Following on from last year’s 1960s box, here are Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic’s recordings for the yellow label from the 1970s, minus the operas. By this time Karajan was the dominating force behind the Salzburg Easter Festival and a towering figure in Austro-German musical circles. He was even more prolific as a recording artist than during the preceding decade. Like the 60s box this set boasts 82 discs, but Karajan also returned to EMI at this time to record with other orchestras as well as his Berliners.
He enjoyed the freedom to rerecord some of his core repertoire, namely the Beethoven and Brahms symphonies, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. The Beethovens, especially Nos 3, 6 and 7, are broader than their 1960s counterparts: stirring performances, but beginning to exhibit the glacial grandeur that the conductor was later accused of overdoing. The historically informed movement had not yet reached Beethoven, but it had reached Bach. Karajan continued to program Bach, Vivaldi and other Baroque masters, and his modern instrument readings sound leaner than might be expected (notably his 1978 set of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, though not his B Minor Mass or St Matthew Passion). In...