Unverzärtelter Mozart

Herbert von Karajan's 100th birthday on 8 April 2008 casts its shadow even now. So has its preferred home company, the German Grammophon society, already released a 10 CD set with some of his most famous interpretations under the beautiful German title "Karajan Master Recordings".
From the extensive discography of Mozart's Requiem K. was great conductors 626 are combined together with the Coronation Mass K. 317 on a CD. These are the second discus dispute Karajan Mozart's last work. His first recording in 1961 had triggered a quite different echo. Many critics were of the opinion that he had not drawn the musical structures and contours of the work clear enough. Me personally the devotional mood of the older production has always been impressed, but also here re-issued, the structural elements more strongly emphasizing recording from 1975 has its merits, and who did not agree with Karajan's interpretation at the time, which would have to be really fully satisfied here.
We hear this time a surprisingly vigorously drawn, very clear, very unindulgent Mozart representation. Although Karajan chooses once again the conventional Süßmayr version, but its concept is of extraordinary unity and great presence. This applies primarily to the instrumental parts, while the choir was not nearly captured so vividly, but more is my feeling at the expense of recording technology as the conductor. The quartet of soloists, consisting of Anna Tomova-Sintow (soprano), Agnes Baltsa (Alt), Werner Krenn (tenor) and José van Dam (bass), is good, but not optimal, and I confess that most of all I Anton Dermota and Walter Berry, who had participated in the earlier recording, miss.
The popular Coronation Mass was not one of Karajan's standard repertoire, and so one looks forward, that you can now also purchase under his leadership the work. But in the rank of the extraordinary his performance has not penetrated. Again, work with the same choir and the same soloists, and on the whole a sterling performance has arisen, in which there are no significant losses. Nevertheless, I must confess that from 1960 I prefer the old Markevitch production (DGG) in spite of harder sound image remains.
In both works play the Berlin Philharmonic, and they prove it again impressively their world class. The recordings were made in 1975 in the Berlin Philharmonic, and who is an admirer of Karajan, which they should not be missed, especially since they are accompanied by a good text supplement. The title page shows the original cover of the first edition LP, and that should delight especially the collectors.