The facts are these. CD technology was developed by Philips in Holland. Ohga, recovering from a car smash in 1979, saw a prototype of the badly-launched Philips Laservision and put the squeeze on the Dutch to share an accelerated development programme, or else Sony would go it alone. He set tight deadlines and made the Dutch dance to his tempo.

Ohga told me how he persuaded engineers to extend CD capacity from 60 to 90 minutes so that one CD could contain Beethoven’s ninth symphony, his wife’s favourite. When he played a protoype disc to Herbert von Karajan, the conductor said ‘all else is gaslight’, pressuring Philips (which owned his record label Deutsche Grammophon) to invest 100 million German marks in a Hanover pressing plant. Ohga spent $30 million on a parallel facility in Japan

That was the extent of his involvement. He made that plain, on the record, several times. Yet the myth grew that CD was somehow the product of Ohga’s genius and many of today’s headlines are calling him ‘father of the CD’. If anyone deserves that title it is the Dutch team leader Kees A. Schouhamer Immink.

It would be interesting indeed to hear his memories of the hard-driving Ohga.

press release below

Sir Charles Mackerras
Concert – Stars of the classical music world mount a special tribute at ENO on
Sunday 26 June 2011

 

Lesley Garrett, Sir
John Tomlinson, Sir Mark Elder and others join ENO to celebrate the career of
world renowned conductor and former ENO Music Director, Sir Charles
Mackerras

 

One year
after his passing, a concert led by extraordinary conductors and singers and
including the ENO orchestra and chorus will celebrate the musical talent of
Charles Mackerras. Described as one of the great polymath music directors of the
20^th century, Mackerras conducted some of the world’s most famous
orchestras and held the position of director of music at ENO from 1970-1977.

 

On the stage
of the London Coliseum, acclaimed international artists, most of whom worked
with Sir Charles and all having a close association with ENO, will create a
unique musical event in celebration of Sir Charles’ exceptional life and
contribution to music. The evening will include performances by singers
including Sir John Tomlinson, Dame Felicity Palmer, Lesley Garrett, Rebecca
Evans, Janice Watson, Catherine Wyn Rogers, Diana Montague Jonathan Summers and
many others.  ENO Music Director Edward Gardner, together with past Music
Directors Sir Mark Elder and Paul Daniel, will conduct ENO’s acclaimed Orchestra
and Chorus. The evening will be presented by BBC Radio 3 In Tune presenter, Sean
Rafferty.

 

The evening’s
programme reflects the repertoire championed by Mackerras and includes operatic
arias and choruses from Handel’s Julius Caesar, Mozart’s Marriage of
Figaro and Idomeneo, Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of
Penzance and The Mikado, Verdi’s Falstaff and Don
Carlo, Beethoven’s Fidelio, Britten’s Peter Grimes, Puccini’s
Tosca, Janá?ek’s Jen?fa and Strauss’s
Rosenkavalier.

 

Edward
Gardner said, “We’re delighted to be celebrating Sir Charles’ work at ENO with
this special concert.  Many of the singers Sir Charles loved working with will
be performing, including Sir John Tomlinson and Dame Felicity Palmer, and three
Music Directors of ENO, Sir Mark Elder, Paul Daniel and I will share the
podium.  The programme, put together with the Mackerras family, will explore the
extraordinary breadth of Sir Charles’ work with the Company for over 60 years”.

 

Mackerras
grew up in Australia, emigrating to Britain in 1947. He began his brilliant
career as a director at Sadler’s Wells Opera of London, now ENO, conducting,
among others, Janá?ek, Handel, Gluck, Bach and Donizetti. During his life, he
was also a noted authority on Mozart and Sir Arthur Sullivan’s operas. He was
appointed principal conductor of some of Europe’s most celebrated orchestras
including BBC Concert Orchestra (1954-1956), Hamburg State Opera (1965-1969),
English National Opera (1970-1977), Welsh National Opera (1987-1992) and
Scottish Chamber Orchestra (1992-1995). He worked with some of the world’s most
influential orchestras including the Metropolitan Opera of New York and San
Francisco Opera’s in house orchestras, as well as the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
and Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Mackerras was a champion of musical direction
and wrote regarding his strategy for working with an orchestra: “I believe it’s
very important to edit orchestral parts explicitly and as thoroughly as
possible, so that the musicians can play them without too much
rehearsal”.

 

The concert
in honour of Sir Charles Mackerras will take place at London Coliseum on
Sunday 26 June 2011 at 7pm.

 

Booking
Information

Tickets: £8 –
£45
All proceeds of this charity concert going to ENO Benevolent
Fund

 

For
further press information please contact:

Elizabeth
Barrett

Head of
Press

ebarrett@eno.org

Here it is.

I met him on several occasions and interviewed him once, at length, in his Tokyo office. Rigidly polite under close questioning, flicking between German and English, the only emotion he showed was when I got him to talk about the death of his friend, Herbert von Karajan.

Ohga had met Karajan, while a singing student in Berlin, through the Japanese wife of the grocery magnate, Julius Meinl. Maestro and young industrialist had three common interests – music, technology and aviation. Karajan, for Ohga, was something close to a god. Ohga, for Karajan, was a means to an end – a chance to be first with the latest audio inventions. 

Karajan was the only artist whose advice the future Sony chief followed. He encouraged Ohga to take a stake in CBS Japan, eventually to buy the whole company. It was in a bid to sign Karajan to Sony Classical that Ohga happened to be with him at his death. I told the story in full here and here.

It was in Karajan’s model that Ohga indulged his own desire to be a conductor, an ambition that enabled him to conduct the Boston Symphony and the orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera in exchange for million-dollar donations. Not, however, the Berlin Philharmonic.

Not in public, anyway. I am told by someone present that he conducted the orchestra in a private performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony on June 14, 2000. The soloists were Julia Varady, Uta Prieuw, Roland Wagenführer and Eike Wilm Schulte, with the Berlin Singakademie, augmented by a Sony Philharmonischer Chor. A disc was produced on the Sony Classical label but was never issued for sale.

A stickler for design detail, Ohga was responsible for turning Sony products black. He had been known to cancel a product launch because he did not like the shape of a button. His whim was greatly feared across the company.

                                           Ohga, with two inventions