You could say
Karajan's
Mozart and
Haydn were too much like his
Beethoven and that his
Beethoven was too much like his
Wagner. You could say
Karajan's
Bruckner was too much like his
Wagner and his
Wagner was too much like his
Strauss. But no matter what, you had to say that his
Strauss was like nothing else but
Strauss. What was
Karajan's
Strauss like? Check out these recordings with the
Berlin Philharmonic and find out. His 1973 Don Juan is vigorous and decadently voluptuous. His 1973 Till Eulenspiegels is witty and incredibly weighty. His 1974 Also sprach Zarathustra is lovely and enormously loud. His 1973 Dance of the Seven Veils is sensually and monstrously sexual. His 1981 Eine Alpensinfonie is so gargantuan that it sounds as if the whole mountain range was recorded live on location. His 1986 Vier letzte Lieder with
Anna Tomowa-Sintow is not so much a farewell to life as it is the ecstatic embrace of death. The
Berlin Philharmonic plays like the world's greatest
Strauss orchestra. The remastered sound is the best Deutsche Grammophon has ever given these recordings. Say what you will about
Karajan's
Mozart,
Haydn,
Beethoven, or
Bruckner, his
Strauss is as good as it gets.