Word: karajans
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Bach: Magnificat. Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms (Deutsche Oper Chorus, Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan conductor, Deutsche Grammophon). This is an apt pairing: a monument of the Baroque and a modern masterpiece whose liturgical austerity looks back to precedents in the Baroque and earlier. Karajan's Bach, velvety and well turned, may not be for purists, but the Stravinsky seems just right, with its tart syncopations dancing beneath a lustrous choral hymn of praise...
Beethoven, The Nine Symphonies (Deutsche Grammophon, 8 LPs, 1977). The seasoned mastery of Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic paradoxically retains a youthful surge and freshness...
...that have made Vienna the bane of conductors. So great is the municipal love of music that even the orchestra members, drawn from the Vienna Philharmonic, can be merciless to leaders they do not respect. In this century alone, three illustrious predecessors-Gustav Mahler, Karl Bohm and Herbert von Karajan-all threw down batons and left in their huffs before their contracts were due to expire...
...himself, Pavarotti presides boisterously over a table that rarely has fewer than 14 or 16 guests around it. Over plates of polenta (cornmeal porridge), sausage and pork in a thick gravy, washed down with Lambrusco, the talk moves from local politics to musical gossip: the burglary of Herbert von Karajan's Saint-Tropez villa, or the scheduling problems caused by the love affair of two internationally known singers...
...Basically Bach festival gave Westenburg an opportunity to make himself and his performers the whole show -which he rejected. "That's fine for a genius like Karajan," he says. "I wanted people to be able to sample various ways of looking at Bach." So he brought in Rosalyn Tureck for an intensely wrought solo recital on harpsichord and piano. Margaret Hillis, director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus, led a sometimes wayward program of vocal and orchestral works that ended solidly on the Magnificat. Harpsichordist Anthony Newman "and friends" sped their dazzling, often unorthodox way through an evening of chamber...