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Title: Not a Karajan Standard
Review: Though to this day I consider Karajan to be unsurpassed as a conductor, this is one of the few of his recordings than can be avoided. As others have pointed out, the strings are particularly in Scheherazade polished but in the overall I get the feeling that the ensemble was not able to get their usual synergy. It sounds as little pieces of music put together one after another instead of a whole work. For Scheherazade I seriously recommend trying Gergiev's, Reiner's, Mackerras's or Kondrashin's. As for the 1812, again, not bad but far from being the best around.
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