Customer Reviews

Beethoven: Symphonies; Piano Concertos; Violin Concertos; Overtures [Box Set]

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For many listeners whose ears have been jaded by the authentic style movement (Harnoncourt, Gardiner, Norrington), this set may come as a shock. These are big, wooly, luxurious performances the way Beethoven used to be played (and still should!) by musicians who knew the style perfectly. This is great, great Beethoven playing and conducting. The recorded sound is superb and puts many newer digital editions to shame.
You'll hear some carping about the shallow performances of the concertos; don't believe them. You'll also read some grumbling about the slow pace of the first two symphonies. Wrong again. Tempos are perfectly judged.
This is an awesome set, and for many will the be the only recordings of these masterworks they'll ever want, or need. Ones thing's for sure: we'll never encounter music making of this magnitude again. So for me, this goes to the head of the class: Schmidt-Isserstedt, Cluytens, Karajan (EMI), Szell, Klemperer, Walter. From there on down...who cares?

The ninth has been my favorite for 10 years. I have been wanting to hear the rest since then. Now they are available, and sound better than some previous CD incarnations of these performances (I heard the 9th on a UK made Decca CD prior to buying this set). The performances are played with attention to orchestral balance, dynamics, and are not eccentric. My favorite performances are the 9th, 3rd, 4th, and 8th. These performances compare well with Szell/Cleveland on Sony (Anotherwords as good as Szell). I did prefer Szell in number 5, 6, and 7 by a slim margin, but Isserstedt is preferable for the other symphonies (1-4, 8, 9). Isserstedt is my favorite Beethoven set, although I will not give up Szell, Bernstein, Karajan (1962). Overtures are marvels, wonderfuly played.

The piano concertos are good too, though the sound is a little older. Violin concerto is great too.

Decca made a smart move by issuing this set, and calling them Wonderful Beethoven perfomances in their writeup when it got put up on the deccaclassics.com website in May 2001.

If you like Beethoven played with good orchestral balance and with a classical style, I would suggest you buy this set as soon as possible.

I knew Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (1900-1973). The complete CD release of this 1965-69 symphony cycle was long awaited by those of us old enough to have bought the original Decca LPs in first issue, and particularly by those of us fortunate enough to have heard Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt in concerts. Schmidt-Isserstedt founded Hamburg's North German Radio Orchestra; he was one of those conductors who were legends in Europe (including Scherchen, Abendroth, Rosbaud, Knappertsbusch, Kletzki, Horenstein, etc.) but little-known in the commercial major-label superstar US market of that time. The specifics of Schmidt-Isserstedt's convincing interpretations recorded here are not as important as the sobering & saddening realization that very few have conducted Beethoven in this traditional way - and at such a high level - in the past thirty years. To our ears today, Schmidt-Isserstedt's recordings may be more expansive in pace and richer in texture of sound than we're accustomed to (he told me that the Weingartner book had a decisive influence on his approach to Beethoven, in common with many conductors of his generation). Younger listeners who care only about the mere sounds of musicologically authentic performance may simply not "get it". Yet there are many reasons why the previous generation of Beethoven lovers placed Schmidt-Isserstedt's insightful readings alongside those by the greatest historical giant interpreters (Walter, Furtwaengler, Klemperer, etc.). These recordings were produced by Schmidt-Isserstedt's son Erik Smith, pianist and harpsichordist as well as record producer for Decca and Philips, who lived in England from the 1930's until his death in 2004.

Isserstedt? Could he perhaps be an unknown paladin of great Germanic Beethovean Art? YES!

I went out on a limb and purchased this little box a few months ago, and since this massive revelation 3 people I know have also purchased it because of my enthusiasm! Incredible!

Not only are the performances consistently played with fire, warmth, vitality, breadth, and conscious understanding of musical line, but they are crisply and crystally articulated with total sponteneity. There is no moment of predictability or monotany in the interpretations. I don't know what he did or what he said to the Vienna Phil. but there's something going on in these recordings...something imaginatively magical...

But it just doesn't end in the renditions, it goes even further with the engineering on these things. First off, the sound is wonderfully full and so clear that instumentation you never knew existed in these scores are coming out all over the place! It's tremendous! What a joy, what a triumph! No wonder they call these recordings vintage!

This is a great set. Not only do you get the 9 Symphonies, but also the 5 piano concertos and the violin concerto + the 3 overtures. For the money you can't go wrong. The Wiener Philharmoniker is in top form and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt is underated.

I think this goes to the top of the pile for my Beethoven recordings- rich, luxurious, fine playing. It is a big orchestra sound not original instruments. Excellent soloists. Definitely fun to own. If you can only own one collection of Beethoven works, this is a great one to have.

I have known this set of Beethoven Symphonies for in excess of 42 years having purchased them as individual 12" LPs from 1965 through to 1968. The boxed set as sold here never has been available in the UK; the CD set of the symphonies was removed from Decca's stocklist some years ago and is no longer available in the UK but I was fortunate enough to purchase the set of symphonies individually as MP3 downloads from a licensed company some time ago.

I played the ninth symphony again yesterday (twice) having been reminded of it after hearing of the death of Dame Joan Sutherland. I purchased the ninth in 1968 with trepidation - two operatic divas singing Beethoven!! I was pleasantly surprised all those years ago and the entry of the late James King at the start of the vocal section in the fourth movement still "makes my hair stand on end". The quartet of soloists in this version of the ninth is / was the finest on record and is unsurpassed by any of the vocal quartets amassed by Klemperer, Karajan et al.

The playing and interpretation throughout all the symphonies is as fine as any on record. Special mention should be made of the playing of the third and seventh symphonies; the Vienna Philharmonic was in stunning form when they recorded these two symphonies. My one reservation is the first movement of the fifth symphony, which is not quite "con brio" enough for my taste. That does not however detract from giving these recordings five stars.

The recordings of the symphonies are remarkably vibrant and clear bearing in mind their age (between 42 years and 45 years) and are a lasting testament to the Decca Engineers who committed these performances to tape.

Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt was greatly under valued / under estimated in his lifetime and sadly appears to have been largely forgotten since his death in 1973 at the age of 73.

So please, please, please, please Decca re-issue this symphony set in the UK as a memorial to the late Dame Joan Sutherland, the late James King, the late Marti Talvela, the late Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt and all the fine musicians of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in these performances who are gone but not forgotten.

Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt's Vienna Philharmonic cycle of Beethoven Symphonies and Piano Concertos with Wilhelm Backhaus is a terrific bargain! I was drawn to this set not only because of the low price, but for nostalgic reasons. Shortly after becoming acquainted with Classical music in 1972, I begged my mother to buy Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt's London LP of Beethoven Symphonies 5 and 8-included in this Decca set- from a record club she belonged to then, and I became familiar with these two famous symphonies via the Schmidt-Isserstedt London LP. I don't remember what that London LP cost back in 1972, but it was likely $5.99 + shipping, so would be about $25.00 in 2005 dollars! For about 2x that price, you can have all 9 Beethoven Symphonies with Schmidt-Isserstedt/Vienna Philharmonic, the 5 Piano Concertos with Wilhelm Backhaus, the Violin Concerto with Henryk Szeryng, and 3 Overtures, also with Isserstedt/Vienna.

When this many works are involved, it is difficult to make detailed critiques and not be lengthy. Let me make one general statement: Schmidt-Isserstedt's Beethoven is middle of the road, with a rich full sound, and if not making huge revelations or terrfically exciting statements about Beethoven's music, it is always solid and dependable. Different listeners will have differing preferences on how Beethoven should sound: some prefer Szell, others Walter/Columbia, others Bohm or one of Karajan's 4 cycles. But unless you are totally loyal to one conductor's viewpoint in these works, you will find much to enjoy here.

In some cases, listeners with certain gaps in their library could buy this and fill several gaps all at once. Again, Schmidt-Isserstedt's Beethoven is a bargain, and I highly recommend it.

This set, quite simply, is one of those "perfect jewels" that one so rarely finds.

I had Schmidt-Isserstedt's Beethoven 9th years ago on LP, and a few years back purchased this box, not only to once again have that recording of the 9th, but also to be able to listen to the others in the cycle. And marvelous they truly are. I just noticed on here that these are SADLY out of print!!! How does this happen??? Can sales be so low that Decca decides to just pull THIS off the shelves??? What are they thinking??? If it is not available, then it will NEVER sell, and worse, it will become UNKNOWN to our younger listeners, which REALLY is sad! I CANNOT fatham why so many of these classic recordings are brushed aside, today, for modern, and frankly terrible, interpretations.

DECCA...WE NEED THIS BACK, NOW, PLEASE! ~operabruin

I first heard this 9th Symphony perhaps 20 years ago; the Penguin guide gave it a rosette (as I remember) and on that basis I bought the 9th. Although I have many other 9th recordings, this is the one that I continue to prefer above all others. I'm embarrassed that I missed the CD reissue for this long, and I'm making up for lost time.