Thread: Karajan's Beethoven Symphonies (1963) coming in October

Posts: 6

Post by zeus July 30, 2003 (1 of 6)
According to DG's web site. This will be a six SACD set with the last containing the 9th in rehearsal. Details here:

http://www.sacdinfo.com/showtitle.php?title=1329

Post by Dinko July 30, 2003 (2 of 6)
I was wondering what had happened to this set. It disappeared off Universal's 'future releases' page at consumers.umusic.com.

The question is however beyond the SACD concept: Even though this appears to be a nice set, and Karajan has yet to dissappoint, do I (or anyone else) really need another Beethoven cycle, be it Karajan on SACD, or Abbado (DGG) and Barenboim (Warner) on DVDA?

So far my personal answer is 'No'.

Post by zeus July 30, 2003 (3 of 6)
Dinko said:

The question is however beyond the SACD concept: Even though this appears to be a nice set, and Karajan has yet to dissappoint, do I (or anyone else) really need another Beethoven cycle, be it Karajan on SACD, or Abbado (DGG) and Barenboim (Warner) on DVDA?

So far my personal answer is 'No'.

If the transfer is nicely done, I'll buy it. I still have a mix of Karajan's recordings from different cycles on vinyl but they haven't survived the years well. Also Harnoncourt's set which is different enough to justify purchasing, though the sonics of this aren't up to today's standards. I think it would be great to have what is acknowledged to be Karajan's best cycle complete on SACD. Though if I already had this on CD, the quality of the transfer would be paramount.

Stephen

Post by nucaleena August 12, 2003 (4 of 6)
zeus said:

If the transfer is nicely done, I'll buy it. I still have a mix of Karajan's recordings from different cycles on vinyl but they haven't survived the years well. Also Harnoncourt's set which is different enough to justify purchasing, though the sonics of this aren't up to today's standards. I think it would be great to have what is acknowledged to be Karajan's best cycle complete on SACD. Though if I already had this on CD, the quality of the transfer would be paramount.

Stephen

stephen,
if the quality of the recent Karajan Beethoven 9th transfer (from his 1977 set) and re-issue is anything to go by, I'd be very careful about this set.

Post by peteyspambucket September 3, 2003 (5 of 6)
nucaleena said:

stephen,
if the quality of the recent Karajan Beethoven 9th transfer (from his 1977 set) and re-issue is anything to go by, I'd be very careful about this set.

I totally agree with nucaleena (once again). The Karajan Beethoven 9th had pretty awful sonics. Other than some extra clarity here and there (notably in the chorus), I think my LP sounded better than the SACD. :-D

Post by beardawgs October 9, 2003 (6 of 6)
Just got it yesterday from Amazon.de. Still didn’t have enough time to listen to all 6CDs (bonus disk is a no 9’s rehearsal, 30 mins), just played a bit of Symph. No 6, before I had to rush for work… NOTE: This is not a multi-channel mix, it took me a while to spot the lack of ‘surround’ logo on the sleeve.

I was never a great Karajan fun in Beethoven, but I got this expecting it will come in surround as all the other DG SACDs. Sorry for not giving more details right now, I will tell you what I think of this as soon as I manage to listen to it properly.

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