BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 5 / Sonata No. 29 (orch. Weingartner) (1930, 1933)

Albumbeschreibung

Everyone should know by now that Felix Weingartner was one of the very greatest Beethoven conductors of the first half of the twentieth century. Everyone should know by now that Weingartner's cycle of the Beethoven symphonies recorded in the early '30s remains one of the touchstones of the art of conducting. And everyone should know by know that Weingartner's 1933 recording of the Symphony No. 5 with the London Philharmonic was then, is now, and forever shall be one of the supreme performances of the work and one of the performances everyone should hear if they consider themselves cultured. But although everyone may have heard of Weingartner's orchestration of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Piano Sonata, not everyone has actually heard it. And while not everyone needs to hear it to consider themselves cultured, everyone who wants to hear a tremendous transcription of a work they thought they knew backwards, forwards, inside out, and sideways should hear what Weingartner has done with the Hammerklavier in this 1930 recording with the Royal Philharmonic. Weingartner's transcription is no pro forma exercise in orchestration: it is a re-thinking of the work in orchestral terms and by the time he's reached the middle expansive Adagio sostenuto, Weingartner's not just re-thinking the music, he's re-composing it, re-creating it in a new titanic image. It's quite a trick and it's not for everyone, but for anyone who has to know what Felix Weingartner really thought of Beethoven's music, the answer is right here. Naxos' transfers are as good as it will ever get in this world.
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