Word: karajans
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...opera conductors, he says, are routinely invited, but their crowded schedules usually do not permit them to give a four-to six-week block of time to New York. Moreover, he adds, "every time we put the repertory together, we put it out to bid to them all. If Karajan or Solti or Lenny wants a piece that is slotted in for me, I'll give it to them in a minute." At a time when major conductors regularly jet around the world, Levine is a throwback to the orchestra-building maestros of yore. "I don't spend...
What else lies in store? Berg's Wozzeck, perhaps. A demanding performer who turned down a request by Herbert von Karajan to sing Beckmesser because he disagreed with Karajan's concept, Prey is currently mulling a couple of offers to sing the foremost 20th century antihero. He plans to ignore the tradition of croaking and barking the role that has evolved since the challenging opera's premiere in 1925. "Berg wanted a beautiful voice," says Prey. "I want to sing every note as it is written...
...Under Karajan's fiercely perfectionist leadership, the Berlin has been refined into an infinitely supple, responsive ensemble. At first cast in the uncompromising mold of Toscanini, Karajan, 74, drilled his orchestra until its virtuosity was unquestioned. Later Karajan moved toward Furtwangler's ideal of fluidity, and his music making took on a greater spaciousness. In works from Beethoven through Mahler, Karajan knows few peers, and no superiors. In honor of the orchestra's centenary, Deutsche Grammophon in September released a six-volume, 33-disc set of memorable recordings, tracing the Philharmonic from the Nikisch days through Karajan...
...York performances (the orchestra will also perform in Pasadena, Calif.) found both Karajan and the Berlin in peak form. The opening-night An Alpine Symphony put the orchestra's fabled virtuosity at the service of Strauss's last, underrated tone poem for an exhilarating trip up the mountain top. In the four Brahms symphonies, Karajan emphasized the richness of Brahms' sonorities in expansive readings that found room for visceral thrills when the opportunities arose; the high-spirited brass peroration that concludes the Second Symphony is probably still echoing somewhere in Carnegie Hall's rafters, joining...
Limping from a fall four years ago and suffering from a chronic back ailment, Karajan looks far frailer than he did on his previous U.S. appearance: a small, fragile man with a shock of swept-back white hair who pulls himself up to the podium with difficulty. But his command of the orchestra has never been surer, nor his conducting so infused with the wisdom that comes with age. After a century of excellence, the Berlin Philharmonic shows no signs of advancing years, only greater maturity. -By Michael Walsh