Beethoven　symphonies

Nikolaus Harnoncourt is celebrated as one of the most influential musical personalities of the second-half of the twentieth century, and this new release is the last recording made by the great conductor, having announcing his retirement in December 2015. It is also the first time Harnoncourt conducts Beethoven's symphonies 4 and 5 with Concentus Musicus Vienna, which he founded in 1953 and now is the longest existing period instrument ensemble.

The final instalment in the ‘Beethoven & Barry’ recording series which, over three volumes, has traced all nine of Beethoven’s Symphonies coupled with music by the celebrated Irish composer Gerald Barry.

Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, the first heralding the new century, in 1800, and the last completed in 1824. Although he made few changes to the composition of the orchestra itself, adding, when occasion demanded, one or two instruments more normally found in the opera-house, he expanded vastly the tradition al form, developed in the time of Haydn and Mozart, reflecting the personal and political struggles of a period of immense change and turbulence. To his contemporaries he seemed an inimitable original, but to a number of his successors he seemed to have expanded the symphony to an intimidating extent.

The highly anticipated recording of Thomas Adès and the Britten Sinfonia playing Beethoven and Barry; specifically the Beethoven Symphony Cycle and a selection of Barry’s works. This recording features Beethoven’s first three symphonies, interspersed with Barry’s piece Beethoven and his Piano Concerto.

The least famous of Beethoven’s symphonies? Yet these two works are genuine tours de force: the composer takes the listener on a journey whose destination never seems to be known in advance, one brimming over with structural innovations subtly brought out in this interpretation by the musicians of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.

SOMM Recordings is happy to present the fourth release in the planned First Recordings of the complete Beethoven Symphonies in the legendary edition for piano duet by Xaver Scharwenka, continuing a direct connection to Beethoven via his teacher Franz Kullak who studied with Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny, played by the ‘wholly exceptional’ duo of Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman. This new CD couples Beethoven’s Symphonies 1 & 6 ‘Pastoral’ together with Busoni’s brilliant Concertino BV88 on a theme of Mozart K459, for Two Pianos.

SOMM Recordings announces Volume 3 of the Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman Piano Duo’s ground-breaking series exploring Franz Xaver Scharwenka’s arrangements of Beethoven Symphonies.

Fritz Reiner, the famous Hungarian conductor who as the music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra brought the 1st golden age to the Symphony. Its achievements have dramatically improved the standards of orchestra performance in the 20th century. These outstanding performances were recorded by RCA's state-of-the-art recording technology of “Living Stereo” & still retain the overwhelming freshness.

SOMM Recordings announces Volume 3 of the Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman Piano Duo’s ground-breaking series exploring Franz Xaver Scharwenka’s arrangements of Beethoven Symphonies.