Ludwig Van Beethoven Münchner Philharmoniker The Nine Symphonies

By general consensus, Herbert von Karajan's first (1963) Beethoven cycle for Deutsche Grammophon is the best of the four (!) that he recorded...

German maestro Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra have recorded the complete Beethoven Symphonies for Philips twice. The first traversal was made in the 1970's. That cycle also included some of the overtures, and became legendary from the day it was issued. I well remember how sad and dismayed many collectors were when Philips elected not to issue that set in the USA. It was only available in specialty stores in large cities for a premium price.

This is the latest and, they tell us, the last of EMI’s Simon Rattle Edition, gathering together the conductor’s complete forays into certain composers and repertoire. As with any such project the sets hitherto released have contained both treasures and duds. Even though not everything here is perfect, this set sends the series out on a high with his complete Vienna recording of the Beethoven symphonies.

It was some years after founding the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century in 1981 that Frans Brüggen first turned his attention to the music of Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies and endeavoured to perceive that special orchestral landscape, in order to transform it into musical sound, with the use of period instruments rediscovering historical tonal colours. Now, his quest undimmed, Brüggen has submerged himself once more into the glories of Beethoven’s orchestral music for a new cycle being issued in a sumptuous new hybrid SACD box set by Glossa.

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 1 violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio…

After the critical success of the first volume of Beethoven's symphonies, Jordi Savall offers us Symphonies Six to Nine. This latest publication crowns a nearly two-year world tour and confirms the extent to which the Savall renews our vision of these most famous works. The Concert des Nations shows that it also knows how to magnify the repertoire of the early 19th century.

Innerhalb kurzer Zeit entschied sich Claudio Abbado zweimal, zusammen mit seinen Berlinern die gesamten Beethoven Sinfonien aufzunehmen. Die vorliegende zweite Aufnahme muss sich also zurecht der Frage stellen: War das wirklich nötig? Die Antwort ist simpel: Es war nötig, denn Abbado nahm zahlreiche Schönheitskorrekturen vor, wodurch ein Zyklus entstand, der mit Abstand das Beste ist, was in den letzten Jahren auf diesem Gebiet vorgestellt wurde, allerdings mit einigen kleinen Schönheitsfehlern.

Innerhalb kurzer Zeit entschied sich Claudio Abbado zweimal, zusammen mit seinen Berlinern die gesamten Beethoven Sinfonien aufzunehmen. Die vorliegende zweite Aufnahme muss sich also zurecht der Frage stellen: War das wirklich nötig? Die Antwort ist simpel: Es war nötig, denn Abbado nahm zahlreiche Schönheitskorrekturen vor, wodurch ein Zyklus entstand, der mit Abstand das Beste ist, was in den letzten Jahren auf diesem Gebiet vorgestellt wurde, allerdings mit einigen kleinen Schönheitsfehlern.