This release has been sourced from the Richard Itter archive. After 12 years of negotiation starting in 2005, ICA Classics have signed an exclusive long term agreement with the Lyrita Recorded Edition who are responsible for Richard Itter Trust. The collection is very important for collectors because it has never been released before onto the market.

Herbert von Karajan’s association with the Philharmonia Orchestra started in 1948 and continued to 1960. Despite this long relationship, there are practically no live recordings from London’s Royal Festival Hall of Karajan and the Philharmonia caught ‘on the wing’.

Karajan’s live Philharmonia account of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.4 in 1955 is an unrestrained version of his studio recording of 1953 which The Gramophone descibed as ‘phenominal, a record in a thousand’.

Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole was played in London just prior to Karajan’s Philharmonia tour of the USA in Autumn 1955 and was thought at the time to be even more sensuosly beautiful than his widely praised studio account with the Philharmonia from 1953.

The Mozart concert is important because it features the Romanian pianist Clara Haskil (1896-1960) with whom Karajan had an extraordinary rapport. Since they were both contracted to different companies, they never recorded together which makes this memento of their collaboration especially valuable. Furthermore, this live 1956 London performance of the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony also fills an important gap in Karajan’s Philharmonia discography, since a studio recording begun in August 1953 was never completed.

The booklet notes are by Richard Osborne, author of Herbert von Karajan - A Life in Music.