Mozart: The Symphonies - Karl Böhm & Berliner Philharmoniker (1959-1968) [Blu-ray]

Karl Böhm’s legendary recordings of the complete Mozart Symphonies on 10 CDs and newly remastered in 24bit/192kHz on 1 high fidelity Blu-ray Audio disc

60pp booklet (English, German, French and Japanese) with essays on Böhm as Mozartian by Peter Cosse; and on Mozart as a symphonist by Heinz Becker

Limited Edition slipcase with mint-packs

*****
Born in Graz, Böhm was engaged as a conductor at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in 1921, before he was 30. Six years later he was appointed General Musical Director in Darmstadt, moving to the Hamburg Opera in 1931. From 1934 to 1943 he was in command at the Dresden State Opera. He became one of the most passionate admirers and powerful advocates of the music of his friend Richard Strauss, but it was the music of Mozart (his greatest love) which was always at the centre of his own work as a conductor.

As director of the Vienna State Opera (1943–45, and again 1954–56), and unofficial “General Musical Director of Austria”, and as one of the busiest conductors at the Salzburg Festival from 1938 onwards, in the concert hall and in the opera house, he devoted all his strength and his judgement to the study and performance of Mozart – a task he carried out modestly, unassumingly, and not least with unquenchable good humour, to an advanced age.

The Austrian conductor’s emphasis on rhythmic, textural and structural clarity, and his natural, unforced approach to music-making are hallmarks of a Mozart style which was unaffected by fashion or by compromise, and earned the epithet “timeless” even in his own lifetime.