LP DECCA SXL 2261 STRAUSS / KARAJAN WIDEBAND w GROOVE

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Technically this is one of the most breathtaking Strauss recordings I have ever heard. Karajan always seems to react to the type of recording given him- I tend to think of him as quite a different conductor, Karajan/Columbia, Karajan/Deutsche Grammophon, or Karajan/Decca, depending on the label —and I suspect that his listening to the "takes" as the performance is built up affects the final result.

Certainly Karajan is one of the few conductors who can successfully complete each section individually to his satisfaction  and know that the result when joined up will amount to a performance and not a collection of snippets. Whatever the truth I have felt that till now there has been something rather cold and over-refined about his Decca recordings, a quality only partly accounted for by the characteristics of the recorded acoustic.

But this latest disc is quite different. My first impression of Till Eulenspiegel was that this was a forceful rather than a coaxing performance, and the wide dynamic range of the recording no doubt encouraged Karajan to make the contrasts more marked than he might have done. But violent and dramatic as the final scene leading up to the trial may be, the first impression is rather misleading.

On balance, Karajan has the best of all worlds:.

Of his Dance of the Seven Veils I need only say that this performance has all the passion and earthy sensuousness that Klemperer's noble version lacked. Yet though Karajan seems determined to drag the listener along with him, by force if necessary, this does not strike me as a vulgar performance—or at least no more vulgar than the music requires. For once I really enjoyed it.

Death and Transfiguration, too, avoids vulgarity while still being played for all it is worth. What is particularly remarkable in Karajan's reading—and particularly lovely too—is the sheer simplicity not only of the passage representing childhood with its naive oboe theme but of the transfiguration at the end. I have to admit that (whether through lack of fastidiousness or not) I tend to enjoy the transfiguration passage, well aware that I should properly be heaving with puritanical disgust at such obviousness.

But Karajan makes me enjoy it more than ever. With him I feel quite secure that this need not be thought vulgar at all, and he does it by allowing the brimming emotion to be implicit rather than explicit in phrase-shaping. The simple, practically unpointed enunciation of the full theme at last is not cold, far from it, but somehow pure—a genuine transfiguration in fact.

As I said at the beginning, Karajan is enormously helped by the recording, which probes so clearly within the orchestra, yet somehow the overall sound adds up to a rich and satisfying whole.

I hope I have made it clear that there is no real competitor to this disc. It is interesting to compare Reiner's coupling of Tod and Till with the same orchestra. The recording is good even by normal standards, but not only is the Karajan more brilliant, there is a purer, more natural sheen on the upper strings which makes the earlier recording sound edgy by comparison. As to performance, Karajan has it every time. Thoroughly recommended!