Nearly twenty years after their acclaimed Beethoven Symphonies recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique returned to this repertoire for the first time last year, in a tour that took them to London, Philadelphia, Washington and New York. The concert in Carnegie Hall was broadcast live by WQXR, who kindly agreed to make the recording available to us to release on our label.

Sir John Eliot’s Gardiner’s reading of these familiar pieces highlights their revolutionary origin. Performing on period instruments, the ORR brings light, clarity and brisk energy, as well as a warm and genuinely thrilling sound.

The album contains a 36 pages booklet with original notes by BBC presenter and music journalist Stephen Johnson.

"The Allegretto was sinuous and haunting, the finale joyously visceral. And from fate’s knock at the onset of the Fifth Symphony, Mr. Gardiner wrought Beethoven fresh and strange, with gutsy, brash and rasping instrumental voices united in triumph." – The New York Times