STRAUSS: ALPINE SYMPHONY / BERLIN PO / KARAJAN (1982 live)

Richard Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie, Op. 64 (1915)
Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan, conductor
Live Concert Broadcast Recording of August 28, 1982, at the
Salzburg Festival Hall, Salzburg, Austria

[@jeffreymafereka9477]

👌❤️

[@WilliamSilva-ml5nw]

Glad you returned this music to your site!!!

[@renato45222]

E' una delle partiture che in assoluto amava di più, una partitura particolarmente congeniale al suo talento interpretativo e della quale ha fornito esecuzioni splendide, difficilmente eguagliabili.......................

[@ilirllukaci5345]

That ORF fanfare of Joseph Messner brings back memories of broadcasts from the Salzburg festival in the 1980's. They were carried over wgbh Boston or wcrb Waltham, I forget which. Impressionable age I was.

[@ilirllukaci5345]

Thanks again.

[@richardwilliams473]

Wow! At 9:00 we hear the magnificent sounds of French Horns in full flight !!!!

[@gerontius3]

This is superb. Much better playing than on his contemporaneous DG recording which is full of horn fluffs (listen carefully). HVK didn't seem to care much about brass clams (c.f. the very end of Act 2 of his Boheme on Decca - horrific - no idea why it wasn't retaken). HVK also didn't care to put the hunting horns offstage as Strauss insists. He didn't on the DG recording either. I never read a critic who noticed, which tells you all you need to know about critics............The trumpets were always the Achilles heel of the BPO and again you hear that here (24:05 - second trumpet simply is missing in action and must've lost count). Wonderful principal oboe (Koch I think). What a sound! However, recordings rarely if ever capture the enormity of the sound of this orchestra with Karajan - I heard them live once in London in 1981 (Bruckner 5). They sounded 10% louder than any other orchestra and you could always hear the strings nomatter what was happening otherwise. I met concertgoers who heard them do this piece at Carnegie Hall around this time and they said it was the loudest thing they ever heard in there and that it was a miracle the paint remained on the walls. You get a rough idea of the hugeness of sonority in this broadcast. It's great to have it. Thank you!

[@andreaguarino8207]

Karajan’s studio performance isn’t well recorded. The trumpets of the Berlin Philharmonic have always been great

[@gerontius3]

@@andreaguarino8207 LOL. You need to listen to the Chicago Symphony more. May I suggest Reiner's Pines and Song of the Nightingale......

[@giannismag3064]

I agree. The studio version doesn't have the TamTam at the wald, no wind machine, no thunder sheet. I actually prefer that the horns are not off-stage, because you can admire the sound and the melody. Maybe that was Karajan's thought too, or they just couldn't record them offstage. The only disappointing thing about this live version is the sound quality, but still, it is a solid performance!

[@duvidl]

Well, perhaps it is "pleasure gas" as Eduard Hanslick once described Strauss' music, but it sure is fun. Breathe deeply!

[@sounddynamicsassociates3193]

Hanslick must have underdone serious training at the NYT - LOL!

[@渡邊潤也]

Oboe, Lothar Koch !