Wednesday, July 16 marks the 25th anniversary of the death, at his home near Salzburg, of the Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan. To commemorate this event in the history of the orchestra he led from 1956 to 1989, the Berliner Philharmoniker is giving free access to its Digital Concert Hall and the films of Karajan conducting. Free access has started and will continue until noon (CET) on Thursday. The DCH has recently acquired the rights to include films made by Unitel, the company Karajan helped found in the 1960s, and already available to view are a 1966 film of Dvořák’s New World Symphony made by the French director Henri-Georges Clouzot (who would also make a now legendary film of the Verdi Requiem at La Scala in the following year). There is also a Brahms cycle from 1973 and films, from 1971, of Beethoven’s Third and Seventh symphonies. 

There is also a film of the memorial concert that the Berliner Philharmoniker gave in Salzburg Cathedral in 1999, conducted by Karajan’s successor in Berlin, Claudio Abbado. In a specially made film, Abbado’s successor Sir Simon Rattle talks with great honestly about his memories of Karajan, both as conductor and as the man who shared his wisdom with his young English colleague.

Further Karajan films and documentaries will enter the DCH over the coming months. Visit the Karajan page of the DCH to watch the free films 

And don't forget Gramophone's own Karajan tribute, a free-to-read (and download) digital magazine containing reviews of 50 of Karajan's greatest recordings, as well as the interview he gave Gramophone's Richard Osborne at the time of his 80th birthday.