Although best remembered for his devotion to the core Austro-Germanic repertoire, Austrian conductor
Herbert von Karajan did flirt with the English repertoire in the '50s and early '60s. There are EMI recordings of him leading the
Philharmonia in
Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and
Britten's Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge and rehearsal recordings of him leading the Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI di Roma in
Walton's First Symphony. His last affair was this 1961 performance of
Holst's The Planets with the
Vienna Philharmonic. Recorded in bone-crushing -- but still deep and colorful -- sound by John Culshaw,
Karajan's view of The Planets, like his view of
Vaughan Williams and
Britten, is decidedly superficial. This is not to say that his conducting is anything less than superb.
Karajan was one of great technical virtuosos and he misses nothing in
Holst's monumental score -- not the balances, not the details, not the colors, not the rhythms, nothing. But everything inside
Holst's score is more or less missing: "Mars" has power but lacks point, "Venus" has beauty but lacks soul, "Mercury" has speed but lacks strength, "Jupiter" has weight but lacks humor, "Saturn" has mass but lacks fear, "Uranus" has muscle but lacks wit, and "Neptune" has carefully calculated gradations of dynamics but altogether lacks any sense of blissful departure into infinite space. Despite the superlative but distinctly unidiomatic playing by the
VPO,
Karajan's 1961 Planets -- like his 1981 Planets for Deutsche Grammophon with equally unidiomatic playing by the
Berlin Philharmonic -- is fit only for listeners who prefer their English music deracinated.
The same cannot be said of
Karajan and the
VPO's 1960 recording of
Strauss' Don Juan that concludes the disc. As brilliantly conducted and as superbly played as the Planets but with the added advantage of empathic understanding, the Don Juan is as satisfying as the finest ever recorded -- and vastly more satisfying than the Planets.