Review of Claudio Abbado: Beethoven - Symphonies 1-9 (2008)

In 2001, during the month of February, the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado, were in residence at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome to play all nine of the Beethoven symphonies. The first eight symphonies were recorded for television by the renowned music film producer Paul Smaczny and directed for television by Bob Coles. The 9th had already been recorded in Berlin the year before with a distinguished cast of singers -- Karita Mattila, Violeta Urmana, Thomas Moser, and Eike Wim Schulte, along with the Swedish Radio Choir and the legendary Eric Ericson Chamber Choir -- and it is that performance that is included here. These performances have been released on four single DVDs previously, but this compilation box set of four discs is now available from Euroarts for an amazingly low price, much lower than than if you bought the single discs. You can read other customer reviews of the single issues here: Beethoven - Symphonies 1, 6, and 8 / Claudio Abbado, Berlin Philharmonic, Beethoven - Symphonies 2 and 5 / Claudio Abbado, Berlin Philharmonic, Beethoven - Symphonies 3 and 9 / Abbado, Mattila, Urmana, Moser, Schulte, Berlin Philharmonic, and Beethoven - Symphonies 4 and 7 / Claudio Abbado, Berlin Philharmonic. I have not reviewed the single issues but will not linger here to offer a review of each disc. I will simply say that for me Abbado is the master conductor of the present age and that his Beethoven interpretations, using the recently completed Bärenreiter edition of the symphonies done by English musicologist Jonathan del Mar, are almost universally hailed. The main achievement of this edition is the removal of hundreds of errors that crept into the first edition and have been perpetuated, or have multiplied, in subsequent editions. Abbado chooses to use somewhat reduced string sections in Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 4 & 8, as is fitting for their gentler spirit. These same Rome and Berlin performances have been issued in a CD box set Beethoven: The Symphonies [Box Set] and in my view are generally preferred to his earlier issued traversal on Deutsche Grammophon Beethoven - Die Symphonien (Symphonies 1-9) / Abbado, Berlin Philharmonic, which in addition is hugely more expensively priced. Interestingly, the present DVD box set costs less at Amazon than the CD box set. Go figure!

Interpretively these performances tend to be a bit on the fast side, with absolutely clear sonics and transparent balances. The men and women of the Berliner Philharmoniker, a younger group than we had been used to even a decade earlier, play like angels. Abbado himself had just been through a harrowing bout with stomach cancer and looks very thin but otherwise healthy in these performances. He says of this period, 'Music is the best medicine. More than any other form of therapy, it is music that has helped me through these last few difficult months.' Visually, the performances on DVD are neatly photographed. In several of the symphonies -- Nos. 3, 5, 6 & 7 -- the viewer has the option of viewing the performance in a 'Conductor's View' in addition to the usual 'Concert View' by use of the 'angle' button on the DVD's remote control. The 'Conductor's View' simply focuses on Abbado from the orchestra's perspective.

In addition to the bonus of the 'Conductor's View', there is, on the disc with with Symphonies Nos. 4 & 7, a half-hour interview with Abbado talking about his understanding of and response to the music of Beethoven.

These performances gave me enormous pleasure and I can't recommend them highly enough.

Running time: 6hrs, 34mins; Format: NTSC 16:9; Sound: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1; DTS 5.1; Substitles: German, English, French, Italian, Spanish; Region code: 0 (worldwide).

Scott Morrison

Product Description
In February 2001 the Berlin Philharmonic and Claudio Abbado were guests at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome with all of Beethoven's symphonies. Their success was overwhelming: ther were standing ovations after each performance and the critics spoke of seminal moments in the history of music. The video recordings of this event are now available in an exclusive box set, including a special multi-angle feature: the DVDs offer sequences from the 'conductor camera' and show the maestro from his musicians' perspective.

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