Berlin

October 2022

Berlin,
Back in the German capital

The German radio archives seem inexhaustible to us. This time, we focused our research on Lorin Maazel, Alicia de Larrocha, and Julius Katchen. Another recording caught our attention: this time, a studio session by Erroll Garner...

The gems of this trip

Tape No. 1

Tape No. 1

ALICIA DE LAROCHA

THE UNRELEASED BERLIN STUDIO RECORDINGS 1968 • 1970

As one anonymous admirer said at a 1982 concert, "Alicia walked forward with the slow gait of a pavane, as if emerging from a Goya painting, sat down at a piano that seemed too big for her, and slowly placed her hands on the keyboard." She was suddenly the queen.

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Tape No. 2

Tape No. 2

ERROLL GARNER

THE UNRELEASED BERLIN STUDIO RECORDINGS 1967

Only a few weeks before this innovative album was recorded, Garner was in a Berlin recording studio at the helm of his new group comprising Ike Isaaks on bass, Jimmy Smith on drums and Jose Mangual on bongos for a brief, inspired session that somehow remained unpublished until today. In a laid-back atmosphere, they play an entrancing yet familiar repertoire of both timeless standards (Autumn Leaves, The Shadow of Your Smile, Blue Moon and These Foolish Things) and two original themes, including his favourite composition, Misty. The pianist is superbly accompanied by a rhythmic section that is elegant, minimalist and effervescent, and delivers the simple quintessence of his poetry almost as if by accident.

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Tape No. 3

Tape No. 3

LORIN MAAZEL

The Unreleased Berlin Recordings

It is in the archives of Berlin Radio that The Lost Recordings rediscovers these unreleased recordings from October 1969 in Berlin Radio's Saal 1. Carried by his inspiration, Lorin Maazel reaches new heights of refinement and expressive intensity.

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Tape No. 4

Tape No. 4

KARL BÖHM

THE UNRELEASED BERLIN RECORDINGS 1962

Böhm was 68 years old when, on 29 October 1962, he took up the baton in the legendary Saal 1 on Kaiserdamm Strasse in Berlin to conduct the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester. The programme comprised Symphony No. 4 by Johannes Brahms andTod und Verklärung(“Death and Transfiguration”), a tone poem by Richard Strauss. For decades, Böhm had finely worked each melodic line, each harmony, each tempo...

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Tape No. 1

Tape No. 1

JULIUS KATCHEN

The Unreleased Studio Recordings

It was in the archives of Berlin radio that The Lost Recordings discovered these previously unreleased studio recordings, made in the now-famous Saal 3 on Kaiserdamm Street. Julius Katchen, a child prodigy who became a complete artist and died at only 42, offers us here a program as virtuosic as it is poetic, featuring works by Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Liszt.

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