For its 125th birthday, Deutsche Grammophon is releasing legendary recordings with highest sound standards: The new audiophile vinyl series The Original Source presents outstanding recordings from the 1970s in a whole new sound quality. For this, the renowned Emil Berliner Studios have remastered and edited the original four-track tapes in 100% analog quality (AAA) using technologies developed specifically to produce the series. The sonic differences to the original releases are considerable: greater clarity, more subtleties and improvements in frequency response, while at the same time less background noise, distortion and compression allow for an audiophile listening experience like never before.

Released on 180g vinyl records and in a deluxe gatefold edition with original covers and lyrics, the copies of this series are limited and numbered. They are accompanied by additional photos and facsimiles of the recording logs and tape boxes, plus an article, which explains the exact technical background.

Of the many recordings of Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, Herbert von Karajan’s 1972 recording is among the most admired. Alongside the Berlin Philharmonic and the Wiener Singverein, he is joined by Mirella Freni, Christa Ludwig, Carlo Cossutta and Nicolai Ghiaurov, four of the finest Verdi interpreters of his time.