Author Topic: Herbert von Karajan: The Complete EMI Recordings 1946-1984, Volume 1  (Read 6374 times)

jsaliga

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I've been on a music buying binge for the past few months.  I'm always buying music, don't get me wrong, but this latest episode of splurging has been somewhat extreme even by my own standards.  What I find suprising is that during this music buying spree most of my purchases have been of music on CD rather than vinyl.  I am a staunch vinylphile and prefer records from the 1950s and 60s to music digitally recored and issued on SACD.  

In the past 30 days alone I have purchased five mega sized boxed sets: Vladimir Horowitz - The Complete Original Jacket Collection (70 CDs), Jascha Heifetz - The Complete Original Jacket Collection (103 CDs), Arthur Rubinstein - The Rubinstein Collection (94 CDs), Liszt: The Complete Piano Music (99 CDs), and the set I am writing about today, Herbert von Karajan - The Complete EMI Recordings 1946-1984, Vol. 1 (88 CDs).

The reason I have been snapping up these big boxed sets is due to an expensive lesson I recently learned.  I buy so much music that sometimes it is hard for me to keep tabs on special releases or boxed sets that may be important to me.  My main musical interests are jazz and classical.  I tend to get into long cycles where my focus may be on classical music for several months, and then I will listen to mostly jazz for months.  I like to plumb the depths of the music and totally immerse myself in it.  For the past three months I have been listening to nothing but classical music.  The Arthur Rubinstein set from RCA/BMG, for example, ducked underneath my radar when it was originally released.  There were only 200 sets made, and once they were sold out the scalpers stepped in and were listing them on eBay for between $2,000 and $3,500.  I had something similar happen to me with a Mosaic boxed set of all the Jazztet's Argo sessions.  In this case it was still in stock and I had other priorities so I put the Jazztet set on the back burner.  When I went back to Mosaic to order it a month later I was stunned to learn that it had sold out.  So what was a $129 set was now turning up on eBay for $400.

You snooze you loose, I suppose.  So now I try to do a better job of staying informed of special boxed sets or collector's sets that are released and then just buy them.  There are still a few that nearly get away from me.  The Horowitz set, for example, came out in 2009 and this Karajan set came out a year before, in 2008.  The Heifetz set came out in late March, and the Liszt set came out in Februrary.  Sometimes these sets are limited editions and once the quota is sold out they are gone for good.



There are in fact two Karajan EMI sets.  Volume 1, being discussed here, presents all of Karajan's orchestral recordings for EMI with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Berlin Philharmonic.  The Operas and vocal recordings that Karajan led are presented in Volume 2 of this collection, which offers another 72 CDs of music.

Looking at the music all I can say is wow!: it's all here.  Sibelius (nearly a complete symphony cycle), Tchaikovsky (two performances of Swan Lake, two each of Symphonies 4, 5, & 6 (one with the Vienna Philharmonic and one with the Berlin Philharmonic), Mozart (several symphonies and a number of concerti), nearly a complete Dvorak Symphony cycle, Beethoven symphonies and piano concerti, lots of Strauss, couple of CDs of orchestral showpieces, Franck, Rossini, Bizet, Bartok, Debussy, Ravel, Brahms, Vaughan Williams, Schubert, Bruckner, Grieg, Liszt, Wagner....the list goes on and on.  As for sound quality, some of the recordings from the 1940s and early 1950s sound a little bright and thin.  They are definitely listenable even if they are somewhat lacking a rich, full bodied sound.  However, things quickly get very nice on recordings made in the mid 1950s onward.  Two of the recordings I sampled today was Tchaikovsky's 5th and Dvorak's 9th symphonies.  The former was recorded in 1972 and the latter in 1961; both were fabulous.

Now onto Karajan himself.  He certainly has his fans and detractors, and lately it seems to have become fashionable to bash him.  Personally I feel that most of his recordings for Deutsche Grammophon had a little too much spit and polish at the expense of some emotional depth.  But that could also be the DG sound at work, which I have never been especially fond of.  On the other hand, the Karajan performances recorded in the 1950s and 60s that are included in this EMI set are consistently good and many of them are great.  So I am confident I will be happy with the set overall.



If there is any real cause for complaint it would be in the documentation.  The CDs are in numbered paper slip cases with no detailed track listings.  On the back of each slipcase the name of recording is shown.  For example, I am listening to CD #39 right now, and on the back of the slip case is 1-14 Orchestral Showpieces, Philharmonia Orchestra.  The included booklet does have the track listings and recording dates.  The notes are bit on the thin side, and only gloss over the historical significance of Karajan and the Orchestras he led.  I really don't have a problem with this.  Volume 1 provides 88 CDs of spectacular music for the bargain basement price of $129.00 on Amazon.com.  That comes to $1.46 per disc.  For that price I think the packaging is quite adequate and I don't expect discographical notes worthy of the Library of Congress.  It's about the music, or at least it should be.

This really is a great place to start for the beginning classical music listener.  You could buy 10 CDs or so of classical music for the same money.  Or create an instant classical music collection of some great symphonic and orchestral works by a top tier conductor and three historically important orchestras.  It is even a good value for those with considerable classical libraries.  I had about 20 of these recordings, some on vinyl and some on CD.  But for $129 I got the whole enchilada.  Now I can take those spare CDs and pass them along to my kids and expose them to some great music.

Either way, if you haven't bought this set don't let the opportunity pass you by.

--Jerome
« Last Edit: April 02, 2011, 05:50:09 PM by jsaliga »

Offline tmazz

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Re: Herbert von Karajan: The Complete EMI Recordings 1946-1984, Volume 1
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2011, 07:19:12 PM »
Found a similar type deal on a 60 CD set of Leonard Bernstein Symphony recordings earlier this year at Overstock.com. Placed an order, they took my money, gave me a ship date and two days later sent me an e-mail saying that there had been an "inventory error" and they didn't have any of them. They promised to send me an e-mail if they ever got any more  of them, but it never happened   :(
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jsaliga

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Re: Herbert von Karajan: The Complete EMI Recordings 1946-1984, Volume 1
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2011, 08:48:36 AM »
I thought about buying that set when it came out.  But since I already had most of the titles as they were issued by Sony individually there wasn't enough left that I wanted that would justify the purchase.

--Jerome