The Beethoven year is about to begin and the first contributions by various artists to the anniversary are already being published The focus will be on the evergreens that will attract the attention of the public As a versatile and extremely productive artist, Beethoven has also created a number of works that are virtually unknown today This extensive 9 album edition is dedicated exactly to these works and its tracklisting reads like a sparkling treasure chest Rarely heard arias in various languages, Contredanses, minuets, Ländlers the Piano Concerto No 0 music for a knight's ballet, fun loving and sometimes not entirely youth free canons Over 10 ½ hours full of works by Ludwig van Beethoven, which were written throughout his life and cast a new, unusual glance on his musical oeuvre and his perhaps sometimes not so serious character.

Kurt Masur approaches the symphonies easily and gracefully. He is capable of a gesture of proper grandeur, as at the opening to No. 1, but on the whole he treats them more lightly... The delightful Scherzo to No. 3, marked moderato, is played rather solemnly by Sawallisch, where Masur touches elegantly on its Leindler grace and its easy flow up and down the arpeggios. Opening No. 4, Sawallisch responds to the very Beethoven-like scoring with similar grandeur of utterance; Masur is quieter, seeking out the Romantic tinge in the bassoon and middle string phrases...

-- Gramophone [9/1976]
reviewing the original LP release

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The Daily Telegraph describes Nikolaj Znaider as "the most stimulating young musician playing today, drawing on musical intelligence, perception and dynamism to give performances of rare intensity.” This release presents one of the world's foremost violinists playing two landmark concertos, accompanied by the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester,  "one of Europe's finest orchestras" (The Guardian), under the baton of its music director Riccardo Chailly. 

It was the Gewandhausorchester that, in 1845, first performed Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E minor. Mendelssohn himself had conducted Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major several times and helped this milestone in the history of music to its great breakthrough.


Picture Format: NTSC 16:9
Sound Formats: PCM Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1
Region Code: 0 (Worldwide)
Running Time: 84 Minutes