Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 7

Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Blunier, Stefan

MDG 937 1995-6

The Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn concludes its complete recording of the symphonies of the composer whose name it bears with an absolutely rousing performance. The spirited Seventh Symphony brings together everything that General Music Director Stefan Blunier has demanded of his musicians from the very beginning of this cycle: emotional depth, gripping rhythms, frenetic energy, and powerful tension holding the audience in suspense even after the last chord has faded away. Prior to this work, however, the Bonn musicians show the Fourth Symphony in an entirely new light: no longer a bashful "wallflower," it shines in its owns pecial way between its two more famous neighbors. The process begins even in the enigmatic introduction: chromatic suspensions mark the musical course of events, groping chords seek a harmonic path, and the music enters a clearing, festively spreading out to reveal the jubilant theme. Stefan Blunier's highly expressive approach would have pleased the work's admirers: Robert Schumann regarded the Fourth as Beethoven's "most romantic" symphony - "a lithe Hellenic maiden between two Nordic giants." It is hardly surprising that Beethoven's Seventh is so popular today. The gripping rhythms pervading all four movements led even Richard Wagner in his time to term it the "apotheosis of dance." However, it arose in a highly political atmosphere. Like no other work, it lends expression of the highest art to the euphoric spirit of new beginnings uniting Europe's peoples on the eve of the Congress of Vienna.

SACD x 1

MDG

1/4/17

760623199566