Some while back I
reviewed the classic 1954 Erich Kleiber Rosenkavalier, reissued
on Decca’s "Legendary Performances" series (467 111-2). Now
the 1956 Karajan is available as one of EMI’s Great Recordings of the
The Kleiber was the first complete recording of the
work. It also enshrines a deeply authentic approach, nurtured in Vienna
under the likes of Clemens Krauss and Kleiber himself and a trio of
ladies – Reining, Gueden and Jurinac – who had grown up with their parts
in a Vienna where the composer himself was very much a living memory
(and Gueden had taken up the part of Sophie at his request). As a recording
it was a first, but as a performance it marked the end of a long line
in which the work was presented with total understanding and sympathy
rather than interpretation as such. The Karajan came only two years
later, but by this time Strauss was, as it were, a public monument.
The EMI set ushered in a new era of "personalised interpretations".
What this means in practice can be heard in the Marschallin’s
soliloquy on the passing of time. Schwarzkopf’s semi-whispered phrases
amount to a deeply imaginative approach on the part of both her and
the conductor, and with the distant clock striking the music comes to
a complete standstill. Schwarzkopf’s final phrase is preceded by a pause
and is then as long-drawn-out is it could possibly be. Reining and Kleiber,
by contrast, give us Strauss "neat". Abetted by a brighter,
more forward recording they could seem rough-mannered as they keep things
on the move (no indulgence as the clocks strike), except that they give
us one essential ingredient that Strauss, in love with the soprano voice
right through his career, must surely have longed for; the almost sensual
satisfaction of a full-toned voice billowing and soaring across the
footlights. That is what people go to the opera for, and Schwarzkopf
and Karajan seem intent on withholding this. Invariably, when she enters
or returns to the scene, she does so not like a prima donna whose task
is to hold the stage, but emerges imperceptibly from the orchestra.
As so often, Karajan’s sheer refinement seems to cushion the listener
from the full impact of the music. Similarly, as love dawns between
Octavian and Sophie, Teresa Stich-Randall’s high pianissimo Bs and Cs
have a pure, disembodied quality which exhibits a control unmatched
by Hilde Gueden, who nevertheless has the essential oomph-factor. Best
of all, maybe, was Schwarzkopf herself back in 1947 as a free-soaring
Sophie in a short extract recorded with a more unconstrained Karajan.
Considering all the moments of stasis, it is remarkable
that Karajan’s overall timings are faster in all three acts. In certain
moments, such as the pantomime at the beginning of Act 3, he really
goes like the wind, and with Kleiber you feel the singers have that
spot more time to express their words in the comic exchanges. Still,
this was only the first of the personalised Rosenkavaliers,
and Karajan was always a great master of the overall line, something
which later purveyors of faster-than-fast alternating slower-than-slow
rather lost sight of. All this would nevertheless seem to point to a
recommendation for Kleiber, even taking into account Edelmann’s less
boorish Ochs, real luxury casting of the smaller roles (Gedda is wonderful
as the Italian tenor, where Anton Dermota struggles a bit) and a more
refined if a little recessed recording.
Except that, come the Act 3 trio, the overwhelming
climax of the work, and Karajan finally loses himself in the music,
and when this happens all his refinements fall into place. At last the
voices are encouraged to soar out freely (had he been saving up for
this all along?) and even Kleiber’s glorious account is quite surpassed.
This at least is one of the "Great Recordings of the Century".
I don’t know if this in itself adds up to a recommendation ahead of
Kleiber, but it does rather sound as if you’ll need both of them.