Ludwig van Beethoven

Van Cliburn’s one and only appearance at the Salzburg Festival was a huge success with the audience. The present live recording underlines not only the young pianist’s technical brilliance but also the originality of his interpretations in repetoire that is not limited to a particular musical epoch. Van Cliburn never returned to the Salzburg Festival, even though Die Presse asserted that “he has every right to be regarded as a star and is a dazzling pianist in every sense of that term. His concert is well-suited to any festival of international standing…including the Salzburg Festival.”

FIRST RELEASE ON ANY FORMAT

However unusual or even bizzarre it may seem, the idea of a piano endowed with a pedalboard similar to that of an organ actually has a long history behind it. Its antecedents are the clavichord and the harpsichord with single or double keyboard, which also often had a pedalboard attached.

Johann Sebastian Bach owned a clavichord with two keyboards and pedalboard for which he composed the Trio Sonata BWV 525-530, the Passacaglia in C minor BWV 582 and other works. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart owned a fortepiano with independent pedals, built expressly for him in 1785 by Anton Walter. The instrument Robert Schumann refers to as a pedalflügel (piano with pedalboard) first entered his home in Dresden in 1845. He was also able to convince F.

Mendelssohn Bartholdy to inaugurate a class especially for the pedalflügel in the Conservatorium of Leipzig. There are various systems with which a pedalboard was attached to the piano: the most common was that of a pedalboard fastened under the piano that activated its mechanics-keyboard; another System, though less frequent, was that of placing two independent pianos (each with its separate mechanics and strings).

At the end of this last century the piano-maker Luigi Borgato realized a new instrument, the "DOPPIO BORGATO": a double piano of extensive form, joining a concert-grand together with a second piano activated by a pedalboard comprised of 37 pedals, thus augmenting the expressive qualities of its 18th century predecessors.

The DOPPIO BORGATO opens up a new page for the musical world, this particular instrument offering new possibilities to both composers and interpreters.

After the very successful release of the single DVDs we now release Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra performing Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 1 – 9 including nine one hour documentaries, one for each film. Maestro Thielemann and Joachim Kaiser (the most famous German music critic) discuss and analyze in an entertaining conversational exchange Thielemann’s interpretation, complemented by excerpts from rehearsals as well as by comparisons of Beethoven cycles with Karajan, Bernstein, Böhm, Järvi etc. This is the Beethoven cycle of the 21st century!

9 DVDs or 3 Blu-rays in a valuable hardcover box with 16 hours of concerts and documentaries.

“Thielemann´s reading of the Beethoven symphonies stands heads and shoulders above the countless and mostly undistinguishable versions on offer.” Die Presse

“The performances, the Vienna Philharmonic on top form, can't help sounding wonderful...oddly, it is the discussions that are the most enjoyable elements in this ambitious set.” BBC Music Magazine * * */ *

“This is growling, mane-shaking Beethoven: a traditional approach to the music with full sound and large forces. Thielemann takes a precise yet lyrical approach to the music, as he discusses and demonstrates in the three hour-long accompanying musicological discussions.” Classic FM Magazine * * * *

Total: 956 minutes

Symphonies: 446 minutes

Documentaries: 510 minutes

BD: dts-HD MA 5.0, PCM Stereo

Subtitles E, F, Sp, I, Kor., Chin.

Blu-ray: 3 BD in a harcover box

The release of this two-disc set completes the Budapest String Quartet's historic Beethoven string quartet cycle, recorded at the Library of Congress's Coolidge Auditorium. Both the middle and late Quartets from this cycle (BRIDGE9099A/C and BRIDGE9072A/C) have frequently been cited as among the finest recordings ever made of Beethoven's singular masterpieces. The present recordings of Beethoven's six Op. 18 quartets were selected from performances given during the Budapest's 22-year long residency at the Library. In addition to the six quartets, a short track drawn from a Budapest String Quartet rehearsal (1944) is included on disc two.