Post by ramesh April 15, 2014 (1 of 8)
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I see on the HMV website that 6 SACDs comprising Karajan's Richard Strauss tone poems recorded in analogue from 1959 [ Heldenleben ] to the early 70s are being released in June. Includes Janowitz in the Vier Letzte Lieder.
The listing for the Till/Don Juan lists VPO, but this must be an error since Karajan recorded these in the 1970s with the BPO. Also, the price is at the level for an SHM SACD though this isn't mentioned.
Hope this isn't an error, as plenty of Karajan CDs are being reissued this year on SHM-CD. In fact, right now I'm playing the new SHM CD issue of his BPO string set from 1969- Beethoven Grosse Fuge, Strauss Metamorphosen. This CD doesn't have the relative absence of digital glare as in comparable SHM SACD issues, but it's still impressively listenable, an extremely superior CD, particularly through an 'apodising' digital filter.
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Post by Chris April 15, 2014 (2 of 8)
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ramesh said:
I see on the HMV website that 6 SACDs comprising Karajan's Richard Strauss tone poems recorded in analogue from 1959 [ Heldenleben ] to the early 70s are being released in June. Includes Janowitz in the Vier Letzte Lieder.
The listing for the Till/Don Juan lists VPO, but this must be an error since Karajan recorded these in the 1970s with the BPO. Also, the price is at the level for an SHM SACD though this isn't mentioned.
Hope this isn't an error, as plenty of Karajan CDs are being reissued this year on SHM-CD. In fact, right now I'm playing the new SHM CD issue of his BPO string set from 1969- Beethoven Grosse Fuge, Strauss Metamorphosen. This CD doesn't have the relative absence of digital glare as in comparable SHM SACD issues, but it's still impressively listenable, an extremely superior CD, particularly through an 'apodising' digital filter.
I don't know who has got the rights these days,but I have a DECCA LP Don Juan and Till with Karajan/VPO/Sofiensaal if I remember correctly,so VPO could be correct if HMV Japan owns the rights of course.
There was also a Zarathustra from Decca Karajan VPO from the early sixties.
Vier letzte Lieder with Janowitz would be very nice too. My DGG LP pressing sucks.
But I am sure the recording is not as bad as the LP. And Janowitz is my favourite soprano from the sixties and 70s.
At the risk of upsetting the Gods again I do wish a lot of this stuff will appear as hi res downloads as well.
The excellent late fifties or early 60s? DGG/BPO Karajan/Don Quixote is already available as 24/96 download from some sites.
Well worth its price imho.
Basically the only thing I don't like about it is,that Karajan for some unfathomable reason,did not separate first and second violins in those days.
In all other respects a wonderful recording imho.
Fantastic playing by one of the World's greatest orchestras.Superb cello playing by Pierre Fournier and very well recorded by DGG.
It would not surprise me if this one and the ones you mention will also appear as Bluray audio only discs.
PS I also have the LPs Grosse Fuge and Metamorphosen. Great stuff indeed.Cheers Chris
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Post by ramesh April 15, 2014 (3 of 8)
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Chris,
these announced SACDs are from DGG. The VPO ones you mentioned are from Karajan's time at Decca. He recorded Zarathustra [ in 1959- apparently his first Decca recording, and the excerpt used in Stanley Kubrick's '2001' ], Till, Don Juan, the Salome dance, plus Tod und Verklärung for them. Incidentally, I read somewhere that Karajan deliberately signed for Decca due to commercial considerations. The company at the time had superior US distribution than DGG, which may also have been hobbled by perception as a German company. The ploy worked, for otherwise Karajan wouldn't have appeared on a Hollywood soundtrack.
All of the above except Tod were issued in Japan on a hybrid SACD and later as a single layer SHM SACD. I bought both, since I'd mistakenly thought the transfer of Zarathustra had been botched. The interpretation is great : incisive, virile. However, the huge dynamic volume of the swelling string section just wasn't coming through. It sounded almost the same on the SHM reissue. After wasting the extra money, I realised that in 1959 the Decca engineers must have applied plenty of peak limiting etc to stop tape overload.
This is a pity, since I also bought the Esoteric release of Karajan/VPO from 1961 performing Dvorak 8 and Brahms 3. Both sound marvellous, if one can accept the leisurely 11+ minutes of Gemütlichkeit in the Dvorak's adagio and 8+ minutes of the same in the Brahms andante. Unlike the Decca SACDs, the improvements in the recording technology during the intervening two years make the VPO's distinctive string timbre immediately apparent. This is present in the 1959-1960 recordings, but at least to my ears via my hi fi, it's more muted- a 'dustier' recording, though still better than CD transfers.
In terms of the sound Karajan elicited from his orchestras, with the VPO in Richard Strauss 1959-60, each section of the strings is conventionally distinct. In the BPO recordings from the late 1960s to 1970s I hear him taking his legato conducting style to its apotheosis. The string sound is sumptuous and blended to a voluptuous degree. The identity of each string section e.g. second violins from viola higher register, viola lower register/cellos is lost-- deliberately subsumed into one collective identity. The woodwind as well in these Strauss BPO recordings are more blended both with each other and with the strings- quite differently to how Klemperer in recordings has the woodwind lines quite audible in the centre of the stereo spread.
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ramesh said:
Chris,
He recorded Zarathustra [ in 1959- apparently his first Decca recording, and the excerpt used in Stanley Kubrick's '2001' ]
It was the Bohm DG recording that was used in the film; it's acknowledged as such on the soundtrack album.
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Post by volund April 16, 2014 (5 of 8)
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breydon_music said:
It was the Bohm DG recording that was used in the film; it's acknowledged as such on the soundtrack album.
Well, not so much. True, it is indeed the 'Sonnenaufgang' from Boehm's late 50's DG recording that is used on the MGM soundtrack album, but the actual soundtrack of the film itself uses Karajan's far more dramatic Vienna Philharmonic Decca recording, even though there are no performers at all listed in the film's credits for Space Odyssey's signature piece.
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Post by Claude April 16, 2014 (6 of 8)
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Interesting. Wikipedia has more details:
"The end music credits do not list a conductor and orchestra for "Also Sprach Zarathustra." Stanley Kubrick wanted the Herbert von Karajan / Vienna Philharmonic version on English Decca for the film's soundtrack, but Decca executives did not want their recording "cheapened" by association with the movie, and so gave permission on the condition that the conductor and orchestra were not named. After the movie's successful release, Decca tried to rectify its blunder by re-releasing the recording with an "As Heard in 2001" flag printed on the album cover. John Culshaw recounts the incident in "Putting the Record Straight" (1981)... In the meantime, MGM released the "official soundtrack" L.P. with Karl Böhm's Berlin Philharmonic "Also Sprach Zarathustra"[8] discreetly substituting for von Karajan's version."
hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(soundtrack)
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Post by ramesh April 16, 2014 (7 of 8)
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volund said:
True, it is indeed the 'Sonnenaufgang' from Boehm's late 50's DG recording that is used on the MGM soundtrack album, but the actual soundtrack of the film itself uses Karajan's far more dramatic Vienna Philharmonic Decca recording, even though there are no performers at all listed in the film's credits for Space Odyssey's signature piece.
According to Gramophone magazine in 1992, reviewing the Decca CD, 'Kubrick was given permission by Decca to use [ Also Sprach Zarathustra ] provided that neither they nor Karajan was acknowledged in the credits.'
I bought the 40th anniversary DVD/CD set of the Kubrick film, in which the booklet lists the Karajan recording both as the music in the film and CD soundtrack, though there's no specific mention as to whether these were redone for this second DVD release.
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Post by kana26 April 19, 2014 (8 of 8)
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Universal Japan SHM-SACD June 25, 2014 release
Ein Heldenleben: Karajan / Bpo (1959)No : UCGG9062
Don Quixote: Karajan / Bpo Fournier(Vc) No : UCGG9063
Oboe Concerto, Horn Concerto2 : Karajan / Bpo koch(Ob) Hauptmann(Hr):UCGG9064
Tod Und Verklarung, 4 Letzte Lieder: Karajan / Bpo Janowitz(S) No : UCGG9065
Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel, Salome: Karajan / Bpo (1972, 1973)No: UCGG9066
Also Sprach Zarathustra: Karajan / Bpo (1973) No: UCGG9067
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