Mozart Bohm

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.

…[Böhm] may be an octogenarian, but he directs the opera for the most part with a spirit and an urgency that many a young man might envy. Most of the accompanied recitatives are alert and fiery, and in this particular work they carry a great deal of the emotional weight. Here and there I find myself at odds with a choice of tempo. Especially in the closing scenes, some of the orchestral recitative seems to need to go more slowly; it is inclined to lack the proper sense of momentousness. I was a little surprised too at the quickish tempo for the opening aria and, most of all, for the great quartet in Act III, which has more turbulence and urgency than usual, particularly with its sharply contoured dynamics and its incisive accents.

This luxuriously cast film of Mozart's beloved opera buffa features a host of legendary interpretations, including Kiri Te Kanawa's exquisite Countess Almaviva, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as her philandering husband, Hermann Prey as the wily title character, Mirella Freni, a delight as his no less savvy bride Susanna, and Maria Ewing, hilarious as the lovesick page Cherubino. Director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's imaginative camera-work tellingly emphasizes character and mood in this immortal story of love, intrigue and class struggle, set against the historical background of ancien regime Europe sliding inexorably towards revolution.

This is the most beautiful of Mozart playing, his last piano concerto given here by Emil Gilels with total clarity. This is a classic performance, memorably accompanied by the VPO and Böhm. Suffice it to say that Gilels sees everything and exaggerates nothing, that the performance has an Olympian authority and serenity, and that the Larghetto is one of the glories of the gramophone. He's joined by his daughter Elena in the Double Piano Concerto in E flat, and their physical relationship is mirrored in the quality, and the mutual understanding of the playing: both works receive marvellous interpretations. We think Emil plays first, Elena second, but could be quite wrong. The VPO under Karl Böhm is at its best; and so is the quality of recording, with a good stereo separation of the two solo parts, highly desirable in this work.

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.

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

This production created for the opening of the Salzburg Festival in 1966, which remained on the programme for five years, was Karl Böhm's last Salzburg Figaro. After multiple tries to stage Figaro at the Salzburg Festival in the 1950's and 60's, the successful team Karl Böhm/Günther Rennert mounted this production with new décor, costumes by Rudolf Heinrich and with a practically new, young cast of singers. It was not only the celebrated highlight of the festival summer 1966 but also became a "standard for Mozart" " that at least was the headline the German critic and future director of the Stuttgart Opera, Wolfram Schwinger, gave his report in the "Stuttgarter Zeitung" of 27 July 1966.

Karl Böhm conducting the Requiem: one of the foremost Mozart conductors of the 20th century in one of Mozart’s most admired works. Singers Gundula Janowitz, Christa Ludwig, Peter Schreier and Walter Berry join forces to form a brilliant cast of soloists. Taped in 1971 at the Piaristenkirche in Vienna, this is a rare document of outstanding artistic quality.