Customer Ratings & Reviews

Aurally, there is much to enjoy. The orchestra sounds great, and the soloists are fine. The engineering is wonderful, with close-up miking bringing out lots of vivid detail without sounding overly clinical. This is a typical great Karajan performance. Visually, it is a combination of live performance and after-the-fact studio reenactments of certain moments to focus one's attention on the woodwinds or the trumpets or whatever. That these inserts were staged is obvious by the reseatings of the players into perfect rows of rigidly held poses. I was disturbed by the technique, in which players appear to be performing under duress in unnatural positions. It struck me as pointless jiggering and unnecessary manipulation. The camera focuses on the conductor excessively. It is sort of interesting that he holds a baton without actually doing very much with it, since the hands themselves do all the communicating quite adequately. I do like the way that Karajan began the fourth movement hard on the heels of the conclusion of the third was preserved unedited. Though filmed in front of an audience, the applause at the end is not included. You expect a response to this Ode to Joy, and the silence you get instead dilutes the Joy. In short, you will enjoy this performance quite well on musical terms alone, but the thrill and sense of occasion is lacking.