For all Karajan’s glamorous lifestyle, it is no less often and widely reported – not least from his fellow musicians – that he was an exceptional conductor and a master of the orchestra. Karajan’s war-time recordings took him to Berlin, Dresden and Turin and, in 1943, to Amsterdam to work with the highly renowned Concertgebouw Orchestra, a great orchestra then as now. This exciting account of Brahms’s First Symphony, with its impeccable ensemble and intense, singing engagement with the music’s linearity, more than holds its own alongside Karajan’s four later recordings, made in London, Vienna and twice in Berlin. It is here coupled with a potent Leonore Overture No. 3, notable for its off-the-leash impetuosity, and a seductive and tension-filled excerpt from Salome.