Lorin Maazel – The Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin Recordings (14CD Box Set)

The rich and colourful fruits of Lorin Maazel’s first important orchestral tenure, with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra: repertoire from Bach to Stravinsky moulded with the conductor’s renowned finesse and attention to detail. Maazel took over the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin after the death of Ferenc Fricsay in 1963. He and the orchestra had already worked together extensively, both in concert and on record, ever since he made his Berlin debut with them in 1955. The DG albums of Falla, Franck and Stravinsky are all enduring examples of Maazel’s art at its most sonically brilliant and dynamic, cultivating performances of the greatest agility and contrasts of colour from his players.

For Philips, Maazel and the RSO Berlin recorded mostly Baroque-era repertoire in an intensive series of sessions shortly after the beginning of his tenure as music director in September 1965. The Philips engineers had found an acoustically optimal venue at a church in the Spandau suburb of Berlin, and they set down several major works by Bach as well as the Water and Fireworks Music of Handel and the Stabat Mater by Pergolesi, with a magnificent vocal duo in Evelyn Lear and Christa Ludwig. Even at the time, the symphonic grandeur of Maazel’s interpretations was regarded as running counter to commonly accepted notions of Baroque style.

But then, as he explained to an interviewer, ‘We cannot recreate the outer circumstances that gave rise to artistic works of the past … What we can and should do is try as best we can to live up to their greatness in our own manner.’ Maazel’s manner is not so much old-fashioned as individualistic in its contrasts of tempo, smoothly cultivated string sound and high-impact attacks: this is hi-fi spectacular Bach. The Philips series continued with symphonies by Mozart (Nos. 38-41) and Dvorak (No. 9), also raised to rare peaks of expressive intensity. These recordings have never been compiled before, and they shed fresh light on the spectacular early career of a prodigy of the baton. Original Cover artwork is complemented by archive photography and a new essay on Maazel’s Berlin years by Peter Quantrill.