KARAJAN conducts Bruckner
Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)
Symphony No. 7 in E major, WAB 107
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Herbert von Karajan
rec. live concert broadcast, 6 April 1962, Royal Festival Hall, London Reviewed as download
Pristine Audio PASC 769 [64] XR remastered stereo

My colleague Stephen Vasta in his 2018 review of the ICA Classics issue of this live recording is fairly dismissive of the performance, detailing a number of flaws in its execution throughout the four movements. He is also critical of all three studio recordings Karajan made, mainly with regard to their sound engineering, saying “none…is quite satisfactory. Digital tweaking may have cleaned up the murky, over-reverberant sound of his c. 1970 EMI version – at least, as heard on the Angel LPs issued stateside – but also exposed the reading as soggy and ponderous. His DG remake of just a few years later (1976) sounded clearer but was strident in tutti. A third recording, from Vienna in 1990*, was more direct, with a few uncertain transitions. So this sturdy, listenable reading actually fills a gap.”

* he is evidently referring to the date of the DG issue, as Karajan died in July 1989; likewise, the EMI recording was made in 1975 and issued the following year.

There are, however, also several more live recordings, including a superb 1979 radio broadcast from Salzburg with the BPO and an equally admirable final live concert with the VPO, neither of which has never been released on commercial CD but copies circulate in various private, unofficial incarnations.

For my part, I have no problem with the sound or performance in the first 1970-71 studio recording; it was made in the Jesus-Christus-Kirche and first issued on CD on the EMI Studio label in 1986, then remastered for the Karajan Collection in 2005. The differences between them are that the former sounds very natural, with slightly softer high frequencies, whereas the later remastering is in a cleaner transfer with more presence in the strings and brass and is a touch brighter – a sound which is sometimes perceived as slightly less warm, but I prefer it for its depth and clarity, finding the earlier remastering to be a little woolly. Another colleague, Patrick C Waller, is also considerably more positive about that recording, despite a couple of reservations (review). Nor do I have any issues with the sound of the 1975 and 1989 recordings; John Quinn was very complimentary about the former in his review of the DG box set, and in the update of Bruckner recordings a year later remarked of the last studio account that “[t]here are many splendid things, including the recorded sound but there is also something a bit detached about the performance and the very end does not quite hang together.”

Karajan’s tempi in this symphony remained very consistent throughout his career. The earliest and latest studio recordings are both a touch more expansive and this live 1962 performance which is a little more urgent, especially in the first movement, but there’s not much in it. Obviously, one of the biggest barriers to enjoyment could have been that it was in BBC radio broadcast mono. Pristine have now given it the XR Remastering Ambient Stereo treatment which resolves that to a great degree, especially as it was already good for its age and provenance; SV observes of the ICA issue that “[t]he monaural sound would ordinarily be a deal-breaker for me in this repertoire, where stereo is really needed. In this case, however, the engineering encompasses the various lower brasses in particular with vivid presence and depth. Lighter textures, despite a lack of directionality, emerge with some transparency. On the debit side, there’s a prominent background hiss; tympani rolls turn the sonorities opaque in the first-movement coda and tend to obscure activity in the Scherzo; and, in the score’s closing pages, the trumpets suffer a touch of breakup and buzzy distortion. None of this seriously interferes with enjoying the performance.” There is also the consideration that the two ICA discs include the rest of the concert, which featured the Mozart Jupiter symphony and the two national anthems, whereas Pristine just give us the radio announcer’s introduction and the Bruckner symphony alone.

So after that rather exhaustive preamble, where does this leave us with regard to the merits of this new Pristine issue? First, it must be said that it has historical significance, in that Bruckner’s music was not much conducted in that era and when it was, it wasn’t necessarily done very well; only Klemperer was doing it justice in the UK, so Karajan’s advocacy of it in London in the early 1960s was of note. However, we have so many options to hear great recorded performances now, not just from Karajan but also from the likes of Haitink (BRSO, 1981 – review – or VPO 2019 – review), Eichhorn and Honeck (review), to give but three examples of superlative accounts.

The radio introduction is delivered in a style of English RP which has quite disappeared, only to be heard now on YouTube in spoof sketches delivered by Harry Enfield as Mr Cholmondley Warner; it certainly delivers a “period feeling”.

There is no getting away from the fact that the sound of the upper strings is still a bit scratchy and shrill and the bass woolly and indistinct. Overall, it is still cavernous, as if we were in the Royal Albert Hall rather than the RFH and of course loud, heedless coughs obtrude. Having said that, this was clearly masterly music-making in progress; Karajan always understood how the ebb and flow alternated with the mighty, inexorable tread of Bruckner’s symphonies and we are listening to a first-class outfit – I am quite sure no one in the audience will have heard it played this well previously. I certainly recognise Karajan’s trademark virtues here but would equally suggest that they may be heard to much greater advantage in any of the aforementioned recordings. He is in no sense sacrificing drama to “beauty of sound”, as one may hear from the attack in sections beginning around fifteen minutes in and his control of dynamics before the launch of the coda with hieratic horns is typically well-gauged; the climax is magnificent, despite the mushy, hissy sound.

I do not, however, find that the Adagio has the same sense of transcendence I experience in Karajan’s last recordings; it is undoubtedly elegantly played and I would hesitate to criticise unless I had those later accounts as benchmarks but Karajan is often pushing ahead more readily here than is ideal, such that rallentandi, when they are apparent, seem too applied. Besides, the brittle sound cannot capture the serenity of the music. Even the climactic cymbal clash – which Karajan always grafted onto the Haas edition – is a bit tinny. The Scherzo is fine: the outer sections are driven and exciting, the middle section Trio contrasting strongly with its broad, relaxed, expansive manner. The finale is very sharp and pointed; it is a movement which can fragment but Karajan keeps it all together and the brass is especially vigorous and the orchestra as a whole makes a mighty noise at 6:12 sustained through to the minute of music until the “immer breiter” instruction. The last three minutes of the movement are grand and imposing – even a little wild, as the various brass players occasionally become slightly unstuck – but the end is greeted rapturously.

In the end, given the competition from Karajan himself, never mind other exponents, although I am quite sure that I would have hugely enjoyed being in the audience, I find this performance to be superfluous in terms of both aesthetics and engineering. To hear him – and I mean hear, properly – turn to any of the other three studio recordings or the live performances of 1979 and 1989.

Ralph Moore