CDs
This section is not intended to be a review of existing CDs. Good critics have done this already, and are experts on the subject. I just wish to draw your attention to particular works and interpretations.
Arturo TOSCANINI - Recordings from 1939
The Italian conductor, with his famous temper, recorded the complete series of Beethoven’s symphonies in 1939 with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, created expressly for him.
The energy and rapid tempo of the maestro carries us to a brilliant and rhythmical Beethoven.
A reference!
Note, also in the set of six CDs: the Overtures to Fidelio, Coriolan, and Egmont, the Sextet arranged for orchestra by Toscanini, and the Choral Fantasy opus 80.
Otto KLEMPERER - Recordings from 1948 to 1954
Klemperer has left many cycles of the symphonies of Beethoven, perhaps the composer closest to his heart together with Bach and Brahms.
The most famous and incontestably successful recording is that which he made with the Philharmonia Orchestra between 1955 and 1959. The tempi are not as slow as is frequently said, but are always driven by a search for inspiration and of an epic profundity rarely equaled, without sacrificing the precision and an absolute respect for the text.
A Beethoven at once dramatic and balanced: a powerfully structured architecture, the contrasts of the colours entirely mastered and never stressed, a tuning to the millimeter of the different orchestral masses. A great poetical and metaphysical experience…
Wilhelm FURTWÄNGLER - Recordings from 1948 to 1954
The skill of Furtwängler, controversial, transcendent, traversing the epochs, makes him a legendary conductor.
He recorded more than ten versions of the Fifth and as many of the Ninth Symphony. We can live and re-live his passion with these recordings.
The great pages of Beethoven!