Edition Karl Böhm
Vol. 8

Karl Böhm and Richard Strauss: A congenial artistic friendship"Meeting this ingenious man was of the highest significance to me", Böhm writes in his autobiography. He was referring to Richard Strauss. During the 1930s, a relationship developed between the two artists which far exceeded a purely artistic partnership. Strauss' particular esteem of Böhm culminated in his "artistic testament" which Strauss sent to Böhm in 1945 and in which he, amongst other things, specified his thoughts on the future of opera. The music of Richard Strauss was to remain a focal point in the repertoire of Karl Böhm. As he worked on many scores together with the composer, his Strauss interpretations can be called "authentic" - such as these recordings, officially issued on CD for the first time, of "Don Juan", the "Alpine Symphony" and the famous suite of waltzes from "Der Rosenkavalier". These recordings were made between 1952 and 1954 with the RIAS Symphony Orchestra, only a few years after the death of the composer. Böhm's Strauss interpretations convince due to their clarity and the consistency of the overall conception. Lines and contours are marked out clearly. Böhm succeeds in organising the complex sound and maintains the proportions of the Strauss scores in an authoritative manner.The production is part of our series "Legendary Recordings" and bears the quality feature "1st Master Release". This term stands for the excellent quality of archival productions at audite. For all historical publications at audite are based, without exception, on the original tapes from broadcasting archives. In general these are the original analogue tapes, which attain an astonishingly high quality, even measured by today's standards, with their tape speed of up to 76 cm/sec. The remastering - professionally competent and sensitively applied - also uncovers previously hidden details of the interpretations. Thus, a sound of superior quality results. CD publications based on private recordings from broadcasts or old shellac records cannot be compared with these.

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Rec. Berlin 1952/54