slick, and — worst of all—boring.nIn his conversations with Karajan,nRichard Osborne isn’t about to upsetnthe apfelwagen by pursuing any uncomfortablenpoints. He adores thenMaster, and when you come to thinknabout it, who can blame him? So muchnpower, money, and control of musicalnshelf-space are united in the Karajanntrademark; so much too of sheer talent,nof shrewd patience, of unique sensitivitynto music as sound rather than discourse.nThough it is not a revisionistnstudy like Joseph Horowitz’s UnderstandingnToscanini, Richard Osborne’snbook is significant and revealing, andnmay be read for pleasure and instruction.nFor make no mistake about it, Herbertnvon Karajan’s Wagnerian complacencynwas based on a rich backgroundnand a strong though individualisticnsense of musicianship. He showed, asnall great musicians do, an early talentnand sense of vocation. He was imbuednwith a very Austrian sense of musicalntradition, operatic performance, andnAlpine yearnings. His combination ofnGerman romanticism and Buddhistndetachment was anticipated by Schopenhauer—nand Wagner.nOsborne spends considerable spacenon Karajan’s Nazi affiliations, claimingnthat his Party membership began asnlate as 1935 and was resigned in 1942,nten days after Karajan married hisn”partly Jewish” first wife. Though Osbornenbelieves that Karajan suffered fornhis Nazi association, he seems to implynthat the conductor suffered too for hisnNazi dissociation, which rather evensnthe moral balance, or cancels it, ornsomething.nOnce on track, Karajan moved fast.nBy 1955, Furtwangler was dead, Toscanininwas dying, and Karajan demandednand received lifetime leadershipnof the Berlin Philharmoniker. Henhad begun recording his best work —nrenditions of Bruckner, Strauss, Sibelius,nand Italian opera, which musicnlovers still celebrate.nRichard Osborne’s colloquies withnKarajan are directed by the interview­ner’s knowledge — he knows what tonask. The conductor’s skill withnDonizetti and Verdi, for instance, isnattributed to powerful influences:nWhen Toscanini brought Luciandi Lammermoor to Vienna withnthe La Scala company, it was anrevelation. I realized then thatnno music is vulgar unless thenperformance makes it so. . . .nMy training in Verdi’s Falstaffncame from Toscanini. Therenwasn’t a rehearsal in eithernVienna or Salzburg at which Inwasn’t present. 1 think I heardnabout thirty. From Toscanini Inlearnt the phrasing, and thenwords — always with Italiannsingers, which was unheard ofnin Germany then. I don’t thinknI ever opened the score. It wasnso in my ears, I just knew it.nThere can be no question that Karajanndeserves great respect as a chefnd’orchestre — his mastery was so deepnthat he talked in terms of breathing,nheart rate, pulse, and yoga, in terms ofnenergy, repose, and inner calm:nMany younger conductors arenmore exhausted after a concertnthan I am now. NowadaysnTristan und Isolde would notnespecially exhaust me. But thenfirst time I conducted it Inneeded an ambulance to takenme home!nI think that Karajan will be rememberednfor his best recordings, such as thenpirated 1955 Berlin Lucia with MarianCallas, rather than for such wax fruit asnhis last recording, an Un hallo innmaschera to be shunned. But even atnthe end, Herbert von Karajan wasncapable of such stunning work as hisnthird recording of Bruckner’s EighthnSymphony. That performance was takennon the road — I was one of thosenfortunate enough to hear the WienernPhilharmoniker play it in GarnegienHall in February 1989. The criticsnraved and referred to that performancenfor a year as a benchmark, as theynhadn’t done since Karajan crushed hisnopposition with a dream of Mahler’snNinth Symphony some years before.nThe Bruckner Eighth was incomparablynthe greatest live orchestral performancenI have ever heard. The sightnof Karajan struggling to walk, and thennnnrelaxing on the rostrum, was a demonstrationnof the passion that sometimesnseemed a megalomania. So too doesnRichard Osborne’s Conversations articulatenthe context of Karajan’s selfabsorption.nThough uncritical, thisnbook furnishes authentic insights intonthe life and career of a musical colossus.n/.O. Tate is a professor of English atnDowling College on Long Island.nAnglo-Americananby Florence KingnBlood, Class, and Nostalgia:nAnglo-American Ironiesnby Christopher HitchensnNew York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux;n398 pp., $22.95nIn 1858, as British and French forcesnpushed their way to Peking in thenOpium Wars, Josiah Tatnall, commandernof the neutral American naval squadron,nintervened to save the British shipsnfrom Ghinese guns and tow them safelynout of range. When asked why he hadnabandoned his government’s officialnneutrality, Tatnall replied: “Blood isnthicker than water.”nThat is one of the many captivatingnand little-known anecdotes dredged upnby native Briton Ghristopher Hitchensnin this excellent and surprising book —nsurprising because the leftish Hitchens,ncolumnist for The Nation, has eithernmellowed or else managed to stay in annexcellent mood throughout the writingnof it. Although his thesis is that Americanhas been snookered by perfidiousnAlbion, first into copying and defendingnits Empire and lately into taking thenshards of it into receivership, Albionncomes off as much less perfidious thannone would expect, while the author’snattitude toward America is one of sympatheticnunderstanding and affectionatenhumor.nThe phrase “special relationship”nmight make most Americans think ofnIsrael on a word-association test, saysnHitchens, but in actual fact it refers to anfine romance that supposedly broke upnin 1776. “The ‘special relationship’ isnthe transmission belt by which Britishnconservative ideas have been passednOCTOBER 1990/41n