Karajan Haydn

He was closely associated with EMI for the majority of his recording career (specifically from 1946 to 1960 and then again from 1969 to 1984). While Beethoven’s symphonies, so central to Karajan’s recorded legacy, embody music’s transition from Classicism to Romanticism, this set presents symphonies by Beethoven’s great Classical predecessors – Mozart and Haydn – and his admiring Romantic contemporary, Schubert. It also offers a rarity: the overture to Cherubini’s opera Anacréon.

Herbert von Karajan recorded between 1966 and 1968 with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and a cast of stars this reference version of 'The Creation' by Joseph Haydn.
After a legendary concert given in 1965 in Salzburg, Herbert von Karajan entered the studio a few months later to record Haydn's masterpiece with the same lead singers, Fritz Wunderlich and Gundula Janowitz. Almost completed in 1966, the recording was abruptly interrupted by the accidental and tragic death of Fritz Wunderlich at the age of 35, on September 17, 1966. The sessions then resume with a young tenor, Werner Krenn, who replaces Wunderlich on the songs. recitatives in particular.

The Karajan Official Remastered Edition comprises 13 box sets containing official remasterings of the finest recordings the Austrian conductor made for EMI between 1946 and 1984, which are now a jewel of the Warner Classics catalog. This 5-CD box includes Haydn's Die Jahreszeiten, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Brahms's German Requiem performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, with renowned vocal soloists such as Walter Berry and José van Dam.

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years. During the Nazi era, he debuted at the Salzburg Festival, with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, and during World War II he conducted at the Berlin State Opera. Generally regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, he was a controversial but dominant figure in European classical music from the mid-1950s until his death. Part of the reason for this was the large number of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate, he was the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records.

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years. During the Nazi era, he debuted at the Salzburg Festival, with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, and during World War II he conducted at the Berlin State Opera. Generally regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, he was a controversial but dominant figure in European classical music from the mid-1950s until his death. Part of the reason for this was the large number of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate, he was the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records.

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years. During the Nazi era, he debuted at the Salzburg Festival, with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, and during World War II he conducted at the Berlin State Opera. Generally regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, he was a controversial but dominant figure in European classical music from the mid-1950s until his death. Part of the reason for this was the large number of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate, he was the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records.

Die Jahreszeiten, or The Seasons, is not as well loved as Haydn's other late oratorio, The Creation; here Haydn tried to force pastoral imagery – by 1801 a set of ideas that had been musically rehashed for centuries – into his late and in many respects proto-Romantic musical language. He resented, he wrote to a correspondent, having to compose "French trash" at one point in the score that called for frog sounds, and the score contains a menagerie of other rustic creatures and sounds – shepherds, shepherdesses, horn calls, birds, trees, bees, herbs, fish, roosters, rifle shots, thunder and lighting, stags, sunrises, and sunsets, among others. Yet the work is a strange mixture of cute and exultant.

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years. During the Nazi era, he debuted at the Salzburg Festival, with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, and during World War II he conducted at the Berlin State Opera. Generally regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, he was a controversial but dominant figure in European classical music from the mid-1950s until his death. Part of the reason for this was the large number of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate, he was the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records.