Bruckner, 卡尔·伯姆 Karl Böhm(boehm Bohm)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Serenades
Berliner & Wiener Philharmoniker - Karl Böhm
3xCD | EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 754 MB | Full Artwork: 50 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Deutsche Grammophon # 427 889-2 GX3 | Country/Year: Germany 1983 (1960's-1970's)
Genre: Classical | Style: Viennese School

Karl Böhm was one of the greatest conductors of the twentieth century in the German tradition. He studied music as a child and continued to work and study in music while serving in the Austrian Army during World War I – and while completing a doctorate in law. He coached singers at the Graz Opera and was permitted to conduct a performance of Nessler's Der Trompeter von Sackingen. He never had conducting lessons, but made close studies of the work of both Bruno Walter and Carl Muck…

Karl Bohm’s name carries with it immense respect among musicians and connoisseurs in our most sophisticated markets, particularly for opera where his “gods” were Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss. Deutsche Grammophon proudly brings together for the first time his complete vocal recordings for the label – including the star-studded 1968 ‘Le nozze di Figaro’; the legendary ‘Zauberflöte’ from 1964 with Fritz Wunderlich and Roberta Peters; Bohm’s two recordings of the ‘Missa solemnis’, two Rosenkavaliers, three recordings of Ariadne auf Naxos, Wagner’s Hollander & Tristan … and one disc of new-to-CD recordings. Beautiful packaging and presentation.

In 1955 and at the peak of his postwar powers, Karl Böhm recorded Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with the Berlin Philharmonic with an all-star cast of soloists. It is a great and powerful performance: tightly argued, superbly played, fabulously sung, and very dramatic. Deutsche Grammophon's original mono recording was clear but a little distant, and the digital remastering keeps the clarity and brings the performers a little closer to the listener. In every way that matters, this is a great Missa Solemnis. The thing is, how many recordings of the Missa Solemnis does anyone want or need? There's Böhm's later 1974 with the Vienna Philharmonic, a deeper and more transcendent performance.

I think Karl Böhm's live performances of Strauss operas represent some of his best work; this is a companion piece to his live Daphne which has yet to be bettered despite being another elderly, live recording, albeit in narrow stereo. It is in comparatively restricted mono but one soon forgets that, given the quality of the performance.

Böhm's Mozart as experienced in these precious films is marked by youthful vigour and directness, as well as a lack of pathos and sentimentality. Every reading glows with profound love and understanding. "Thanks to Bruno Walter's exemplary performances, I grabbed on to Mozart and fell in love with him so much that I had only one wish: to conduct Mozart, Mozart, Mozart." - Karl Böhm

Karl Böhm's recording of the Mozart symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra is among the most respected and beloved sets of this important body of work. Böhm's set was the first complete recording of the symphonies (including several that subsequent scholarship has shown to be written by other composers and misattributed to Mozart) and it remains a substantial achievement because of the conductor's stature as a Mozartian and because of the enthusiastic and refined playing of the Berlin Philharmonic.

These are marvellous performances: vibrant, clear, characterful and effortlessly well played. The recordings, too, still seem new-minted, even the Ninth, the first of the symphonies to be recorded. The Berliners' art is the art that disguises art. Böhm never feels the need to do anything clever but just quietly sees to it that this superb orchestra plays at its best. Böhm's way with the two late symphonies is, in fact, highly sophisticated.

I think Karl Böhm's live performances of Strauss operas represent some of his best work; this is a companion piece to his live Daphne which has yet to be bettered despite being another elderly, live recording, albeit in narrow stereo. It is in comparatively restricted mono but one soon forgets that, given the quality of the performance.

Wagner - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - Wiener Philharmoniker, Wiener Staatsopernchor, Karl Böhm (1944) {4CD Set Preiser 90234 rel 1994}
XLD rip | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 678 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 586 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 39 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1944, 1994 Preiser Records | 90234 | Mono
Classical / Opera

This is the greatest operatic recording ever made, and one of the reasons is the astounding difficulty of doing even a good performance of this opera, which in all other recordings fails to sustain, throughout the work's 4+ hours, a continuity of tension and of a sense of forward-motion. Karl Bohm was unsurpassed at achieving such archetectonic unity; and he surpassed even himself in this recording, which was the second and last complete studio recording he made of this joyous masterwork, and much better than either his Bayreuth or Metropolitan Opera live recording of the complete opera. It's also better than his first studio recording of the work, which he made in Dresden in 1938.