Talk:Herbert von Karajan/Archives/2020/April

Best Selling
"He is the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, with record sales estimated at 200 million." I thought Solti was the biggest seller. I'd like some confirmation on this matter. Gingermint (talk) 05:08, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Record sales (numbers of million copies) are notoriously hard to determine, and unreliable figures abound. That's true both for classical and popular music; nobody really knows how many albums or singles Madonna, Springsteen, Michael Jackson or Mariah Carey have sold. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.254.158.105 (talk) 18:51, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Nazi Membership relevance?
This reeks of "Victors' History" and pro-Jewish virulent German-bashing. Nazism will never re-arise, it was entirely a reactionary aberration of history- and totally irrelevant to today's tolerance society.

Party memberships under dictatorships are common: it was required to be a party member or simply be unemployable. We know in Iraq under Saddam Hussein al Tikririti- even kindergarten teachers were required to be Ba'aathist party members- or simply not be employed by the State. And similarly so for many Pro-Western dictatorships.

In the GDR (former East Germany) and USSR, Oistrakh and many other prominent Jewish musicians were required not only to be members of the Anti-Zionist League but Communist and or Soviet Party members- not to mention their affiliation with current pro-Zionist or JEwish groups such as Brni Birath- yet this information suggestive of bias or leanings are glaringly lacking on their respective Wikipedia biographies. Hence a foul and one suspects ulterior double standard.

Karajan was proven by the Denazification tribunals to have merely been a numerical member for the sake of employ ability. Furthermore, all artists yield their work to the patron: as the Austrians & Germans say: "Who that pays for my dinner- I then eat it".

Even Wiesenthal had nothing upon Karajan. Therefore, in the interests of balanced reportage- I argue the article be amended to duplicate the superior, German-language version- without the post modernistic Victors Historicity and corollary moralisations. It would be very pleasant if Wikipedia dropped such Americanisms and instead respected the intelligence of the reader- that they make an informed individual opinion based on empirical facts presented without bias and in context.Peeweebee (talk) 18:48, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It would be helpful if you would provide citations for the followinig claims: 1. Mentioning von Karajan's Nazi past is somehow due to "pro-Jewish virulent German-bashing," 2. Karajan was proven "to have merely been a numerical member for the sake of employ ability," 3. that the claims made are "without the post modernistic Victors Historicity and corollary moralisations." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.5.32.113 (talk) 09:30, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Nazi Party Membership
"I accidentally the whole Nazi Party Membership section."

But seriously though, I accidentally deleted it, will somebody please rewrite it?!?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.85.95 (talk) 12:30, 17 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Reinstated. --GuillaumeTell 15:34, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

For the membership of the Nazi Party see this book: Mischa Aster,"Das Reichsorchester", die Berliner Philharmoniker und der Nationalsozialismus.Siedler Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-88680-876-2. See list of literature, I added this book. It's only in German. R.B. -Historian- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.57.226.139 (talk) 09:02, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

An earlier work in English by Michael Kater is "The Twisted Muse: Musicians and Their Music in the Third Reich" (OUP 1997) reviewed by Jeanne M. Thompson in "Notes", v. 55 n. 2, pp. 398-400 (on JSTOR): "meticulously researched and documented, provides a fascinating look at how music and musicians became ensured in political ideology and at their complex responses of collaboration, resistance and opportunism in the musical world." "Among the careers Kater scrutinises are Richard Strauss, Herbert von Karajan, William Futzwänger, Elizabeth Schwartzkopf and Carl Orff...." Andygx (talk) 09:17, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

When my stepfather began to give away his possession, he gave me a number of von Karajan recordings, and told me he had always taken an interest in the conductor's career. At the end of WWII, my step father was working in the OSS (he later was deep underground in East Germany with the CIA), and his OSS job was to determine if Germans and Austrians should be held accountable for their membership in the Nazi party, or instead allowed to enter the Allied sector. Von Karajan was one of the Nazi's he researched and interviewed. In the end, my step father determined von Karajan had indeed involved himself with the Nazi party for the sole purpose of securing regular employment during the war years, and he approved von Karajan's release to the Allied sector to pursue his post-war musical career. -billm50@cox.net 03/13/2013 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.65.118.145 (talk) 15:56, 13 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Please see WP:V. Toccata quarta (talk) 17:04, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Birth name
We talk about how his family was ennobled with a "von" back in 1792, and how Karajannis was changed to Karajan by his ancestors.

But then we say "Karajan was born ... as Heribert Karajannis".

This does not compute. --  Jack of Oz   [your turn]  23:10, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * According to the Richard Osborne biography (p.8) the child's name was entered in the baptismal register as "Heribert Ritter von Karajan". Osborne confirms the 1792 date for the grant of the "von" to Karajan's great-great-grandfather, Georg Johann Karajoannes, a cloth manufacturer of Greek-Macedonian origin. The "von" had to be dropped when Karajan was a lad because a new law came into effect in April 1919 banning the use of "von" in a purge of imperial titles. I cannot conveniently discover in Osborne's massive volume when Karajan got his "von" back. "Heribert" was an old fashioned version of the forename, and Osborne notes that the young Karajan was inconsistent about using it rather than the modern "Herbert". Hope that's confused the issue satisfactorily. Tim riley (talk) 14:48, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Tim. So, when he was born he was "Heribert von Karajan".  He had to drop the "von" but got it back later, and the Heribert morphed into a consistent Herbert.  But he was never a Karajannis.  I'll change the offending part of the article.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  19:10, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Great pleasure. Looking at the article I am minded to put it on my list for a serious upgrading some time this year. (We have Delius up for FA at the moment, of whom I doubt if Karajan had ever heard.) Tim riley (talk) 20:32, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I wondered about that; after all, Delius was better known in Germany than in England until Beecham took him up; A Village Romeo and Juliet and most of his other operas were premiered in Germany. Anyway, apparently Karajan conducted Delius but never recorded him. --  Jack of Oz   [your turn]  20:46, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, well! One could imagine a Karajan "First Cuckoo", but anyone De-Nazified would have been prudent to give the Nietzschean goings-on of A Mass of Life a very wide berth. Tim riley (talk) 21:09, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

1994?
How can Karajan have recorded "Requiem" in 1994 if he died in 1989? I think DG reissued the disk in 1994.

Pronunciation is incorrect!
Karajan is an Austrian so the "r"-s should be hard "r"-s as in Italian. Listen to Charles I of Austria, how he pronounces "Herr'n" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMU9FFzez1A and to Franz Josef... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jecUwMPk8pE. I know that today many young Austrians tend to pronounce in a more "Berliner" way but the OFFICIAL STANDARD of AUSTRIAN German is still with a hard "R". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.77.251.20 (talk) 05:44, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah right. Today's Austrians are unpatriotic. Let's remind them of the upper class standard pronunciation they are supposed to have. By the way, with Karajan as an Austrian, why not listen to him pronounce the r? . However, if you have a reference for official standard pronunciation of Austrian German that prohibits the [ʁ], then improve the article on Austrian German. --Zahnradzacken (talk) 11:36, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Move quotes section to Wikiquote?
Quotations states that Wikipedians should never "insert any number of quotations in a stand-alone quote section." As the current quotes are not particularly relevant to the article as a whole, and don't enhance it other than showcasing von Karajan's ego, can we move them to WikiQuote? Sandbergja (talk) 23:57, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Selecected Discography
I propose to remove this section. It is ridiculous to select only four recordings from the immense number of recordings this conductor has made, especially since the criteria for selecting these four recordings are not clear. Rgds. 94.226.153.187 (talk) 18:34, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I concur. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:53, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

from a review at SA-CD Net
Up to Hartmann's death at the age of 58, his music was gradually making some notice, despite powerful conductors with a Nazi past such as Karajan and Böhm who virtually eliminated his work from concert circulation. - John Miller, ç2014, in a review of K.A. Hartmann's symphonies. I don't know the basis of his claims - does anyone have a good secondary source that also promotes that statement? HammerFilmFan (talk) 11:02, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

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