Karajan Beethoven on Blu Ray

[richardfinegold]

I am currently listening to the entire early 60s cycle on one (1) Blu Ray Audio disc, about $20 from Zoverstocks, a purchase made 2 days after Brexit. I am currently listening in 2 channel after a brief multichannel audition. Sounds great either way, a clear improvement over the recently departed lps.
It is intelligently packaged so it fits in the CD shelves occupying the same real estate as one Jordi Savall disc. It plays on any inexpensive Blu Ray player. What a perfect medium for storing and improving collections. Would that more discs like this appear

[mathias broucek]

Interesting. do you have a link?

[richardfinegold]

Interesting. do you have a link?

Having trouble doing this on the iPad! If you type in Karajan Beethoven Blu Ray in the Amazon Search Engine, you'll find it

[Dave2002]

Try here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sinfonien-B...thoven+Blu+Ray Currently £16.35 + 1.26 postage - though there's also a link with CDs at around twice the cost.

[akiralx]

If you want the CDs as well as BD, this similar set which I got a year or so ago has them:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Karajan-Beethoven-Symphonies-Remastered--5/dp/B00KKXOT54/ref=sr_1_13?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1468562346&sr=1-13&keywords=karajan+beethoven+symphonies

Dearer of course - but remember this set cost just over half the average weekly UK wage when it first came out on LP...

[Dave2002]

Dearer of course - but remember this set cost just over half the average weekly UK wage when it first came out on LP...

That reminds me of lines from Adam Smith's book on the Wealth of Nations!

[mathias broucek]

Try here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sinfonien-B...thoven+Blu+Ray Currently £16.35 + 1.26 postage - though there's also a link with CDs at around twice the cost.

Thanks - was being dozy in my searching!

[PJPJ]

..........I am currently listening in 2 channel after a brief multichannel audition. Sounds great either way, a clear improvement over the recently departed lps.

A query about the multichannel option - is this 5.0 or 5.1? I assume it's artificial surround as DG wasn't recording quadraphonically in 1962. DG's website seems to indicate stereo only.

Karajan BD-A

[Gordon]

A query about the multichannel option - is this 5.0 or 5.1? I assume it's artificial surround as DG wasn't recording quadraphonically in 1962. DG's website seems to indicate stereo only.

Karajan BD-A

Around this time - ca 1961 - all major record companies were starting to think about mastering in more than 2 channels. Decca always liked to master to the final format ie 2 channels but did use multi-track for opera [esp Ring cycle which was being recorded around 1961-1965, Rheingold being 1958 and so most likely stereo] where voices and orchestra could be managed separately. Now the mould was broken from around 1961 when Decca's Phase 4 was launched and this famously [see the publicity of the time - try a google] used 20 channel mixers and a 4 track recorder, presumably an Ampex, possibly using wider tape than the usual 1/4 inch.

EMI's mixers were 4 channel capable but they did not go into production with a 4 track recorder of their own, the BTR4 which they had designed, they bought one from Telefunken in 1959 for evaluation and a Studer later in the 60s but that was for pop music esp Beatles [see book "Recording the Beatles" for lots of techy stuff] and used wider 1" tape. The Telefunken MAY have been used in some classical sessions. However, in 1961 even Studio 2 at Abbey Road was somewhat limited in its "stereo" for pop music sometimes having very clear "left" and "right" pan potting. Track count increased quite quickly in the 60s but not focussed on classical recordings, pace Phase 4.

It seems more than likely that DG would have been interested in providing a prestige artist like Karajan, newly signed to DG after a long period at EMI and Decca, the best/latest technology for a complete cycle of base repertoire. However I don't know whether they mastered in 4 track for this project but it was possible because suitable recording hardware was becoming available from German manufacturers at that time and could have been installed at their favourite Berlin venue of the Jesus-Christus Kirche in Dahlem. Most of the equipment used by DG would have been Siemens if only because Siemens owned DG. What we can say is that "multi-track" is not the same as "surround sound" in the sense of later quadrophonics like Ambisonics etc.

This photo is from 1964 with Bohm recording Zauberflote at J-CK - see the mixer with multiple inputs [can't see the faders but the studio shots show multiple mic's for orchestra and singers but the orchestra is mic'd for normal stereo] but note the recorder in the background - it looks very like a 1/4 inch type which is very unlikely to be other than stereo even in 1964. The control room does not look like it's equipped for "surround" listening either!! Interesting to compare this shot with similar ones from Kingsway or even Abbey Road No1 at this time. The Decca installation at the late Sofiensaal in the mid 60s was much grander!

No, it isn't Alan Titchmarsh at the extreme left, it's Otto Gerdes the producer!! Next to him with arms folded is the engineer so beloved of Karajan - Gunter Hermanns - who also recorded the Beethoven cycle from within this very control room.

[richardfinegold]

A query about the multichannel option - is this 5.0 or 5.1? I assume it's artificial surround as DG wasn't recording quadraphonically in 1962. DG's website seems to indicate stereo only.

Karajan BD-A

That is a good question. I just looked at the booklet as I eat my breakfast and it is mum about that. I had listened for a few minutes in a multichannel but then switched to my 2 channel system for the duration. I don't remember any subwoofer input but the fronts in my 5.1 system are full range floorstanders so it would have been a subtle bit of subwoofery even it was there. I will listen in multichannel again tonite and place my ear against the sub.
Quad first appeared in the early 1970s, and DG was a late adopter. Many of their Quad mixes are being released for the first time currently by Pentatone as 4.0 mixes.
I don't currently have another source for these Karajan recordings to compare, but I had listened to several of them a few months ago on lp as I was selling my turntable and lps. The new remastering has clarity and punch without the digital hardness that early CD transfers had. And it all fits on one disc!

[LHC]

A query about the multichannel option - is this 5.0 or 5.1? I assume it's artificial surround as DG wasn't recording quadraphonically in 1962. DG's website seems to indicate stereo only.

Karajan BD-A

I have the earlier release with the symphonies on CD as well as the Blu Ray, and I'm pretty sure the Blu Ray Audio disc is only 2 channel PCM audio, mastered at 24/96. There is no multichannel option. However, as well as all 9 symphonies, it also include audio of Karajan rehearsing three movements from the 9th Symphony.

The sound quality on the Blu Ray is exceptional, and much better than any of the previous CD releases.

[Dave2002]

The sound quality on the Blu Ray is exceptional, and much better than any of the previous CD releases.

You weren't supposed to write that!

Now I'll have to add it to my wish list, and figure out how to get sound out of my Blu Ray (hopefully not that difficult really - but does require some rewiring unless I want to listen via the TV speakers ). There's probably an optical out, so can be fed to a DAC, though that might be blocked by Rights Management fixes in hardware and/or software.

I don't want to have to buy yet another Blu Ray unit to make this possible - though I'm pretty sure that some modern universal ones would be very good.

Re the photo a few posts back, now we're in need of that "what's this thing called" template mentioned on another thread!

[HighlandDougie]

I'm pretty sure the Blu Ray Audio disc is only 2 channel PCM audio, mastered at 24/96.

That's absolutely correct. Like other Blu Ray re-releases of DG and Decca material (Karajan in Strauss; Kleiber's orchestral releases on DG; the Sibelius/Maazel cycle and so on) the Blu Ray is 2 channel only. As LHC says, though, the sound quality is exceptional. The Karajan Ein Heldenleben, hurtling towards its 60th birthday, sounds better than other recordings which are less than 10 years old.

[Gordon]

..........Re the photo a few posts back, now we're in need of that "what's this thing called" template mentioned on another thread!

Well, to avoid a lengthy quiz - the 2 on the left you already know about. I am informed by a person who should know that the next lady at the back is Sieglinde Wagner, then [front] Hildegarde Hildebrecht, then Cvetka Ahlin. Fritz Wunderlich is an easy one!. Karl Bohm is next, seated.

You can get some of these from the complete cast list of the recording which is still available -

http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/cat/4497492

but the intriguing thing is that some of these are not named on the LP or CD covers, they were part of the cast in minor roles when this shot was taken during the recording of that part of the opera which did not need all the principals, in this case the opening of Act 1.

The original photo, which I cropped, had Fischer-Dieskau too. Interesting that Bohm, in his only Kingsway recording of note, did Cosi with the Philharmonia in 1962.

I bought those Karajan Beethoven LPs as they came out and collected the tokens to get the box!! Good that they kept the rehearsal material as well which was supplied as an additional cheap sampler with the finale of the 9th on one side.

[Dave2002]

Following up from msg 12 - I'm not convinced I could play these on my Blu Ray system - or if I can, the sound quality would be limited if I use the speakers which came with it - http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/product/bdv-e300 Perhaps I could do better if I fed the HDMI output into an external AV amplifier, but that's yet again more kit that I don't necessarily want to get involved with.

Do most more modern Blu Ray players have a more useful set of I/O options, so that, for example, it would be possible to feed an audio output to a high quality DAC?