The young American Lorin Maazel, who first conducted an orchestra at the age of 12, was something of a whizz-kid and intellectual. He spoke four languages fluently. His memory was famous, not just for musical detail but for bar numbers and tempo indications, and he learned scores quickly.

At certain times in his career, mostly later, this led to accusations of conducting by rote. He was often regarded as meticulous but cold and disengaged. There were two major exceptions to this during his recording career: The first covered his early recordings (for DG and Philips) in Berlin; the second was his Decca period in the 1970s, after he inherited Georg Szell’s crack Cleveland Orchestra.

Lorin Maazel

Lorin Maazel. Photo © Decca/Elfriede Hanak

The earliest mono recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic and French National Radio Orchestra for DG were issued in a box set in 2004. Now, we get the rest: 14 stereo CDs recorded between 1958 and 1967 with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. Maazel’s precision is here touched with youthful brio to produce performances both disciplined and vivid.

At this time, each recording was still an event for him, and you can...