Following my yestoday’s post about the Cosi Fun Tutte I would like to pitch two of my absolutely favorite recordings of this work:

1962, Karl Böhm with Philharmonia Orchestra ( EMI SLS-5028 )

1936, Fritz Busch with Glyndebourne Festival Orchestra  ( RCA LCT-S6104 )

Those are my favorite versions as well, and it is hard to choose which to play! I imagine that the busch will be hard for people to find, but worth the effort.  Switching the conversation to Cosi Fan Tutte available on CD, it is interesting to see that the Bohm recording is not even mentioned by Grammaphone in their guide books.  I know they have a penchant for DDD recordings, but to leave out the Bohm is indefinsible.   RonyW

Rony, I do not read the Grammaphone. I buy it once in two years, for fun, to confirm that I still should not read it… :-)

Yes, switching the conversation to Bohm’s “Cosi Fan Tutte” available on CD….there are number of versions.

First of all Bohm recorded this work multiple times. Among those that I have and heard there are:

1) The aforementioned performance in 1962 with Philharmonia Orchestra and Schwarzkopf, Ludwig, Kraus and Berry
2) In 1969 with Vienna Philharmonic with Ludwig, Berry, Janowitz and Miljakovic (soundtrack to movie)
3) For Decca with Vienna Philharmonic with Lisa della Casa, Ludwig and Dermota 
4) With Vienna Philharmonic Schwarzkopf , Ludwig, Donch, Kmentt,  and Graziella Sciutti

The first performance in this list is marginally the best. This performance has two different releases on CD: a “normal” (EMI CMS 7693302) “white box”, imitating the original record-set, and the EMI’s release from their  “Great Recording of the Century”.  This second CD box-set (“black box”) is the very same performance but remastered at Abbey Road Studios (EMI 72356737921). I have to say that they did very good job and sonically it is more interesting.

The Meow