Staatskapelle/Bohm - Karl B�hm: His Dresden Farewell Concert in 1979: Symphony No.5 in B flat major, Symphony in B minor, Symphony in C major

Unlike the last Karl B�hm CD box with gramophone recordings of overtures and concert pieces (Edition Staatskapelle Dresden Vol. 43) the recordings in this new CD box are all radio broadcasts. The exciting thing is that the Schubert Fifth Symphony is one of the earliest radio magnetic tape recordings that we have. The use of magnetic tape opened up a new and more varied world of sound to the broadcasting technicians. Whereas music programmes had previously broadcast longer works from discs playing for three or four minutes, involving constant changes of disc, the broadcasting engineers now had a 'sound scribe' and the associated 'magnetic tape' medium that would record and transmit recordings lasting up to 20 minutes per tape plate. That meant that complete movements of symphonies could be recorded and played without a break. The 1942 recording of Schubert's Symphony No. 5 presented here is a priceless early audio document, surely the first attested Magnetophone recording by the Dresden Staatskapelle.