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
January 2012
“the hour-long film that accompanies each of the nine masterpieces here...is chock-full of revealing information...the radiant sanity of [Thielemann's] approach shines through every bar...for a set in which the Austro-German invincibility of this extraordinary music is felt gradually mounting through the cycle as a whole, as if in one magnificent sweep, we haven't had a set to compare seriously with this since Karajan's final cycle of the 1980s.”
April 2012
“Listen to the Scherzos and Minuets of the first four symphonies. They fairly spring out of the blocks with a muscular tension that brooks no obstacle or oppositions, the orchestra perfectly weighted body in total control of its limbs and members...most of these performances seem contrived as a luxuriously appointed bulwark against feared forces of change and dogma...The concert films show an orchestra in happy union with its conductor”
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