Beethoven 9 Symphonies 1962 Karajan Berlin 8 LP box set legendary version NM
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Beethoven 9 Symphonies 1962 Karajan Berlin 8 LP legendary NM. Condition is Used. Condition does apply to the box itself. LPs seem unplayed to me -- I checked the first side of the first one. These are the awesome "bluebell" lp's which along with the period Archiv and Telefunken disks of the 1960s are possibly the best of LPs. stereo started in 1959. The famous Mercury and RCA mono LP's of the end of the mono era have their adherents. I knew someone who drove 150 miles each way for the Mercury 1812 overture mono release before stereo arrived. Decca/London was not really much of an issue in 1962, so the Germans had it. Some of those boxes had initials for 1) technical quality and 2) audition. That's right. Two sets of initials -- the second one meant the LPs were actually played a bit by someone to ensure quality. That was Archiv in this same period, a sublabel of DGG.
The Karajan Beethoven! In the 1970s, in Chicago, I heard his Nemesis Solti with CSO do the 9 and le Sacre and Mahler and was overwhelmed of course. 1.5 times as loud as any orchestra before or since, even on Debussy's Faun. The Berln press said CSO was the best orchestra in the world on their European tour. Karajan must have torn out his hair. Karajan was the successor to Furtwurngler, the "Nazi" conductor, symbol of 3rd Reich culture. Karajan had a famously low Nazi ID card number. But so did everyone, I suppose, R. Strauss included, and Bohm. Karajan did 3 recordngs of the entire 9, the first two on LP.
The general idea is that the first is astounding, the second one pretty darn good, and the third one, well, hmm, the audio is pretty nice. This is of course the first, astounding one. It is $200.oo for the LP's on amazon, go look. box could be better? but not the LPs.
Toscanini had a big rep in those days, but who cares about him, Ormandy, etc now? This set seems to hold its own although the very late Karajan is like eating cotton candy. All the 1960s Karajan and some of the 1970s is interesting.
Karajan got more and more interested in beautiful sound and even in audio as such, something Solti never listened to. Check out his Parsifal of the 1970s almost ? a self-parody of how beautiful music can be? Or, is it an apotheosis of what orchestral music should be? That work, as a work, act 1 and 3 seem to have the greatest orchestration ever, btw. But Karajan's interpretation goes. too far to tell a story the way Solti's does, IMHO. Bohm's set is OK but kind of quotidian. Not like his Tristan, the loudest recording of all time, even 10,000 years from now.
This 1962 set is during and after Karajan's revitalization of the Philharmonia and possibly the entire UK. At times it seems he understands the music better than many conductors, especially then. Most conductors even now just copy others.
David Zinman and of course Leonard Bernstein (with Vienna!) were famous for going to the score as if no one had ever conducted the piece, as if it were new, a revelation. Vienna did that series with Leonard because of that.
That is what I hear from this version, study based on the score, and in a very different way from the Solti 1970s one. Solti's Beethoven is like a hammer where you expect a flower. The famous dissonant chord in the first movement of the third is not just there, it is like the way Hendrix turns the volume and feedback up to an uncomfortable level -- I heard that chord live standing room only afternoon after afternoon. Hair stood up. Same as Mahler 3 first movement. Or OMG the Sacre. But Solti was an Opera conductor telling a story with everything he did -- which made him popular. and good too, because original as all heck. i would get his set too for comparison. like a stun gun versus a feather duster.
Beethoven was the only innovator in the symphony after its inventor, Haydn, until Mahler, who may have put it to bed. In other words, Brahms and Bruckner -- perhaps wonderful, but derivative. Not like Tristan und Isolde, the most important and avant-garde post-beethoven composition until Le Sacre. Buy this or not, but hear it. Also seek out the Bernstein "Unanswered Question" Harvard lectures and his 1/2 hour lectures, harder to find -- one is on the first movement of the 6th. They are for kids but don't mind that. One is on the alternate, earlier endings to sym 5 mvt 1, all ? 10 of them? and why they are worse. here is haydn, here is webern, here is mozart, wait for it, here is ludwig.
They should be in libraries online or when they open. somewhere....
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