100 years of recordings from The Berlin Philharmonic...

[pastoralguy]

Has anyone bought this 50 set disc outlining highlights from The Berlin Philharmonic's 100 year recording activity? Mine arrived arrived this morning and it's very good. I see it's sold out in the Philharmonie's shop!

[pastoralguy]

I've just listened to Nikish conduct Beethoven's Fifth on November 10th 1913. Just incredible. Sound quality is remarkably good and the performance and playing is very fine indeed.

Just amazing.

[Stanfordian]

Has anyone bought this 50 set disc outlining highlights from The Berlin Philharmonic's 100 year recording activity? Mine arrived arrived this morning and it's very good. I see it's sold out in the Philharmonie's shop!

Hiya pastoralguy,

I had a look in the Philharmonie shop this evening in Berlin before the concert and yes they have all been sold in there too. I should think that the lengthy Musikfest Berlin 2013 held mainly in the Philharmonie the home of the Berliner Philharmoniker will have accounted for the high sales of the set.

[pastoralguy]

Hiya pastoralguy,

I had a look in the Philharmonie shop this evening in Berlin before the concert and yes they have all been sold in there too. I should think that the lengthy Musikfest Berlin 2013 held mainly in the Philharmonie the home of the Berliner Philharmoniker will have accounted for the high sales of the set.

Thanks for that, Stanfordian. Yes, I could imagine it would be popular. We're hoping to go to hear the Berlin Phil. in the Philharmonie in December. Can't wait!

[Colonel Danby]

When I was last in Berlin, I went on a conducted tour of the Philharmonie, which was great fun: at the end, they gave us all a free two CD set entitled "Welcome, Sir Simon" as Rattle had been recently appointed chief conductor of the orchestra. Something of a double edge sword, as I'd had a season ticket for the CBSO for the last 18 years in the glorious days of Uncle Simes in the Town and Symphony Halls in Birmingham, but I digress. Apart from his own stuff, EMI resurrected music from his predecessors: Karajan, Furtwängler, bawdy Claude of course, but miraculously the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony conducted by Arthur Nikisch. Considering that it was recorded precisely 100 years ago in 1913, the sound is quite simply astonishing.

Anyway, Rattle will leave the Berlin Phil in the next couple of years and return to blighty: sadly not to the CBSO, but to take over at the helm of the LSO, where his little helper Daniel Harding is already installed as guest conductor.

You heard it first from one in the know...

[pastoralguy]

When I was last in Berlin, I went on a conducted tour of the Philharmonie, which was great fun: at the end, they gave us all a free two CD set entitled "Welcome, Sir Simon" as Rattle had been recently appointed chief conductor of the orchestra. Something of a double edge sword, as I'd had a season ticket for the CBSO for the last 18 years in the glorious days of Uncle Simes in the Town and Symphony Halls in Birmingham, but I digress. Apart from his own stuff, EMI resurrected music from his predecessors: Karajan, Furtwängler, bawdy Claude of course, but miraculously the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony conducted by Arthur Nikisch. Considering that it was recorded precisely 100 years ago in 1913, the sound is quite simply astonishing.

Anyway, Rattle will leave the Berlin Phil in the next couple of years and return to blighty: sadly not to the CBSO, but to take over at the helm of the LSO, where his little helper Daniel Harding is already installed as guest conductor.

You heard it first from one in the know...

Many thanks for that, Colonel

[verismissimo]

I've just listened to Nikish conduct Beethoven's Fifth on November 10th 1913. Just incredible. Sound quality is remarkably good and the performance and playing is very fine indeed.

Just amazing.

We are so lucky to have Nikisch in the Fifth. Orchestras were difficult to record in the acoustic era (before the mid-20s). The companies mostly used singers and fiddlers.

I remember Boult waxing lyrical about Nikisch as the model conductor. Limited arm movements. Lots of cueing from the eyes. He was born in 1855 - five years before Mahler. And his career was centred on the Leipzig Gewandhaus and the Berlin Phil.

[verismissimo]

We are so lucky to have Nikisch in the Fifth. Orchestras were difficult to record in the acoustic era (before the mid-20s). The companies mostly used singers and fiddlers.

I remember Boult waxing lyrical about Nikisch as the model conductor. Limited arm movements. Lots of cueing from the eyes. He was born in 1855 - five years before Mahler. And his career was centred on the Leipzig Gewandhaus and the Berlin Phil.

Listening again: more portamento than now, less vibrato. As one would expect, I guess.

[gurnemanz]

Interested but decided despite good value it was a box too far. I want to get the Nikisch, though. Any views on whether to go for Dutton or Pristine.