Catalogue | Orchestra

Edition von Karajan (II) – W. A. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 & Symphony No. 41 ‘Jupiter Symphony’

• Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K 466
• Allegro (14:06)  
• Romance (09:09)  
• Allegro assai (07:35)  

• Symphony No. 41 ‘Jupiter Symphony’ in C major, K 551
• Allegro vivace (08:11)  
• Andante cantabile (09:04)  
• Menuetto. Allegretto (04:54)  
• Molto Allegro (05:54)  

The present studio production was recorded on the occasion of the Mozart anniversary in 1956 when the orchestra gave three concerts from January 21st to 23rd. It shows Karajan as a Mozart interpreter of great stature and striking originality. Karajan discovered in Mozart‘s scores not only a great wealth of orchestral timbres but the musical structure within these colors. His presentation is absolutely faithful to the text and subtle in its phrasing. Together with the Berlin Philharmonic Karajan sculpts the forms with utmost sensitivity to the sound. Shunning rhetoric and virtuosity, Karajan‘s Mozart has a magic all its own that never once becomes mawkish or sentimental. The pianist in the D-minor Concerto, Wilhelm Kempff, is an equally superb artist of intimately gradated color.

Herbert von Karajan was not the least problematic of Mozart conductors. His late recordings in particular sound as if he wanted to transfer the late-romantic sound of Wagner, Bruckner, and Strauss to Mozart‘s refined classicism. However, the performance presented here with its stylistic balance between surging sound and attentive instrumental dialogue, has even today a claim on more than just historical interest.

There is a “Producer’s Comment” from producer Ludger Böckenhoff about this production.