Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Allegro con brio
2. Andante con moto
3. Allegro
4. Allegro
5. Adagio molto - Allegro con brio
6. Andante cantabile con moto
7. Menuetto, Allegro molto e vivace
8. Finale, Adagio - Allegro molto e vivace

Disc 2:

1. Adagio molto / Allegro con brio
2. Larghetto
3. Scherzo, Allegro
4. Allegro molto
5. Adagio - Allegro vivace
6. Adagio
7. Allegro vivace
8. Allegro ma non troppo

Disc 3:

1. Allegro con brio
2. Marcia funebre, Adagio assai
3. Scherzo, Allegro vivace
4. Finale, Allegro molto

Disc 4:

1. Allegro ma non troppo
2. Andante molto moto
3. Allegro
4. Allegro
5. Allegretto

Disc 5:

1. Poco sostenuto - Vivace
2. Allegretto
3. Presto
4. Allegro con brio
5. Allegro vivace e con brio
6. Allgretto scherzando
7. Tempo di Meneutto
8. Allegro vivace

Disc 6:

1. Allegro ma non troppo
2. Molto vivace
3. Adagio molto e cantabile
4. Presto - Allegro assai / Recitative - Allegro assai

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #100976 in Music
• Released on: 1998-11-03
• Number of discs: 6
• Format: Box set

Customer Reviews

A Mixed Bag - and Listen to #3 Before Buying
Muti played a lot of Beethoven during his years in Philadelphia but that should not be taken as an automatic recommendation for this set. There is no perfect set of the complete Beethoven symphonies. Muti does best in the more dramatic works, such as 5 and 7. The 7th was a work he returned to frequently and this is a flaming rendition.

But the humor and wit that others (Walter and Monteux, for example) could find in 1, 4 and 8 seem to be total mysteries to Muti and he seems at a loss for what to do during his day in the country (#6). The 9th is a big event but the performance doesn't move you like Furtwangler. It seems cold.

The big loss, though, is the 3rd, the "Eroica". Muti did very well with this in concert in the 1980s, when these were recorded but through some incredible error, the original 1988 edition of the performance used a bad take in which the french horn's solo reprise of the 1st movement theme at the start of the racapitulation was MIA. Was he asleep? Were there too many spotmikes and his was turned off? And how did a perfectionist like Muti let it out? In any event, listen to see if this has been fixed before laying out any money.

My advice? Pick up Muti's 5 & 7 if available separately but skip the rest. If you want high energy Beethoven in this price range, go for the Solti. If you want something a little more human, then Walter or Monteux, although the latter's 9th is an orphan on another label than Decca/London which has 1 through 8 on a pair of bargain priced "Double Deccas." The weakness of the Walter stereo set is the 5th, which can be remedied by going for Carlos Kleiber's 5 & 7 on DG's "The Originals" series.

Beethoven, Muti, And Philadelphia
The nine symphonies of Beethoven are not only a high watermark in the classical music genre, but indeed a high watermark for all of music and humanity in general. They are remarkable also for the sheer fact that Beethoven was often in poor health when he composed them, and struggling with deafness as well. From the first two symphonies, both in the Haydn/Mozart sphere, to the ground-breaking "Eroica" and moving up to the immense universes of the Ninth, Beethoven helped set the stage not only for the music of the 19th century, but also even the 20th as well.

Not surprisingly, there have been dozens upon dozens of box sets devoted to Beethoven's symphonies over the decades. But this one by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Muti stands tall with other Beethoven sets for the way this great orchestra navigates its way through these works under the direction of a great conductor who had the unenviable task of carving out a niche for himself in Philadelphia, where the reputations of Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy still loom large.

The box set consists of:

CD-1: SYMPHONIES NOS. 5 & 1

CD-2: SYMPHONIES NOS. 2 & 4

CD-3: SYMPHONY NO. 3 (EROICA); OVERTURE TO "FIDELIO"; CONSECREATION OF THE HOUSE OVERTURE

CD-4: SYMPHONY NO. 6 (PASTORAL); LEONORA OVERTURE NO. 3

CD-5: SYMPHONIES NOS. 7 & 8

CD-6: SYMPHONY NO. 9 (CHORAL); CHERYL STUDER (soprano); DELORES ZIEGLER (mezzo-soprano); PETER SEIFFERT (tenor); JAMES MORRIS (bass); WESTMINSTER CHOIR (Joseph Flummerfelt, chorus director)

Recorded between 1985 and 1988, this box set may not enjoy the same amount of praise richly and deservedly placed on those by Solti, Karajan, Bernstein, or Szell, but the performances contained in them are very true to the composer's intentions without sacrificing spirit or orchestral texture. The 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 8th symphonies are very Classical in their performances, while nos. 3, 5, 6, & 7 are sterling examples of balancing classical structure with Romanticism. The addition of three overtures, two of them from the composer's one and only opera "Fidelio", is also welcome. And then there's the Ninth Symphony, with its immense power and the triumphal "Ode To Joy" finale, superbly pulled off by Muti and the orchestra with a distinguished quartet of vocal soloists and the Westminster Choir.

Every self-respecting music aficionado should have a Beethoven symphonic box set in their collection, and this one is a fine addition to the many great such box sets out there.

Mostly So-So and Synthetic Sound
I received this set in the 1988 CDS 7 49487 2 issue as a gift. It includes the notorious editing gaffe in the first movement of the "Eroica" (maybe corrected in this incarnation). Muti is a so-so interpreter of these warhorses. He lives me cold except for a rhythmically taut and exciting performance of the Seventh and a good performance of the Fifth.

This is big orchestra Beethoven. When the set was released twenty years ago, the publicity material indicated the recordings were made in three different Philadelphia venues. The fact that the whole set sounds the same is evidence of much post session meddling and artifical reverberation. The result is smooth and synthetic.

There are Beethoven Symphony cycles for every conceivable taste. This one is well played, but with the exception of Nos. 5 and 7, I don't find much on the interpretive front that appeals to me. The waning years of the 20th century saw many duplicative cycles of the symphonies that didn't contribute much to the various conductors' and orchestras' recorded legacies. This, in my humble opinion, is one of those expendable sets. EMI has also released the performances in budget priced individual discs. If you can find Nos. 5 and 7, they are worth investigating. Of more recent efforts, Charles Mackerras (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic/EMI) and David Zinman (Zurich Tonhalle/Pro Arte) have some very interesting things to say. Those interested in period instruments should investigate Gardiner on DG. The current cycles conducted by Jarvi(RCA) and Vanska (BIS) are on a very high level interpretively and recorded in state of the art sound.