Hello from parochial Helsinki!

"Karajan was a great Tapiolist" - I love it! It was Karajan's Tapiola which introduced me to the work.

I'm loving these Sibelius talks Dave! Thank you so much for your efforts. Keep em coming! Now time to settle down and dig my paws into this one.

I just found out about your channel and immediately became a subscriber. A wonderful and informative video, can't wait to watch the rest of your videos. I'm very surprised to find out that Karajan didn't like Sibelius's symphonies 1 and 2. I fell in love with classical music at age 14 when one afternoon my father played the 3rd and 4th movements of the Sibelius symphony #2. But I understand why he liked 3 and above. It's because they reminded him of the "urwald' (the mysterious forest). Anyway, thank you so much Dave for an educational video.

Excellent talk, David! I have the box. Also, the EMI/Warner Karajan Sibelius box, too…. I think your comments on both are very insightful. I admit I love the consistent sound from the Jesus-Christus Kirche…. That Berlin 60s sound…

Given that Sibelius was considered virtually interplanetary by the Center of the Classical Music World (Germany/Austria) in the 60s, all the more remarkable that Lorin Maazel was able to whip the Vienna Philharmonic into such fine Sibelian shape in his wonderfully intense Decca cycle - including a fine 5th and the best 7th.

Back in the 60s, Sam Goody sold Karajan's DG Beethoven and Brahms Symphony LP boxes through mail-order at extremely affordable prices (full-page ad in New York Times Arts and Leisure section every Sunday). I was in High School and these were my introductions to these two composers (and I noticed that imported pressings were a big improvement over domestic record pressings). Other than these two boxes, DG was a premium label.

Kiitos, Dave!

Speaking of future boxes, I would love a Karajan Mahler box. Especially if it included video of his Mahler 5 rehearsals … of which I have seen a few snippets, and the film of his performance of the 5th. There is backstage video of a concert performance of the fifth which is quite fascinating.

As long as one doesn't go nuts, being an audiophile can be a manageable way to better enjoy the music, e.g., I have a two-channel setup, consisting over, gear-wise, of a turntable, a one-box universal disc player (cds, SACDs, Blu-ray discs, DVD-A, and an onboard DAC for streaming/digital files), a preamp w/ built-in phono-stage, an amp, two speakers, and cabling for it all- four boxes, two speakers. As a genre, classical music in particular has a great deal of well-made SACDs and LPs along with great cds and streamed sound, and there's a lot of great performances on SACD, for example. The improvements in the sound and therefore my enjoyment of it from better formats/masterings/amplification etc. are not profound, but they are worthwhile. The main thing audiophiles need to do to keep sane and not go overboard is to not seek perfection ('The Absolute Sound'), but just to find the reasonably 'acceptable semi-absolute' sound for themselves and then take a rest on that pursuit!

In the audiophile world, you'd think Janos Starker was the greatest musician of all time. They love (rightfully) their Mercury Living Presence, RCA Living Stereo, and recordings from the 60s upsampled to imperceptible levels of resolution. At least they are giving classical music a try instead of hours of Dark Side of the Moon, King Crimson, or Yes. This is coming from someone who has spent way too much on stereo equipment...almost as much as what I've spent on music because of this wonderful channel.

Thanks, Dave, for another great discussion. I own the original ‘tulip’ DGG LPs of HVK’s Sibelius from the 60’s which I purchased while in college. As a student I found these performances wonderful and illuminating. Recently, I have been revisiting them and still find that they have held up well over the decades. The DG sound from that era is often gorgeous (Thank you, Gunter Hermanns!). For some of us, a critical value of Dave’s presentations is that they often prompt one to go to one’s shelves and revisit ‘old friends’. --- As for the audiophilia, an area of hardware that has improved over the years encompasses turntables, cartridges, phono preamps, and record cleaning machines. A well-made, well-cared for, and well cleaned LP with music worth listening to is not an obsolete format and may, arguably, sound more musical overall than the CD (particularly in the upper midrange). Happy listening!

I suspect the stages of being an audiophile are much like those of a record collector.

Agreed with your comments on audiophilia. But I'm still an audiophiliac and much to my financial distress, I am a hopeless addict. I strongly remembert back in 1962 visiting a friend whose parents just purchased a stereo set up. We listened for hours to the sound of a ping pong ball being batted from left to right and a locomotive charging into his living room from right to left.

So much to comment on here! First, I have to confess to a preference for "big-band" lush voluptuous Sibelius. That means Ormandy, Koussevitzky, Barbirolli (yes, despite deficiencies), Davis, Ashkenazy, and, of course, Karajan. My first encounter with Karajan's Sibelius was his EMI Tapiola. That storm sequence blew me away (pun intended), and I went on to explore all of his DG and EMI recordings of the composer. My obiter dictum on these competing versions is: the DG are more luminously played and recorded, the EMI are more impactful but a wee bit heavier (the EMI First is almost Wagnerian, as are his Fourth and Fifth to a lesser degree). But all are wonderful. If I had to choose between them, I'd probably pick the DG. On the issue of audiophilia, I am an nonbeliever on continuous progress. For me, the LP was progress over the 78, and the CD substantial progress over the LP. That was the "end of history" as we recording enthusiasts know it. Yes, digital technology and especially remastering technology has greatly improved since the compact disc was introduced. Otherwise, I see little justification for incurring the expense of purchasing the equipment for the new media, and the sound carriers that are made for those media. In short, the compact disc is for me the ultimate listening medium for classical music. Much more could be said, especially about the "parochialism" of Europen cultures, but I will conclude by saying how much I appreciated your on-the-target comments on digital media and, more importantly, on Karajan's splendid Sibelius.

Thumbs UP & Loud Applause - I learn while being entertained - ++

Just to see what happens I listened to the Fifth on Blu Ray, just using the high res stereo option. I don’t have surround set up. Even this arrangement with nothing more than my usual CD system and a fairly inexpensive Blu Ray play delivered a substantially fuller sound. Funnily enough that’s not all gain: The ‘chill’ of the CDs actually works well with the music. That said, as sound reproduction it was very noticeably an upgrade.

And yes, you are right about the audiophiles, they are a bunch of fanatics. They try to mimic the concert hall by adding spatial effect, while conveniently disregarding the fact that the concert hall's sound is created by its structure, and so to create that effect you'd need to play the music in a place with a concert-hall-like structure. But here, the spatial effect that has already messed around with the sound would be changed again at home due to the resonating of the sound to the room's structure. So you would have the sound changed twice by the time you listen to the music. And how is that even "recreating the real sound"?

Sonic pudding! How did we ever do without that term until now? There is so much that qualifies!

About that European mindset that you talked about, I can assure you that Europe is not alone with such case ;) Where I live in the Eastern part of the Asia, a 2 hours flight mean you would arrive to a different countries with, though a lot of similarities, very different language, alphabet, dialect, cuisine, fashion, mindset, .etc. Take the city that I live in for example, a 45 minutes drive would mean that I've already gone to place where people live, think, eat, dress and speak very differently, even when it's the same country. A 2 hours drive to the mountainous regions would mean a place with absolute differences in lifestyle and mindset, and the dialect is so different that though we are speaking the same language, I could hardly understand what they are talking about. A 2 hours flight to a region within the country equals going abroad basically, and sometimes me and my friends could spend an entire day trashing their cuisine alone (which is the exact opposite of our region's cuisine) ;) So I do understand when Germans or Austrians think of Finland as some exotic realms far far away.

With Dave on the whole audiophile issue. Don't laugh, everybody, but I have an old Quasar CR19 rack system with a recently purchased Panasonic dvd/cd player. Windows open, cranking my classics through a pair of old Thrusters. Best sound ever.

GREAT DIGRESSION!!!!

Not being an audiophile (I’ve had the same basic system for 15 years), I’m still ok with taking advantage of my bluray player’s capabilities, which happens to have SACD capability (and a good onboard DAC). I don’t buy Bluray audio or SACD because they are in those formats, or care about 5 channel or Atmos, but if they fall in my lap (like the Karl Richter set or the Kertesz Vienna box, or that new Klemperer Amsterdam set, which is ONLY available as a Hybrid SACD release), eh, I’m ok with at least the 2 channel part of the whole mess. Ditto with streaming services that have titles in “hi-rez”. Still, I feel, if something sounds better in those formats it’s because it’s been mastered from better materials or with more care. I wonder what a Karajan Sibelius 3rd would have been like? Funny that he didn’t like the 1st or 2nd much but did them multiple times but didn’t do the 3rd. I suppose because the 3rd wouldn’t have sold as many copies?

BluRay Audio (BDA) - or BluRay tech in general - is highly affordable. One can get a player for next to nothing. My experience has been that BDA discs do improve the sound, and often more than marginally. In the case of the Sibelius set under discussion, the improvement is quite noticeable. I listened to the Karajan Sibelius BDA “in good old stereo” in its 24/192 remaster. Well worth the marginal expense to acquire this latest remaster. I don’t consider this to be an audiophile issue. It’s more like super CD. BTW - I recently bought a used Sony x800 player off ebay for under $100. It plays 4k, BluRay, SACD and - of course - CD. A very small expense to acquire the latest technology - and hard to resist adding to the stereo set-up.

Dear David! After listening the 5th following your chat from yesterday I checked in a very praised French speaking book from a very renown and respected author and edition: une histoire de la musique Lucien Rebatet , Robert Lafont. The very thin page about sibelius ended this way: " at 64, sibelius retired completely from a century were he didn't belong. Stravinsky said that he was the most BORING from the Serious Musicians. And we agree with that feeling" I should say I am shocked that a well respectful book make these kind of comments after listening to the 5th and today 4th by Karajan. I tried though to understand the comment... mabe they missed the flowing from the tonality that Haydn and beethoven developed. But that mean they passed aside of all the modal textures and emotions of sibelius... Vaughan williams...Braga Santos... Thank you so much!!

Dear Mr. Hurwitz, we are hundreds out there dying of curiosity and wanting to know about your sound equipment!

"Don't ask why" was a statement made by Karajan in English to Richard Osborne in an interview where he the full statement was something like that he considered Sibelius symphonies like "huge erratic blocks they are there no one knows why don't ask why they just are and you never seem to come to an end with him"

Yep audiophilia is a particularly form of mental abberation fueled by an industry that wanted to often sell you the same material you'd bought before - supposedly new and improved! Don't get me wrong sound quality (and I have my preferences for certain types of recorded sound) is important but basically if you can hear fairly faithfully what the musicians are doing and it's a great interpretation that's enough for me. Audiophilia in classical music is also often about trying to achieve the impossible - recreating a concert hall ambience in a considerably smaller space with less dynamic range. It's also about audiophiles often not really having an idea about what an instrument sounds like in a real acoustic anyway. There's a story, possibly apocryphal, which a friend of mine who worked in a hi-fi shop used to tell. It goes like this: There's a guy, who has a friend who considers themselves something of an audiophile. He regularly invites this friend when he gets a new piece of hi-fi to see what he thinks. Invariably the friend says something like yeah it's ok but not like the real thing. So this guy decides to play a trick on his friend - he has someone actually playing a violin behind a curtain and makes out he's playing a CD and it's a new piece of equipment he's demoing. He again asks what his friend what he thinks. Yeah it's an improvement but still nothing like the real thing! Just listen to the music.

Thank you Mr. Hurwitz, always a pleasure!

Please do that video on your audiophile years.

Yes! Thank you for the audio formats put-down! I think one of the really annoying things about that sort of stuff is that most people seem to confuse the format with the remastering. There *are* reasons for buying a new SACD version of X, sometimes: but those reasons aren't that SACD audio is 'better' than the original CD per se, but because the record company has remastered the recording and the remastering is much better than the CD original. Then audio nutters claim 'SACD is better than CD audio', etc. It's insane, but fools and their money are soon parted, I guess. Please do the audio demo talk: we need some plain speaking on the subject, I think!

There’s a reason I tell people I’m more of a musicophile than an audiophile - for me, as long as you have reasonably good sounding equipment, that’s all you need. I am more than happy to leave the arcane arguments and tens of thousands of dollars in expense to others.

I remember getting goosebumps listening to my parents scratchy old Beethoven records.

Thanks once again Dave. Yes, we've all met audiophiles who don't hear the music &, dare I admit it, have even been tempted once or twice down that arid road ourselves... remember Quad vinyl? Dear oh dear. Now that was a con! Karajan. Hmmmm. These are staggering performances. The quality of sound, the spotlight on particular details, the super-human perfection of the orchestral playing, the phenomenonal dynamics. I admire them but don't really like them, or anything much else Karajan did. They're monumental but somehow lack warmth; I search for a human pulse. All power, little heart; the blended sound banishing individual contribution. I don't feel comfortable with the Karajan aesthetic. There's something Leni Riefenstahl about it. Sibelius rendered as Riefenstahl did the Nubian warrior perhaps?

I've always wondered why Karajan didn't ever do the first Brahms Piano Concerto.

I enjoyed your diatribe against the silly and self-destructive audiophile format wars over the decades. The one thing I do like about these Universal sets with Blu-Ray discs is that I can pop one disc into my Blu-Ray player and listen to all of Kempff's Beethoven Sonatas, Argerich's Chopin, the whole Solti Rng, etc., etc., and not have to fumble with multiple CDs.

I think I prefer the later EMI recordings for their warm, atmospheric sound. Plus you get that great 1st. You are right about the 2nd, of course, though to be honest I don't think HvK was ever completely at home in the 5th either; its rhapsodic qualities escaped him. I'm okay with a quick 6th. I do enjoy Maazel's Vienna 6 on occasion. It brings out the neoclassical aspects. Obligatory lamentation that Karajan never recorded the 3rd. It might have been great.

I do like surround sound classical - if it's done right. And my old ears still appreciate what SACD can bring to music. But SACD players are outrageously expensive - upwards of $1000. But Blu Ray players are cheap - and sound excellent. I do wish these companies would make it possible to buy just the Blu Rays without the cds - you can save a huge amount of shelf space with them. And Karajan is first-class in Sibelius.

As much as I love Karajan, I find a lot of his Beethoven and Brahms negligible (though his first two recordings of Beethoven’s 5th for DG are magnificent). His Sibelius, however, is truly special. And as an aside, you are right about the Anthony Collins cycle; it’s garbage. I bought it because I was sucked in by all the hype. What a waste of money that turned out to be! Anyway, the Sibelius 6th and Tapiola with Karajan are absolutely, hypnotic, spellbinding, and as atmospheric as you could want. Symphonies 4, 5, and 7 are all superbly done as well. Dave, I agree with your assertion that Karajan was really at his best when he conducted works outside the standard Austrian-German repertoire. For example, His Tchaikovsky 6th with Berlin is another one of my reference recordings. I just want to add that the fact that there are so many Sibelians out there is really inspiring and heart warming. I value all of your comments and appreciate your engagement on this channel. You truly are a lovely bunch. Keep on listening and commenting. 🙂

Hello Dave. I would like to ask you if you own the Complete Sibelius edition on BIS? Best wishes Fred.

I'm 76 so I remember when stereo records first came out. You had to have a stereo record player, not just for the sound, but for the stereo needle. And do you remember Quadraphonic?

I'd like to request a review of the new Bruno Walter complete box set, please. Thank you

4:45 Not that it matters but I cannot even begin to describe how much I disagree with it. A correctly recorded surround is much better than stereo but it does require a proper speaker setup. The entire room comes alive which never happens with stereo. Not because of rear channel effects (although this does happen in some pieces) but because of that _hall presence_ that appears.

Electronic tech is cheap as chips. What is good is that one can find very affordable systems (playing CDs I specifically refer to), that deliver great sound and without any fuss about audiophile considerations. To each his own. Whatever pleases and sounds sweet to thine own ears!

I loved the audiophile talk, having never been an audiophile meself. Makes me feel very smug as I do most of my listening in the car with a reasonably decent bass response. One thing I'll always be grateful for was the way listening choice was expanded when back catalogues got remastered, from the late 80s on. So you could get Furtwangler, Walter, Giulini's Don Giovanni and so many other things. It was the opening of Aladdin's Cave for me. Also, cassettes became really cheap when CD was launched - so I got Karajan's 60s Sibelius 5 plus the violin concerto and Tapiola if I remember correctly - all on one reasonably sounding good value tape. Until my mate Mike fast forwarded it while it was playing and it got stretched. Another favourite was Bernstein's Bartok with Stern, which I adored, also on cassette. Not a big deal, but for me it was, having just been introduced to orchestral music by Mike the tape stretcher. And I may be weird but I still prefer the 60s recordings, especially in the version of Tapiola in which the analogue storm is better for my money. Now, you used the word 'spooky'. Entirely agree. Classic recordings, all of them. A great talk. Oddly, I prefer Barbirolli's At the Castle Gate with the Halle. Mad right? Karajan's comments about Sibelius and Tchaikovsky are puzzling. Yes, the influence is obvious but at the same time the music is obviously NOT Tchaikovsky. And then again Karajan loved Tchaikovsky, so why object?

The record industry, specifically the classical music industry went the opposite way of what the public wanted. The public wanted the convenience of downloads and streaming and portability in the form of music players like the iPod. The record industry came up with esoteric super-high quality formats like SACD and surround sound that requires you to fill your living room with speakers, things that no one but audiophiles would be excited about.

I am not yet a Sibelian - is the DG box a good place to start???

"Don't ask why" is, surely, an allusion to Marlene Dietrich belting out Kurt Weill's "Alabama Song" ("Oh, don't ask why. Oh, don't ask why.") -- in English!

Blown away in the same manner, Karajan DG. But no mention of the equally monumental 5th, Dave...?

I'm gradually catching up with your reviews, starting with the Repertoire videos. Great job! I also look forward to your future episodes with audiophile stories. Now it seems high res audio is the fashion, with classical music companies releasing everything in at least 24 bit 96khz format and some in SACD/DSD format. Do you think the traditional Red Book CD format is still all you need to enjoy all the details and sound quality that classical music offers? Thanks.

Hello. I think you are missing an important point which is Theodor Adorno's influence in Germany.

I'm an audiophile actually (but so are you Mr. Hurwitz or you wouldn't have a humongous GOAT KZfaq channel devoted to every squeak, chirp, and blast ever recorded in the classical music world). HMost of the audio 'goodness' i.e. LPs and analog produce pitches that are inaudible anyway. Realistically, MP3 sounds just as good as 'lossless' on most stereos, but I always go for Flac/Mp4a lossless anyway (I have great speaker and an awesome wolfer). Sound depends on two things- the recording itself (duh), and the speakers you are listening from. If you have good speakers like me (we don't want to miss any details!) you don't need an 'equalizer' or other software modification. The ripping process can also ruin music. If you rip CDs on Apple, then it's usually best to play through Apple (instead of Pioneer or something) though it usually does not make a difference. How audio works and is transmitted from the recording mixing to your ear is fascinating, but it's a supplemental hobby to the real hobby- listening to music. Classical is acoustic, so those are the sounds we want to hear. If you're into techno, you can really indulge that audiophile proclivity, but, why? The bottom line is that if your orchestrial works sound like shit (muddy or wimpy), then something is wrong with one of the three varibales-- recording, amp, speakers, and you need to troubleshoot. It's very simple actually.

I got tired of hearing audiophiles droning on about the technical marvels they had just purchased, or wanted to own. In many cases, it was more about bragging rights on the speakers, etc, than about the music.

I never understood why he didn't record the 3rd..

I also have all the EMI Karajan Edition Philharmonia recordings. They are very, very good. I agree that the later EMI 2nd is bland but the Philharmonia one is a knockout....close to reference in my opinion.

I care much more about the music and performances than audio quality. The easiest way to deal with the format proliferation was to buy a universal player that handles any kind of disc and also streams digital audio.

No mention of the 7th Symphony?

My dad, an audiophile himself, would sometimes invite his audiophilic friends to come over, and he would intentionally play solo or chamber music to ask for their opinions. The answer that he gets the most is "Your system is lacking in bass". I mean, how the heck can a sonata for piano and violin or a wind quartet has a lot of bass? All these people who claim to love the real sound of music and spend tens of thousands of US dollars (my dad knows some guys who spent hundreds of thousands) have no clues whatsoever about what the "real sound" is. Our family goes to the concert hall a lot, and I can tell that the mid-range stereo system with mostly good old stuffs from the 50s, 60s that my dad has, which costs him only his free money, sounds far more "concert-hall-like" even in Mahler or Strauss than that surround sound thingy.

Did they fix the gap in the middle of the seventh?

At what age do disenchanted audiophiles begin to grumble about how "advances" in technology are either a complete sham or negligible? Dvd-A, Single Bit, SACD, Hi-Res, MQA, Blu-Ray, Streaming, etc. What does your audiologist say?

Great discussion that raises questions about whether Sonics or musicality and performance is more important. There must be a threshold here of how good the sound has to be in order to enjoy and appreciate the music and the performance. I think of when most people’s access to classical music, especially opera, was either on radio or on 78’s. Were they enjoying the music? No doubt yes. Are those historical records no longer listenable? Yes and no. Some of them are amazing performances despite their sound limitations. How many hours of great pleasure did I have as a kid listening to music in mono on my father’s hi-fi? Thousands. And how much incremental pleasure came from stereo? Well, not as much as you would expect. And then the move to CD’s, which was first a reduction of pleasure. Analog vs. Digital? Again not nearly as important as the musicality and performance itself. There must be a middle zone where a threshold of good sound is necessary to appreciate the music and the performance, below which it takes away from listening but above which it adds little or nothing. Perhaps with age my hearing has declined, but the equipment I have for playback from 25 years ago still serves me well. Finally, my best friend upgrades his stereo yearly. He prefers what he calls “clarity” in his playback while I prefer a warmer sound. De gustibus non disputandum est. Thanks for a great discussion.

I had a mini-disk player for a while. Thought it was the wave of the future. Swamped by newer stuff. I’m not overly impressed by blu-ray either. But at least you can buy a very cheap player to play the disks. Mini-disk is compatible with nothing.

David, do the CDs sound better than previous incarnations (like the Original Image Bit edition)? Thanks! :)

LOL. Dolby ATMOS is NOT audiophile...

David, I am a little disappointed that you did not comment on the atrocious cover of the new box, which shows Karajan's ghostly visage emerging from what I suppose is meant to resemble the Northern Lights. More pastels from Universal! However, as you have said before, it's the music that is most important. On the question of sound, I notice that a few people have asked whether the CDs offer any improvement over previous incarnations. I listened to the opening of the second and third movements of the 4th, comparing the originals release, the Karajan 60s box and this latest cd version, back and forth several times (how sad). I couldn't discern any difference in sound. That said, I notice that for each CD in the new box the booklet indicates "CD BD-A", which may suggest that the CDs themselves have benefitted from a further remastering.

Behave yourself LOL!!! Tapioca indeed!!!

Dolby Atmos (which I only use on headphones) can really add to the listening experience. You only need to listen to the Atmos remix of Leonard Bernstein’s recording of West Side Story for an example of absolutely thrilling spatial imaging. What DG have now done with a LOT of their catalogue titles in a faux Atmos attempt is to simply add some generic reverb effect to the existing stereo mixes - that obviously already *have* the acoustics of the recording venue baked in - resulting in a hopelessly soupy, echoey mess… of which these Karajan Sibelius recordings are yet further embarrassing, unlistenable examples. And yeah, Dudamel’s Mahler 8, although not of the faux Atmos variety I just described, does not sound very convincing at all. Krystian Zimerman’s new Beethoven piano concerto recordings are easily more convincing in terms of spatial imaging, but not to a degree that really adds to good stereo. The standard stereo of those recordings sound worse than the Atmos version, though. My feeling there is they should have given their love to the stereo, and just not do an Atmos mix.

Ah, the audiophiles and their $1000 cables (sorry, «interconnects»). Personally, I have attended enough concerts and recitals that my brain reproduces the sound of the instruments/vocalists even when I listen on a small transistor radio ... (Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit.)

This sounds like a good set for someone who's never invested in all of the previous sets, but a nightmare for the obsessive completist hoarders :) A good review by the way, and far better than those written by the overabundance of self- indulgent technophiles who can't help themselves from giving you a complete bio of their audio systems. I'm like "yeah, I know that you take your SACD Blu Ray to bed with you and make love to it every night - I just want to know if Tapioca sounds good or not".

His soapy string playing never fails to put me off

I'm sorry, but I love Sibelius, but find von Karajan for the most part repulsive. Sibelius spoke from his soul. Von Karajan conducted as if he still remembered the soul which he had discarded for the sake of his career and its performance goals of cleanliness and perfection. His soullessness is why he continued to record pieces of music to which he had no connection. I know that everyone will disagree with me, and I just don't care. Go for it.