Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21

This concert was given as a memorial to the British publisher, liberal humanitarian and music-lover Sir Victor Gollancz (1893-1967). The founder of the influential Left Book Club, Gollancz started his own publishing company in 1927 which came to specialise in left-wing and American books. He was also a prolific writer on political and humanitarian subjects and, eventually, on music. His life was informed by his unconventional religious beliefs – a combination of the Judaism into which he was born, his individual version of Christianity and readings into other faiths. This motivated a life-long activity in human rights issues. It was typical of Gollancz to have been a campaigner both for rescuing Jewish victims of Nazi persecution (and the first to predict a six million death toll) during the Second World War and for giving increased aid to German civilians once the war was over, contesting Field Marshal Montgomery’s plan to allow the population only a little more than concentration-camp rations.

The repertoire for the concert was chosen by Gollancz’s widow Ruth and his daughter Livia and represented all his favourite composers bar Verdi. The programme opened with an appreciation by his friend, The Observer music critic Peter Heyworth, and incorporated quotes from Gollancz’s own writings on the music being performed.

The Schubert, Beethoven and Mozart were old friends of Klemperer’s repertoire; he had first recorded the Unfinished and the Beethoven item with the Berlin Staatskapelle in the 1920s, re-recording them with the Philharmonia in the 1960s. The Love Scene from Roméo et Juliette harked back to Klemperer’s Strasbourg days under Pfitzner when, in 1910, he gave the complete symphony its local première.

The concert programme ended with Gollancz’s praise of music from his 1952 autobiographical sketch My Dear Timothy. ‘Why has no one ever included, among the various “proofs” of the existence of God, the musical? Music is as much mimesis, imitation, as any other of the arts: Beethoven doesn’t invent anything, he perceives something and tries to reproduce it. Then how does it happen, what Beethoven tries to reproduce in, say, the E flat quartet? Can anyone imagine that it happens accidentally?’

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

DVD: DTS 5.0, PCM Stereo

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

NTSC: 3 DVD Amaray boxes in a harcover box (containing 9 DVDs)

This recording of a live performance of music by the young Beethoven – his first operatic, symphonic and concert masterpieces – features one of the best of the newer ensembles on the international scene, Le Cercle de L’Harmonie under its conductor Jérémie Rhorer. The lively and innovative programme includes the early dramatic scene “Ah Perfido”, the concert aria “No non turbati”, “O wär’ ich schon mit dir verein” (an aria from the first version of Fidelio, which was titled “Leonore”), as well as his First Symphony, and the first of the two Romances for violin and orchestra.

Formed in April 2005 in Deauville by Jeremy Rhorer and Julien Chauvin (first violin), le Cercle de l’Harmonie soon established itself as a significant force in the performance of great symphonic and operatic repertoires of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The ensemble is now invited to appear at major venues – including London’s Barbican Hall in June – and with artists such as Diana Damrau and Philippe Jaroussky, with whom it has recorded two CDs for Virgin Classics. This, the first in a series of productions for Ambroisie, presents Jérémie Rhorer’s first recording of works by Beethoven.

Today the music of Beethoven is regarded as a remarkable link in the chain of evolution of Western music, a judgement that is based mainly on the pieces he composed after 1800. However there was in his artistic development a transitional period, around the turn of the century, when the works he composed appear to belong to the Classical tradition while presenting ideas that were to be developed later. This recording features the major works of that period, the Symphony No. 1 in C major, and the Romance for violin and orchestra in F major, op. 50. There are also three vocal works on the disc, the aria “O wär’ ich schon mit dir verein” from “Leonore”, the first version of Beethoven’s only opera “Fidelio”, the dramatic scene “Ah Perfido”, and the concert aria “No non turbati”.

This is the second recording in a cycle of the complete symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven by conductor Jan Willem De Vriend and the Netherlands Symphony orchestra, and features Nos. 1 and 5. As with the previous title (CC72361) which included the Fourth and Sixth Symphonies, it is being made available as a hybrid SACD.

Jan Willem de Vriend is the artistic director of Combattimento Consort Amsterdam and since 2006 has been the chief conductor and artistic director of the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra. De Vriend has been a guest conductor with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, The Hague Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. The Netherlands Symphony Orchestra is based in the province of Overijssel and performs concert series in Enschede, Hengelo, Zwolle and Deventer. Another important role for the orchestra is accompanying De Nationale Reisopera and provincial choral societies.

According to conductor Jan Willem de Vriend Beethoven’s celebrated Fifth Symphony is a musical response by the composer to the repressiveness and authoritarianism of the period of the Metternich government of the time. He hears it clearly in the motif of the first movement, and for him the entire symphony seems like a process of breaking free from it.

In the latest instalment of the Decca Ansermet Legacy, Decca Eloquence introduces the Swiss conductor's recordings of Beethoven - his symphony cycle, overtures and the rare Weingartner arrangement of the Grosse Fuge. They are issued as three 2-CD sets.

Francois Hudry, the supreme commentator on the art of Ernest Ansermet writes, "the new vision he brought to the Beethoven symphonies was astonishing. Perhaps he was too early in what he did, in his respect for the text and in his weeding out of all the Romantic touches and subjectivity which held sway at the time. Without recourse to so-called 'authentic' instruments, Ansermet was trying to return to the composer's intentions, as given in the score, avoiding the imposition of any responses of his own on the audience."

In Beethoven, Ansermet heard not just a titan but a romantic, sensual man, not just a thunderer but composer of sensitivity and subtlety. Even the mighty 'Eroica' was allowed to a reveal a softer, perhaps even a more feminine aspect. Whether he was conducting Beethoven or Ravel, Ansermet had a fine ear for instrumental colour, and a talent for keeping rhythms well-sprung and flexible. At times, Ansermet's Beethoven even seems to anticipate the 'authentic' Beethoven performances that became popular in the 1990s, although Ansermet got his results without having to rely on the sometimes unpredictable behaviour of period instruments.