Herbert von Karajan: The Complete 1960s

I've lived with this set for two years now and my respect has only grown over that time.My father and I bought quite a lot of the vinyl discs as they came out. It has to admitted that the Handel, Mozart, Albinoni et al was never "authentic" and these will be very much a matter of personal taste. The only real surprise was the Beethoven Piano Concerto No 1 with Eschenbach. I loved the energy of this performance on LP, but now it sounds very heavy, compared to, say, Paul Lewis. On the other hand, the Johann Strauss, the Opera intermezzi and the Suppe overtures are as adorable as ever.The Beethoven and Brahms still sound very well, and I think that the Honneger, Shostakovich, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Sibelius, Rimsky-Korsakov, Liszt and Tchaikovsky items deserve to be considered definitive. The Richard Strauss recordings strike me as unbeatable and other items - Stravinsky's Apollon Musagete and Debussy's La Mer are a sort of miracle.The unsung star of the set must be the Jesus-Christus Church in Berlin. Has there ever been a better recording location, with a perfect blend of clarity and warmth? I combined the 2 Liszt cds (cd 3 and cd 63) into one MP3 file and there was no way of knowing that they were recorded 10 years apart.Major drawbacks? Very few. The most irritating is messy track information embedded in the discs. This must be the first Missa Solemnis in history where the Agnus Dei apparently precedes the Credo. The music plays in the right order, but the track information is all over the place. If you know what you are doing the disc can be re-programmed (and the booklet gets it right).All in all I cannot think of a better introduction to a huge proportion of the core repertoire.Chris Rouse

As a teenager, I used to drool over the original lp releases in my local classical record shop. Alas, as a 14 year old they were way beyond my pocket apart from special occasions. (For my 16th birthday my mother bought me Karajan's Tchaikovsky 5, Vivaldi 4 Seasons (with the wonderful Schwalbe as soloist, and a 3 disc box set of Mozart symphonies that had just been released). I was in seventh heaven!Well, now, all these lps are within reach with original artwork (a magnifying glass does help in trying to read the print on the back though!) and superb sound. (And they don't get scratched or wear out either!)For me, this set is a real trip down memory lane and I feel privileged to own it. A well-known record magazine points out that, adjusted for inflation, buying all the original lps would cost around £2,500 so it's a real bargain! The presentation is superb and very informative - this set is built to last!I have to say that, IMHO, the sound quality is superb and shows that Karajan was not all about legato and smoothing out the harsh edges and that he could do 'punchiness' with the best of them. Try the Bruckner 9 to hear what I mean.I can't wait for the 70's to come out!

Many serious collectors will have some of these recordings. This package puts them in the sequence of the original vinyl releases and on individual compact discs which contain the vinyl releases only. Arguement can be made of the number of the discs, but the order can be interesting. Many of the works were re-recorded by von Karajan and in that, if one wants to compare the evolution of interpretations or of the Berlin Phiharmonic, it is possible. The Bach and Handel recordings are among the last of the German "symphonic baroque" interpretations, which work better for Handel Opus 6 Concerti Grosso, actually orchestral interludes, than the Bach. There are many 'classic' recordings from that decade.There are several items that maybe difficult to obtain otherwise. The can be arguably for the interested or the completist, but it is an interesting overview.

For many years I have had the pleasure of listening to the interpretations of the Germanic masters led by Karajan. His interpretations tend to emphasize the aesthetic structural emphases that each composer interlaces with their musical objective, e.g. the last three movements of Mendellsohn's Scotch Symphony. K's manner with enunciating the secondary theme as almost to emphasize it as accompanying the primary theme without any clumsy tertiary passages is singular in recorded stereo history. Finally, K's Ring Cycle is unsurpassed in its unsurpassed plumbing of the psychological depths of the Vater and Sohn diametric. His "KammerMusik" continues the male/Sophocles tug of war albeit with a subtly, dangerous affair intertwined with a Hatsfield and McCoyesque Niebelheim version of Kentucky bushwackets.

A superb box-set. There is nothing in this box that would dissuade purchase. Karajan set the bar high, paid great care and attention in monitoring the recording process and correcting any "mistakes" that recording engineers or producers might make. Of course, producers and recording engineers would correct Karajan's "corrections"! The recording studio - in which he thrived - and the end product were just as important to Herbert von Karajan as his live concert performances.This set of recordings allows an insight into one of the finest musical minds of the twentieth century. Karajan's formidable musical intelligence has been captured in these recordings which remain supreme examples of the art of conducting.

This is a marvellous boxed set with each album lovingly reproduced in minature from the original vinyl sleeve. The range and quality of music here is astonishing and at just over £1 per disc, really good value. Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic were a fundamental influence in my love and exploration of classical music. The Beethoven and Brahms symphonies are particularly fine, but there is so much more to explore here. It's a real feast of wonderful music to enjoy. The box is beautifully packaged and includes a nice book with essays on Karajan and all the recording details of each disc. Highly recommended.