This compilation draws Christmas music from several recordings conducted by the late Herbert von Karajan, but emphasizes two of them, both from the 1960s: a collection of Baroque Christmas pieces in a mostly pastoral vein, and an LP on which he and the Vienna Philharmonic backed the great African American soprano Leontyne Price. Neither of these recordings is easy to obtain these days, and Karajan aficionados may well be pleased to have them in a single package. Beyond that, the Price pieces, from her heyday, are gorgeous.

Deutsche Grammophon has created a landmark new edition that offers a cross-section of the great German conductor’s career in all its remarkable creative phases. Wilhelm Furtwängler – Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon and Decca, which commemorates the 65th anniversary of his death on November 30, 1954, comprises 34 CDs and a DVD of his irresistible 1954 Salzburg Festival Don Giovanni performance, as well as in-depth essays and analysis from critic and blogger Norman Lebrecht and broadcaster Rob Cowan. The release is also backed by contextual information and video interviews contributed by critic and blogger Norman Lebrecht.

The Wiener Philharmoniker, conducted by James Levine, presents a delightful selection of highlights from Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte, K620” in this exquisite recording. The album encapsulates the essence of Mozart’s final opera, offering listeners a curated experience of its most memorable moments.

Gulda was equipped with a special affinity and an ideal mindset for Mozart's music, with a special closeness of the interpreter to the composer: each garnered acclaim as a child prodigy and were gifted improvisers with a kind of provocateur and penchant for irreverent humor. His 1974-1975 Vienna Musikvereinssa collaboration with the Wiener Philharmoniker & Claudio Abbado is considered "the work of an artist entirely sure of his vision" (Gramophone).

"Bravo Mozart!" exclaimed Emperor Joseph II as he stood up and tipped his hat at the end of the first performance of Piano Concerto No. 18 KV 456 , played by Mozart himself on 30 September 1784.

"Nicholas Harnoncourt's venture into the late 19th-century repertory tends to provoke ideologically-motivated reactions, either for or against, "historically-informed" performance practice. I think it's more rewarding to approach his outstanding recording of the Bruckner 7th symphony, done with the Vienna Philharmonic, as stemming from a strong interpretive vision of the 7th, one that is allied to some of the performance practices that Harnoncourt has advocated in his career."

"Bernstein stamps his outsize personality on every bar and regularly has you convinced it is Mahler's own" (Gramophone). Leonard Bernstein, whose performances of the Seventh were instrumental in pushing the woek towards mainstream status, conducts it here with white-hot communicative power. When he prepared the huge "Symphony of a Thousand" with the Vienna Philharmonic for the 1975 Salzburg Festival there had been only one previous Austrian performance. The DVD encompasses the exultancy of the opening movement, Mahler's setting of the final scene from Goethe's Faust, Bernstein drives the music to the final redemptive blaze of glory.

Very late in his career Sándor Végh came together with the world class orchestra renowned for its supremely Viennese interpretations of Mozart: the Vienna Philharmonic. It was not until 1991 that Végh and the orchestra worked together briefly, in the Konzerthaus in Vienna, and this led to a memorable concert during the Mozart Week, on 30 January 1992 in the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg. Two of the “late” Mozart symphonies were played, the Symphony in G minor, K. 550 and the Symphony in E flat major, K. 543. The recording of this legendary interpretation can be heard on the third CD in the edition.

"Bernstein stamps his outsize personality on every bar and regularly has you convinced it is Mahler's own" (Gramophone). Bernstein's youthful, urgent conducting of the Fourth takes a refreshing slant on the symphony's classical temper, while in the Fifth he coaxes from the Vienna Philharmonic a detailed response to the work's tragic beginning and triumphant conclusion. The reverie of the Adagietto is uniquely intense in this performance. Bernstein's thrilling traversal of the epic Sixth Symphony comes from the end of his Mahler cycle in Vienna, during which the conductor and his orchestra forged an unbreakable bond.

Falstaff was one of Verdi's greatest creations and this set is the finest of all reacordings of the work. Only Toscanini comes close and even then his cast is a shade less accomplished. Gobbi may not have a 'fat' voice, but his keen intelligence and magnificent shading of phrases and text more than compensates.

"Bernstein stamps his outsize personality on every bar and regularly has you convinced it is Mahler's own" (Gramophone). Beginning with the First Symphony, Bernstein reveals Mahler's position at the hinge of modernism, while emphasizing his emotional extremism. The uplifting Second "Resurrection" Symphony, with which Bernstein had an especially long and close association, is recorded here in a historic performance from 1973, set in the Romanesque splendour of Ely Cathedral. In the Third, Bernstein encompasses the symphony's spiritual panorama like no other conductor - with the Vienna Philharmonic players alive to every nuance.

Die Wiener Philharmoniker sind häufig so etwas wie eine sichere Bank für R. Strauss - und für die Alpensymphonie allemal (man denke nur an die phantastische Aufnahme unter Thielemann). Und auch hier gelingt ihnen - unter dem sehr engagierten Dirigat von S. Ozawa eine herausragende Interpretation.

Recorded - Grosser Saal, Musikverein, Vienna 27th May 1953. During the 1950's, Karl Böhm made a handful of orchestral recordings for Decca with the Wiener Philharmoniker of, music by, among others, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Weber. Reappearing here, for the first time on CD, internationally, are his swift recordings of Beethoven's Eighth and of two Schubert symphonies (Nos. 5 and 8). Never imposing his will too strongly on his Viennese orchestra - and they had these classics in their blood - he directs performances that are fresh and gives full rein to the Vienna Philharmonic's wonderful tonal resources. Add the acoustic of the Grosser Saal at the Musikverein, familiar as daily bread to all the participants, and you have the best kind of tradition.

"Bernstein stamps his outsize personality on every bar and regularly has you convinced it is Mahler's own" (Gramophone). Filmed on tour at Berlin's Philharmonie, this account of the valedictory Ninth Symphony is an intense interpretation, expressing Bernstein's conviction that modern man had at last caught up with the message encoded in Mahler's last completed work. Having made his famous 1966 studio recording of "Das Lied vin der Erde" in Vienna, Bernstein re-recorded this in Israel with the same searing subjectivity. René Kollo draws on the voice of a great Wagner tenor, while Christa Ludwig, the greatest exponent of the contralto songs at the time, is unbearably poignant in the final movement's fusion of elation and sadness.