With the exception of the Firebird Suite, which he never recorded commercially, these live performances feature works central to Böhm’s repertoire that he was recording for DG around the same time. In the case of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony, the advantage is very much in favour of the live version, the 1976 studio recording with the Vienna Philharmonic being slightly staid, for all the beauty of the playing. The Berlin concert, performed when Böhm was 75, is faster-paced throughout and operates at a much higher level of tension, even if the conductor’s unvarying tempi give the performance an uncompromising feel at times. Nevertheless, the Adagio is compellingly shaped and concludes with a deeply felt account of the coda.

With Beethoven’s Second Symphony, the roles are reversed, if only because of the superlative playing and burnished sound on offer in Böhm’s 1971 Vienna recording. The Salzburg Festival performance is similarly authoritative, however, with a strong rhythmic drive in the faster movements and affectionate phrasing in the Larghetto. The Berlin Philharmonic, sounding earthier than under Karajan, provide near flawless ensemble, although woodwind lines are not always ideally transparent, more a factor of the recording quality than the original balance, I suspect. The performance of Mozart’s Symphony No 34 from the same concert is both spirited and expressive, the playing of the strings in the Andante di molto a particular highlight. As with his two studio recordings, Böhm includes the Minuet and Trio, K409, which was written 1782, several years after the completion of symphony.

Of particular interest here is the performance of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. Böhm rarely conducted music outside of the Austro-German tradition but seems to have had a soft spot for the 1919 Suite, performing it with the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne in 1963 and during the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s tour of in Japan in 1975. This performance is at its most persuasive in the quieter music, the Princesses’ Khorovod benefiting from a number of eloquent instrumental solos and the Berceuse having an almost Scriabinesque expressiveness. However, the Infernal Dance suffers from some surprisingly rough playing and the finale could do with a degree more weight and incisiveness.

There’s a modicum of tape hiss on both discs but otherwise the sound quality is admirably clear and well balanced. Both releases feature detailed and well-researched booklet-notes by Richard Osborne.