[ Warner Classics / 6 CD Box Set ]
Release Date: Tuesday 22 August 2017
"I waited a very long time to record the Beethoven symphonies," said Daniel Barenboim when this cycle was first released in 2000.
"I waited for the music to mature in me - or me in it - and to find an orchestra that not only did what I asked it to do, but which really felt every detail in the music exactly as I did at the moment we were playing it… This is the greatest joy that a conductor can have."
"Call it 'reactionary romanticism', 'subjective bias', or whatever, this is the Beethoven of our forefathers - momentous, malleable, candidly expressive and in diametric interpretative opposition to the sleek, weight-conscious and historically informed approach favoured by many of Barenboim's peers. Those with a taste for vintage records will inevitably refer back to Wilhelm Furtwangler, a sure influence on Barenboim." Gramophone
"This fine 1999 set of Beethoven's symphonies offers a near-ideal balance of expressive warmth, moment-to-moment imagination and wide musical vision - and all at a bargain price." ClassicFM