Beethoven - Symphonies 1-9 · Overtures / London Classical Players · Sir Roger Norrington [Box set]

Ludwig van Beethoven (Artist), Roger Norrington (Artist), Sarah Walker Yvonne Kenny (Artist), Petteri Salomaa Patrick Power (Artist), Schütz Choir of London London Classical Players (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 6, 2001)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 5
• Format: Box set
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: EMI Classics
• ASIN: B00005A9O0
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #130,100 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Sym No.1 in C, Op.21: I. Adagio Molto - Allegro Con Brio

2. Sym No.1 in C, Op.21: II. Andante Cantabile Con Moto

3. Sym No.1 in C, Op.21: III. Menuetto: Allegro Molto E Vivace

4. Sym No.1 in C, Op.21: IV. Adagio - Allegro Molto E Vivace

See all 9 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Sym No.2 in D, Op.36: I. Adagio Molto - Allegro Con Brio

2. Sym No.2 in D, Op.36: II. Larghetto

3. Sym No.2 in D, Op.36: III. Scherzo (Allegro)

4. Sym No.2 in D, Op.36: IV. Allegro Molto

See all 10 tracks on this disc

Disc: 3

1. Sym No.4 in B flat, Op.60: I. Adagio - Allegro Vivace

2. Sym No.4 in B flat, Op.60: II. Adagio

3. Sym No.4 in B flat, Op.60: III. Allegro Vivace - Trio: Un Poco Meno Allegro

4. Sym No.4 in B flat, Op.60: IV. Allegro Ma Non Troppo

See all 8 tracks on this disc

Disc: 4

1. Sym No.5 in c, Op.67: I. Allegro Con Brio

2. Sym No.5 in c, Op.67: II. Andante Con Moto

3. Sym No.5 in c, Op.67: III. Allegro

4. Sym No.5 in c, Op.67: IV. Allegro - Presto

See all 9 tracks on this disc

Disc: 5

1. Sym No.9 in d, Op.125 'Choral': I. Allegro Ma Non Troppo - Yvonne Kenny/Sarah Walker/Patrick Power/Petteri Salomaa/The Schutz Chor Of London

2. Sym No.9 in d, Op.125 'Choral': II. Molto Vivace - Yvonne Kenny/Sarah Walker/Patrick Power/Petteri Salomaa/The Schutz Chor Of London

3. Sym No.9 in d, Op.125 'Choral': III. Adagio Molto E Cantabile - Yvonne Kenny/Sarah Walker/Patrick Power/Petteri Salomaa/The Schutz Chor Of London

4. Sym No.9 in d, Op.125 'Choral': IV. Presto - Allegro - Yvonne Kenny/Sarah Walker/Patrick Power/Petteri Salomaa/The Schutz Chor Of London

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One to live with, March 30, 2004

By 

Larry VanDeSande - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Beethoven - Symphonies 1-9 · Overtures / London Classical Players · Sir Roger Norrington (Audio CD)

Conservatives that enjoy the Beethoven symphonies of Karl Bohm, Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan often criticize the Norrington approach as superficial. A conservaitve reviewer once wrote that people had been shot for less than what Norrington did to the Ninth Symphony. That may have been true during the Stalin Reign of Terror, but probably not otherwise.

I believe Norrington was the first of the period conductors -- the crowd that includes Gardiner, Harnoncourt and Hogwood among the more famous -- to understand there was a message in Beethoven's symphonies that wasn't getting through prior to period performance.

What is that message? That a certain level of nervousness is appropriate in Beethoven. That grandeur is not necessarily Beethoven-like. That speed and taste are not necessarily related (although I wondered how anyone could play the third movement of Beethoven's Ninth at the presto romp in Zinman's set.)

While period performances of Beethoven are commonplace today, this set rocked the music world when it came out in the 1980s. Norrington did not merely clean off old layers of paint on these symphonies; he stripped them down and stained them, allowing an original approach to appear through the veneer.

His approach revealed something about this composer record collectors never knew -- that Beethoven's scores indicated speeds much faster than the norm with orchestral tuttis that build more quickly and explosively that had been the practice in recordings of the post-World War II generation of conductors.

Until Norrington came along, I thought the best approach to Beethoven's symphonies was the full-blown romance of Ernest Ansermet in his set from the 1960s with the Swiss Radio Orchestra. In particular, Ansermet's Symphony 2 had romance with the balance and transparency people have come to expect from period performance of Classic composers like Haydn.

I don't think it is coincidental that Norrington's CD of Beethoven Symphonies 2 & 8 was the most acclaimed single CD of this set, although his "Eroica" was also well-accepted critically. Norrington's work captured the fine qualities of Ansermet from a quarter decade earlier and gave a new voice to Beethoven's music. This is a voice sometimes demonic, sometimes straightforward, usually vivid, always dramatic.

Before I bought this set, I wondered if it could possibly replace longtime favorites in Symphonies 3, 6 and 9, which require different sensibilities from a conductor. Not only did this set exceed my expectations in that regard, the performances have spoken to me in ways Karajan, Bernstein, Walter, Furtwangler and Bohm could not.

Norrington has since released another set of the Beethoven symphonies on the Hanssler label in recordings made during concert performances. These have the advantage of spontaneous music-making, better timpani and are similar in concept to this set. However, many of the speeds Norrington used in the EMI set and are actually hastened in the Hanssler CDs.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A bit of the bloom off the rose, May 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Beethoven - Symphonies 1-9 · Overtures / London Classical Players · Sir Roger Norrington (Audio CD)

I have had these recordings since their initial release in the late eighties, and still enjoy them. Norrington not only took on the contraversial metronome marks head-on, but internalized them and the aesthetic world that they suggest: brash, impassioned, uncompromising. (Mostly uncompromising; Norrington said that he took the outer movements of the Eighth at a slightly slower tempo than indicated because he could not get the players to produce the performance that he could hear in his head.) And much to my liking in that.
That said, I must admit that these performances have lost a bit of the bloom off the rose. For one thing, they no longer stand alone: Gardiner, Zinman, and MacKerras have gone down the same path. And since then Norrington has had to compete with Norrington. Over the years I have heard the man perform many times in Los Angeles, and I also have a number of live performances. In each case Norrington live surpassed Norrington recorded. (With one exception. His recording of Beethoven's Second was every bit the match of his live performance with LA Phil.) Before a live audience there was flow, a songfulness, that he could not muster in these recordings, where he working very hard to document his ideas about the pieces. He was at his most careful and cautious in the Seventh and Ninth (that is to say, the pieces with the most complex rhythms); at his best in the Second, Third, and Fifth. I remeber one oddity about his conducting: he would alternate between using a baton and not. He would take up the stick in movements with a strong rhythmic push and put it down in movement with a strong lyrical flow. I found myself wishing that he had left that he had left the baton on the stand when he made his recordings.
I would recommend these recordings on balance, conscious of the fact that they do not reflect Norrington as his best. I do hope that someday Norrington re-records this music, or allows some live performances to find the light of day.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful value for money, 6th & 9th a little disappointing, September 26, 2004

By 

Leslie Richford (Selsingen, Lower Saxony) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beethoven - Symphonies 1-9 · Overtures / London Classical Players · Sir Roger Norrington (Audio CD)

Sir Roger Norrington's Beethoven cycle, recorded in London's prestigious Abbey Road Studio No. 1 between 1986 and 1988, marks something of a turning-point in the modern history of Beethoven interpretation. Norrington uses period instruments, even when they sound rather strange to modern ears; he re-sits the orchestra according to the early 19th century pattern, thus making for a very transparent listening experience, with the second violins being particularly prominent on the right side of the proceedings; and he meticulously follows Beethoven's and/or Czerny's metronome markings, thus achieving tempi which are often a lot faster, but sometimes also a good deal slower than those generally used. The results are, for my mind, very convincing. Here is a Beethoven who, having 'received Mozart's spirit from the hands of Haydn', goes on to develop the symphony in ways only he could have done: here is a genius indeed, but not one who suddenly appeared from nothing.

I have commented positively on Norrington's interpretations of Symphonies 1 through 4 and 7 and 8 elsewhere, so I won't repeat myself here. The most famous of Beethoven's symphonies, 5, 6 and 9, are gathered on the last two Cds of this CD box and merit some further comment. In the 90's John Eliot Gardiner produced another 'period Beethoven' on Deutsche Grammophon Archiv, and it is fascinating to compare his efforts with Norrington. For my mind, the score is one-all on Symphonies 5 and 6. Norrington's Fifth captures more of the dramatic intent and uses the brass to wonderful effect; I felt that Gardiner's live recording was just a little too gentle. On the Sixth, however, Gardiner wins hands-down, with Norrington's 'Scene at the Brook' becoming tiresomely soporific. The birdsong flute is done so much better by Gardiner, and ditto the following thunderstorm. Norrington's Ninth starts off brilliantly, but gets a little bogged down towards the end. Not only does he deliberately keep to the somewhat doubtful metronome markings in the Scherzo, thus drawing it out to unheard-of lengths, but also his solo singers are rather pale and do not manage to convey the real depths of joy contained here. (I would expressly exclude the excellent Schütz Choir from this criticism.)

All in all, this 5-CD box offers wonderful value for money for anyone interested in hearing Beethoven as Beethoven actually wrote the music. But it is a moot point whether any listener would be completely satisfied with just this set. I suggest that, at the very least, you should get another version of the Sixth (Gardiner?) and the Ninth (Harnoncourt?) to be in Listener's Paradise.