Karl Böhm The Unreleased Berlin Recordings 1962 UHQCD

Böhm was 68 years old when he took up the baton to conduct the Radio Symphony Orchestra on 29 October 1962 in the legendary Hall 1 (studio number one) of the Rundfunkgesellschaft am Kaiserdamm in Berlin. The program included the "Symphony No. 4" by Johannes Brahms and "Death and Transfiguration", a tone poem by Richard Strauss. For decades, Böhm had finely worked out every melodic line, every harmony, every tempo. "The Lost Recordings" now unearths this treasure that has been slumbering in the archives for a long time and makes this outstanding recording available to us for the first time as an UltraHighQualityCD.
Frédéric Doria-Nicloas, one of the musical treasure hunters of The Lost Recordings, comments on the creation process of "Karl Böhm – The Unreleased Berlin Recordings 1962": "After more than a year of working with Berliner Rundfunk, we have finally found a solution to access their database and are preparing our third trip to Berlin. The radio provided us with a studio where we could store all our material. We identified 78 analog tapes, including Maria Callas, Erroll Garner, Dexter Gordon, Donald Byrd, and Karl Böhm. These recordings from 1962 are among the first in history to be made in stereo. Böhm's versions of Brahms and Strauss are intoxicating." The critic Marcel Prawy wrote: "The words used to describe great conductors are well known. Her conducting is fascinating, extraordinary, simply brilliant. Dr. Karl Böhm simply conducts with authenticity." There can be no better compliment. The musician and radio announcer Clément Rochefort, who speaks of this "adventure in sound and metaphysics", says of "Death and Transfiguration", recorded on this day in October 1962, that the Radio Symphony Orchestra had an extremely masterful conductor at its head: Karl Böhm.
In order to faithfully reproduce the warmth, colours and dynamism of this outstanding performance, which has come to light after more than sixty years, The Lost Recordings was able to harness the talent of the original Berlin sound engineers and have restoration work carried out by their own teams for several weeks. The elaborately restored recording comes as a high-quality UHQCD. "The Lost Recordings" is celebrated worldwide for the preservation of priceless musical heritage and the unsurpassed quality of its Phoenix mastering™ restorations. "Karl Böhm – The Unreleased Berlin Recordings 1962" is also an audiophile revelation!
UHQCD stands for Ultimate High Quality Compact Disc and is a joint development of the Japanese CD replication company Memory-Tech and the Audio Quality CD Company from Hong Kong. UHQCDs, unlike conventional CDs, are not pressed from polycarbonate, but cast from a photopolymer and cured with UV light. To protect the softer photopolymer from scratching, another layer of high-purity polycarbonate is applied. The combination results in a significantly reduced reflection of the laser light inside the CD and an unrivalled precise edge transition between pits and lands of the CD. UHQCDs are 100% compatible with normal CD players. Musically, the result is a sound that is strongly reminiscent of analog master tapes.

Selections:

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Symphony No.4 In E Minor, Op.98
1. I. Allegro Non Troppo
2. II. Andante Moderato
3. III. Allegro Giocoso
4. IV. Allegro Energico E Passionato
Richard Strauss (1867-1916)
5. Death And Transfiguration, Op.24