Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A representative chunk of Karajan, 4 April 2009
Firstly let us list what the box contains:
9 Symphonies by Beethoven (the second recorded set)
5 Symphonies by Mendelssohn
4 Symphonies by Schumann plus Overture, Scherzo and Finale
6 Symphonies by Tchaikovsky, Marche Slave and Capriccio Italien
The Haydn Paris and London Symphonies
Mozart Symphonies 29, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41
4 Brahms Symphonies (the second recorded set) plus the St Antoni Variations
9 Symphonies by Bruckner (i.e. excluding "0" and Study Symphony and any "completion" of Symphony 9
Some Beethoven overtures that will not really count in the balance in buying the set.
These 38 discs retail at present Amazon price for under £1.00 each and this makes them something of a special price bargain when you consider that 30 or so years ago they were all issued as full price recordings! Taking 30 years as the average age of the recordings it is obvious that in certain cases the interpretive fashion has moved on. This is most obviously the case with the Beethoven symphonies and the Mozart and Haydn selections where there is a fairly large orchestra in each case, and Karajan's famous legato style is much in evidence. The recording quality is variable and some of the early digital recordings are extremely bright and hard (as is the Bruckner 3 Symphony, for example). The discs have not been remastered, but set that against the fact that they are remarkable cheap and retail, in some cases, for less than half the price of the newly packaged individual symphony releases. In the case of the Bruckner symphonies we have the same recordings as are to be found at a much higher price elsewhere on Amazon Bruckner: Complete Symphonies.
Who will buy this set? The first thing to say is that anyone wanting to get a group of symphony cycles at a knockdown price is onto a good thing here. Whilst styles and fashions have changed (and there has been a swing of prejudice against the one time all conquering Karajan in some parts of the musical world) the Beethoven and Brahms are good quality central interpretations often rising to greatness (Beethoven 9 and Brahms 1 for example), the Schumann and Mendelssohn are excellent and the Bruckner has some remarkable performances, particularly Symphonies 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9 (though please be warned that Symphony 8 - Karajan's second recorded attempt - has a slow and overly legato Scherzo, in the customary Karajan manner)
I bought the set because I realised that to my surprise I did not own any of the discs except the Bruckner 3, and so was interested in listening to the Karajan phenomenon where he utterly dominated DGG for so many years. Was he that good? As you will suspect the answer is "yes and no" when looked at with hindsight gleaned from such revelatory Beethoven performances as that of Immerseel and Anima Eterna on Zig-Zag Territories Beethoven: Symphonies; Overtures /Anima Eterna · van Immerseel. But there are all sorts of interesting things in these performances that make them very well worth having, especially at the price.
My own reservations apply to the later Tchaikovsky Symphonies (the First and Third are very fresh and alert, but the Second seems much less so) as one should not be surprised at the effect of the often well-played big band Haydn and Mozart. I find the Tchaikovski over-civilized with some surprisingly slow speeds. They are the exactly complete opposite to Mravinsky and the Leningrad Philharmonic Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos 4-6. These latter are wild and sensational, relishing the sometimes rough sound produced by the Soviet instruments - particularly the brass - and are played for all they are worth. With Karajan you get beautiful and deliberately integrated sound (the tuba is not allowed to stick out in the beginning of the development of the 5th Symphony, for example) played on instruments that sound very expensive indeed and often flawlessly matched. Also, perhaps in the name of expressivity, I find the slow introductions and the slow movements to be just that - slow, even too slow!
But even with that caveat the set is a pretty good bargain and worth 5 stars because of that. When I bought it I fully expected that there would be interpretations which I would warm to more than others, and this has proved to be the case. However, it seems right that a representative chunk of the work of one of the most influential musicians of the 20th Century should be made easily available and, at this price even without remastering of the recordings, Universal seem to have been very generous.
|
|
|
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent value 1970s Karajan survey, 19 Mar 2009
I'm not a total Karajan fan but this box contains some excellent recordings, and is clearly great value. I won't try to review every work here but instead make some general comments.
The CDs come in paper sleeves in a single rigid capbox just over 2 inches thick. There are no separate boxes for each composer, and one booklet only, which contains only the timings and recording information, so no notes. They could have got away with 37 CDs if one curious 32 minute disc with just the Brahms Haydn Variations and Tragic Overture on it had been omitted.
This Beethoven cycle is more 'Karajan Conducts Beethoven' than the objective 1960s set (which I have on SACD, and superb it sounds), but none the worse for that. Apart from the great Fifth, this Eroica is distinctive for the fiery tempo Karajan adopts in the opening movement. It was in fact the first recording of this work I ever heard, and I remember being enthralled by it even then. This builds into a really fine performance with a harrowing Marche Funebre.
The Fourth can't quite compare to the 1960s one, which is probably the best Beethoven recording Karajan ever made. The Eighth here though is very good, comparable with Jochum's Concertgebouw recording made a few years earlier.
The Ninth here has always been regarded as Karajan's best, and it is good, though I really prefer the 1960s one, even if Toscanini's star is a little too in the ascendant in the first movement there.
The Brahms symphonies here are perhaps Karajan's best, with a particularly direct, well-played Second. The earlier Brahms cycle sounded much more lean than here. Karajan wouldn't be a first choice in any Brahms symphony for me, but I did enjoy these recordings.
I do have a preference perhaps for the earlier DG Tchaikovsky Pathétique but the this Fifth is tremendously exciting and brilliantly played - but as always its fate is to be split between discs...
Karajan only recorded the Tchaikovsky symphonies 1-3 once. The Winter Daydreams symphony (No. 1) is particularly good, one of the best ever recorded in fact, and the Polish (No. 3) is in the same class.
Karajan generally conducted Mendelssohn well but was perhaps more attuned to the Scottish and Reformation than the Italian, which can sound rather driven. But the Scottish is particularly good, direct, and with warmth. The rest of the cycle is in the same class.
Schumann was not a composer to which Karajan naturally turned in my view and I've always preferred Sawallisch's EMI cycle to this one, but there's no doubting the quality of the playing here and the greater detail of the recording compared to the EMI.
Haydn and Mozart - you know what to expect: beautifully played, shorn of most repeats, enjoyably smooth, and *not* string obsessed, despite what his detractors might say - there is plenty of beautiful woodwind detail here. I prefer Mackerras and Harnoncourt in this music but Karajan has his place.
And finally to Bruckner. Karajan was up against himself here, for example in the Fourth and Seventh which he recorded a few years earlier for EMI. And the Fourth here does have some spurious octave string doublings early on, as well as the odd bogus timpani roll. But the whole conception is thrilling, with amazing attack on the final chords of the first movement and finale. Quite compelling.
The Sixth sounds like it was recorded at a sightreading session (it probably was... ) but is actually pretty good, if not as fine as Celibidache. The VPO Seventh he recorded at the end of his life is wonderful, but this one is still first class. There have been great Fifths from Haitink, Thielemann and a host of others, so this one is not so pre-eminent as it once was but still is required listening for Brucknerphiles - and that applies to the whole cycle really.
|
|
|
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
jcf_review, 22 April 2009
This is a re-packaged version of of what was previously available as seven separate CD boxes (Complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Haydn (Paris and London Symphonies only), Mozart, Mendelssohn Schumann and Tchaikovsky. The price for the aggregate is less than the cost of some of the original boxes on sale in Dublin. The playing and recording are very good. Some people may complain about the Karajan's style in, for example,Mozart and Haydn. Over all the box is tremendous value
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
~ Various
~ Various
![Sviatoslav Richter: The Master Pianist [The Complete EMI Recordings] [Box Set]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qP6mP-SgL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
![David Oistrakh: The Complete Recordings [Box Set]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41AySohDwDL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
~ Joseph Stidel
~ Marcelle Meyer
![Jacqueline Du Pré: The Complete Recordings [Box Set]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41snrOJJwXL._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
![Works of Igor Stravinsky [Box Set]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41ffzhvDpuL._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
![Bruckner: The Nine Symphonies; Helgoland [Box Set]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511ATQMJ01L._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
