Before he was appointed music director for life of the Berlin Philharmonic, Karajan was closely associated with the Philharmonia in its early years, although he never held an official title with the orchestra. The founder of the Philharmonia and legendary EMI Producer, Walter Legge, was against appointing an official principal conductor but it was Karajan who built the orchestra into one of the finest ensembles in the world, and made numerous recordings for EMI, including all the Beethoven symphonies and stereo gems like this Sibelius recording.

Recorded on 20, 21 & 23 September 1960 (Symphony No.5) and 5 & 6 January 1959 (Finlandia) at London’s famous Kingsway Hall venue.

•Produced by Walter Legge and Engineered by Douglas Larter (Harold Davidson – Finlandia)

•Cut at Abbey Road Studios from the original stereo analogue master tapes with the Neumann VMS80 lathe fed an analogue pre-cut signal from a specially adapted Studer A80 tape deck with additional playback head.

Pressed on 180g vinyl to audiophile standards

Featuring the original album artwork

“There is some wonderful playing from the Philharmonia, of course, especially beautifully soft, feathery, string playing. The scherzo itself is played with great brilliance”, GRAMOPHONE, September 1961