Karajan's last London concert

The maestro enters. He has come to the edge of the platform on the arm of an assistant, and now stands. Like a cat observing his prey, he has his eyes fixed on the podium, which seems challengingly distant at the tempo of his approach. Like a man walking through water, he rolls, supported by a chain of hands held out in alternation by his first violins and violas. At last, the destination reached, the leader moves forward to offer the baton. The whole process takes perhaps no more than fifteen seconds, but it has established the aura: this is charisma holding on with fierce tenacity into its ninth decade.

The performance of Schoenberg's Transfigured Night is valedictory, as if projected out from the love music at the end of Mahler's Third Symphony to presage the death song at the end of his Ninth. The moments of tension and drama register strongly; the dialogue of double basses and upper strings for the voices of the lovers is graphic; and the variations of texture make their full effect. Yet the speed generally is slow; phrases are followed into their fading; and the superb blending of the Berlin Philharmonic strings produces a richly sombre colour, even in the appeased coda. The maestro does not seem to generate the music so much as to preside over it: except for a moment close to the finish, when he turns to encourage the first violins in their last high melody, he keeps his head still, towards the cellos in the middle, and his gestures are level, just sufficient.