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What comes around goes around: Herbert von Karajan's classic 1963 Beethoven Symphony Cycle returns to its original LP format to mark the conductor's anniversary year.
Over 40 years on, Karajan's first Deutsche Grammophon set of the nine with the Berlin Philharmonic is being reissued as an audiophile collectors' LP box set, replete with original layout and cover art. A perennial best-seller ever since it's original release, the 1963 set has always been the one to have and over the years DG have elevated the cycle from LP to CD to SACD status.
Since 1963, the cycle had many incarnations on LP, both in the boxed format restored to us today and on single LPs; first at full price and then later on in the mid-price 'Privilege' series - launched partly to make way for Karajan's 1977 Berlin remakes. Indeed, due largely to his insistance on recording a third DG set for the sake of digital sound, Karajan's '63 survey didn't appear on CD until the autumn of 1989 - a few month's after he died. In recent years the set has enjoyed and continues to enjoy bargain box status as a well-presented DG 'Collectors' Edition'. But to have the opportunity to own a reproduction of the original 8-LP box set is a fitting one for 'Karajan 2008'.
Recorded in the glowing acoustic of Berlin's Jesu Christus Kirche, these performances sound as freshly minted as ever with interpretations of exemplorary athleticism and literal authority. Never has the classical poise and boisterious humour of the first two symphonies been so masterfully fused, seldom for example has the Fourth Symphony been played and conducted with such Haydnian vigour while Karajan's version of Beethoven's 'Pastoral' properly conveys the al fresco exuberance and cart-wheeling optimism the work so seldom receives.
Karajan recorded the symphonies over a period of just a few weeks in closed, intensely concentrated sessions; saving the 'Eroica' and the Ninth until the end. The idea paid handsome dividends for while both the structural and expressive terms of reference in the Third Symphony are judiciously sounded, the Ninth is both fiery and romantically charged as conductor and orchestra apply both weight and agility with an even hand.
Perhaps the ultimate key to the success of the cycle is Karajan's choice and long term control of tempo. The massive introduction to the Seventh Symphony is impressively broad, yet the ensuing allegro and the wild finale are played at a pulse approaching Beethoven's own demanding metronome mark. The erratic tempo changes of Furtwangler or the deliberate plod of Klemperer are swept aside as Karajan demonstrates how exciting this music can sound - albeit within the bounds of articulation: something which is often missing from so-called 'period' performances.
Similarly, the Eighth Symphony, so frequently conceived as a 'light' work, enjoys a dignified, broad-spanned interpretation which presents both melodic and rhythmic qualities with astounding clarity.
However, it is Karajan's conducting of the Fifth Symphony which crowns the cycle. Often played out as an exercise in musical violence, Karajan tempers the work's enraged compression with phrasing at once sonorous and lyrical. As a result, the recapitulation of the first movement is more brilliant, more involved than Karajan's later versions which - with the exception of his outstanding Unitel film recording - are compromised by over-emphasis. Similarly, the second movement is truely benevolent in style while the finale blazes inexorably to a concluding chord of outstanding power.
Original sales made the 1963 set a pheonomenon; Karajan and the Berliners having toured the cycle round Europe prior to the set's release, adding further impetus to the project as a whole. Subsequently, Karajan's name became synonymous with Beethoven's and both his 1977 and 1986 LP remakes outsold cycles by every other conductor; with only Klemperer's EMI set as serious competition. Now, the advent of the DVD - predicted by Karajan as long ago as 1970 - has allowed us to see as well as hear the Karajan/Beethoven cycle in all its glory.
In fact there are now TWO Beethoven cycles from Karajan on DVD. The first, and most famous, being his acclaimed Unitel series from 1967-73 with its daring use of cinematography, and his later 1982-84 survey for Telemondial which has just been reissued by BMG/Sony Classics. The later series, tied in with Karajan's last sound-only DG set, is perhaps more direct and more expansive in approach than before, but the earlier Unitel films brings us nearer to the pioneering spirit of 1963. Both are impressive, and the Unitel set is essential to any Karajan collection but this freshly minted reproduction of the LP originals preserves these classic interpretations in a kind of time vortex: reminding us of what a remarkable achievement it was both for then - and the hereafter.
Robert Kenchington
