These are splendid Wagner performances, full of guts and devoid of the fussiness and overly smooth legato that so often make Karajan’s recordings a chore. I have always preferred his Berlin EMI recordings to his DG efforts, on the whole. There are times when the Berlin Philharmonic sounds like a different orchestra, with brass that don’t all lump together (check out the opening of The Flying Dutchman or the Tannhäuser Overture), and climaxes that benefit from more-than-usual bite.
Karajan begins with a noble but fluid Meistersinger Prelude, whips the Venusberg Bacchanal into a fine if silly-sounding lather (Wagner’s fault, not Karajan’s), adds a noble Lohengrin Prelude, and concludes with a marvelously lush Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde. It goes without saying that the strings play magnificently throughout, but they are much better balanced against the rest of the ensemble than was Karajan’s wont, and EMI’s remastered sound has great richness and immediacy. No Wagner collection should be without this disc.
