Karl Böhm – The Unreleased Berlin Recordings 1962 (UHQCD)

Böhm was 68 years old when he took the baton in his hand to conduct the Radio Symphony Orchestra on October 29, 1962 in the legendary Hall 1 (Studio Number One) of the broadcasting company on Kaiserdamm in Berlin. The program included Johannes Brahms’ “Symphony No. 4” and “Death and Transfiguration,” a tone poem by Richard Strauss. For decades, Böhm had carefully crafted every melodic line, every harmony, and every tempo. “The Lost Recordings” now unearths this treasure trove, which has been slumbering in the archives for many years, and makes this outstanding recording available to us for the first time on a UltraHighQualityCD.

Frédéric Doria-Nicloas, one of the musical treasure hunters at The Lost Recordings, comments on the process of creating “Karl Böhm – The Unreleased Berlin Recordings 1962”: “After more than a year of working with Berliner Rundfunk, we finally found a solution to access their database and are preparing our third trip to Berlin. The broadcasting company provided us with a studio where we could store all our material. We identified 78 analog tapes, including Maria Callas, Erroll Garner, Dexter Gordon, Donald Byrd and: Karl Böhm. These recordings from 1962 are among the first in history to be made in stereo. Böhm’s versions of Brahms and Strauss are captivating.” The critic Marcel Prawy wrote: ”The words used to describe great conductors are well known. Their conducting is fascinating, extraordinary, simply ingenious. Dr. Karl Böhm simply conducts with authenticity.” There could be no greater compliment. Speaking of Death and Transfiguration, recorded on that day in October 1962, musician and broadcaster Clément Rochefort, who speaks of this “adventure in sound and metaphysics”, says that the Radio Symphony Orchestra had an extremely masterful conductor at its helm: Karl Böhm.

To reproduce the warmth, colors and dynamics of this outstanding performance, unearthed after more than sixty years, as faithfully as possible, The Lost Recordings was able to call upon the talent of the original Berlin sound engineers and to have several weeks of restoration work carried out by their own teams. The painstakingly restored recording comes as a high-quality UHQCD. “The Lost Recordings” is celebrated worldwide for preserving invaluable musical heritage and for the unsurpassed quality of its Phoenix-Mastering™ restorations. “Karl Böhm – The Unreleased Berlin Recordings 1962” is an audiophile revelation too!

UHQCD stands for Ultimate High Quality Compact Disc and is a joint development of the Japanese CD replication company Memory-Tech and the Audio Quality CD Company from Hong Kong. Unlike conventional CDs, UHQCDs are not pressed from polycarbonate, but cast from a photopolymer and cured with UV light. Another layer of high-purity polycarbonate is applied to the softer photopolymer for scratch protection. The combination results in significantly reduced reflection of laser light inside the CD and an unmatched precise edge transition between pits and lands of the CD. UHQCDs are 100% compatible with standard CD players. Musically, the result is a sound image strongly reminiscent of analog master tapes.

Lista pieselor

Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)

1.    Symphony No. 4 In E Minor, Op. 98

I.    Allegro Non Troppo

II.    Andante Moderato

III.    Allegro Giocoso

IV.    Allegro Energico E Passionato

Richard Strauss (1867 – 1916)

2. Death And Transfiguration, Op. 24