BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 7; Works by CARL MARIA VON WEBER, ROSSINI and JOHANN WILHELM WILMS – Budapest Festival Orchestra /Ivan Fischer, conductor – Channel Classics

by | Jun 5, 2008 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews | 0 comments

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 7; Works by CARL MARIA VON WEBER, ROSSINI and JOHANN WILHELM WILMS – Budapest Festival Orchestra /Ivan Fischer, conductor – Channel Classics Multichannel SACD CCS SA 25207, 61 min. **** [Distr. by Harmonia mundi]:

In late 1813, combined forces from Austria and Bavaria decisively defeated the troops of Napoleon at the battle of Hanau, signaling to the world that the end of the Napoleonic age was at hand. Later that year, a series of charity concerts were organized in Vienna, and Beethoven debuted his Symphony No. 7 to wildly enthusiastic crowds, who demanded that the orchestra replay the symphony’s magnificent second movement. Not everyone in attendance was as enamoured with this bold new music, however, as Carl Maria von Weber would later declare that whoever wrote the music was “fit to be committed to an asylum!”

The remaining works on the disc all come from contemporaries of Beethoven, but the pairings seem a bit odd when compared to the norm. Which would be an all-Beethoven program, or perhaps pairing the symphony with a completed work of a contemporary, rather than these seemingly disjointed fragments of works. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed all the music; listening to this disc is kind of like listening to my local NPR station, which seems hung in the “Classical’s Greatest Hits” mode, and rarely plays a completed work in its entirety. I especially enjoyed the music of Johann Wilhem Wilms, who left Vienna in 1791 and moved to Amsterdam, where his music received much acclaim. The all-too-brief five minute Rondo left me wanting to hear more – I’ll definitely keep an eye out for him!

Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra give us a brilliantly realized Beethoven 7th; I can’t really say that I’ve ever heard anything by this orchestra and conductor that I wasn’t thoroughly impressed with.  As usual, Channel Classics provides a spectacular Meitner/Pyramix-based DSD recording, and the sound is absolutely to die for. Only the oddly truncated program choices keep this disc from getting five stars. Highly recommended.

— Tom Gibbs
 

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