Knappertsbusch conducts Beethoven's "Eroica" finale (1944)

A clip from a German documentary. "Kna" conducts the Eroica finale. The orchestra is the Berlin Philharmonic.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Knappertsbusch
• Beethoven
• Eroica
• 1944
• Berlin
• Philharmonic

[deramr]

Knappertsbusch was in fact banned from performing by the American occupation authorities for a couple of years, but the ban was quickly overturned and a letter apologizing for the "mistake" sent. Kna was rightly incensed. He was anti-nazi, sometimes refusing to work with nazi-supported singers, not to mention losing his appointment in Bavaria and getting slapped a Germany-wide performance ban for being "unsympathetic" to the "new Germany", forcing him to move to Austria at the time.

[emtube]

Good point. Look how many in America support (supported?) Bush, while outside of America the perception of his worth is radically different.

The Nazis excelled at opinion-shaping propaganda  -- which they learned from the examples of England & America in WWI. (But that opens another can of worms...)

[P1B1U1H1]

@emtube This conductor was an anti-Nazi who risked his life by publicly criticizing Goebbels. Equating anyone today to those monsters disgraces the person making the comparison.

[Gorboduc]

I love that cue at 1:33.

[KishoAudioVisual]

He was THE BEST ... He could make ANY Composer sound Special ... That's Knappertsbusch ... Master ... Teacher ... Genius ... LOVE.

[TheVaccumtube]

I see Kna in action for the first time and very impressed, he conduct his orchestra with such stern look and with such dignity, wow, what a hard-boiled guy from an old school... we don't find such a character on the podium any more cos we're living in the soft age with full of mediocres trying hard to be "somebody"... pity isn't it ? Here's to great oldman, Knappertsbusch !! zieg heil you certainly got a style !!

[lauderfrost]

@deramr says that Knappertsbusch was anti the wartime government, but I have read no authority which says that. At best he was fairly neutral/non-political, and he conducted throughout the war in Germany and occupied Europe as well as Spain. One of his most sensational wartime recordings is Bruckner's 4th Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic on 8th September 1944 performed/recorded in Baden-Baden.

[lauderfrost]

By this time the splendid Berlin Philharmonie had been bombed and this is being performed in the still standing and fairly new (1930s) German Opera House which had been constructed in a fairly classical style. After this was bombed the orchestra moved to the Admiral's Palace theatre (which still exists), near Friedrichstrasse station.

[MKUltra3]

This was the record Lila found on the turntable in Norman's bedroom in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho'....

[mondieumonvieux]

The man certainly had style! What a character he must have been. One of the great conductors of the era? Unquestionably. How he got the orchestra to deliver with such passion and outstanding delivery, when he himself was clearly burning on the inside only, is truly a marvel to behold.

[alternatehistories]

Note the Swastika on the furniture about 2 meters behind the maestro! Also the accasional SS uniform in the audience. Just another day in Hitler's Germany.

[pupulique]

fantastic.