Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 'Choral'

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 'Choral' cover $35.00 Out of Stock
2-4 weeks
add to cart

LUDWIG van BEEHOVEN
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 'Choral'
Ann-Helen Moen (soprano), Marianne Beate Kielland (alto), llan Clayton (tenor), Neal Davies (bass), Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki

[ BIS SACD / CD ]

Release Date: Friday 4 October 2019

This item is currently out of stock. We expect to be able to supply it to you within 2 - 4 weeks from when you place your order.

Van Gogh's Sunflowers, da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Tolstoy's War and Peace - those works of art that are truly part of the canon of global culture are few and far apart. In music, one work that holds significance for people all over the world is Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and especially its choral finale. Even today, as we are getting ready to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of its creator, the sheer size and complexity of the symphony is daunting.

There are some eyewitness accounts from the first performance at the Kärntner-Tor-Theater in Vienna on 7th May 1824: we know for instance that Beethoven was on stage himself throughout the performance, but that owing to his deafness he did not notice the audience's overwhelming enthusiasm. What the Ninth sounded like that evening in Vienna is something we will never know, however - which is why hearing it in a historically informed performance on period instruments is all the more enlightening. With impeccable credentials from their 65-disc series of Bach's complete cantatas, and acclaimed recent recordings of Mozart's Requiem and Beethoven's Missa solemnis, Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki now give us their rendering of Beethoven's last and greatest symphony, joined by a fine quartet of vocal soloists.

"his marvelous performance is reproduced in superb, lifelike sound, full of impact but without any sense of artificial enhancement. Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan have given us an historically informed recording of the Beethoven Ninth that conveys the drama, humanity, and transformative release of this incomparable work. I will return to it often, and always with keen anticipation." Fanfare

Tracks:

Symphony No. 9 in D major, 'Choral', Op. 125