Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92

Over the past few years, Jan Willem de Vriend and The Netherlands Symphony Orchestra have made a series of critically acclaimed recordings of all the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven. This specially priced boxed set contains the complete cycle and is made up of 6 Hybrid SACDs.

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.

These historical recordings were made between 1947 and 1954. Symphony No.9 is performed by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Elsa Cavelti, Elsa Haefliger, Otto Edelmann, Festwochenchor Luzern and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

The Old Testament of the orchestral repertoire, you might say – and here in performances of Biblical weight and authority.

If the journey through the nine works is itself an education in Beethoven’s world; in one man’s expressive voyage from 18th-century Enlightenment values through to 19th-century ideals of artistic heroism, and indeed to eternal values of beauty and brotherhood as adumbrated in the Ninth; in the possibilities of colour and harmony afforded by the expanding orchestra of the time; then the Dresden Staatskapelle has a history that reaches back further even than Beethoven, as one of the most distinguished of European ensembles, soaked in this music and in traditions of performing it that may evolve over time but are fundamentally rooted within their own sense of corporate identity.

And who better to lead them than a conductor who has always prized Beethoven’s expressive ideals as much as his musical innovations; who can see the composer in a symphonic continuum from Haydn to Tippett, and who, now in the late autumn of his career, is well loved by all the ensembles he directs; not least this one, with which he has had a fruitful relationship stretching back three decades, and who elected him their Conductor Laureate in 1990, shortly before this cycle of recordings began.

Beethoven’s symphonies are among the cornerstones of the symphonic repertoire. They bear witness to the composer’s remarkable journey from airy Classicism to the peerless idiom he had developed on the threshold of the Romantic epoch.

Those who have taken up the challenge to record the complete cycle include the Polish-born conductor Paul Kletzki, who gained great renown after the war, primarily in America. He was the principal conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra for a year and after his debut in Philadelphia went on to conduct the leading American and European orchestras.

This remarkable complete recording of Beethoven’s symphonies was made during Kletzki’s performances with the Czech Philharmonic in 1967, during the orchestra’s golden age under the chief conductor Karel Ančerl. This gem of the Supraphon archives thoroughly deserves the current re-edition in remastered form owing to its freshness and expressive depth.

Beethoven as explored by Kletzki – a legendary, time-honoured recording.

The prized 1977 symphony cycle.

“If I don’t feel I’m Beethoven, I’m not doing it well” Leonard Bernstein