Word: karajans
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SIBELIUS: SYMPHONY NO. 5 (Columbia). Leonard Bernstein, conducting the New York Philharmonic, is at his best in the expansive, triumphal affirmation of the last movement but, in spite of mighty swells of sound, seems a little somnolent in the andante (where Von Karajan, on Deutsche Grammophon, creates a brooding tension). Bernstein has more overall success in the rich tone poem Pohjola's Daughter, about a maiden who sits high on a rainbow preferring, for some reason, to weave rather than be wooed...
...symphony to swing than getting a jazz ensemble to play Bach." At performance's end, the audience cried "Grazie, maestro!" and the string players tapped their bows on their instruments, a high compliment that the tradition-minded orchestra has paid to only two other conductors (Herbert von Karajan and Victor de Sabata) in the past 20 years...
Flick, Flick. Ferry Porsche doggedly refuses to tie himself more closely to Volkswagen, just as doggedly refuses to go after the mass market. Porsche owners are such as Elke Sommer, Herbert von Karajan, Prince Rainier, Ingemar Johansson, Juan Carlos of Spain and Krupp Heir Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach. Like Porsche owners everywhere, they flick their headlights in salute as they pass on the highway, even at 100 m.p.h. U.S. highways now boast 29,000 Porsches, and half of Porsche's production is sold in the U.S.; demand is so strong that U.S. buyers must now wait...
BRAHMS: SYMPHONIES COMPLETE (Deutsche Grammophon; 4 LPs). Herbert von Karajan's greatest strength lies in the romantic repertory, and one would expect an outstanding set of performances, especially following his recent highly successful recording of the nine Beethoven symphonies. The Berlin Philharmonic sounds as lustrous as ever, and there are wonderful, broad, sensuous swells of melody. But Von Karajan too often masks structure with sonority, allows the pulse to waver and then summons portentous climaxes that turn out to be no more substantial than giant thunderheads with more noise than content...
...they that mourn," softly sings the chorus, and soon the sad saraband begins ("For all flesh is as grass"). At length the black solemnity is relieved by the soaring soprano voice of Gundula Janowitz singing "I will see you again." A powerful, rhythmically relentless performance by Herbert von Karajan, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Singverein...