Arthur Honegger - Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3 (Herbert von Karajan)

Information

Composer: Arthur Honegger; Igor Stravinsky

• Honegger - Symphony No. 2 for strings & trumpet ad lib in D major, H153
• Honegger - Symphony No. 3 "Liturgique", H186
• Stravinsky - Concerto in D "Basle", for string orchestra

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Herbert von Karajan, conductor

Date: 1969

Label: Deutsche Grammophon

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Review

Although Herbert von Karajan probably would have wanted to be remembered as a great conductor in the central German repertoire, his best orchestral recordings often were in pieces that stood outside of his “Fach”. This Honegger disc is certainly one of them. It seems like only yesterday that DG reissued it in its “Originals” series, but now thanks to Arkivmusic.com’s on-demand program with Universal it hopefully will be available forever.

The Second Symphony, for strings and trumpet, features simply astounding playing from the Berlin Philharmonic, with an impact and sonority that the orchestra certainly can’t equal today. The “Liturgique” also has an uncommon degree of bite and excitement; there’s none of that excessive smoothness that made Karajan sometimes sound like the “snake oil salesman of music”. Stravinsky’s Concerto in D probably is his coldest, most sterile creation (leaving aside some of the very late pieces), and this gracefully immaculate performance suits its “pure” aesthetic to perfection. Very good sonics, again better than Karajan often got from the yellow label, complement one of his very finest efforts.

-- David Hurwitz

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Arthur Honegger (10 March 1892 – 27 November 1955) was a Swiss composer who spent most of his life in France. He studied at the Zürich Conservatory and after 1912 at the Paris Conservatory. After World War I he was associated with a group of young composers known as "Les Six". Honegger was a prolific composer and made notable contributions to opera, ballet, orchestral, choral, chamber and film music. His music is written in a bold and uninhibited musical idiom that combines the harmonic innovations of the French avant-garde with the large forms and massed sonorities of the German tradition.

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Herbert von Karajan (5 April 1908 – 16 July 1989) was an Austrian conductor, generally regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century. He was best known as principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years, from 1954 to 1989. A Nazi Party member from 1933 to 1942, he was a controversial but dominant figure in European classical music from the mid-1950s until his death. Part of the reason for this was the large number (more than 800, far surpassing his contemporaries) of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate, he sold an estimated 200 million records.

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