mention the painted figures representing the audience! But while Beethoven is seen through the psychadelic lens of the 1960s, the actual performance has a weight, sonority and flexiblity well within the bounds of 'old school' interpretation.
Karajan's next film of Beethoven's Ninth was made in 1977 under very different conditions. This time it was going to be a live television transmission with Humphrey Burton in the director's chair. Having worked on concert films with Leonard Bernstein and Georg Solti for both Unitel and the BBC, Burton brought both a wealth of experience and an altogether different set of ideas from Karajan's. Fortunately, Karajan liked Burton's shooting script although he went through it in fine detail; ensuring proper co-ordination between the cameras and the actual development of the music.
The result is an eminently straightforward TV-video production of an exceptionally fine performance. Indeed, those who find Karajan's normal 'in-your-face' manner a bit oppressive might find it refreshing to see him filmed with the Berlin Philharmonic in the style of a BBC Prom. There's certainly plenty of space around the performers with the choir and soloists kept at a more comradely distance. The interpretation itself is similar to Karajan's second Beethoven LP set for DG: urgent, lithe yet freighted with both warmth and lyricism: the actual Ode to Joy given a performance of genuine passion, even wild abandon in the final bars.
While DG originally released the 1977 concert on VHS in 1990 they chose the 1968 film for DVD, leaving Euroarts to release it instead: part of the 'divide & rule' policy the two labels have excercised over the Unitel catalogue when it comes to avoiding clashes of repertoire. While the '68 film has been around since 2005, the '77 concert gets a dust down in time for March this year.
'Different yet the same' best sums up Karajan's third and final film of Beethoven's Ninth released this month by Sony who have the rights to the conductor's Telemondial catalogue from his final years. Made in 1984 with laserdisc in mind, this last production returns moreorless to the eclecticism of the 1968 film - with variable results. In fact, of the three versions this is the least interesting.
Here, Karajan returns to the immediate style of the original version, but without the compensating long-distance shots which brought such variety first time round. This time it's just close-ups of players and their instruments, quite obviously filmed in isolation at a previous time and spliced into the main performance. At no time do you actually see the Berlin Philharmonic as a complete entity as you do in the 1977 relay, while Karajan is filmed from either the right or left of the podium for sustained periods in the music. As such the film has a rather hastily assembled, bits-and-pieces look which is reflected in the musical performance. While the central Adagio flows as nicely as it ever did, the outer movements have a brittle, hurried quality about them. Maybe the disputes between Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic at this time affected the performance, either way the interpretation has acquired a different and less appropriate level of tension since the 1977 one.
Karajan fans are being well served this year with so many of his opera and concert films emerging on DVD, often for the first time. Of these three Beethoven Ninths the big surprise must be the reappearance of the 1977 version which, for all the pioneering dazzle of the 1968 film, is probably the best: capturing the maestro's Beethoven conducting at its most natural and intense.
Robert Kenchington.
