Beethoven No.9

Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 in minor Op. 125
Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich / Schweizer Kammerchor / David Zinman
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 296 MB | Full Artwork: 75 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Arte Nova # 74321 65411 2 | Country/Year: Germany 1998
Genre: Classical | Style: Classical Period

"…This set deserves the most enthusiastic recommendation which words can muster. It has few rivals even in the top price range. (…) Zinman is Beethoven: I can pay him no greater compliment." ~musicweb-international

The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is a choral symphony, the final complete symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven, composed between 1822 and 1824. It was first performed in Vienna on 7 May 1824. The symphony is regarded by many critics and musicologists as Beethoven's greatest work and one of the supreme achievements in the history of music. One of the best-known works in common practice music, it stands as one of the most frequently performed symphonies in the world.

While any of Liszt's superb transcriptions of Beethoven's first eight symphonies is a challenge for the pianist, the two-piano arrangement of the Ninth is at once spellbinding and a formidable test. This remarkable synthesis of soloists, chorus and orchestra presents a powerful structure that condenses all the fearsome difficulties of ensemble playing for the two pianists. This version by Philippe Cassard and Cédric Pescia displays extraordinary nobility, truth and grandeur, with the epic sweep ideally suited to the "Ode to Joy".

This was the first set of the Nine to be planned, recorded and sold as an integral cycle. It was also a set that had been extremely carefully positioned from the interpretative point of view. Where Karajan's 1950s Philharmonia cycle had elements in it that owed a certain amount to the old German school of Beethoven interpretation, the new-found virtuosity of the Berliners allowed him to approach more nearly the fierce beauty and lean-toned fiery m anner of Toscanini's Beethoven style as Karajan had first encountered it in its halcyon age in the mid-1930s.