*********** BEETHOVEN: The Nine Symphonies – Karajan ********** DGG audio-only Blu-ray

by | Aug 16, 2016 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews

This magnificent set finally available in the format it deserves—and we can afford.

* BEETHOVEN: The Nine Symphonies (1963); Rehearsal of the Ninth Sym. – Berlin PO/ Herbert von Karajan – DGG Pure Audio Blu-ray stereo 00289 479 5977 (1 disc), 6+ hours [Distr. by Universal] *****:

It’s almost impossible to give this set anything but five stars. My own history with it is quite emotional. In 1973 I was just beginning a record collection, something that morphed into a lifelong passion, and the fame of Karajan’s set, already 11 years old, was irresistible and emphatic—I had to have it, my first recordings of any of the Beethoven symphonies. So once I saved up the money—about fifteen dollars for this impressive LP set at the time—I settled into the two-week period that the record store said it would take for arrival. The moment pushed forward and I was as excited as if Karajan himself was coming to see me.

Providence would prove the event somewhat mixed and dicey, however. My girlfriend, with whom I had just enjoyed a weekend at the beach with her family, decided precipitously on the following Monday evening, to break up with me! Needless to say, this was a shock and caused great consternation as I sat with her and tried to understand what must obviously have been some wildly skewed reasoning. To complicate matters, my mother received a call at home from the record store, informing her that my Karajan set had arrived. This was 7:45 PM, and the store closed at nine. I could reach the place in 20 minutes if I hurried. You can imagine the quandary I felt within myself—salvage the girlfriend of eleven months, someone I loved dearly, or abandon hope, leave and pick up the much-anticipated set. (Curiously, the idea of simply waiting until morning and picking it up then didn’t even cross my mind.)

Suffice it to say, I was happily listening to the Karajan an hour later…and let’s leave it at that.

Karajan’s appearance in 1957 marked a return to the Siemens mantle, the owner of then-named DGG, and despite the risks involved, enjoyed tremendous corporate support. Everyone thought it a losing proposition, with the one-hundred-thousand boxes needed to be sold in order to recoup the 1.5 million Deutschmarks highly unlikely to be recovered. Little did they know that this set was destined—by far—to be the best-selling Beethoven symphony cycle of all time, and that by the time of my fated 1973 encounter with it, nearly one million sets were sold.

There is a reason for this. The conductor, by then in his forties, represented a new school in vision and vitality when approaching these masterworks, something akin to Toscanini’s visceral, sinewy textures, but with much more passion and persuasive advocacy in every bar. There are no weak performances here at all (though some might prefer a little more subdued Pastoral), and several of the pieces, like the First, Second, Fourth, and Ninth, are realistic candidates for “best ever”.

These are stereo recordings redone in Blu-ray audio, and are every bit as riveting as the SACD set released way back in 2003. Assuming that Blu-ray lasts – which is the only reason I might hang on to the SACDs – it is great to have them all on one disc, along with the same 30-minute rehearsal of the Ninth. Any way you have them, this is one of the most validly essential sets every issued in the classical music world, and the sound is truly superb.

—Steven Ritter 

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