Track Listings (6) - Disc #1| All Artists: Johannes Brahms, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard [1] Strauss, Herbert von Karajan, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Title: Brahms, Mozart, Strauss Members Wishing: 0 Total Copies: 0 Label: EMI Classics Original Release Date: 1/1/2005 Re-Release Date: 10/25/2005 Album Type: Original recording remastered Genre: Classical Styles: Historical Periods, Classical (c.1770-1830), Modern, 20th, & 21st Century, Symphonies Number of Discs: 1 SwapaCD Credits: 1 UPC: 724347687723 |
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Search - Johannes Brahms, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard [1] Strauss :: Brahms, Mozart, Strauss
 | Johannes Brahms, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard [1] Strauss Brahms, Mozart, Strauss Genre: Classical
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CD ReviewsMournful Metamorphosen from Karajan's early EMI days dv_forever | Michigan, USA | 08/18/2007 (4 out of 5 stars) "This CD is mostly valuable for the performance of Metamorphosen by R. Strauss, but I'll get to it in a minute. First off, we get the 2nd Symphony of Brahms and it's interesting to see Karajan's interpretation of this piece being formed so early on. It's ultimately no comparison to his later DG versions. In particular, Karajan's digital performance with the Berlin Philharmonic is one of the finest recordings of this symphony. Seek it out as it's recently been re-released. Mozart's Masonic funeral music is well performed but not a favorite piece of mine. So then, the Metamorphosen on this CD was the first ever studio recording of this tragic work. Furtwangler had already recorded a live performance of the piece in 1947 and his account is a stark contrast to Karajan. I believe both conductors simply owned this masterpiece and no one since has ever matched their insights and depth of interpretation. However, their versions are very different. Furtwangler takes the Metamorphosen in 23 minutes flat, while Karajan's fastest version timed out at 26 minutes, the last digital one. Compare that to most other conductors who plague us for 28 minutes or so. Furtwangler enfolds this piece with a sizzling energy that no other conductor has tried and yet he gives it a grandeur and grief, especially at the end that is unsurpassed. With Karajan it is different, the pulse of the work builds over a huge arch and the sorrowful emotions he conveys are beyond the scope of most conductors, making the music particularly soulful but without any slack sentimentality. Karajan permits beauty to enter this sound world through his total understanding of string sound. It is for this reason that his last digital version of this piece is ultimately preferable to this early mono account, since you get to hear all the beauty of this music in stereo sound. This is still a valuable CD, since it gives you an idea of just what an amazing talent Karajan already was at that early date and what a great Strauss interpreter he had already become. When it comes to Metamorphosen, Karajan and Futwangler are in one category and every other conductor is in a different one altogether. " Karajan's least attractive Vienna recordings from the Fortie Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 07/22/2006 (3 out of 5 stars) "The reviewer below who thinks these historical post-war recordings sound good must be easy to please. Everything here is murky and boxy. Karajan made some noble records in the rubble of post-war Vienna, but his Brahms Second from 1949 is plain-faced and slow in the first two movements, almost to the point of grimness. Under the circumstances, one understands. The reading of Mozart's Masonic Funeral Music is a more apt expression of grief, but the reading is undermined by grainy sound. The only must-listen is the 1947 Strauss Metamorphosen, the work's premiere on disc. Karajan made a speciality of Metamorphosen and went on to record it twice more in stereo in Berlin. Needless to say, a mono recording on 78's is far from ideal, but this work more than any other that emreged from the devastation of Europe gives us elegy, grief, and hope mixed into one sublime expression. I trreausre Karajan's fragile performance, which seems to be on the verge of tears, because it manages to caputre every side of Metamorphosen's complex melancholy." Karajan Reissued Michael B. Richman | Portland, Maine USA | 12/29/2005 (4 out of 5 stars) "This recent reissue in EMI's new "Karajan Collection" series is exactly the same as a title that first appeared seven years ago in EMI's "Karajan Edition" series. (It seems EMI has a seven year itch for Herbert von Karajan -- guess it was time to scratch!) This 1949 recording of Brahms' Symphony No. 2, and 1947 recordings of Mozart's Masonic Funeral Music and Strauss' Metamorphosen, were all made by the conductor with the Vienna Philharmonic. They are enjoyable readings in good mono sound, but I should have rather seen EMI reissue Karajan's 1955 account of the Brahms 2nd with the Philharmonia, which has been out of print on CD since the late 1980s. Now that Karajan would have been worth adding to the "Collection.""
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