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DiscountDelight - Tchaikovsky: Symphonies no 4, 5, & 6 / Karajan, Berlin PO
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List Price: $17.98
Our Price: $12.93
Your Save: $ 5.05 ( 28% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0028945308821
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
Number Of Discs: 2
Publisher: Deutsche Grammophon
Release Date: 1997-07-15
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Much too fastly played for a true Russian flavour.
Comment: The problem with Karajan is that late in his career, he seems to look for the inventive by doing some extreme things with the music he is well capable of conducting. Although these recordings of the 4-6 of the Tchaikovsky symphonies were done in the seventies, the greatly exaggerated tempi is one of those features of his style that will drive you mad as a Russian afficionado.
For the price this is going, I was convinced to have a good deal, only to be disappointed by the resultive playing. You wouldn't expect such a renowned conductor and orchestra slander through such well known classical pieces, but unfortunately, that's what you get here.
Therefore, I'd recommend taking either the Gergiev or Jansons for the 5th, while Pletnev for the 6th remains the best choice still. For the 4th, Jansons seems to be the best bet too.
But, please, do yourself a favour, and let this Russian master delight you in a better way than these recordings can offer you. You'll be thankful, I'm sure.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The best recording of von Karajan
Comment: I have always been thinking that Tchaikovsky exists between Hollywood movie composers and Broadway musical writers; after all he was a man who wrote Swan Lake, Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty.
To me his position was not on serious side of vast universe of classical music.
Not until I heard the Path?tique symphony recorded by Karajan today.
My younger brother and I were sitting with my parents in our living room watching Toshiba black & white TV set when Herbert von Karajan first visited Japan to conduct NHK Symphony Orchestra in 1950s.
They were playing Beethoven 5th, but I was too small, five or six years old then to appreciate the music.
However, I clearly remember the profound silence followed the last coda of symphony.
I suspect my mother was crying. That was how we found the German conductor.
In college, I listened to Furtwangler.
I thought Karajan was lightweight in comparison with his great predecessor.
Especially for Beethoven, his interpretations were too modern and international, sans German spirituality.
But this performance of Path?tique has changed my perception of Karajan entirely.
The energy and passion is incredible, it equals to that of Eroica symphony recorded by Furtwangler in 1944.
Simply amazing!
Customer Rating:
Summary: The most penetrating account of the 6th on record
Comment: All three symphonies are superbly realized in this set. But the great climax in the 4th movement of the 6th symphony will simply leave you paralyzed. Karajan records Tchaikovsky's agony like no other conductor ever has or likely ever will.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Blinding virtuosity and strength
Comment: It's fair to say that all orchestras are not created (or built) equally and these discs of phenomenal playing with the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Herbert von Karajan are simply some of the best classical recordings ever made.
Analog sound was at its peak when these records were made in 1976 and 77 and DG has done an excellent job of remastering them for CD. But beyond that Karajan simply "gets" the composer--as another reviewer pointed out--and conducts with an intensity and passion he seldom showed in his other recordings and performances.
I'm listening to these discs once more on a massive sound system with doubled speakers to handle the '70s Kenwood beast amplifier and love it more than ever. As a reviewer once said of a classic Szell/Cleveland performance of Beethoven's Third, this is a reading of "blinding virtuosity and strength."
As a budget two disc set it is also, incredibly enough, cheaper than those old DG import records we bought (and scratched up) one by one in the seventies.
As I've said before, when you listen to a disc like this you realize why you went nuts for this kind of music in the first place. Buy it, blast it, love it, get your Slavic ya yas out!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Karajan "Gets" Tchaikovsky
Comment: Herbert Von Karajan mastered Tchaikovsky's symphonic form, as this set of Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies attest. Karajan conducted the ballet suites to Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker with great acclaim. I own those concert suites and this recording of the 4th, 5th and 6th symphonies, largely considered Tchaikovsky's most mature and musically powerful orchestral works. Far from being balletic pieces in the guise of symphonies, Karajan delivers the innately Russian fire and visceral qualities to some parts of the music. While the 4th is restrained, stately and somewhat dance-like and purely melodic, the 5th and 6th acquire a Beethovenesque and sometimes even Wagnerian quality. The 5th was a powerful piece of music, and eventhough it's quite long, it is exciting and climatic, and if done right, there is never a dull moment. Karajan is in his element conducting the 5th in particular. I can't describe in words the grandeur, the dramatic thrust and thrill it gives one upon hearing it. Karajan saw more than a romantically tragic figure in Tchaikovsky, he saw a Russian form of Mahler. The music is naked, raw and intense, and never more so than in the Pathetique. This last symphony was Tchaikovsky's Requiem in the form of a symphony. All his angst, his suffering, his crisis and his frustrations were expressed in harsh, intense and brutal music. It is one long cry of pain and a blow that brings death. Death looms large over the whole piece. Tchaikovsky, being the romantic he was, believed in the power of fate and felt his time was up, and that he was cursed for being gay. I'm very sure he felt this way for the music tells us so. Karajan gives the music an additional dimension of humanity and definate passion. The Berlin Philharmonic has never sounded better, and they harmonics and acoustics are great. The string section in particular is providing us with great musical execution. The trumpet, likewise, is terrifying and prophetic. This is probably the greatest rendition of the symphonies commercially available, but I would still consider Antal Dorati, Mariss Jansons and Claudio Abbado's recordings of these last symphonies.
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Editorial Reviews:
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This moderately priced package gives you the best of Herbert von Karajan's Tchaikovsky performances, and when he was "on" with this composer, he was very impressive indeed. These are exceptionally well played, exciting, even noble versions of the composer's three most popular symphonies, and although Karajan recorded each of them four or five times, this least expensive edition is still the one to get. --David Hurwitz
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