Beethoven For All

Daniel Barenboim, the universally admired interpreter of Beethoven’s music, is both - pianist and conductor - in these celebrated performances of the Beethoven Piano Concertos. At the Ruhr Piano Festival, Daniel Barenboim performed these compositional masterpieces together with the Staatskapelle Berlin.

Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, and Yo-Yo Ma's new album "Beethoven for Three: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 5" erases the border between orchestral and chamber music, presenting two of Beethoven's iconic symphonies in intimate arrangements that maintain the power and immediacy of Beethoven's orchestral works. Beethoven for Three transports listeners to the turn of the nineteenth century, when audiences would have been more familiar with the composer’s music in arrangements for piano trio, string quartet, or piano four hands than for full orchestra. Here, Ax, Kavakos, and Ma seek out the most essential elements of Beethoven's musical language, pairing his second symphony, arranged for trio by Beethoven's pupil Ferdinand Ries, with his fifth — among the most recognizable pieces in western classical music — in a newly-commissioned arrangement by Colin Matthews.

Solti's interpretations held more than surface excitement. In conducting Beethoven, for example, he long held that the symphonies should be played with all their repeats to maintain their structural integrity, and he carefully rethought his approach to tempo, rhythm, and balance in those works toward the end of his life. Solti began as a pianist, commencing his studies at age six and making his first public appearance at 12. When he was 13 he enrolled at Budapest's Franz Liszt Academy of Music, studying piano mainly with Dohnányi and, for a very short time, Bartók. He also took composition courses with Kodály.

In May 2002, in a series of live concerts in the Golden Hall of Vienna's Musikverein, a journey unique in the Wiener Philharmoniker's long and distinguished history reached its conclusion. This thrilling set of symphonies is the fruit of that journey. The recordings were made 'live' after numerous performances of individual symphonies and complete cycles in Tokyo, Berlin and Vienna. Rattle believes that a live performance has its own rhythm. The conductor 'channelling his unrelenting energy' was something audiences and the critics noticed at the concerts in the Musikverein.

These recordings were made between 1937 and 1942, and they represent the sum of Mengelberg's commercially released Beethoven for the Telefunken label.

Igor Levit - the recent recipient of the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s “Instrumentalist of the Year”- has now completed the recording of all 32 sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven. In September 2019 this mammoth studio-recording project will finally be released and leads the way for important new releases on Sony Classical for Beethoven’s 250-year anniversary.

Sony Classical is pleased to present Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, and Yo-Yo Ma's Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 4 and Op. 97 “Archduke," which will be released March 15, 2024.