Beethoven: Lieder

Beethoven’s contribution to the development of German song was significant – he wrote some 90 songs – but it has inevitably been overshadowed by his mastery of orchestral and instrumental music. Unlike Mozart and Schubert’s works in the genre, little is known about the composition and performance of Beethoven’s songs, but he is known to have greatly respected Goethe, as his settings amply show, not least in the incidental music to Egmont, from which Freudvoll und leidvoll is taken.

Over 175 hours of music, featuring recordings by over 250 of the greatest Beethoven performers, ranging from Karl Böhm to Alfred Brendel, Claudio Arrau to the Amadeus Quartet, Wilhelm Furtwängler to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Emil Gilels to John Eliot Gardiner, Wilhelm Kempff to Herbert von Karajan, Yehudi Menuhin to Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Murray Perahia to Maurizio Pollini. Includes more than two hours of newly recorded music including several world premieres with Lang Lang, Daniel Hope and Tobias Koch. Over 30 discs of alternative recordings including historic performances and period instrument recordings. Limited & Numbered Edition.

Over 175 hours of music, featuring recordings by over 250 of the greatest Beethoven performers, ranging from Karl Böhm to Alfred Brendel, Claudio Arrau to the Amadeus Quartet, Wilhelm Furtwängler to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Emil Gilels to John Eliot Gardiner, Wilhelm Kempff to Herbert von Karajan, Yehudi Menuhin to Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Murray Perahia to Maurizio Pollini. Includes more than two hours of newly recorded music including several world premieres with Lang Lang, Daniel Hope and Tobias Koch. Over 30 discs of alternative recordings including historic performances and period instrument recordings. Limited & Numbered Edition.

Over 175 hours of music, featuring recordings by over 250 of the greatest Beethoven performers, ranging from Karl Böhm to Alfred Brendel, Claudio Arrau to the Amadeus Quartet, Wilhelm Furtwängler to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Emil Gilels to John Eliot Gardiner, Wilhelm Kempff to Herbert von Karajan, Yehudi Menuhin to Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Murray Perahia to Maurizio Pollini. Includes more than two hours of newly recorded music including several world premieres with Lang Lang, Daniel Hope and Tobias Koch. Over 30 discs of alternative recordings including historic performances and period instrument recordings. Limited & Numbered Edition.

Over 175 hours of music, featuring recordings by over 250 of the greatest Beethoven performers, ranging from Karl Böhm to Alfred Brendel, Claudio Arrau to the Amadeus Quartet, Wilhelm Furtwängler to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Emil Gilels to John Eliot Gardiner, Wilhelm Kempff to Herbert von Karajan, Yehudi Menuhin to Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Murray Perahia to Maurizio Pollini. Includes more than two hours of newly recorded music including several world premieres with Lang Lang, Daniel Hope and Tobias Koch. Over 30 discs of alternative recordings including historic performances and period instrument recordings. Limited & Numbered Edition.

Beethoven’s monumental contribution to Western classical music is celebrated here in this definitive collection marking the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Surveying the totality of his career and achievement, the Complete Edition spans orchestral, concerto, keyboard, chamber, music for the stage, choral and vocal works, encompassing his most familiar and iconic masterpieces, alongside rarities and recently reconstructed fragments and sketches in world premiere recordings. The roster of artists and ensembles includes some of Beethoven’s greatest contemporary exponents, in performances that have won critical acclaim worldwide.

By the time he made these celebrated recordings with the Philharmonia Orchestra in the early 1960s, Otto Klemperer was a grand old man of conducting. Christa Ludwig, by contrast, was in the glowing early prime of her extraordinary career, which encompassed repertoire for both mezzo-soprano and soprano. “Klemperer was marvellous for the singing,” she later said, “because he did nothing against the composer.” This collection shows the fruits of their collaboration in Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms and Mahler.