Map of Vindobona around 250 A.D.

Vindobona (Celtic/Gaulish windo- "fair/white/blessed", bona "base/bottom", presumably so-named from its geological/topological position^{[citation needed]}) was originally a Celtic settlement, and later a Roman military camp on the site of the modern city of Vienna in Austria. Around 15 BC, the kingdom of Noricum was included in the Roman Empire. Henceforth, the Danube marked the border of the empire, and the Romans built fortifications and settlements on the banks of the Danube, including Vindobona.

History[link]

Early references[link]

Head of a genius found during excavations of Vindobona

Silver plate, part of a larger find found around Kärntner Straße in 1945

Early references to Vindobona are made by the geographer Ptolemy in his Geographica and the historian Aurelius Victor, who recounts that emperor Marcus Aurelius died in Vindobona on the 17 March 180. Today, there is a Marc-Aurelstraße (English: Marcus Aurelius street) near the Hoher Markt in Vienna.

From a military base to a town[link]

Vindobona was part of the Roman province Pannonia, of which the regional administrative centre was Carnuntum. The local inhabitants were probably of Celtic and Illyrian origin.

Vindobona was a military camp with an attached civilian city (Canabae). The military complex covered an area of some 20 hectares, housing about 6000 men where Vienna’s first district now stands. The Danube marked the border of the Roman Empire, and Vindobona was part of a defensive network including the camps of Carnuntum, Brigetio and Aquincum. Under Emperor Trajan, four legions were stationed in Pannonia^{[citation needed]}.

Vindobona was provisioned by the surrounding Roman country estates (Villae rusticae).

A centre of trade with a developed infrastructure as well as agriculture and forestry developed around Vindobona. Civic communities developed outside the fortifications (canabae legionis), as well another community that was independent of the military authorities in today's third district^{[citation needed]}. It has also been proven that a Germanic settlement with a large marketplace existed on the far side of the Danube from the second century onwards^{[citation needed]}.

The asymmetrical layout of the military camp, which was unusual for the otherwise standardised Roman encampments, is still recognisable in Vienna’s street plan: Graben, Naglergasse, Tiefer Graben, Salzgries, Rabensteig, Rotenturmstraße. The oblique camp border along today's street Salzgries was probably caused by a tremendous flood of the river Danube that occurred during the 3rd century and eroded a considerable part of the camp.^[1] The name “Graben” (English: ditch) is believed to hark back to the defensive ditches of the military camp. It is thought that at least parts of the walls still stood in the Middle Ages, when these streets were laid out, and thus determined their routes. The Berghof was later erected in one corner of the camp.

Wars, administrative and military reforms in the 3rd and 4th century as well as devastating floods led the population to retreat more and more into the military camp^{[citation needed]}. The area lost its importance as a border in the 5th century, and the local population lived within the former fortification^{[citation needed]}.

Evidence for the Roman presence in Vindobona[link]

Archaeological remains[link]

Remains of the Roman outpost at Michaelerplatz

Roman stones from the thermae, at Sterngasse

Remains of a hypocaust, found below Hoher Markt

Remains of the Roman military camp have been found at many sites in the centre of Vienna. The centre of the Michaelerplatz has been widely investigated by archaeologists. Here, traces of a Roman legionary outpost (canabae legionis) and of a crossroad have been found.^[2] The centrepiece of the current design of the square is a rectangular opening that evokes the archaeological excavations at the site and shows wall remains that have been preserved from different epochs.

Part of a Roman canal system is underneath the fire station am Hof.^[3]

Directly under the Hoher Markt are the remains of two buildings unearthed during the canalisation works of 1948/49 and made accessible to the public. After further excavation, a showroom was opened in 1961. For this purpose some of the original walls had to be removed; white marks on the floor show the spots where^{[citation needed]}. The buildings, which are separated from one another by a road, housed an officer and his family^{[citation needed]}. In 2008 this Roman ruins exhibit was expanded into the Museum of the Romans.^[4] Only a small portion can today be seen, for the majority of the remains are still located underneath the square and south of it.

The remains of the walls date from different phases from the 1st to the 5th century AD. The houses were typical Roman villas, with living quarters and space for working set around a middle courtyard with columned halls.^[5]

Evidence for the Roman military presence[link]

Dedication stone with inscriptions mentioning the Legio XIII Gemina

Over 3000 stamped bricks, several stone monuments and written sources prove that several legions, cavalry units and marines were stationed in Vindobona. Around 97. AD, Legio XIII Gemina was responsible for construction of the legionary camps. Because of the wars in Dacia, they were pulled out and redeployed in 101 AD. A decade later, Legio XIIII Gemina Martia Victrix followed. Legio X Gemina from Aquincum arrived in 114 AD and remained in Vindobona until the 5th century^{[citation needed]}.

About 6000 soldiers were stationed in the Roman camp^{[citation needed]}. Many of them were free from active duty during peaceful times and had other jobs^{[citation needed]}. These so-called immunes were needed for the supply of goods and for the production and maintenance of weapons and commodities. They also extracted stone from quarries and wood from forests, produced bricks, and maintained the streets, bridges and the water system. Administrating the camp and ensuring its security required additional manpower.

Roman canals[link]

Manhole cover. Proper water supply and sanitation was vital for the functioning of the city

The Romans provided their cities, including Vindobona, with clean potable water through an elaborate systems of "Roman aqueducts," canals, and large subterranean pipes. Excavations have revealed that Vindobona received its supply through a 17 km long water pipeline^{[citation needed]}. The source is in the Vienna Woods around today's Kalksberg. Wells, latrines and the thermae were supplied with water. Central buildings such as the commander's office and the hospital had their own supplies, as did the settlement outside the camp, where households had their own groundwater wells^{[citation needed]}.

Archaeological excavations done over the last 100 years have discovered the following Roman water supply fragment locations:

• In the Zemlinskygasse: at numbers 2-4 - (23rd district, found in 1924)
• In the Breitenfurter Straße: at number 422 - (23rd district, in 1959)
• In the Rudolf Zeller-Gasse/Anton-Krieger-Gasse - (23rd district, 1992)
• In Atzgersdorf - (23rd district, 1902–1907)
• In the Tullnertalgasse: at number 76 - (23rd district, 1973)
• In the Lainergasse: at number 1 - (23rd district, 1958)
• In the Wundtgasse - (12th district, 1951)
• In the Rosenhügelstraße: at number 88 - (12th district, 1926)
• In the Fasangartenstraße: at number 49 - (12th district, 1916)
• In the Pacassistraße - (13th district, 1928)
• In the Sechshauserstraße: at number 7 - (15th district, 1879 - leading towards the first district)

Waste from the Roman camp was transported through an elaborate canalisation system that was planned from the beginning. The canals were lined with bricked walls and plates and ran beneath the main roads. Gradients were used in such a way that the waste water descended through the canals into the Danube River. Since the canals were up to two metres deep, they could be cleaned out regularly. Large waste was probably deposed at the slope of the river. In the civilian settlement, waste was deposed in former water wells and dumps^{[citation needed]}.

Legacies in today's streets[link]

The Cygnus-Relief was probably part of a larger public building

Small bronze statuettes of gods

The layout of a Roman camp (castra) was normally standardised. This has helped archaeologists to reconstruct what the camp must have looked like, despite the heavy rebuilding that has taken place in Vienna throughout the centuries. The basic contours of the camp, which was surrounded by a mighty wall with towers and three moats (today the Tiefer Graben, Naglergasse, Graben, and Rotenturmstraße) are identifiable. Along these axes, main roads connected the gates with one other. The main buildings were the commander's headquarters, the Palace of the Legate, the houses of the staff officers, and the thermae. At right angles to these, the soldiers' accommodation, a hospital, workshops, and mews (stables) were constructed.^{[citation needed]}

Popular culture[link]

• Two lines in the film Gladiator make reference to Vindobona:

In one, the lead character's servant, Cicero, trying to get the attention of Lucilla, states, "I served with your father at Vindobona!"

In the other, the lead character asks if anyone in his group of gladiators has served in the army, to which an anonymous fighter responds, "I served with you at Vindobona."

• The historical novel Votan by Welsh writer John James begins in "Vindabonum" and imagines 2nd century C.E. life there.

See also[link]

• List of aqueducts in the Roman Empire

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Michaela Kronberger: Siedlungschronologische Forschungen zu den canabae legionis von Vindobona. Die Gräberfelder (Monographien der Stadtarchäologie Wien Band 1). Phoibos Verlag, Wien 2005. (German)
• Christine Ranseder e.a., Michaelerplatz. Die archäologischen Ausgrabungen. Wien Archäologisch 1, Wien 2006. ISBN 3-901232-72-9. (German)
• Vindobona. Die Reise in das antike Wien. DVD-Rom, 2004. (German)
• Vindobona II. Wassertechnik des antiken Wiens. DVD-Rom, 2005. (German)

External links[link]

Media related to Vindobona at Wikimedia Commons

• Wien Museum | Ausgrabungsstätten (German)
• Forschungsgesellschaft Wiener Stadtarchäologie | Legionslager Vindobona (German)
• Animationsfilme zu vindobona (German)
• Seite mit sehenswerter Rekonstruktion des Lagertores (German)
• Livius.org: Vindobona (Vienna)
• Austrian Mint Coin Features Vindobona
• Bursche, A., L. Pitts, P. Kaczanowski, E. Krekovič, R. Madyda‑Legutko, R. Talbert, T. Elliott, S. Gillies. "Places: 128537 (Vindobona)". Pleiades. http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/128537. Retrieved March 8, 2012 3:55 pm. 

Coordinates: 48°12′39″N 16°22′13″E / 48.21083°N 16.37028°E / 48.21083; 16.37028

Leopold Godowsky in 1935, three years before his death. (Photograph by Carl Van Vechten)

Leopold Godowsky (13 February 1870 – 21 November 1938) was a famed Polish American pianist, composer, and teacher. One of the most highly regarded performers of his time, he became known for his theories concerning the application of relaxed weight and economy of motion in piano playing, principles later propagated by Godowsky's pupils, such as Heinrich Neuhaus. Ferruccio Busoni famously observed that he and Godowsky were the only composers to have added anything of significance to keyboard writing since Franz Liszt.

As a composer, Godowsky is best known for his transcriptions of works by other composers. His best known work in the field is 53 Studies on Chopin's Études (1894–1914).^[1]

Life[link]

Leopold Godowsky was born to Jewish parents, Anna and Maciej Godowsky, in Żośle, near Wilno, in what was then Russian territory but is now part of Lithuania. Godowsky's father died when he was a child, and he was raised by his mother and foster-parents, Louis and Minna Passinock, in Vilnius.^[2]

His talent manifested itself very early, and by age five Godowsky was already composing and becoming proficient on both piano and violin. He gave his first concert at age nine, and toured throughout Lithuania and East Prussia soon afterwards.^[1] Although he received a few lessons in his childhood, Godowsky was almost completely self-taught. After briefly studying under Ernst Rudorff at the Königliche Hochschule für Musik in Berlin he left for the United States, where he made his first concert appearance in Boston in 1884.^[1]

In 1885–86 Godowsky continued his American career, first playing at the New York Casino, and then, in 1886, embarking on a large tour of north-eastern USA and Canada with violinist Ovide Musin. In 1887 he returned to Europe and gave numerous recitals in Paris and London, eventually becoming a protégé and friend of Camille Saint-Saëns.

In 1890 he returned to the United States and began a pedagogical career by joining the staff of the New York College of Music.^[1] On 30 April 1891 Godowsky married Frieda Saxe, a childhood friend.^[3] In 1891–3 he held a teaching position at the Gilbert Raynolds Combs's Broad Street Conservatory in Philadelphia, and then settled in Chicago, where he taught at the Chicago Conservatory.^[2] By late 1890s Godowsky was extremely well known in North America.

Together with Teresa Carreño, Godowsky was the first pianist to teach the principle of weight release as distinct from purely muscular momentum; also during the same decade, the first of Godowsky's studies on Chopin études were composed and published, later to become part of a large series, one of Godowsky's most famous works.^[2][1] In 1897–8 Godowsky further cemented his fame by giving a series of eight concerts surveying the entire 19th century repertoire.^[2]

A particularly successful concert at the Beethoven Hall in Berlin, on 6 December 1900, enhanced Godowsky's reputation greatly. He moved to Berlin, again dividing his time between performing and teaching, and giving a concert tour every year. In 1909 he took over Busoni's master classes at the Vienna Academy of Music, where he continued to teach until 1914. Between 1912 and 1914 Godowsky gave several concerts in the United States, and also made his first gramophone records there.^[1]

In 1914 the outbreak of World War I drove him away from Europe and he went back to the United States, where he lived in New York (1914–16), Los Angeles (1916–19), and Seattle (1919–22), before returning to New York. Much of the 1920s were spent touring around the world; apart from concert appearances in Europe and United States, Godowsky also gave extensive tours of South America and East Asia.^[2]

Also during the 1920s he recorded many rolls for the Duo-Art reproducing pianos, the only reproducing piano mechanism which was available in concert grand Steinways.^{[citation needed]} Godowsky also recorded a large number of piano rolls for the American Piano Company.^{[citation needed]}

However, while Godowsky's career prospered, his personal life slowly started falling apart. His wife Friede fell seriously ill in 1924 and her health continued deteriorating ever since. In 1928 Godowsky's son Gordon abandoned his studies and married a vaudeville dancer, causing his father to disown him.

After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 Godowsky's financial situation worsened. A string of recordings the pianist began in London in 1928, as well as public concerts, would have remedied the problem, however, both activities were cut short by an unexpected disaster: during a recording session on 17 June 1930, just after completing Chopin's E major Scherzo,^[2] the pianist suffered a severe stroke which left him partially paralysed. Godowsky's remaining years were overshadowed by the event, leaving him deeply depressed.^[1]

In December 1932 Gordon Godowsky committed suicide, and a year later Godowsky's wife died of a heart attack. The pianist eventually moved to another apartment in New York together with his daughter Dagmar; he continued playing piano for friends and admirers, but never gave public performances.

In his last years, Godowsky put much effort into organizing a World Synod of Music and Musicians and an International Council of Music and Musicians, but neither project materialized. After spending much of 1937 and 1938 suffering from various health problems, Godowsky died of stomach cancer on 21 November 1938, at the age of 68.^[2]

He was survived by his son Leopold Godowsky, Jr., the co-inventor (with Leopold Mannes) of Kodachrome photo transparency film, as well as a violinist. Leopold Jr. married George Gershwin's younger sister, Frances, thus continuing the musical line.

His daughter, the actress Dagmar Godowsky (1896–1975), also outlived him. During the 1920s she appeared as a co-lead in various Hollywood silent movies, including some with Rudolph Valentino. She was a popular socialite, and wrote a humorous autobiography First Person Plural (New York, 1958).

Compositions[link]

A page from Godowsky's highly challenging Studies on Chopin's Études (an arrangement of Op. 25, No. 1)

As a composer, Godowsky has been best known for his paraphrases of piano pieces by other composers, which he enhanced with ingenious contrapuntal devices and rich chromatic harmonies. His most famous work in this genre is the 53 Studies on Chopin's Études (1894–1914), in which he varies the (already challenging) original études using various methods: introducing countermelodies, transferring the technically difficult passages from the right hand to the left, transcribing an entire piece for left hand solo, or even interweaving two études, with the left hand playing one and the right hand the other.

The pieces are among the most difficult piano works ever written, and only a few pianists have ventured to perform any of them. Among such pianists are Marc-André Hamelin, who recorded the entire set, garnered a number of prestigious awards, and Francesco Libetta, who performed the complete set in concert (the only pianist to do so from memory)^[4] and made a video recording of the set (live in Milan, March 2006).

Other important transcriptions by Godowsky include Renaissance (1906–9), a collection which includes arrangements of music by Rameau and Lully, 12 Schubert Songs (1927), and six transcriptions of Bach's music for solo cello and solo violin, arranged for the same instruments, but with complementary voices, etc.

Although his transcriptions are much more well known, Godowsky also composed a number of substantial original works. He considered the Passacaglia (1928) and a collection of pieces for left hand alone (1930–1) to be his most mature creations; both, however, employ traditional approach to harmony and counterpoint. A more experimental work was the Java Suite (Phonoramas) (1925), composed after a visit to Java, under the influence of gamelan music. Godowsky was equally comfortable writing large-scale works like the Passacaglia or the five-movement Piano Sonata in E minor (1911) as he was creating collections of smaller pieces, such as the 46 Miniatures for piano four hands and the Triakontameron (1920; subtitled "30 moods and scenes in triple measure").

Quite a number of Godowsky's original works were considerably difficult to perform; the Passacaglia (which is based on a theme from the first bars of Franz Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony) was declared to be unplayable even by Vladimir Horowitz, who claimed it would require six hands to perform.^[5]

Despite their traditionalism, Godowsky's compositions may have influenced Maurice Ravel and Sergei Prokofiev.^[6]

Reception and influence[link]

Godowsky was one of the most highly regarded pianists of his time, praised by listeners, colleagues, and critics alike. Arthur Rubinstein remarked that it would take him "five hundred years to get a mechanism like [Godowsky's]",^[7] while Ferruccio Busoni considered himself and Godowsky to be the only composers to have made substantial contributions to keyboard writing and performance since Liszt.

Godowsky's phenomenally difficult transcriptions and impeccable technique prompted some critics to describe him as "a pianist for pianists", as James Huneker has done.^[8] Among Godowsky's admirers were such distinguished pianists as Vladimir de Pachmann and Sergei Rachmaninoff, who, according to Godowsky's daughter Dagmar, idolized her father's music and performances.^[9]

Even those who disliked Godowsky's interpretations usually acknowledged his tremendous technical gifts: Claudio Arrau, for example, declared Godowsky "one of the greatest technicians", even though he considered his playing "boring" and complained that Godowsky "never played above mezzo-forte."^[10]

Godowsky's vast repertoire spanned more than two centuries of music, from contemporary music to that of Rameau and Lully, whose music he transcribed.^[2] Although he regularly played public concerts until 1930, Godowsky was plagued by stage fright, and particularly disliked the recording studio, like many performers of his time. On one occasion, he described the recording process thus:

The fear of doing a trifling wrong augmented while playing; the better one succeeded in playing the foregoing, the greater the fear became while playing. It was a dreadful ordeal, increasingly so the more sensitive the artist, I broke down in my health in London in the Spring of 1930, owing to these nerve-killing tortures. How can one think of emotion!^[11]

Consequently, it was acknowledged that Godowsky's best work was not in public or in the recording studio, but at home. After leaving Godowsky's home one night, Josef Hofmann told Abram Chasins: "Never forget what you heard tonight; never lose the memory of that sound. There is nothing like it in the world. It is tragic that the world has never heard Popsy as only he can play."^[12]

Godowsky's pupils included Paul Wells, Apolinary Szeluto, Jan Smeterlin, Issay Dobrowen and most importantly, Heinrich Neuhaus, who taught Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels, and Radu Lupu, among others.

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Hopkins, Charles. "Leopold Godowsky", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 23 December 2006), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
• Nicholas, Jeremy. 1989. Godowsky, the Pianists' Pianist: A Biography of Leopold Godowsky. Appian Publications & Recordings. ISBN 978-1-870295-01-7

External links[link]

• Official Godowsky page
• Leopold Godowsky, site created by Jonathan Edward Mann
• Leopold Godowsky Collection - Manuscripts at the Eastman School of Music
• Free scores by Leopold Godowsky at the International Music Score Library Project
• Leopold Godowsky Collection at the International Piano Archives, University Libraries, University of Maryland

Recordings[link]

• Kunst der Fuge: Leopold Godowsky - MIDI files

Herbert von Karajan in 1938

Herbert von Karajan (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛɐbɛɐt fɔn ˈkaʁaˌjan]; 5 April 1908 – 16 July 1989) was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years. Although his work was not universally admired, he is generally considered to have been one of the greatest conductors of all time, and he was a dominant figure in European classical music from the 1960s until his death.^[1] Part of the reason for this was the large number of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate he was the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records.^[2]

Biography[link]

Genealogy[link]

The Karajans were of Greek Macedonian^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]} or Aromanian^[9] ancestry. His great-great-grandfather, Geòrgios Johannes Karajànnis, was born in Kozani, an Aromanian town in the Ottoman province of Rumelia (present West Macedonia in today's Greece), leaving for Vienna in 1767, and eventually Chemnitz, Saxony.^[10] He and his brother participated in the establishment of Saxony's cloth industry, and both were ennobled for their services by Frederick Augustus III on 1 June 1792, thus the prefix "von" to the family name. The surname Karajànnis became Karajan.^[11] Although traditional biographers ascribed a Serbian or simply a Slavic origin to his mother,^[12] Karajan's family from the maternal side, through his grandfather who was born in the village of Mojstrana, Duchy of Carniola (today in Slovenia), was Slovene.^[11][12][13] By this line, Karajan was related to Austrian composer of Slovene descent Hugo Wolf.^[14] Karajan seems to have known some Slovene.^[11][12]

Early years[link]

Herbert von Karajan's parents, Ernst and Marta (née Kosmač)

Karajan was born in Salzburg, Austria-Hungary, as Heribert Ritter von Karajan.^[15] He was a child prodigy at the piano.^[16] From 1916 to 1926, he studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, where he was encouraged to concentrate on conducting by his teacher, who detected his exceptional promise in that regard.

In 1929, he conducted 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's production of Faust. It was also in 1933 that von Karajan became a member of the Nazi party, a fact for which he would later be criticised.^[1]

In Salzburg in 1934, Karajan led the Vienna Philharmonic for the first time, and from 1934 to 1941, he was engaged to conduct operatic and symphony-orchestra concerts at the Theater Aachen.

Karajan's career was given a significant boost in 1935 when he was appointed Germany's youngest Generalmusikdirektor and performed as a guest conductor in Bucharest, Brussels, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Paris.^[17][18] In 1937 Karajan made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Berlin State Opera, conducting Fidelio. He then enjoyed a major success at the State Opera with Tristan und Isolde. In 1938, his performance there of the opera was hailed by a Berlin critic as Das Wunder Karajan (the Karajan miracle). The critic asserted that Karajan's "success with Wagner's demanding work Tristan und Isolde sets himself alongside Furtwängler and de Sabata, the greatest opera conductors in Germany at the present time".^[19] Receiving a contract with Deutsche Grammophon that same year, Karajan made the first of numerous recordings, conducting the Staatskapelle Berlin in the overture to The Magic Flute. On 26 July 1938, he married operetta singer Elmy Holgerloef. They divorced in 1942.

On 22 October 1942, at the height of the war, Karajan married Anna Maria "Anita" Sauest, born Gütermann. She was the daughter of a well-known manufacturer of yarn for sewing machines. Having had a Jewish grandfather, she was considered a Vierteljüdin (one-quarter Jewish woman). By 1944, Karajan was, according to his own account,^{[citation needed]} losing favor with the Nazi leadership, but he still conducted concerts in wartime Berlin on 18 February 1945. A short time later, in the closing stages of the war, he and Anita fled Germany for Milan, relocating with the assistance of Victor de Sabata.^[20][21] Karajan and Anita divorced in 1958.

Karajan was discharged by the Austrian denazification examining board on 18 March 1946, and resumed his conducting career shortly thereafter.^[22]

Herbert von Karajan conducting in 1941

Postwar years[link]

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.

On 28 October 1947, Karajan gave his first public concert following the lifting of the conducting ban. With the Vienna Philharmonic and the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, he performed Johannes Brahms' A German Requiem for a gramophone production in Vienna.^[23]

In 1949, Karajan became artistic director of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna. He also conducted at La Scala in Milan. His most prominent activity at this time was recording with the newly formed Philharmonia Orchestra in London, helping to build them into one of the world's finest. Starting from this year, Karajan began his lifelong attendance at the Lucerne Festival.^[24]

In 1951 and 1952 he conducted at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.

In 1955 he was appointed music director for life of the Berlin Philharmonic as successor to Wilhelm Furtwängler. From 1957 to 1964 he was artistic director of the Vienna State Opera. Karajan 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.

On 22 October 1958 he married his third wife, French model Eliette Mouret; they became parents of two daughters, Isabel and Arabel.

He continued to perform, conduct and record prolifically until his death in Anif^[1] in 1989, mainly with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic. In his later years, Karajan suffered from heart and back problems, needing surgery on the latter. He increasingly came into conflict with his orchestra for an all-controlling dictatorial style of conducting that had vanished from use everywhere else. Karajan officially retired from conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, but at his death was conducting a series of rehearsals for the annual Salzburg Music Festival. He died of a heart attack in his home on July 16, 1989 at the age of 81.

A practitioner of Zen Buddhism, Karajan believed strongly in reincarnation and said that he would like to be reborn as an eagle so he could soar over his beloved Alps.^{[citation needed]}

Nazi Party membership[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2009)

Karajan joined the Nazi Party in Salzburg on 8 April 1933; his membership number was 1,607,525. In June 1933, the Nazi Party was outlawed by the Austrian government. However, Karajan's membership was valid until 1939. In that 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 1 May 1933 in Ulm, with membership number: 3,430,914.^[25][26][27]

British musicologist and critic Richard Osborne states: "What are the facts? First, though Karajan was nominated for membership in the as yet unbanned Party in Salzburg in April 1933, he did not collect his card, sign it, or pay his dues, though the registration itself (no. 1607525) got on to the files and crops up in many memoranda and enquiries thereafter. Secondly, he did not join the Party on 1 May 1933 despite prima-facie evidence to the contrary. In the first place, the membership number 3430914 is too high to belong to that date. The highest number issued before the freeze on membership, which lasted from May 1933 to March 1937, was 3262698. However, during the freeze, various functionaries, diplomats, and others were issued cards bearing an NG, or Nachgereichte, designation. These cards were, by convention, backdated to the start of the freeze: 1 May 1933. Karajan's Aachen membership was an NG card, and its number accords with batches issued in 1935, the year Karajan had always identified as the one in which he was asked to join the Party."^[28]

Karajan's prominence increased from 1933 to 1945, which has led to speculation that he joined the Nazi Party solely to advance his music career. Critics such as Jim Svejda^{[citation needed]} have pointed out that other prominent conductors, such as Arturo Toscanini, Otto Klemperer, Erich Kleiber, and Fritz Busch, fled from fascist Europe at the time. However, British music critic Richard Osborne noted that among the many significant conductors who continued to work in Germany throughout the war years—Wilhelm Furtwängler, Ernest Ansermet, Carl Schuricht, Karl Böhm, Hans Knappertsbusch, Clemens Krauss and Karl Elmendorff—Karajan was one of the youngest and thus one of the least advanced in his career.^[29] Karajan was allowed to conduct various orchestras and was free to travel, even to the Netherlands to conduct the Concertgebouw Orchestra and make recordings there in 1942.^{[citation needed]}

Musicianship[link]

There is widespread agreement that Karajan had a special gift for extracting beautiful sounds from an orchestra. Opinion varies concerning the greater aesthetic ends to which The Karajan Sound was applied. The American critic Harvey Sachs criticized the Karajan approach as follows:

Karajan seemed to have opted instead for an all-purpose, highly refined, lacquered, calculatedly voluptuous sound that could be applied, with the stylistic modifications he deemed appropriate, to Bach and Puccini, Mozart and Mahler, Beethoven and Wagner, Schumann and Stravinsky ... many of his performances had a prefabricated, artificial quality that those of Toscanini, Furtwängler, and others never had... most of Karajan's records are exaggeratedly polished, a sort of sonic counterpart to the films and photographs of Leni Riefenstahl.^{[citation needed]}

However, it has been argued by commentator Jim Svejda and others that Karajan's pre-1970 manner did not sound as polished as it is later alleged to have become.^[30]

Two reviews from the Penguin Guide to Compact Discs illustrate the point.

• Concerning a recording of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, a canonical Romantic work, the Penguin authors wrote, "Karajan's is a sensual performance of Wagner's masterpiece, caressingly beautiful and with superbly refined playing from the Berlin Philharmonic".^[31]
• About Karajan's recording 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."^{[citation needed][32]}

The same Penguin Guide nevertheless gives the highest compliments to Karajan's recordings of the two Haydn oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons.^[33] Respected Haydn scholar, H.C. Robbins Landon, who wrote the notes for Karajan's recordings of Haydn's 12 London symphonies, states that Karajan's recordings are among the finest he knows.^{[citation needed]}

Among 20th century musical works, Karajan had a strong preference for conducting and recording pre-1945 works (Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Bartók, Sibelius, Richard Strauss, Puccini, Pizzetti, Honegger, Prokofiev, Debussy, Ravel, Hindemith, Nielsen and Stravinsky), but he did record Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony (1953) twice and did premiere Carl Orff's De Temporum Fine Comoedia in 1973.

Awards and honours[link]

Karajan was the recipient of multiple honours and awards. In 1977 he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. On 21 June 1978 he received the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music from Oxford University.^[34] 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. He received the Eduard Rhein Ring of Honor from the German Eduard Rhein Foundation in 1984.^[35] 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.^[36] He was voted into the inaugural Gramophone Hall of Fame in 2012.^[37]

Books[link]

• Kleinert, Annemarie (2009). Music at its Best: The Berlin Philharmonic. From Karajan to Rattle. Norderstedt: BoD. ISBN 978-3-8370-6361-5. http://www.bod.de/index.php?id=296&objk_id=211012#. 
• Mischa Aster,"Das Reichsorchester", die Berliner Philharmoniker und der Nationalsozialismus.Siedler Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-88680-876-2.
• Layton, Robert; Greenfield, Edward; March, Ivan (1996). Penguin Guide to Compact Discs. London; New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-051367-1. 
• Lebrecht, Norman (2001). The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power. New York: Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-2088-4. 
• Lebrecht, Norman (2007). The Life and Death of Classical Music. New York: Anchor Books,. ISBN 978-1-4000-9658-9. 
• Monsaingeon, Bruno (2001). Sviatoslav Richter: Notebooks and Conversations. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-571-20553-4. 
• Osborne, Richard (1998). Herbert von Karajan. London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN 0-7011-6714-9. 
• Osborne, Richard (2000). Herbert von Karajan: A Life in Music. Boston: Northeastern University Press. ISBN 1-55553-425-2. 
• Raymond, Holden (2005). The Virtuoso Conductors. New Haven, Connecticut; London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09326-8. 
• Zignani, Alessandro (2008). Herbert von Karajan. Il Musico perpetuo. Varese: Zecchini Editore,. ISBN 88-87203-67-9. 

Discography[link]

• Beethoven's Symphony No. 9; recorded 1976–77; Deutsche Grammophon
• Mozart's Requiem; recorded 1994; Deutsche Grammophon

Quotes[link]

• Explaining why he preferred conducting the Berlin Philharmonic to the Vienna Philharmonic: "If I tell the Berliners to step forward, they do it. If I tell the Viennese to step forward, they do it, but then they ask why."^[38]
• "Those who have achieved all their aims probably set them too low" http://www.karajan.org
• Isaiah Berlin referred to Karajan as "a genius, with a whiff of sulphur about him".

See also[link]

• Berlin State Opera
• Raffaello de Banfield

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Herbert von Karajan

• Official Herbert von Karajan website, Vienna
• 1963 Stereo Review interview
• Tribute site to Herbert von Karajan
• Obituary by the New York Times
• A range of opinions from readers of Gramophone magazine
• František Sláma (musician) Archive. More on the history of the Czech Philharmonic between the 1940s and the 1980s: Conductors
• Elaine Madlener Papers: correspondence and notes for an unfinished Karajan biography at Newberry Library

Video[link]

• Karajan conducting Beethoven's 5th Symphony, rare old 1966 video
• Karajan conducting Verdi's Requiem: Dies Irae
• Karajan conducting Dvorak's 9th Symphony

v t e Vienna Staatsoper General Directors Franz von Dingelstedt (1867) Johann von Herbeck (1870) Franz von Jauner (1875) Wilhelm Jahn (1881) Gustav Mahler (1897) Felix Weingartner (1908) Hans Gregor (1911) Richard Strauss / Franz Schalk (1919) Franz Schalk (1924) Clemens Krauss (1929) Felix Weingartner (1935) Heinrich Karl Strohm (1940) Lothar Müthel (1941) Karl Böhm (1943) Franz Salmhofer (1945) Karl Böhm (1954) Herbert von Karajan (1956) Egon Hilbert (1964) Heinrich Reif-Gintl (1968) Rudolf Gamsjäger (1972) Egon Seefehlner (1976) Lorin Maazel (1982) Egon Seefehlner (1984) Claus Helmut Drese (1986) Eberhard Wächter / Ioan Holender (1991) Ioan Holender (1992)

Karajan, or Caragiani, Karagianni, Karayiannis, Karagianis, is a surname. Notable persons with that surname include:

• Eftychia Karagianni, Greek water polo player
• Georgios Karayiannis, Greek Army officer
• Herbert von Karajan (1908–1989), Austrian conductor, great-grandson of Theodor von Karajan
• Ioan D. Caragiani, Romanian folklorist
• Martha Karagianni, Greek actress
• Maurine Karagianis, Canadian politician
• Pete Karagianis, American chess player
• Vaios Karagiannis (born 1968), Greek football player

This surname-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e