Search - Herbert Von Krajan: A Portrait on DVD

A portrait and bonus CD

Sergey Sh. | Moscow Russia | 02/28/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This 55 minutes DVD is a portrait or is just a portrait. It comprises of brief interviews by Christa Ludwig, Mutter, Glotz, Weissenberg and some soloists of the Berliner Philharmoniker who had intense work with Karajan for many years. These interviews are accompanied by photos and a number of video fragments presenting Karajan as conductor, director, public and private person.
There is an excellent bonus CD included in this package. It contains 3 early Karajan studio recordings of 1940s with Concertgebouw orchestra:
Brahms 1 symphony, Strauss Don Juan and Salome's Dance."

A furtive look at an icon (3.5 stars)

fCh | GMT-5, USA | 07/03/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"this is a short and rather superficial look at karajan-man and karajan-conductor. anything coming even close to revelatory about karajan's nature one gathers only by carefully watching the video for subtle details while ignoring the main story-line. there is even less about karajan the conductor--his (supervised) video-recordings would be a better choice. the one-hour long material deals with:
his youth and greek origins; an inconclusive analysis of his nazi past; his (shadowy, according to an orchestra member) rise to the helm of the berliner; his starry and flashy behavior (long preceeding today's stars); his discovering and fostering of musical talent; his interest for staging opera, his conducting; his ego and LOVE FOR CAMERA! too bad music lovers in the u.s. have to pay for such (gossipy) material that europeans otherwise could watch on TV..."

Mere snapshots of a great conductor

Tina Morris | Rockville, MD USA | 01/26/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The merits of this production are for one the quality of the footage, especially some very, very early clips from the beginning of Karajan's career, and secondly the sounds from that era provided on the accompanying bonus CD. Other than that this portrait merely scratches the surface of this enigmatic personality who dominated the classical music scene for half a century. Interviews and interview snippets with contemporaries and collaborators like Christa Ludwig, Alexis Weissenberg, Michael Glotz and Anne-Sophie Mutter are brief highlights and peeks into a a rich and sometimes controversial life. This should have been done by one of Karajan's excellent biographers like Richard Osborne. The film would have also clearly profited from a clear structure and timeline of Karajan's life - while the afficionade can place comments and footage, to the novice this film will often appear like an extended videoclip of randomly assorted scenes"