Considered one of Verdi’s most challenging works, Don Carlos gets the royal treatment in this production at the Salzburg Festival directed by Herbert von Karajan. Verdi’s opera demands soloists of incredible technical ability who are also capable of communicating their character’s struggles with exceptional expressiveness. Inspired by Schiller’s eponymous historical tragedy, Don Carlos explores the conflicts between 16th-century European society and the heavy-handed political influence of the Catholic Church, as well as the roles of liberty and religion in the life of modern man.
Don Quixote
Enter the extravagant universe of Cervantes’s Don Quixote in Richard Strauss’s symphonic poem performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker under the direction of Herbert von Karajan, legendary personality of the 20th-century European musical scene. Strauss gives musical life to some of the novel’s most famous episodes, including the battle with the sheep, the windmills, and the encounter with Dulcinea. Having already recorded the work with Pierre Fournier and Rostropovich, in this version Karajan approaches an even greater level of perfection with the young cello virtuoso Antonio Meneses, winner of the 1982 Tchaikovsky Competition.
Ein Heldenleben
“It is entitled ‘A Hero’s Life,’ and while it has no funeral march, it does have lots of horns, horns being quite the thing to express heroism. Thanks to the healthy country air, my sketch has progressed well.” With these words Richard Strauss evoked the connections between his symphonic poem Ein Heldenleben and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica”. A great connoisseur of Strauss’s oeuvre, Herbert von Karajan tackled the piece in 1985 as part of a series including Don Quixote, Thus spoke Zarathustra, and Death and Transfiguration. The Austrian maestro’s authority and mastery express themselves with éclat in this performance featuring his trusted artistic collaborators, the musicians of the Berliner Philharmoniker.
Karajan conducts Famous Overtures
The collaboration between Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker was one of the most productive and influential in the history of music recording. Famous during his life for having re-recorded his emblematic repertoire (Beethoven, Brahms, and Bruckner) as a sort of definitive final artistic testament, the Austrian conductor also dedicated certain programs and recordings to fragments of works, all the while preserving pieces’ integrity and the rigor of his musical direction. This concert from 1985 is an example of his subtle and intelligent approach, combining overtures by Beethoven and Brahms into a single, illuminating program.
Karajan conducts Debussy & Ravel
Celebrated for his intimate knowledge of the symphonic contributions of German Romanticism’s great masters, Herbert von Karajan also explored the masterpieces of French composers with the Berliner Philharmoniker in great detail. His almost-obsessive quest for sonic perfection was particularly intriguing when applied to French Impressionism, like the classic works featured here. Debussy’s La Mer depicts the magnificent land- and seascapes associated with the ocean and draws inspiration from the visual artwork of Turner and Monet, and the Suite No.2 from Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et Chloé paints its subjects so clearly that the listener can almost see them. It was the composer himself who spoke of a “choreographic symphony” bringing the love story of the shepherd and his lover to life.
Jubilee Concert – 100 Years Berliner Philharmoniker
Who better than Herbert von Karajan, the Berliner Philharmoniker’s only conductor-for-life, to celebrate the 100th anniversary in 1982 of the orchestra’s founding? In this exceptional concert, the famous Austrian maestro conducts Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica”, whose lively revolutionary character that perfectly suits the orchestra’s vast interpretive powers and corresponds well with the mood for the celebration of the founding of the trail-blazing orchestra a century before.
Beethoven Cycle – Symphony No. 9
Official anthem of the European Union since 1985, the final movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (nicknamed the “Ode to Joy”) has become a symbol of peace and brotherhood. Although the Viennese public failed to appreciate a number of the composer’s later works, the premiere of the Ninth Symphony proved to be an incredible triumph for the ailing Beethoven—suffering by that time from total deafness, but nonetheless well enough to be present in the hall to enjoy his creation’s success. Experience the beloved masterwork in this powerful performance by Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker!
Beethoven Cycle – Symphony No. 2
Experience the captivating musical partnership of the Berliner Philharmoniker under Herbert von Karajan in this exceptional performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2. Relatively obscure because of the incredible legacy of the symphonies that followed it, the Second was composed around the time when Beethoven learned that the deafness beginning to envelope him could never be cured… a dark moment captured in his Heiligenstadt Testament, an emotional letter written to his brothers in which he confided his desperation and suicidal thoughts. Dedicated to his patron, the former Mozart student Karl Lichnowsky, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 is shaped by the symphonic tradition founded by Mozart, whose works the younger composer greatly admired. The Second marks the end of a musical age and the dawning of a new epoque for the symphonic genre, with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” coming just around the corner…
Beethoven Cycle – Symphony No. 3 “Eroica”
The great Beethoven specialist Herbert von Karajan leads the Berliner Philharmoniker in a once-in-a-lifetime interpretation of Beethoven’s beloved Symphony No. 3. A great admirer of the young French Republic’s ideal of liberty at the turn of the 19th century, the composer initially dedicated what was called the “Bonaparte” Symphony to the diminutive French general. Unfortunately, Beethoven’s anger and disappointment at learning that the liberator had turned into an authoritarian emperor—as Victor Hugo would put it, “the Napoleon was starting to show behind the Bonaparte” (i.e. the tyrant was beginning to show through the hero)—led him to re-baptize the symphony as the “Eroica” and dedicate it to his patron, the Prince Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz. The energy of Beethoven’s heroic gesture is incarnated in a work that intrepidly breaks with its symphonic predecessors.
Beethoven Cycle – Symphony No. 4
Celebrated for his interpretations of Beethoven’s oeuvre, the great conductor Herbert von Karajan conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker in the composer’s Fourth Symphony. When Beethoven visited the summer residence of the famed Viennese musical patron Prince Lichnowsky, the Count Franz von Oppersdorff met the composer and fell under the spell of his Second Symphony. He offered Beethoven a considerable sum of money to compose a new symphony in the same joyous mood as the Second, leading to the genesis of the Symphony No. 4, which in turn was dedicated to Oppersdorff himself.