So you thought classical music was dead?


davidderrick has left a new comment on your post "Music's unmerry widows" - Not 1981, surely? CDs only came in in March 83. This was around 89. Possibly for the genius's 80th birthday? 'Scuse pedantry ...

David, the Galleria series were originally released in LP format. I could not recall having bought any of the series. But age doesn't just make better conductors, it also plays tricks with memory. Which is why Sir John Barbirolli conducted from a score. After your comment arrived I went through my LPs and found this 1982 vinyl record, complete with Eliette von Karajan painting, which I have just photographed. The Deutsche Grammophon website confirms the dates.

Meanwhile the Karajan centenary bandwagon is really starting to roll. Tonight (Jan 23) BBC Radio 4 promises a 'reassessment' of Karajan (why not Radio 3 - not Classic FM enough for them?), while DG's centenary releases are here (but I can't see the excellent vinyl only Second Viennese School set). The Karajan industry is definitely hard currency - the Austrian Mint are to issue a 5 Euro commemorative coin in April. There are going to be books galore (but no Lauterwasser volume), re-releases of recordings, and more memorial concerts than there were for Princess Diana. If you thought classical music was dead check it all out here.

The current Karajan memorial European tour by the Berlin Philharmonic features Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony (but there are no T-shirts). By coincidence my first classical record was that symphony on DG conducted by Karajan. Read about it here.
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Comments

Anonymous said…
Thanks. A bit embarrassed you accepted a comment that was just plain wrong! (I'm a big fan of EMI Karajan. Almost everything he did with the Philharmonia was wonderful. Some of that Beethoven cycle is a relief after turbulent Fürtwängler and the Brahms 4 is better, and more virile, imo, than Kleiber's famous DG recording.)
Pliable said…
David, no embarrassment needed at all. Like you I remembered the DG Galleria CDs, not the LPs.

When your comment arrived I actually thought you were right and that I had got the date wrong. I went away and double-checked, and was really surprised that, yes, those images had first appeared on LPs 26 years ago. Which is why I thought a further post was worthwhile.

And as it turned out your comment started a thread which uncovered new information we couldn't possibly have lived without, like that Austrian 5 euro 'Herbie' coin.

It's the thread that counts. And funny to think this one started with Bernstein's Mass.
Pliable said…
A lot of traffic coming to this post from a very nice link on an unlikely blog -
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/statins/a-bad-week-for-statins/
Pliable said…
Email received:

Mea Culpa.

Dr Michael Eades of Protein Power is very interested in music -- he studied the violin in his youth and his wife Dr MD Eades is president of the Santa Barbara Choral Soc.

Anyway, it has become a bit of a habit (I wouldn't grace it with the dignity of "tradition") for me to comment on his site and then provide a something completely different about music at the end.

It was Overgrown's turn yesterday.

It all derived from the following post last year:

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/lipid-hypothesis/does-the-atkins-diet-damage-blood-vessels/

My comment is the first and the good Doctor inquired as to what the program at the Opera House concert was.

It all began with an earlier post (which I haven't bothered to find) where I remarked on a passage I had been reading in the foyer of the Sydney Opera House, while waiting for some people prior to a concert, from Book 3 of Herodotus which commented on the short lives of the Egyptians who ate grain vs the 120 year long lifespans of the Ethiopians, who ate low carb. Dr Mike then asked what was on the program.

It's there in the archive somewhere.

Michael Richards

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