Karajan, Herbert von

Latest revision as of 15:16, 20 December 2017

Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan (April 5, 1908 - July 16, 1989) was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor, one of the most renowned twentieth century conductors, and a major contributor to the advancement of classical music recordings.

Karajan held the position of music director of the Berlin Philharmonic for 35 years and made numerous audio and video recordings with that ensemble. Although his Nazi past resulted in his being shunned by prominent Jewish musicians, his career in European music capitals was nevertheless one of the most successful in the annals of twentieth century classical music. He also played an important role bringing credibility to London's Philharmonia Orchestra in the 1950s.

Karajan is the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, with an estimated 200 million records sold. He was one of the first international classical musicians to understand the importance of the recording industry and eventually established his own video production company, Telemondial. Along with American composer/conductor, Leonard Bernstein, Karajan is probably the most recognized name among conductors of the twentieth century.

Biography

Early years

Karajan with French soprano Germaine Lubin in 1941.

Karajan was born in Salzburg, Austria, the son of an upper-bourgeois Salzburg family. A child prodigy at the piano, he studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg from 1916 to 1926, where he eventually became interested in conducting.

In 1929, Karajan conducted Richard Strauss' opera Salome at the Festspielhaus in Salzburg, and from 1929 to 1934, he served as first Kapellmeister at the Stadttheater in Ulm. In 1933, he conducted for the first time at the prestigious Salzburg Festival in Max Reinhardt's production of Faust. The following year, again in Salzburg, Karajan led the Vienna Philharmonic.

In 1935, Karajan's career was given a significant boost when he was appointed Germany's youngest Generalmusikdirektor and was a guest conductor in Bucharest, Brussels, Stockholm, Amsterdam, and Paris. From 1934 to 1941 he also conducted opera and symphony concerts at the Aachen opera house. In 1937, Karajan made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Berlin State Opera with Beethoven's Fidelio. He enjoyed a major success in the State Opera with Tristan und Isolde in 1938. The performance was hailed as "the Karajan miracle," and led to comparisons with Germany's most famous conductors. Receiving a contract with Europe's premiere recoding company, Deutsche Grammophon that same year, Karajan made the first of numerous recordings by conducting the Staatskapelle Berlin in Mozart's overture to Die Zauberflöte.

Karajan conducts in Berlin during WWII.

Karajan suffered a major embarrassment during a 1939 performance of Wagner's Die Meistersinger, which he conducted without a score. As a result of a memory slip, he lost his way, causing the singers to become confused. The performance halted and the curtain was brought down. As a result of this error, Adolf Hitler decided that Karajan was never to conduct at the annual Bayreuth Festival of Wagnerian works. However, as a favorite of Hermann Göring, Karajan continued his work as conductor of the Staatskapelle (1941-1945), the orchestra of the Berlin State Opera, where he would conduct about 150 opera performances in total.

In October 1942, at the height of the war, Karajan married his second wife, the daughter of a well-known sewing machine magnate, Anna Maria "Anita" Sauest, née Gütermann, who had a Jewish grandfather. By 1944, Karajan, a Nazi party member, was losing favor with the Nazi leaders. However, he still conducted concerts in wartime Berlin as late as February 1945. In the closing stages of the war, Karajan relocated his family to Italy with the assistance of Italian conductor Victor de Sabata.

Nazi controversy

Like many musicians in Germany, the period from 1933 to 1946 was especially vexatious. Few in the early part of Hitler's rise to power envisioned the atrocities that were to be perpetrated in the name of the Nazi ideology. Certain musicians looked at joining the party as a gesture of national pride. Others viewed it as a stepping stone to higher positions and opportunities for better employment. Though some prominent musicians (conductor Karl Bohm, for example) were unapologetic in the their Nazi affiliations, some remained agnostic (Wilhelm Furtwangler), and others fled Germany (such as composer Paul Hindemith) out of fear of retribution for their criticism of Nazi ideas.

Karajan's case is particularly interesting due to the fact that there exists two records of his joining the party. If the later of the two enrollments was correct, it gives rise to the notion that he joined the party knowing of Hitler's intentions and chose to join for career advancement. This was a charge levied at many German musicians in the post-war era. However there has been little evidence and/or testimonies by those who knew him in the Nazi years to support any claims that he was an active collaborator in the Nazi machine beyond careerism. Still, the stigma of his being a Nazi sympathizer remained a part of his musical life.

Postwar career

Jewish musicians such as Itzhak Perlman refused to play with Krajan because of his Nazi past.

Karajan was discharged by the Austrian de-Nazification examining board on March 18, 1946, and resumed his conducting career shortly thereafter. He soon gave his first post-war concert with the Vienna Philharmonic. However, he was banned from further conducting activities by the Soviet occupation authorities because of his Nazi party membership. That summer, he participated anonymously in the Salzburg Festival. The following year, he was allowed to resume conducting.

Jewish musicians such as Isaac Stern, Arthur Rubinstein, and Itzhak Perlman refused to play in concerts with Karajan because of his Nazi past. Tenor Richard Tucker pulled out from a 1956 recording of Il trovatore when he learned that Karajan would be conducting, and threatened to do the same on the Maria Callas recording of Aida, until Karajan was replaced by Tullio Serafin.

In 1949, Karajan became artistic director of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, (Society of Music Friends) in Vienna. He also conducted at La Scala in Milan. However, his most prominent activity at this time was recording with the newly-formed Philharmonia Orchestra in London, helping to establish the ensemble into one of the world's finest. It was also in 1949 that Karajan began his lifetime long association with the Lucerne Festival. In 1951 and 1952, he was once again invited to conduct at the Bayreuth Festival.

In 1955, Karajan was appointed music director for life of the Berlin Philharmonic as successor to the legendary Wilhelm Furtwängler. From 1957 to 1964, he was artistic director of the Vienna State Opera. He was closely involved with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Salzburg Festival, where he initiated the annual Easter Festival. He continued to perform, conduct and record prolifically, primarily with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic until his death in Anif in 1989. In 1989, on one of his final American appearances in New York City, Jewish demonstrators protested his appearance at Carnegie Hall.

Karjan recorded the nine symphonies of Beethoven on four different occasions during his lifetime. His 1963 accounts with the Berlin Philharmonic remain among the highest selling sets of these seminal works.

Musicianship and style

There is widespread agreement that Karajan possessed a special gift for extracting beautiful sounds from an orchestra. Opinion varies concerning the greater aesthetic ends to which The Karajan Sound was applied. Some critics felt the highly polished and "creamy" sounds that became his trademark did not work in certain repertory, such as the classical symphonies of Mozart and Haydn and contemporary works by Stravinsky and Bartok. However, it has been argued that Karajan's pre-1970 style did not sound as polished is indicated in his later performances and recordings.

Regarding twentieth century music, Karajan had a strong preference for conducting and recording pre-1945 works (such as those by Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Bartók, Sibelius, Richard Strauss, Puccini, Ildebrando Pizzetti, Arthur Honegger, Prokofiev, Debussy, Ravel, Paul Hindemith, Carl Nielsen, and Stravinsky), but also recorded Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 (1953) twice, and premiered Carl Orff's "De Temporum Fine Comoedia" in 1973.

Legacy

Karajan was instrumental in the development of the compact disc.

Karajan was one of the first international figures to understand the importance of the recording industry. He always invested in the latest state-of-the-art sound systems and made concerted efforts to market and protect the ownership of his recordings. This eventually led to the creation of his own production company (Telemondial) to record, duplicate and market his recorded legacy.

He also played an important role in the development of the original compact disc digital audio format. He championed this new consumer playback technology, lent his prestige to it, and appeared at the first press conference announcing the format. It was widely reported, though unverified, that the expansion of the CD's prototype format of 60 minutes to its final specification of 74 minutes was due to Karajan's insistence that the format have sufficient capacity to contain Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on a single disc.

The controversy surrounding his affiliation with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis not withstanding, Herbert von Karajan was undoubtedly the most prominent conductor in Europe in that later half of the twentieth century.

Karajan was the recipient of many honors and awards. On June 21, 1978, he received the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music from Oxford University. He was honored by the "Médaille de Vermeil" in Paris, the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in London, the Olympia Award of the Onassis Foundation in Athens and the UNESCO International Music Prize. He received two Gramophone awards for recordings of Mahler's Ninth Symphony and the complete Parsifal recordings in 1981. In 2002, the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize was founded in his honor.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Alessandro, Zignani. Herbert von Karajan. Il Musico perpetuo. Varese: Zecchini Editore, 2008. ISBN 8887203679.
Layton, Robert, Edward Greenfield, and Ivan March. Penguin Guide to Compact Discs. New York: Penguin Books, 1996. ISBN 0140513671.
Lebrecht, Norman. The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power. New York: Citadel Press, 2001. ISBN 0806520884.
—. The Life and Death of Classical Music. New York: Anchor Books, 2007. ISBN 9781400096589.
Monsaingeon, Bruno. Sviatoslav Richter: Notebooks and Conversations. Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN 0571205534.
Osborne, Richard. Herbert von Karajan. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998. ISBN 0701167149.
—. Herbert von Karajan: A Life in Music. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000. ISBN 1555534252.
Raymond, Holden. The Virtuoso Conductors. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005. ISBN 0300093268.

External links

All links retrieved December 20, 2017.

Credits

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+{{Images OK}}{{submitted}}{{approved}}{{copyedited}}
+{{epname|Karajan, Herbert von}}
 [[Image:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-S47421, Herbert von Karajan.jpg|thumb|Herbert von Karajan]]
-'''Herbert von Karajan''' (5 April 1908–16 July 1989) was an [[Austrian]] orchestra and opera [[conducting|conductor]], one of the most renowned twentieth-century conductors. His  obituary in ''[[The New York Times]]'' described him as "probably the world's best-known conductor and one of the most powerful figures in classical music." Karajan held the position of music director of the [[Berlin Philharmonic]] for 35 years and made numerous audio and video recordings with that ensemble.  Along with classical recording mogul, Walter Legge, he played an important role in bringing credibility to London's Philharmonia Orchestra in the 1950s. He is the top-selling [[classical music]] recording artist of all time with an estimated at 200 million records sold. He was one of the first international classical musicians to understand the importance of the recording industry and eventually established his own video production company, Telemondial. Along with American composer/conductor, Leonard Bernstein, von Karajan is probably the most recognized name among [[conductor]]s of the twentieth century.
+'''Herbert von Karajan''' (April 5, 1908 - July 16, 1989) was an [[Austria]]n [[orchestra]] and [[opera]] [[conducting|conductor]], one of the most renowned twentieth century conductors, and a major contributor to the advancement of classical [[music]] recordings.
+Karajan held the position of music director of the [[Berlin Philharmonic]] for 35 years and made numerous audio and video recordings with that ensemble. Although his [[Nazi]] past resulted in his being shunned by prominent [[Jewish]] [[musician]]s, his career in European music capitals was nevertheless one of the most successful in the annals of twentieth century [[classical music]]. He also played an important role bringing credibility to London's [[Philharmonia Orchestra]] in the 1950s.
+{{toc}}
+Karajan is the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, with an estimated 200 million records sold. He was one of the first international classical [[musician]]s to understand the importance of the [[recording industry]] and eventually established his own video production company, Telemondial. Along with American [[composer]]/conductor, [[Leonard Bernstein]], Karajan is probably the most recognized name among [[conductor]]s of the twentieth century.
 ==Biography==
 ===Early years===
+[[Image:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R92291, Herbert von Karajan und Germaine Lubin.jpg|thumb|Karajan with French [[soprano]] [[Germaine Lubin]] in 1941.]]
-Karajan was born in [[Salzburg]], Austria as '''Heribert Ritter von Karajan."  He was the son of an upper-bourgeois Salzburg family and was a child prodigy at the piano. From 1916 to 1926, he studied at the [[Mozarteum]] in Salzburg, where he eventually became interested in conducting.
+Karajan was born in [[Salzburg]], Austria, the son of an upper-bourgeois Salzburg family. A child prodigy at the [[piano]], he studied at the [[Mozarteum]] in Salzburg from 1916 to 1926, where he eventually became interested in conducting.
-In 1929, he conducted [[Richard Strauss]]' [[opera]] ''[[Salome (opera)|Salome]]'' at the [[Festspielhaus]] in Salzburg, and from 1929 to 1934, Karajan served as first [[Kapellmeister]] at the Stadttheater in [[Ulm]]. In 1933, Karajan made his conducting debut at the [[Salzburg Festival]] with the ''Walpurgisnacht Scene'' in [[Max Reinhardt (theatre director)|Max Reinhardt]]'s production of ''[[Faust (opera)|Faust]]''. The following year, and again in Salzburg, Karajan led the [[Vienna Philharmonic]] for the first time, and from 1934 to 1941, Karajan also conducted [[opera]] and [[symphony]] concerts at the [[Aachen]] [[opera]] house.
+In 1929, Karajan conducted [[Richard Strauss]]' [[opera]] ''[[Salome (opera)|Salome]]'' at the [[Festspielhaus]] in Salzburg, and from 1929 to 1934, he served as first [[Kapellmeister]] at the Stadttheater in [[Ulm]]. In 1933, he conducted for the first time at the prestigious [[Salzburg Festival]] in [[Max Reinhardt (theatre director)|Max Reinhardt]]'s production of ''[[Faust (opera)|Faust]]''. The following year, again in Salzburg, Karajan led the [[Vienna Philharmonic]].
-In 1935, Karajan's career was given a significant boost when he  was appointed Germany's youngest ''Generalmusikdirektor'' and was a guest conductor in [[Bucharest]], [[Brussels]], [[Stockholm]], [[Amsterdam]], and [[Paris]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMwVaDDpIAE]. Moreover, in 1937, Karajan made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic and the [[Berlin State Opera]] with [[Beethoven]]'s ''[[Fidelio]]''. He enjoyed a major success in the State Opera with ''[[Tristan und Isolde]]'' and in 1938, his performance of the opera was hailed by a Berlin critic as ''Das Wunder Karajan'' (The Karajan miracle), claiming that his "success with Wagner's demanding work ''Tristan und Isolde'' sets himself alongside [[Wilhelm Furtwängler|Furtwängler]] and [[Victor de Sabata|de Sabata]], the greatest [[opera]] [[conductor]]s in [[Germany]] at the present time".
+In 1935, Karajan's career was given a significant boost when he was appointed Germany's youngest ''Generalmusikdirektor'' and was a guest conductor in [[Bucharest]], [[Brussels]], [[Stockholm]], [[Amsterdam]], and [[Paris]]. From 1934 to 1941 he also conducted [[opera]] and [[symphony]] concerts at the [[Aachen]] opera house. In 1937, Karajan made his debut with the [[Berlin Philharmonic]] and the [[Berlin State Opera]] with [[Beethoven]]'s ''[[Fidelio]]''. He enjoyed a major success in the State Opera with ''[[Tristan und Isolde]]'' in 1938. The performance was hailed as "the Karajan miracle," and led to comparisons with Germany's most famous conductors. Receiving a contract with Europe's premiere recoding company, [[Deutsche Grammophon]] that same year, Karajan made the first of numerous recordings by conducting the [[Staatskapelle Berlin]] in [[Mozart]]'s overture to ''[[Die Zauberflöte]]''.
-Receiving a contract with Europe's premiere recoding company, [[Deutsche Grammophon]] that same year, Karajan made the first of numerous recordings by conducting the [[Staatskapelle Berlin]] in [[Mozart]]'s overture to ''[[Die Zauberflöte]]''.
+[[Image:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R92264, Herbert von Karajan.jpg|left|250px|thumb|Karajan conducts in [[Berlin]] during WWII.]]
-Adolf Hitler did not appreciate Karajan's 1939 performance of [[Wagner]]'s  [[Die Meistersinger]] according to [[Winifred Wagner]], because Karajan, who was conducting without a score, lost his way due to a memory slip, causing the singers to be confused, the performance halted and the curtain rung down in confusion. According to [[Winifred Wagner]], Hitler decided that Karajan was never to conduct at the annual [[Bayreuth]] festival. However, as a favorite of [[Hermann Göring]] he would continue his work as [[conductor]] of the Staatskapelle (1941-1945), the [[orchestra]] of the [[Berlin State Opera]], where he would accompany about 150 [[opera]] performances in total.
+Karajan suffered a major embarrassment during a 1939 performance of [[Wagner]]'s ''[[Die Meistersinger]],'' which he conducted without a score. As a result of a memory slip, he lost his way, causing the singers to become confused. The performance halted and the curtain was brought down. As a result of this error, [[Adolf Hitler]] decided that Karajan was never to conduct at the annual [[Bayreuth Festival]] of Wagnerian works. However, as a favorite of [[Hermann Göring]], Karajan continued his work as [[conductor]] of the Staatskapelle (1941-1945), the [[orchestra]] of the [[Berlin State Opera]], where he would conduct about 150 [[opera]] performances in total.
-On 22 October 1942, at the height of the war, Karajan married his second wife, Anna Maria "Anita" Sauest, née Gütermann, the daughter of a well-known sewing machine magnate, and who, having a Jewish grandfather, was considered  ''Vierteljüdin'' (one-quarter Jewish). By 1944, Karajan was, by his own account, losing favor with the [[Nazi]] leaders, but he still conducted  concerts in wartime Berlin on 18 February 1945, and fled [[Germany]] with Anita for Milan a short time later.
+In October 1942, at the height of the war, Karajan married his second wife, the daughter of a well-known sewing machine magnate, Anna Maria "Anita" Sauest, née Gütermann, who had a [[Jewish]] grandfather. By 1944, Karajan, a [[Nazi]] party member, was losing favor with the Nazi leaders. However, he still conducted concerts in wartime Berlin as late as February 1945. In the closing stages of the war, Karajan relocated his family to [[Italy]] with the assistance of Italian conductor [[Victor de Sabata]].
-In the closing stages of the war, Karajan relocated his family to [[Italy]] with the assistance of Victor de Sabata. Karajan was discharged by the Austrian denazification examining board on 18 March 1946, and resumed his conducting career shortly thereafter.
+==Nazi controversy==
+Like many musicians in [[Germany]], the period from 1933 to 1946 was especially vexatious. Few in the early part of [[Hitler]]'s rise to power envisioned the atrocities that were to be perpetrated in the name of the [[Nazi]] [[ideology]]. Certain musicians looked at joining the party as a gesture of national pride. Others viewed it as a stepping stone to higher positions and opportunities for better employment. Though some prominent musicians (conductor [[Karl Bohm]], for example) were unapologetic in the their Nazi affiliations, some remained agnostic ([[Wilhelm Furtwangler]]), and others fled Germany (such as composer [[Paul Hindemith]]) out of fear of retribution for their criticism of Nazi ideas.
-===Postwar years===
+Karajan's case is particularly interesting due to the fact that there exists two records of his joining the party. If the later of the two enrollments was correct, it gives rise to the notion that he joined the party knowing of Hitler's intentions and chose to join for career advancement. This was a charge levied at many German musicians in the post-war era. However there has been little evidence and/or testimonies by those who knew him in the Nazi years to support any claims that he was an active collaborator in the Nazi machine beyond careerism. Still, the stigma of his being a Nazi sympathizer remained a part of his musical life.
-In 1946, Karajan gave his first post-war concert, in [[Vienna]] with the Vienna Philharmonic, but he was banned from further conducting activities by the Soviet occupation authorities because of his [[Nazi]] party membership. That summer, he participated anonymously in the Salzburg Festival. The following year, he was allowed to resume conducting.
-In 1949, Karajan became artistic director of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna. He also conducted at [[La Scala]] in Milan. However, his most prominent activity at this time was recording with the newly-formed [[Philharmonia Orchestra]] in [[London]], helping to establish the ensemble into one of the world's finest. It was also in 1949 that Karajan began his lifetime long association with the Lucerne Festival. In 1951 and 1952, he was invited conducted at the [[Bayreuth Festspielhaus]].
+===Postwar career===
+[[Image:ItzhakPerlmanWhitehouse2.jpg|thumb|Jewish musicians such as [[Itzhak Perlman]] refused to play with Krajan because of his [[Nazi]] past.]]
+Karajan was discharged by the Austrian de-Nazification examining board on March 18, 1946, and resumed his conducting career shortly thereafter.
+He soon gave his first post-war concert with the Vienna Philharmonic. However, he was banned from further conducting activities by the Soviet occupation authorities because of his [[Nazi]] party membership. That summer, he participated anonymously in the [[Salzburg Festival]]. The following year, he was allowed to resume conducting.
-In 1955, he was appointed [[music director]] for life of the [[Berlin Philharmonic]] as successor to the legendary [[Wilhelm Furtwängler]]. From 1957 to 1964, he was artistic director of the [[Vienna State Opera]]. He was closely involved with the [[Vienna Philharmonic]] and the [[Salzburg Festival]], where he initiated the Easter Festival, which would remain tied to the Berlin Philharmonic's Music Director after his tenure. He continued to perform, conduct and record prolifically until his death in [[Anif]] in 1989, primarily with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic.
+Jewish musicians such as [[Isaac Stern]], [[Arthur Rubinstein]], and [[Itzhak Perlman]] refused to play in concerts with Karajan because of his Nazi past. Tenor [[Richard Tucker]] pulled out from a 1956 recording of ''[[Il trovatore]]'' when he learned that Karajan would be conducting, and threatened to do the same on the [[Maria Callas]] recording of ''[[Aida]],'' until Karajan was replaced by [[Tullio Serafin]].
-===Nazi membership===
+In 1949, Karajan became artistic director of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, (Society of Music Friends) in Vienna. He also conducted at [[La Scala]] in Milan. However, his most prominent activity at this time was recording with the newly-formed [[Philharmonia Orchestra]] in [[London]], helping to establish the ensemble into one of the world's finest. It was also in 1949 that Karajan began his lifetime long association with the [[Lucerne Festival]]. In 1951 and 1952, he was once again invited to conduct at the [[Bayreuth Festival]].
-Karajan joined the [[Nazi Party]] in Salzburg on 8 April 1933; his membership number was 1.607.525. In June the [[Nazi Party]] was outlawed by the Austrian government. However, Karajan's membership was valid until 1939. In this year the former Austrian members were verified by the general office of the Nazi Party. Karajan's membership was declared invalid, but his accession to the party was retroactively determined to have been on May 1, 1933 in Ulm, with membership number  3,430,914.
-Karajan's membership in the [[Nazi Party]] and increasingly prominent career in Germany from 1933 to 1945 cast him in an uncomplimentary light after the war. While Karajan's defenders have argued that he joined the Nazis only to advance his own career, critics such as [[Jim Svejda] have pointed out that other prominent conductors, such as [[Bruno Walter]], [[Erich Kleiber]] and [[Arturo Toscanini]], fled from fascist Europe at the time. However, British music critic Richard Osborne argues that among the many well-known conductors who worked in [[Germany]] throughout the war years&mdash;a list that includes [[Wilhelm Furtwängler]], [[Ernest Ansermet]], [[Carl Schuricht]], [[Karl Böhm]], [[Hans Knappertsbusch]], [[Clemens Krauss]] and [[Karl Elmendorff]]&mdash;Karajan was in fact one of the youngest and least advanced in his career.
+In 1955, Karajan was appointed [[music director]] for life of the [[Berlin Philharmonic]] as successor to the legendary [[Wilhelm Furtwängler]]. From 1957 to 1964, he was artistic director of the [[Vienna State Opera]]. He was closely involved with the [[Vienna Philharmonic]] and the [[Salzburg Festival]], where he initiated the annual Easter Festival. He continued to perform, conduct and record prolifically, primarily with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic until his death in [[Anif]] in 1989. In 1989, on one of his final American appearances in [[New York City]], Jewish demonstrators protested his appearance at [[Carnegie Hall]].
-Some have argued that careerism could not have been Karajan's sole motivation, since he first joined the Nazi Party in 1933 in Salzburg, Austria, five years before the [[Anschluss]].  In ''The Cultural Cold War'', published in Britain as ''Who Paid the Piper?'', [[Frances Stonor Saunders]] noted that Karajan "had been a party member since 1933, and opened his concerts with the Nazi favourite '[[Horst Wessel Lied]].'" In addition, although he did open a [[Paris]] concert with the ''Horst Wessel Lied'', he had a history of avoiding political or nationalistic gestures at performances wherever possible.
+Karjan recorded the nine symphonies of [[Beethoven]] on four different occasions during his lifetime. His 1963 accounts with the Berlin Philharmonic remain among the highest selling sets of these seminal works.
-Jewish musicians such as [[Isaac Stern]], [[Arthur Rubinstein]], and [[Itzhak Perlman]] refused to play in concerts with Karajan because of his Nazi past. [[Richard Tucker]] also pulled out from a 1956 recording of ''[[Il trovatore]]'' when he learned that Karajan would be conducting, and threatened to do the same on the [[Maria Callas]] recording of ''[[Aida]]'', until [[Tullio Serafin]] replaced Karajan. There has been speculation as to whether Karajan was committed to the Nazi cause given his marriage in 1942 to Anita Gütermann, who was partly of Jewish origin. Evidence suggests that he received several threats to his career as a result of the engagement, and had attempted to resign from the Nazi Party when questioned about it.
+==Musicianship and style==
+There is widespread agreement that Karajan possessed a special gift for extracting beautiful sounds from an orchestra. Opinion varies concerning the greater aesthetic ends to which ''The Karajan Sound'' was applied. Some critics felt the highly polished and "creamy" sounds that became his trademark did not work in certain repertory, such as the classical symphonies of [[Mozart]] and [[Haydn]] and contemporary works by [[Stravinsky]] and [[Bartok]]. However, it has been argued that Karajan's pre-1970 style did not sound as polished is indicated in his later performances and recordings.
-Commentators such as Osborne and the British journalist [[Mark Lawson]] have suggested that [[music]], and access to making [[music]], over-rode everything for Karajan, and that may have led to him making [[amoral]] decisions such as Nazi membership in order to get what he wanted with regard his conducting aspirations. Lawson in particular has suggested that the lack of conclusive evidence about Karajan's personal political ideology, and apparently contradictory episodes in his life (such as his marriage), at least suggests that his membership was more a means to an end than the expression of an ideological standpoint. However, the debate continues to this day.
+Regarding [[contemporary music|twentieth century]] music, Karajan had a strong preference for conducting and recording pre-1945 works (such as those by [[Gustav Mahler|Mahler]], [[Arnold Schoenberg|Schoenberg]], [[Alban Berg|Berg]], [[Anton Webern|Webern]], [[Béla Bartók|Bartók]], [[Jean Sibelius|Sibelius]], [[Richard Strauss]], [[Giacomo Puccini|Puccini]], [[Ildebrando Pizzetti]], [[Arthur Honegger]], [[Sergei Prokofiev|Prokofiev]], [[Claude Debussy|Debussy]], [[Ravel]], [[Paul Hindemith]], [[Carl Nielsen]], and [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]]), but also recorded [[Dmitri Shostakovich|Shostakovich's]] ''Symphony No. 10'' (1953) twice, and premiered [[Carl Orff]]'s "De Temporum Fine Comoedia" in 1973.
-===Musicianship and Style===
+==Legacy==
-There is widespread agreement that Karajan possessed a special gift for extracting beautiful sounds from an orchestra. Opinion varies concerning the greater aesthetic ends to which ''The Karajan Sound'' was applied. Some critics felt the highly polished and "creamy" sounds that became his trademark sound, did not work in certain repertory, such as the classical symphonies of [[Mozart]] and [[Haydn]] and contemporary works by [[Stravinsky]] and [[Bartok]]. However, it has been argued by commentator [[Jim Svejda]] and others that Karajan's pre-1970 manner did not sound polished as it is later alleged to have become.
+[[Image:CD autolev crop.jpg|thumb|200px|Karajan was instrumental in the development of the [[compact disc]].]]
+Karajan was one of the first international figures to understand the importance of the recording industry. He always invested in the latest state-of-the-art sound systems and made concerted efforts to market and protect the ownership of his recordings. This eventually led to the creation of his own production company (Telemondial) to record, duplicate and market his recorded legacy.
-Two reviews from the ''[[Penguin Guide to Compact Discs]]'' can be quoted to illustrate the point.
+He also played an important role in the development of the original [[compact disc]] digital audio format. He championed this new consumer playback technology, lent his prestige to it, and appeared at the first press conference announcing the format. It was widely reported, though unverified, that the expansion of the CD's prototype format of 60 minutes to its final specification of 74 minutes was due to Karajan's insistence that the format have sufficient capacity to contain Beethoven's [[Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)|Ninth Symphony]] on a single disc.
-In a review of his recording of [[Richard Wagner|Wagner's]] ''[[Tristan und Isolde]]'', in the Penguin Record Guide, authors wrote "Karajan's is a sensual performance of Wagner's masterpiece, caressingly beautiful and with superbly refined playing from the Berlin Philharmonic." In a Penguin Guide review of Karajan's accounts of [[Haydn]]'s "Paris" symphonies, the same authors wrote, "big-band Haydn with a vengeance ... It goes without saying that the quality of the orchestral playing is superb. However, these are heavy-handed accounts, closer to Imperial Berlin than to Paris ... the Minuets are very slow indeed ... These performances are too charmless and wanting in grace to be whole-heartedly recommended." The Penguin Guide does, nevertheless, give the highest compliments to Karajan's recordings of [[Haydn]]'s two oratorios, ''[[The Creation (Haydn)|The Creation]]'' and ''[[The Seasons]]''.
-Regarding [[contemporary music|twentieth century]] music, Karajan had a strong preference for conducting and recording pre-1945 works ([[Gustav Mahler|Mahler]], [[Arnold Schoenberg|Schoenberg]], [[Alban Berg|Berg]], [[Anton Webern|Webern]], [[Béla Bartók|Bartók]], [[Jean Sibelius|Sibelius]], [[Richard Strauss]], [[Giacomo Puccini|Puccini]], [[Ildebrando Pizzetti]], [[Arthur Honegger]], [[Sergei Prokofiev|Prokofiev]], [[Claude Debussy|Debussy]], [[Ravel]], [[Paul Hindemith]], [[Carl Nielsen]] and [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]]), but also did record [[Dmitri Shostakovich|Shostakovich's]] ''Symphony No. 10'' (1953) twice, and did premiere [[Carl Orff]]'s "De Temporum Fine Comoedia" in 1973.
-===Awards & Legacy===
-Karajan was the recipient of many honours and awards. On 21 June 1978, he received the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music from Oxford University.<ref>[http://www.karajan.co.uk/britishvisits.html Herbert Von Karajan - Visits to Great Britain<!-- Bot generated title —>]</ref> He was honored by the "Médaille de Vermeil" in Paris, the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in London, the Olympia Award of the Onassis Foundation in Athens and the UNESCO International Music Prize. He received two Gramophone awards for recordings of Mahler's Ninth Symphony and the complete Parsifal recordings in 1981. In 2002, the [[Herbert von Karajan Music Prize]] was founded in his honour; in 2003 Anne-Sophie Mutter who had made her debut with Karajan in 1977, became the first recipient of this award.<ref>[http://www.gramophone.co.uk/newsMainTemplate.asp?storyID=1790&newssectionID=1 Gramophone - News - The world's best classical music magazine<!-- Bot generated title —>]</ref>
-Karajan was one of the first international figures to understand the importance of the recording industry. He always invested into the latest state-of-the-art sound systems and made concerted efforts to market and protect the ownership of his recordings. This eventually led to the creation of his own production company (Telemondial) to record, duplicate and market his recorded legacy.
-He also played an important role in the development of the original [[compact disc]] digital audio format. He championed this new consumer playback technology, lent his prestige to it, and appeared at the first press conference announcing the format. The maximum playing time of CD prototypes was sixty minutes, but the final specification enlarged the disc size and extended the capacity to seventy-four minutes. There is a story that this was due to Karajan's insistence that the format have sufficient capacity to contain Beethoven's [[Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)|Ninth Symphony]] on a single disc. Though widely reported,[[Snopes]] says the veracity of this claim is unverifiable. <ref>[http://www.snopes.com/music/media/cdlength.asp|accessdate Roll Over, Beethoven, 5.23.2007]</ref>.
-What is undeniable is that SONY president Norio Ohga and chairman, Akio Morita greatly admired Karajan and sought to use his influence in marketing CD technology to the world. Karajan would eventually sign a contract with SONY to be the distributor of videos of his final concerts on the DVD format.
-The controversy surrounding his affiliation with [[Adolph Hitler]] and the Nazis not withstanding, Herbert von Karajan was undoubtedly the most prominent conductor in Europe in that later half of the twentieth century.
-==In popular culture==
-* Herbert von Karajan was recently selected as a main motif for a high value collectors' coin: the [[Euro gold and silver commemorative coins (Austria)#2008 coinage|100th Birthday of Herbert von Karajan commemorative coin]]. The nine-sided silver coin, in the reverse, shows Karajan in one of his typically dynamic poses while [[conducting]]. In the background is the score of Beethoven's Ninth.
-* Karajan's recording of [[Johann Strauss II|Johann Strauss]] ''[[The Blue Danube|An der schönen, blauen Donau]]'' (The Blue Danube waltz) was used by director [[Stanley Kubrick]] in his science-fiction film ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001: A Space Odyssey]]'' (with Kubrick animating the sequence to match the prerecorded music, the opposite of the usual practice for soundtracks). The popular effect of this unconventional use of the music was such that the music became more identified for subsequent generations with [[space station]]s, primitive men, alien artifacts and such, than with the original [[waltz]]. Some years later, Kubrick again used Karajan's recordings, this time [[Béla Bartók]]'s ''[[Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta]]'' in ''[[The Shining (film)|The Shining]]''. Although there is a 1958 version by [[Ferenc Fricsay]] of the second movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film ''[[A Clockwork Orange (film)|A Clockwork Orange]]'', the symphony's finale we hear at the end of the movie is Karajan's now-famous 1963 recording. These two versions are from [[Deutsche Grammophon|DG]] and performed by the same orchestra, The Berlin Philharmonic.
-==Discography==
-A [http://karajan.org/jart/prj3/karajan/main.jart?reserve-mode=active&rel=en complete discography] of Karajan's recordings is available at the website of the Herbert von Karajan Centrum.
+The controversy surrounding his affiliation with [[Adolf Hitler]] and the [[Nazi]]s not withstanding, Herbert von Karajan was undoubtedly the most prominent conductor in Europe in that later half of the twentieth century.
+Karajan was the recipient of many honors and awards. On June 21, 1978, he received the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music from [[Oxford University]]. He was honored by the "Médaille de Vermeil" in Paris, the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in London, the Olympia Award of the Onassis Foundation in Athens and the [[UNESCO]] International Music Prize. He received two Gramophone awards for recordings of Mahler's Ninth Symphony and the complete ''[[Parsifal]]'' recordings in 1981. In 2002, the [[Herbert von Karajan Music Prize]] was founded in his honor.
 ==See also==
-*[[Berlin State Opera]]
+*[[Conductor (music)|Conductor]]
-*[[Raffaello de Banfield]]
-==Notes==
-{{Reflist}}
 ==References==
-*{{cite book | last=Lebrecht  | first=Norman  | title=The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power | location=New York | publisher=Citadel Press | year=2001 | isbn= 0806520884 }}
+* Alessandro, Zignani. ''Herbert von Karajan. Il Musico perpetuo.'' Varese: Zecchini Editore, 2008. ISBN 8887203679.
-*{{cite book | last=Lebrecht  | first=Norman | title=The Life and Death of Classical Music| location=New York | publisher=Anchor Books, | year=2007 | isbn=9781400096589}}
+* Layton, Robert, Edward Greenfield, and Ivan March. ''Penguin Guide to Compact Discs.'' New York: Penguin Books, 1996. ISBN 0140513671.
-*{{cite book | last=Layton | first=Robert | coauthors=Greenfield, Edward; March, Ivan| title=Penguin Guide to Compact Discs | location=London; New York | publisher=Penguin Books | year=1996 | isbn=0140513671}}
+* Lebrecht, Norman. ''The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power.'' New York: Citadel Press, 2001. ISBN 0806520884.
-*{{cite book | last=Monsaingeon | first=Bruno | title=Sviatoslav Richter: Notebooks and Conversations | year=2001 | publisher=Princeton University Press | isbn=0571205534}}
+* —. ''The Life and Death of Classical Music.'' New York: Anchor Books, 2007.  ISBN 9781400096589.
-*{{cite book | last=Osborne | first=Richard | title=Herbert von Karajan | location=London | publisher=Chatto & Windus | year=1998 | isbn=0701167149}}
+* Monsaingeon, Bruno. ''Sviatoslav Richter: Notebooks and Conversations.''  Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN 0571205534.
-*{{cite book | last=Osborne | first=Richard | title=Herbert von Karajan: A Life in Music  | location=Boston | publisher=Northeastern University Press | year=2000 | isbn=1555534252}}
+* Osborne, Richard. ''Herbert von Karajan.'' London: Chatto & Windus, 1998. ISBN 0701167149.
-*{{cite book | last=Raymond  | first=Holden | title=The Virtuoso Conductors | location=New Haven, Connecticut; London | publisher=Yale University Press | year=2005 | isbn=0300093268}}
+* —. ''Herbert von Karajan: A Life in Music.'' Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000. ISBN 1555534252.
-*{{cite book | last=Alessandro  | first=Zignani | title=Herbert von Karajan. Il Musico perpetuo| location=Varese | publisher=[[Zecchini Editore]], | year=2008 | isbn=8887203679}}
+* Raymond, Holden. ''The Virtuoso Conductors.'' New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005. ISBN 0300093268.
 ==External links==
-*[http://www.karajan.org/jart/prj3/karajan/main.jart?reserve-mode=active&rel=en Official Herbert von Karajan website, Vienna]
+All links retrieved December 20, 2017.
+*[http://karajan.org/jart/prj3/karajan/main.jart?reserve-mode=active&rel=en Official Karajan website]
 *[http://www.overgrownpath.com/2008/09/karajan-on-boulez-stockhausen-and.html 1963 Stereo Review interview]
 *[http://www.karajan.co.uk/index.html Tribute site to Herbert von Karajan]
 *[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE3DD173BF934A25754C0A96F948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1 Obituary by the New York Times]
-*[http://pages.sbcglobal.net/jameswierzbicki/conductors.htm#3 An obituary essay by James Wierzbicki]
-*[http://www.gramophone.co.uk/mainforum.asp?messageSectionID=32&threadID=11175&type=chrono A range of opinions from readers of ''Gramophone'' magazine]
-===Video===
-*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvJqiURF0hc Karajan conducting Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21]
-*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZTNoYugUWQ Karajan conducting Beethoven's Symphony No. 2]
-*[http://youtube.com/watch?v=FFltqVS8d9I Karajan conducting Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 'Eroica' - Part 1]
-*[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2219310962212012112 Karajan conducting Beethoven's 5th Symphony, rare old 1966 video]
-*[http://youtube.com/watch?v=O2AEaQJuKDY Karajan conducting Beethoven's 9th Symphony (P1)]
-*[http://youtube.com/watch?v=cSEqQsAXbJw Karajan conducting Beethoven's 9th Symphony (P2)]
-*[http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-4607055215650956047&q=verdi+dies+irae+requiem%2C&ei=P3ZbSKGPIY7CqAPj4-yKDg&hl=en Karajan cunducting Verdi's Requiem: Dies Irae ]
-{{start box}}
-{{succession box | title=[[Berlin State Opera|Music Director, Berlin State Opera]] | before=[[Clemens Krauss]] | years=1939&ndash;1945 | after=[[Joseph Keilberth]]}}
-{{end box}}
-{{Vienna Symphony conductors}}
-{{Berliner Philharmoniker conductors}}
-{{Vienna State Opera directors}}
-{{Orchestre de Paris conductors}}
-<!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] —>
-{{Persondata
-|NAME= Karajan, Herbert von
-|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Karajan, Heribert Ritter von
-|SHORT DESCRIPTION=Austrian orchestra and opera [[conducting|conductor]]
-|DATE OF BIRTH=5 April 1908
-|PLACE OF BIRTH=[[Salzburg]], Austria
-|DATE OF DEATH=16 July 1989
-|PLACE OF DEATH=[[Anif]], Austria
-}}
-{{DEFAULTSORT:Karajan, Herbert von}}