While noted for his interpretations of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Bruckner and Strauss, Bohm is generally not the first conductor I think of when it comes to Beethoven. That said, he has always proven to be a gifted accompanist, and that holds here as well. He and Pollini seem to share a similar vision for this work, and thus both the soloist and orchestral forces work towards the same end goal.

Mozart was the only composer to successfully conquer this hybrid form. For him, an orchestral serenade meant a large work (often nearly an hour long) combining all of the parts of a symphony with several aspects of the concerto. There are marches, minuets, and sections featuring a solo violin or horn. Karl Bohm was a Mozart specialist–his interpretations have just the right combination of discipline and spontaneity. This is music from an era when the pace of life was much more leisurely than it is now. So sit back, relax, and enjoy.

I think Karl Böhm's live performances of Strauss operas represent some of his best work; this is a companion piece to his live Daphne which has yet to be bettered despite being another elderly, live recording, albeit in narrow stereo. It is in comparatively restricted mono but one soon forgets that, given the quality of the performance.

The Magic Flute (German: Die Zauberflöte), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form during the time it was written that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on 30 September 1791 at Schikaneder's theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, just two months before the composer's premature death. Still a staple of the opera repertory, its popularity was reflected by two immediate sequels, Peter Winter's Das Labyrinth oder Der Kampf mit den Elementen. Der Zauberflöte zweyter Theil (1798) and a fragmentary libretto by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe titled The Magic Flute Part Two.

The Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, is a work for piano and orchestra completed by Johannes Brahms in 1858. The composer gave the work's public debut in Hanover, the following year. It was his first-performed orchestral work, and (in its third performance) his first orchestral work performed to audience approval.

"Bravo Mozart!" exclaimed Emperor Joseph II as he stood up and tipped his hat at the end of the first performance of Piano Concerto No. 18 KV 456 , played by Mozart himself on 30 September 1784.

Recorded - Grosser Saal, Musikverein, Vienna 27th May 1953. During the 1950's, Karl Böhm made a handful of orchestral recordings for Decca with the Wiener Philharmoniker of, music by, among others, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Weber. Reappearing here, for the first time on CD, internationally, are his swift recordings of Beethoven's Eighth and of two Schubert symphonies (Nos. 5 and 8). Never imposing his will too strongly on his Viennese orchestra - and they had these classics in their blood - he directs performances that are fresh and gives full rein to the Vienna Philharmonic's wonderful tonal resources. Add the acoustic of the Grosser Saal at the Musikverein, familiar as daily bread to all the participants, and you have the best kind of tradition.

The pearl of great price: the German tenor who could make you wish to retract all you ever thought, wrote or spoke about the species, the Mozart tenor who could sound both elegant and manly, the singer who could almost persuade you that Strauss loved the tenor voice as he did the soprano. We hear Wunderlich in this collection additionally as Rossini’s Almaviva, scrupulous with his triplets and almost as careful with his scales. His “Il mio tesoro” drops not a semiquaver and takes the long phrases with confident ease.

These recordings of Mozart's concertos for flute and orchestra, and the concerto for flute and harp, were made exactly a decade apart. In the flute concertos (No. 1 in G and No. 2 in D) the accomplished soloist is Karlheinz Zöller, who performs with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Bernhard Klee in these 1972 accounts. These are spirited, shapely performances, attractively balanced and nuanced, with rapturous, eloquent readings of both slow movements.

This DVD of Ariadne is a 1978 film based on Filippo Sanjust’s Vienna State Opera production. The bustling Prologue is set in the backstage area of the mogul’s palace and the 18th century costumes fit neatly. In the opera proper, the stage is transformed into a very stagey desert island with an improbable set of stairs leading to the heroine’s cave, the action spilling over into the theatre’s side boxes at times. While there’s nothing particularly imaginative about the production, it never distracts from the main event–the music. Strauss was profligate in his melodic gifts, his ability to make a reduced orchestra sound big, and his wonderful obsession with the female voice, which yields many glorious moments in the opera. Lavish casting helps.

Josef (1827-1870), Johann (1804-1849), Johann Jr (1825-1899) Strauss. Strauss is the name of a legendary Austrian family dynasty that has produced several waltz composers and outstanding band masters, and one of the members also wrote well-known operettas.

Teresa Stratas has been called the world's greatest living singing actress, and she is seen and heard at the peak of her powers in the title role of director Götz Friedrich's spine-chilling version of Salome. on of the most highly acclaimed opera films ever made - with Strauss's score in the expert hands of his protégé Karl Böhm, conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.

…[Böhm] may be an octogenarian, but he directs the opera for the most part with a spirit and an urgency that many a young man might envy. Most of the accompanied recitatives are alert and fiery, and in this particular work they carry a great deal of the emotional weight. Here and there I find myself at odds with a choice of tempo. Especially in the closing scenes, some of the orchestral recitative seems to need to go more slowly; it is inclined to lack the proper sense of momentousness. I was a little surprised too at the quickish tempo for the opening aria and, most of all, for the great quartet in Act III, which has more turbulence and urgency than usual, particularly with its sharply contoured dynamics and its incisive accents.

Bohm conducts Bruckner's 1889 revised score which represents the composer's final thoughts on his Third Symphony. As Bruckner matured - artistically speaking - his thoughts turned towards a more Beethovenian "Classical" view of symphonic music, in the Brahms mould, and the references to Wagner's - the Third's dedicatee - music were excised, all but one, from the score of the Third Symphony. This purity of symphonic form allowed Bruckner to present his musical thoughts in such a way that the music's inner logic conveyed a more well-structured architecture, allowing Bruckner's - and not Wagner's - voice to ring-out, loud and clear.