Iii Symphony Beethoven

Two symphonies from Beethoven's so-called 'Heroic' period—No 4 completed in 1806 and the supremely defiant No 5 begun in the same year and completed two years later.

Philippe Herreweghe’s Beethoven symphonies cycle with the Royal Flemish Orchestra, recorded between 2004 and 2009, belongs to PENTATONE’s most renowned and successful releases. Herreweghe and his orchestra have been widely praised for their lively interpretation, full of clarity. Together, they achieve a historically informed performance while using modern instruments, expanded with natural horns and historical timpani. The excellent sound quality of this recording adds to the extraordinary acoustic sensation. This boxset is now presented in a new, convenient clamshell design.

Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No. 3 "Eroica" & Symphony No. 8
The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen · Paavo Järvi
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 266 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: RCA Red Seal # 88697542542 | Country/Year: Europe 2007 | Genre: Classical

…Summarising, the team of Järvi and his talented young chamber orchestra players evoke Beethoven's wilful and often irascible (but lovable) polemics and character like few before them. The Eroica is fully charged and brilliantly executed. It joins the ranks of élite performances, together with an 8th Symphony whose real stature is newly revealed and celebrated. The Polyhymnia International engineers provide an immediate and fully transparent recording, with a measured amount of ambience, despite two locations being involved.

The year 1812 was a busy year for the well-known but deaf composer Ludwig van Beethoven. At last, Beethoven got the chance to meet that other famous German, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, but Goethe’s personality proved a disappointed to Beethoven. The composer was carrying on a hectic love life: in 1812 he wrote his famous letter to an anonymous ‘Unsterbliche Geliebte’ (‘Immortal Beloved’). Moreover, he was getting involved in the life of his younger brother, who was infatuated with a housekeeper. Yet despite his activities, Beethoven found the time to compose several new works, among which his Seventh Symphony.

After the worldwide success of their album "Mozart meets Cuba", which was one of the best-selling albums for Mozart's 250th birthday, Klazz Brothers & Cuba Percussion dedicate their twelfth album to Ludwig van Beethoven, whose 250th birthday celebrates the Klassikwelt 2020. Beethoven's work seems so compact and coherent that the impression is created that nothing more can be added. But already on his first album, "Classic meets Cuba", the quintet has shown through a set of the "Pathétique" sonata that it is possible to skilfully blend Beethoven's music with Cuban rhythms, and over the years, they have created more for their successful albums edits.

Richard Strauss' dramatic Festival Prelude for organ and orchestra opens this 2017 MDG audiophile release, though the major work on the program is the Symphony No. 2 in E flat major of Franz Schmidt, the longest of his four symphonies and in many ways the most challenging to perform. The two works were written in 1913, and the celebratory mood of the Strauss piece, which was composed for the dedication of the Vienna Konzerthaus, adequately sets the stage for Schmidt's cheerful symphony. Listeners well acquainted with Strauss' post-Romantic style will find much of his influence in the latter work, both in terms of the lavish orchestration and the elaborate, multi-layered writing. Schmidt clearly absorbed Strauss' tone poems, and echoes of Don Juan, Ein Heldenleben, and Also sprach Zarathustra can be detected throughout the Symphony No. 2.