Mozart was Josef Krips’s yardstick in music: ‘My maxim is that everything has to sound as though it were by Mozart, or it will be a bad performance.’ Collected here are his Mozart symphony recordings with the Concertgebouworkest for Philips (1972–73), including a rehearsal sequence for Symphony No. 33, as well as the celebrated 1955 Vienna Don Giovanni for Decca. These are surrounded by the rare ‘live’ recording of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, his stereo Decca recordings of symphonies by Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Tchaikovsky, and a previously unpublished overture by Weber.

LIMITED EDITION.

By the time stereo technology had become standard in the mid-1950s, Josef Krips had built an impressive recorded legacy for Decca documented in a companion set of mono recordings from Eloquence (Josef Krips Edition – Volume 1). Decca captured the conductor in several stereo remakes of canon repertoire – the last two symphonies of Schubert, Schumann’s Fourth, the ‘Haffner’ and ‘Jupiter’ of Mozart – always with something deeper and wiser to say about repertoire which he had been exploring for 40 years and more, affording absorbing comparisons with his mono versions.

Complementing his mono-era version of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Krips recorded a stereo Don Giovanni, now with a more international, less Viennese cast headed by the vocally sensuous Don of Cesare Siepi and complemented by Fernando Corena as Leporello. Other vocal treasures in the set include Inge Borkh on imperious form in Beethoven, Weber and the closing scene of Strauss’s Salome.

Also located in the Decca archive was a stereo recording of Weber’s Oberon Overture, now published for the first time. With the Vienna Symphony Orchestra we have a live recording of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with star soloists Fritz Wunderlich and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.Too little of Krips’s work outside the Austro-German canon was preserved on record, as the beautifully moulded shape and definition of his 1958 Vienna Philharmonic version of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth demonstrates.

You would easily guess from it that Mozart was Krips’s yardstick in music, and for Philips he finally made a thorough-going survey of the mid-period and mature symphonies, from No. 21 onwards, which he had performed throughout his life. When released in France in harness with the early symphonies led by Marriner, the set included Krips leading a rehearsal sequence of Symphony No. 33 with his characteristically affable authority, and this has been released internationally for the first time on CD. As for the symphonies themselves, Krips sustains them with a natural warmth and breathing pulse that has always placed them in the top rank of ‘traditional’ performances. The conductor’s legacy is addressed in a new essay by Niek Nelissen. Photos and original jackets evoke the 50s and 60s as much as Krips’s music-making.

TRACKLISTING:

LONDON

CD 1
SCHUMANN Symphonies Nos. 1 & 4
London Symphony Orchestra

CD 2
SCHUBERT Symphony No. 9
WEBER Overture: Oberon*
London Symphony Orchestra

*PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED

VIENNA

CD 3–5
MOZART Don Giovanni
Cesare Siepi · Fernando Corena · Suzanne Danco · Lisa Della Casa · Anton Dermota · Kurt Böhme · Hilde Gueden · Walter Berry
Wiener Staatsopernchor
Wiener Philharmoniker

CD 6
R. STRAUSS: Salome (closing scene)* · BEETHOVEN: Ah, Perfido! · WEBER: Ozean! Du Ungeheuer! (Oberon)
Opera and Concert Arias
Inge Borkh; Wiener Philharmoniker

*FIRST INTERNATIONAL RELEASE ON DECCA OF STEREO VERSION

CD 7
HAYDN Symphonies Nos. 94 & 99

CD 8
SCHUBERT Symphony No. 8
EINEM Symphony No. 1*
Wiener Philharmoniker
*Zubin Mehta

CD 9
BRAHMS Symphony No. 1
Wiener Philharmoniker

CD 10
MEMORIES OF VIENNA

J. Strauss II: An der schönen blauen Donau; Accelerationen; Kaiserwalzer; Rosen aus dem Süden; Frühlingsstimmen (vocal version)*
J. Strauss II / Josef Strauss: Pizzicato Polka
Josef Strauss: Dorfschwalben aus Österreich (vocal version)*
*Hilde Gueden; Wiener Philharmoniker

CD 11
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5
Wiener Philharmoniker

CD 12
MAHLER Das Lied von der Erde
Fritz Wunderlich; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Wiener Symphoniker

AMSTERDAM

CD 13
MOZART Symphonies Nos. 36 & 21
Concertgebouworkest

CD 14
MOZART Symphonies Nos. 29, 27 & 22
Concertgebouworkest

CD 15
MOZART Symphonies Nos. 30, 23 & 28
Concertgebouworkest

CD 16
MOZART Symphonies Nos. 25, 24 & 26
Concertgebouworkest

CD 17
MOZART Symphonies Nos. 38 & 31; Andante, K.297
Concertgebouworkest

CD 18
MOZART Symphonies Nos. 32, 34 & 33
Rehearsal for Symphony No. 33*
Concertgebouworkest

*FIRST INTERNATIONAL CD RELEASE

CD 19
MOZART Symphonies Nos. 39 & 40
Concertgebouworkest

CD 20
MOZART Symphonies Nos. 41 & 35
Concertgebouworkest

TEL AVIV

CD 21
MOZART Symphonies Nos. 41 & 35*
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra

* FIRST INTERNATIONAL CD RELEASE