LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)

 

Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21

Symphony No. 6 in F major, ‘Pastoral’, Op. 68

 

Minnesota Orchestra / Osmo Vänskä

 

Symphonies Nos. 1 and 6 make up the fourth instalment of the Beethoven Symphony Cycle with conductor Osmo Vänskä and Minnesota Orchestra, a cycle which has received universal praise.

 

Symphony No. 6 – the Pastoral Symphony – is one of Beethoven’s more popular symphonies. Beethoven sketched ideas for an orchestral work based on pastoral themes, but the sketches were laid aside until 1808 when he took up the challenge of combining two highly different traditions: the symphony genre and the pastoral idiom. As Beethoven scholar Barry Cooper states in his liner notes to this disc, “Beethoven’s great achievement was to reconcile two opposing elements, so that the work is thoroughly pastoral in character yet thoroughly symphonic in form.” The 6th is coupled with Beethoven’s first symphony which was influenced by his predecessors, particularly his teacher Haydn.

 

This release follows Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra’s Ninth Symphony which BBC Music Magazine designated a benchmark recording and termed “a Beethoven Ninth of our times” and an Eroica containing “one of the finest performances of the Funeral March ever recorded” (Classics Today). Vänskä’s Eighth was described as “terrifically taut, yet playful” (The Times), and his Fourth and Fifth were called “the modern Beethoven recording par excellence” by The Financial Times.

 

BIS SACD BISSACD1716