Karajan 1980s

"Between 1980 and his death in 1989, Herbert von Karajan recorded the incredible amount of 78 CDs worth of orchestral and choral music for DGG. In the final decade of his creative life, he made quintessential recordings of major works he had not recorded before: Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4 “The Inextinguishable” and Saint-Saëns’ “Organ” Symphony. Among the highpoints of Karajan’s late years is the major part of his collaboration with Anne-Sophie Mutter, the “wunderkind” Karajan discovered in the late 1970s and mentored throughout the 1980s.

Herbert von Karajan recorded almost everything in the standard orchestral repertoire once, many works two or three times, between his 1950s recordings for EMI with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the early 1960s for Decca with the Vienna Philharmonic, and his 1960s - 1989 recordings, mostly with the Berlin Philharmonic, for Deutsche Grammophon.

By general consensus, Herbert von Karajan's first (1963) Beethoven cycle for Deutsche Grammophon is the best of the four (!) that he recorded...

Herbert von Karajan’s Strauss recordings of the early 1980s, remastered in the 1990s, for the Karajan Gold Edition are a benchmark of lifetime of engagement with the composer in the concert hall and studio, and won unparalleled critical acclaim. For the first time they have been brought together in a specially priced single box. ”The greatest Strauss conductor of his day“ (The Penguin Guide)