This live Verdi Requiem from the 1949 Salzburg Festival presents a wholly different Karajan than the conductor heard on his later, duller studio recordings. Here is the younger Karajan caught in the moment of performance with all its attendant spontaneity and excitement. There’s an improvisatory air about the reading–the hesitant gestures in the opening Requiem, the blistering Dies irae, the ethereal Lux aeternam, the near manic Libera me–that Karajan all but banished from his Deustche Grammophon recordings (especially the last one). In those, the conductor’s slow tempos and overall suffocating heaviness makes Verdi’s piece sound like a prayer of the dead rather than for them. The Vienna Philharmonic is equally inspired on this occasion, though not especially in tune, as evidenced by the strings’ embarrassing playing at the start of Offertorium.
The four soloists give impassioned if occasionally superheated performances. Tenor Helge Roswaenge’s attempts at Italianate fervor in the Ingemisco sound almost buffoonish, while Margarete Klose and Hilde Zadek possess robust voices that, while both beautiful, don’t always blend seamlessly (the Agnus Dei is a mite imprecise). The standout is Boris Christoff, who sounds completely in the service of the music (his Rex tremendae is marvelous). The Wiener Singverein sounds appropriately menacing and angelic as Verdi requires.
The vintage recording has impressive dynamic range for 1949 (the voices dominate the aural image), but gets grungy at climaxes. You won’t be amazed by the sound, but neither will you be distracted by it. Karajan collectors who only know his studio Verdi Requiems owe it to themselves to hear this striking, impression-altering performance.
