Credits:

Kent Nagano / Goteborgs Symfoniker

Description:

The fifth release in the Beethoven: Complete Symphonies project featuring Kent Nagano and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, of which he is music director. Beethovens first symphony, Symphony No. 1, which he finally completed at the age of 30. This album features Symphony No. 7, a work brimming with vitality that Wagner described as the deification of dance. As with previous releases, the ensemble thoroughly researches and internalizes the performance style of period instrumentssuch as timpani played with stiff mallets and string sections arranged in a facing formation with restrained vibratoand then recreates it with a modern symphony orchestra. The high-tension performances with their muscular, resolute sound and the exquisite beauty of the strings in the slow movements are truly superb; together with the three-dimensional expression of each individual part, they paint a p