Title: Teeing off on this Pastoral
Review: Ever since this superb set was released more than forty years ago, there's been agreement even among its most fervent supporters that the Pastoral is, as Mark Twain might have said, a good walk spoiled. I beg to differ. Beethoven was no duffer. As many contemporaries noted, he strode out to the countryside at a brisk pace. And, I believe, once he got there, Beethoven did not seek to depict repose or bucolic bumptiousness or even metaphysical thanksgiving. Karajan -- sounding better than ever in this remastering -- seems to be telling us that Beethoven was alive to the shimmering, pulsating, unified vitality of nature. It's been written that Karajan did not like the Sixth Symphony. I have found no statement anywhere to that effect by this nature-loving conductor himself, and certainly no evidence of it in this glorious recording.
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