![King Crimson - Larks’ Tongues in Aspic (40th Anniversary Edition) (1973/2023) [High Fidelity Pure Audio Blu-Ray Disc]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2024/05/12/138741_front.md.jpg)
Karl Bohm & Berliner Philharmoniker – Mozart: The Symphonies, Vol. 1 (1969) [Japan 2018]
SACD Rip | 4x SHM-SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 382:03 minutes | Scans included | 15,3 GB
or DSD64 2.0 Stereo (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Some Scans included | 15,0 GB
or FLAC Stereo (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Some Scans included | 8,06 GB
Renowned as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, Karl Böhm was entrusted in the 1960s with recording all of the Mozart Symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. His interpretations, captured here, are lauded as brisk and rhythmically robust. These performances are warm and genial, with bold contrasts of dynamic and well-sprung rhythms, is that for the players as well as the conductor this was a voyage of discovery, and their enthusiasm never wanes.
Read more
Wilhelm Furtwängler & Berliner Philharmoniker – Schubert: Symphony No. 9 “The Great” (Remastered) (1942/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 49:11 minutes | 841 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alexandre Bak – Classical Music Reference Recording
The Symphony No. 9 in C major, D 944, known as The Great, is the final symphony completed by Franz Schubert. It was first published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1849 as “Symphonie / C Dur / für großes Orchester” and listed as Symphony No. 8 in the New Schubert Edition. Originally called The Great C major to distinguish it from his Symphony No. 6, the Little C major, the subtitle is now usually taken as a reference to the symphony’s majesty. Unusually long for a symphony of its time, a typical performance of The Great lasts around one hour when all repeats indicated in the score are taken. The symphony was not professionally performed until a decade after Schubert’s death in 1828.
Read more
Berliner Philharmoniker – The Unsuk Chin Edition (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:59:26 minutes | 1,66 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings
The music of Unsuk Chin is a magical realm in which new perspectives are constantly unfolding. Labyrinths of novel sounds and complex structures can be followed by moments of transcendental beauty. For us as an orchestra, this world poses certain challenges — indeed, it is part of Unsuk Chin’s style to test the limits of performing techniques. Or, to put it another way, she lets us show off our strengths. Her inventiveness exemplifies the inexhaustible vitality of today’s music. These qualities have made Unsuk Chin one of few composers with whom we’ve collaborated so frequently and productively.
Read more
Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan – Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op.36 (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 43:02 minutes | 872 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
The Karajan Official Remastered Edition comprises 13 box sets containing official remasterings of the finest recordings the Austrian conductor made for EMI between 1946 and 1984, and which are now a jewel of the Warner Classics catalogue.
For many, Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989) – hailed early in his career as ‘Das Wunder Karajan’ (The Karajan Miracle) and known in the early 1960s as ‘the music director of Europe’ – remains the ultimate embodiment of the maestro. The release of the Karajan Official Remastered Edition over the first half of 2014 marks the 25th anniversary of the conductor’s death in July 1989 at the age of 81.
He was closely associated with EMI for the majority of his recording career (specifically from 1946 to 1960 and then again from 1969 to 1984). EMI’s legendary producer Walter Legge sought him out in Vienna just after World War II and the long relationship that ensued embraced recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Philharmonia (the orchestra founded by Legge), the Berlin Philharmonic (of which Karajan became ‘conductor for life’ in 1955), the forces of La Scala, Milan, and the Orchestre de Paris.
The Karajan Official Remastered Edition will feature primarily symphonic and choral music. The entire edition will comprise recordings remastered from the original sources in 24-bit/96kHz at Abbey Road Studios, the world’s most renowned recording studio.
Read more
Berliner Philharmoniker, Kirill Petrenko, Kirill Gerstein – Rachmaninoff 150 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:00:51 minutes | 766 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings
The Berliner Philharmoniker pay tribute to the Russian jubilee: Rachmaninoff 150 Juxtaposes an outstanding performance of the famous Second Piano Concerto with Kirill Gerstein and Kirill Petrenko with a selection of solo works for piano.
Read more
Gundula Janowitz, Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan – Strauss, R.: Four Last Songs; Orchestral Works (1995)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:09 minutes | 1,40 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Recorded between 1969 and 1972, this celebrated Strauss album from Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker includes what is still widely considered the benchmark version of the Four Last Songs, sung by Austrian soprano Gundula Janowitz. The centrepiece of the programme is coupled with Karajan’s glowing account of Strauss’s tone poem Tod und Verklärung and the late Metamorphosen. Janowitz’s ethereal performances of these most famous of orchestral songs written for soprano have challenged all comers for decades.
Read more
Berliner Philharmoniker, Hansjörg Albrecht – The Bruckner Symphonies, Vol. 7 – Organ Transcriptions (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:55 minutes | 1,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Oehms Classics
This series marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Anton Bruckner, which falls in 2024. It’s dedicated to Bruckner’s symphonies, most of them recorded in new transcriptions for organ by Hansjörg Albrecht. The 8th recording was made on the organ at Gewandhaus in Leipzig with the transcription of Bruckner’s 7th Symphony by Erwin Horn.
Read more
Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan – Strauss, R.: Also sprach Zarathustra; Till Eulenspiegel; Don Juan; Salome’s Dance Of The Seven Veils (1995)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:19:11 minutes | 1,40 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Herbert von Karajan’s 1973 recording with the Berlin Philharmonic is so immovably etched upon the collective consciousness that this comparative essay feels almost redundant – why would you not want a part of this slice of history? When Karajan went for a remake in 1983, again with the BPO, the fire had snuffed itself out: textures and dynamics are homogenised and inertia hangs heavy. Karajan’s 1959 dummy run with the Vienna Philharmonic (the recording Kubrick plundered) is very much work-in-progress. With more patches than the cloakroom of a Mayfair gentlemen’s club – and with the organ part inelegantly dropped on later – this grimly determined reading is heavy going.
Read more
Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan – Strauss, R.: Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40, TrV 190 / Wagner: Siegfried-Idyll, WWV 103 (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:27 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
This reissue combines a pair of classic performances from Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker spanning almost two decades. The tone poem Ein Heldenleben by Richard Strauss is a 1959 recording while Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll dates back to 1977.
Read more
Sir Simon Rattle, Berliner Philharmoniker – The Asia Tour (2018)
PS3 Rip | 5x SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 216:51 minutes | Cover + PDF Book | 3,48 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Cover + PDF Book | 4,5 GB
In November 2017, the Berlin Philharmonic gave a series of concerts in Hong Kong, China, South Korea and Japan. It was the last tour of Asia that Rattle would undertake as the orchestra’s chief conductor, and their performances are thoroughly documented on these discs. Four of the discs are derived from the final pair of concerts, which were given in Tokyo’s magnificent Suntory Hall, while the other, a performance of Ravel’s G Major Piano Concerto with the winner of the 2015 Warsaw Chopin competition as soloist, was recorded in the Berlin Philharmonie before the tour began. he recordings are astonishingly vivid, and the whole set provides a very impressive showcase of the Berlin Phil’s current condition as it nears the end of Rattle’s reign.
Read more
Simon Rattle, Berliner Philharmoniker – Brahms: The Symphonies (2009) [Reissue 2011]
PS3 Rip | 3x SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 166:25 minutes | Basic Covers included | 6,7 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Basic Covers included | 2,77 GB
This recording of Brahms’ four symphonies suggests that Simon Rattle has given little thought to the works. Rattle leads the Berliner Philharmoniker in respectable performances, with the details all in place, the tempos all moving forward, the harmonies all connected, and the themes and their developments all coherent. The Berlin musicians play with unsurpassable virtuosity. From the brilliant brass in the First’s finale’s coda to the characterful woodwinds in the Second and Third’s central movements to the sumptuous strings of the Fourth’s second movement, the orchestra demonstrates that it is manifestly one of the world’s very best. There is nothing here, though, to indicate that Rattle is truly involved in the performances. One listens in vain for a conductor’s trademark interpretive touches: faster or slower tempos, bigger or smaller accelerandos and ritardandos, unusual and unlikely inner voices. But nothing disturbs the surface of the music as it rolls onward without any untoward — or even interesting — incidents to impede its stately progress. A comparison of Rattle’s cool interpretations with any of the orchestra’s great performances of Brahms’ symphonies (notably the robust heroics of Abbado, the lush lyricism of Karajan, or the monumentality of Furtwängler) shows how much the English conductor is missing in these scores. Abbado, Karajan, Furtwängler, and many others reveal Brahms’ symphonies as the finest works in the form since Beethoven’s. Rattle makes them sound like just four more Austro-Germanic symphonies between Beethoven’s and Mahler’s, more interesting than Bruch’s, perhaps, but nothing special. EMI’s live digital recording is thick and heavy, with too little light and color.
Read more
Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle – Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1-9 (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 05:43:32 minutes | 5,88 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Recordings of all the Beethoven symphonies with their chief conductor are always a milestone in the artistic work of the Berliner Philharmoniker. So it was with Herbert von Karajan and Claudio Abbado, and expectations are correspondingly high for this cycle conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Where does the special status of these symphonies come from? Simon Rattle has an explanation: “One of the things Beethoven does is to give you a mirror into yourself – where you are now as a musician.” In fact, this music contains such a wealth of extreme emotions and brilliant compositional ideas that reveal the qualities of the orchestra and its conductor as if under a magnifying glass.
Read more
Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle – Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1-9 (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 05:43:32 minutes | 11,17 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Recordings of all the Beethoven symphonies with their chief conductor are always a milestone in the artistic work of the Berliner Philharmoniker. So it was with Herbert von Karajan and Claudio Abbado, and expectations are correspondingly high for this cycle conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Where does the special status of these symphonies come from? Simon Rattle has an explanation: “One of the things Beethoven does is to give you a mirror into yourself – where you are now as a musician.” In fact, this music contains such a wealth of extreme emotions and brilliant compositional ideas that reveal the qualities of the orchestra and its conductor as if under a magnifying glass.
Read more
Scorpions & Berliner Philharmoniker – Moment Of Glory (2000) [Reissue 2002]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 70:14 minutes | Scans | 4,5 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | 61:37 mins | Scans | 1,23 GB
Features Stereo & Multichannel Surround sound | Genre: Rock, Classical
On the heels of Metallica’s similarly conceived S&M comes the Scorpions’ Moment of Glory, a presentation of past favorites (plus three new songs) with full orchestral backing courtesy of the Berlin Philharmonic. The rock instrumentation blends in best on the ballads, but some of the up-tempo rockers can also be pretty exciting, if a little bombastic. That said, the Scorpions’ music isn’t always complex enough to suggest interesting ways of augmenting the original arrangements – but since this is more a specialty item for diehards in the first place, that won’t likely matter in the end. Some fans may be disappointed that Klaus Meine gives way to guest vocalists on a couple of tunes, but overall, this is a variation on the Scorpions’ signature sound that loyalists will probably enjoy quite a bit.
Read more
Berliner Philharmoniker, Simon Rattle – Robert Schumann: Symphonien 1-4 (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:04:45 minutes | 2,15 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
For Simon Rattle, Robert Schumann is “the echt Romantic”. And in fact, the exuberance of the period, its passion and its melancholy can be heard with unique intensity in Schumann’s music to this day. For the Berliner Philharmoniker, Schumann’s symphonies have always been part of their core repertoire. The 1953 Wilhelm Furtwängler recording in particular has attained cult status. And so it only stands to reason that the Berliner Philharmoniker should launch their Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings label with a cycle of the four Schumann symphonies.
Read more