Death, Congress and Tosca

On Twitter with Puccini and the banality of evil.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Cover art for the CD issue of the 1980 Karajan Tosca.
Image © 1980 Deutsche Grammophon/UMG.

It started because I couldn't sleep.

Tonight was the super-stealthy midnight vote by the Republican Party to enact a so-called "skinny repeal" of the Affordable Care Act, the health care achievement by President Barack Obama that has enabled me to continue my career both as a freelance writer and as the author of Superconductor, my very own classical music publication that you're reading if you're reading this right now.

The Wagner Project: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Wagner's longest opera happens to be one of the great comedies.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A medieval woodcut depicting the city of Nuremberg.

In 1848, Wagner had two ideas for operas. One, the saga of the swan knight, became Lohengrin, the other was Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg ("The Mastersingers of Nuremberg." Meistersinger (as it is usually called) was sketched as a rustic comedy, kind of like Tannhäuser with less sex and a happy ending. 19 years later, when Die Meistersinger finally appeared, it became Wagner's longest opera, a profound reflection on the composer's own career and the search for the meaning of German art. It remains one of his most popular operas. And yes, it's a comedy.

Recordings Review: This Guy in the House of Love

The 1963 Herbert von Karajan Tannhäuser on DG.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Hans Beirer as Tannhäuser, Vienna, 1963.
Photo © 1998 Deutsche Grammophon/UMG/Archives of the Vienna State Opera.

In his five decades on the podium, the late Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan committed nine of the ten "canon" Wagner operas to disc. He made studio recordings with Berlin, Vienna and Dresden, releasing these performances for EMI Classics (Tristan, Lohengrin, Dutchman, Meistersinger) and Deutsche Grammophon (Parsifal and the Ring.) The missing opera was Tannh äuser, a work which eludes any sort of definitive set-in-stone interpretation. In 1998, this recording was finally released on DG. If you can find an import copy of this recording, you can finally hear Karajan's take on Wagner's most problematic mature work.

At His Exercise: The Greatest Jon Vickers Opera Recordings

We celebrate the memory of the great Canadian tenor.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Jon Vickers as Aeneas in a scene from Les Troyens.
Source: JonVickers.org

The Canadian tenor Jon Vickers passed away this weekend. One of the greatest heroic singers of the 20th century, Mr. Vickers was a tenor of exceptional power and vocal strength with a memorable stage presence. Over four decades, he made many memorable recordings including the first complete studio performance of Berlioz' Les Troyens with Sir Colin Davis. He sang many of the major heroic Wagner roles, although he eschewed the difficult part of Tannhäuser, famously citing his strong Christian beliefs. Here are five of his legendary complete opera performances from the Superconductor archives.

Ten Signs You're a Classical Music Geek

A handy guide from your friends at Superconductor.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Another sign: you know which conductor Bugs Bunny is making fun of here.
Image by Chuck Jones from Long-Haired Hare © 1948 Warner Bros. Entertainment.

Classical music geeks are an uncommon lot. Some can tell two different pianists apart just by listening or rattle off the key signatures of a composer's symphonies the way some people know football rosters.
It takes a special kind of devotion to love, really love classical music, and we thought the following list would serve as a little Valentine to the dedicated as we stand upon the brink of another concert season.

Building the Digital Beast

(Ed. Note: This is Part I of our series on how to live digitally and still have a satisfying portable classical music experience. Part II is on how to build and manage playlists. Part III is about managing the iPod. iPod, iPod Touch, Mini, Shuffle, iTunes, and iPhone are of course, trademarks of Apple.)

How to manage classical music in your iTunes.

If Beethoven had read this article, he would have
filed his Karajan recordings correctly, too.
Photo from Teapot Shortage.

Superconductor could not function without a massive iTunes library, accessible anytime on my Mac with two finger movements. I also keep updating the "Classical iPod", 155.5 gigs of carefully organized works--and the newer iPhone, with less storage capacity but a greater chance that my listening experience will be interruptive.

The challenge of keeping any classical music library updated is compounded by two things: the generally poor quality of CDDB (CD Database) listings, which drive iTunes' ability to assign names to your music) and that there is no existing industry standard or naming conventions applied across the board to classical music. Even if there were, nobody wants to pay coders or web people to do it. So it never gets done.

I did it, and at present, have about 200 gigs of music, relatively well organized. Here's how I solved the problem. Maybe it will help you follow suit.

Step One: Balkanize the Genre tab.
iTunes' factory setting has just one assigned genre for "classical" music. Everything in one field. Useless.

I divide works as follows:

• 20th Century: any instrumental music written 1900-2000.
• Cantata: Sung works for small ensemble. Lots of Bach.
• Chamber Music: Everything for small ensemble except string quartets.
• Concerto: if it has a soloist vs. an orchestra, it's in here. Includes piano concertos and violin concertos.
• Harpsichord: Like piano, but plucked. Solo works in here.
• Lieder: all art songs, even if they're not in German.
• Opera: The queen of arts.
• Operetta: because I roll like that.
• Oratorio: Religious-themed stage works. Lots of Handel.
• Orchestral: Catch-all category: tone poems, overtures, waltzes, etc.
• Piano: A soloist battling 88 keys. Some duo works for four hands.
• Sacred Music: Masses, motets. You know, church music.
• Symphony: If it is designated "symphony" by its composer, it goes here. From C.P.E. Bach to P. Glass.
• Violin: Solo and duo works for that instrument.

Now here's the good part. You can do this quickly. Select your files. (albums). Hit Command-I. An info box pops up. iTunes will ask you if you "think it is a good idea to edit this many files at once." It is.
Go to the Genre field at the bottom. Type in your new Genre. Wait for it to compile and presto-change-o, you've started to Balkanize your massive "classical" collection.

Step Two: Standardize your Fields: 
Once you decide what genre your files are, it's easy to start changing the fields to suit your music needs. You can change many of these fields at once for multiple files, and ITunes will reorganize your folders in your Library, putting the "books" on the right shelves. This is just the method that works for me, and I thought I'd share it.


Pick a disc of Beethoven symphonies. Let's say Herbert von Karajan, conducting the Beethoven Fifth. The 1981 cycle he did in Berlin. Here's how it looks, freshly downloaded from Amazon.com:

The Song Title field is all right, but the rest is a mess. The album is called "Beethoven?" Really useful. The composer's name is spelled wrong and there are no dates on him (I use the dates for search functions in playlists. May explain that later.) And worst of all, the artist is "Herbert von Karajan" with "Berliner Philharmoniker" broken out into a seperate field.

• Artist, Album Artist: for an orchestra, put the name of the orchestra (in English) with the name of the conductor. Like so: Berlin Philharmonic cond. Herbert von Karajan. You can do these for all works with the same orchestra and conductor and when they load into an iPod or iPhone they'll all wind up in the same folder.
• Album: should reflect a clear, unique folder for these recordings, One of the problems with iTunes is that two albums with the same title will wind up in the same folder in your iTunes. That can make "Beethoven Fifth Symphony" a very large file if you own more than one recording. Adding the conductor's name can clarify matters. If a conductor (like von Karajan) made multiple recordings of a work, add the date as a marker. So: Beethoven: Symphony No. 4, 5 Karajan 1981.
• Composer: Services like CDDB and Amazon have strange ideas about spelling the names of composers, or only using their last names. So you might have files tagged with "Beethoven", "Ludwig Vanbeethoven" or even "LvB." Choose a STANDARD style that works for you. I like this format: Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).

Here is the same file after a quick cleanup:

The Song Title is unaltered. Album is now called "Beethoven: Symphony No. 4, 5 Karajan 1981." This gives you the pieces, the conductor's name, and (important for Karajan) which cycle it is of the four he recorded in his lifetime. Composer's name is now spelt right, with those useful dates. And the Artist and Genre fields have been corrected.

That's pretty much it. Hope this helps you get started uploading (or downloading) your music and getting your portable classical collection to a place where everything is as it should be.

Old-School Mozart: The 1950 Karajan Vienna Recordings

The Man, the Maestro: Herbert von Karajan. © Universal Classics.

These two recordings of Mozart operas: Le Nozze di Figaro and Die Zauberflöte, rank among the earliest LP recordings of an entire opera in a recording studio. (Decca recorded Die Meistersinger in 1950 with Hans Knappertsbusch, but that's another column.) They are also the first two complete recordings led by Herbert von Karajan, at the start of his long association with the EMI label.

Both of these sets were made in Vienna in 1950. They are from the early days of LP records, and are in mono sound. (Stereo recording was invented in 1952)

As such, they offer the listener the chance to hear the Austrian conductor at his warmest and most innovative.

Vienna Philharmonic cond. Herbert von Karajan (EMI, 1950)

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.
Photo by Fayer © EMI Classics

Le Nozze di Figaro
Figaro: Erich Kunz
Susanna: Irmgard Seefried
The Countess: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
Count Almaviva: George London
Cherubino: Sena Jurinac

Die Zauberflöte
Sarastro: Ludwig Weber
The Queen of the Night: Wilma Lipp
Tamino: Anton Dermota
Pamina: Irmgard Seefried
Papagena Erich Kunz

Figaro was made in June and October of 1950. Erich Kunz is a dark-timbred, sardonic valet, who switches over to warm tone in his intimate scenes with Irmgard Seefried's terrific, pert Susanna. Selena Juranac is a fully embodied Cherubino. It is not an insult to say that this trouser role is sung with boyish enthusiasm. The ensembles bloom with warmth, especially in the second act.

An excerpt: Selena Juranac sing "Non s piu cosa son, cosa faccio" 

from Act I of Figaro. © 1950, EMI Classics

George London sings the Count with real menace in the early acts, which melts away at the opera's climax in Act IV. Karajan slows down the tempo for their reconciliation scene, allowing Elisabeth Schwarzkopf to really shine in the final ensemble. She is a marvel here, helped by Karajan's choice of dead-slow tempos whenever she sings.

The Flute was laid down in November of that same year. Karajan takes an even slower tempo here, especially with the three stately chords that launch the Overture. Other key moments in the score: the March of the Priests, the Two Men in Armor scene are rendered in vivid color by the Viennese forces. The choral singing is firm and well-caught.

This set features essentially the same cast (with the subtraction of Ms. Schwarzkopf and the substitution of Wilma Lipp as the Queen of the Night.) And it's a good one. Anton Dermota and Ms. Seefried are an engaging, ideal pair as Tamino and Pamina. He really sounds panicked in "Zu hilfe," and his fine characterization continues throughout. She is warm in "Bei Mannern", reunited (temporarily) with her Figaro, Erich Kunz, now in the role of Papageno.

Mr. Kunz may be no match for later bird-catchers (the role became a favorite of lieder singers in the stereo era) but he is bluff and good-natured. (I'd love to hear him in the opera's comic dialogue.) Ludwig Weber is an authoritative, but not authoritarian Sarastro. This recording captures the Wagner veteran in fine form just before the re-opening of the Bayreuth Festival the following year.

Both recordings feature the Vienna Philharmonic in top post-war form, playing with warmth and their unique, characteristic timbre. And despite being six decades old, the engineering is excellent, from the rattling tone of the timpani to the warm tone of the singers. The distinctive Vienna brass and wind are also captured with clarity on these CD remasters.

There are a few drawbacks. Figaro is missing ALL of the recitatives, which means you have to know the opera to follow the plot. The same goes for Zauberflöte, as no attempt is made to record the spoken dialogue between scenes. A libretto is helpful when listening if you don't know the operas.

CD Survey: Karajan Gold, Karajan Pyrite

With a recording career that stretched over half a decade, Herbert von Karajan did much, in and out of the studio to shape the modern classical music industry. The fiery Austrian did good things (pioneering the CD format) and bad (declaring that CDs should be 72 minutes, the length of his interpretation of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.) Karajan worked with the biggest orchestras in Europe and recorded for three different major record labels. Here's the best of Karajan, on CD.



Richard Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra et. al., Vienna Philharmonic, (1959, Decca)
Here it is folks: the recording of Also Sprach Zarathustra that Stanley Kubrick used for 2001: A Space Odyssey.. Accept no imitations--not even Karajan's 1974 Deutsche Grammophon remake with the Berlin Philharmonic. Here, the cosmic opening is underpinned with an enormous organ stop, recorded separately at Coventry Cathedral. The huge bells in the Night-wanderer's Song will wake up the entire house and possibly the neighbors. The disc also includes nice recordings of Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel, and the Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome.

Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1-9, Overtures Berlin Philharmonic (1963, Deutsche Grammophon)
Herbert von Karajan recorded the complete cycle of nine Beethoven symphonies four times in the stereo era. The 1963 cycle with the Berlin Philharmonic is a bargain that is never out of the catalogue. Recorded with crisp old-fashioned analogue sound and razor-sharp conducting, this set represents Karajan's best recorded work with his almighty Berliners. And it's a thousand times better than the ballyhooed Karajan Gold all-digital remakes made in the 1980s with the same orchestra. Note: This recording is available in two formats: a gold-and-maroon "doorstop" edition, as well as the newer, sleeker DG Collector's Edition set in a navy-and-white box with a black and white Karajan on the cover. They cost about the same.


Wagner: Tristan und Isolde, Berlin Philharmonic (1972, EMI Classics)
Although props can be given to the Berlin Philharmonic Ring Cycle and the 1980 Parsifal, this EMI Tristan is probably the maestro's best Wagner on disc. With his big tenor voice and even bigger acting chops, Jon Vickers simply tears through the opera. Helga Dernesch is a little light-voiced for Isolde, but she was Karajan's choice. She sings radiantly in the Act II duet and achieves a special kind of transcendence in her Liebestod. Karl Ridderbusch is a sympathetic King Marke. The Philharmonic swoops and soars through Wagner's score. The third act is excruciating--Karajan draws out the music into long phrases that pulsate with genuine anguish. Less frenzied than Böhm's and better cast than Kleiber's, this is the best of the stereo Tristans.

Verdi: Otello, Vienna Philharmonic(1961, Decca)
This Otello is a masterwork of opera production that is guaranteed to knock you out. From the slam-bang opening chords to Mario del Monaco's gloriously over-the-top "Esultate!" this is a thrilling set that remains one of the best Otellos in the catalogue, and one of HvK's finest opera recordings. John Culshaw's production team creates all kinds of impressive aural effects, (as they did in an earlier Karajan Aida) including a deep organ bass note in the opening scene that requires a really good subwoofer to make the walls shake. Renata Tebaldi is a fantastic Desdemona. The only letdown is Aldo Protti as Iago--a mediocre baritone at best. In an era where opera recordings are repeatedly reissued and remastered, this Otello has never gotten the treatment--it stands on its own.

Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo: Pagliacci, La Scala Orchestra and Chorus (1966, Deutsche Grammophon)
The best opera recordings in the lengthy Karajan catalogue. Karajan's conducting brings out the breath of mystic wonder necessary for the religious processions in Cavalleria. You can practically smell the incense. In Pagliacci he digs out the psychological nuances and grotesque comic moments with a kind of Mahlerian gusto. Each opera stars mega-tenor Carlo Bergonzi, and that's worth price of purchase alone. But Karajan and the La Scala forces are the stars here. Unlike his classic Tosca and Aida, the conductor never felt the need to remake these for another record company. Note: Currently, these operas are available separately as DG Originals. Look for the three-disc box set version that includes both operas and a bonus disc of lovely opera intermezzi recorded with the Berlin forces in 1968--a Karajan rarity!

OK. Those are all good ones. Here's three to avoid:


Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 1-6, Berlin Philharmonic (1980, Deutsche Grammophon)
The strangest orchestral recording of Bach music ever made. Played with a too-large orchestra, in sparkling hyper-precise digital sound. Under Karajan, the taut polyphony and crisp rhythms of the Brandenburgs turn to aural mush. Worse yet, the crucial harpsichord parts get drowned out by the big Berlin band.

Mozart: Die Zauberflöte (1981, Deutsche Grammophon)
Another early '80s mistake. There is no reason other than corporate greed that a recording of Mozart's Magic Flute needs to be on three discs. Especially this one, beset with a bizarre cast (Karin Ott as the Queen of the Night? Jose van Dam as Sarastro?) and the crisp, tinkly ambiance of early digital stereo. If you must have a Karajan Flute stick with the 1950 mono recording on EMI.

Bizet: Carmen (1983, Deutsche Grammophon)
Another surefire "hit"--let down by strange casting decisions (Agnes Baltsa in the title role, a rapidly declining Jose Carreras as Don Jose) and haywire studio engineering. The biggest problem: bringing in different actors to read the spoken French dialogue, a common practice at DG. The result is one messy bullfight.