DG issued a Berlin/Abbado cycle of the Beethoven symphonies, taken from live concerts in Berlin, eight years ago. Numbers 1-8 in this new set derive from concerts in Rome in 2001 that the Italian conductor now prefers. “Our interpretative vision had matured and become more natural and shared,” he writes in the notes. From the older set, he retains the Ninth Symphony, with the Swedish Radio Choir and the soloists Karita Mattila, Violeta Urmana, Thomas Moser and Thomas Quasthoff - still the crowning achievement of one of the most involving cycles of the modern era. Abbado’s lithe tempi and momentous unfolding of Beethoven’s great orchestral dramas sound even more vivid here than in the Berlin-recorded set. The most obvious gain comes in the sometimes least-regarded even-numbered symphonies, in which Abbado’s scrupulous attention to instrumental detail in the Jonathan Del Mar critical editions, and his almost Haydnesque brio in the outer movements, are wonderfully uplifting. I can’t think of more satisfying modern-instrument accounts of the exhilarating allegro vivace of the B flat major symphony (No 4) or the finale of the F major (No 8), while Abbado’s power and dynamism propel the Eroica and the Fifth inexorably to their triumphant conclusions.

Deutsche Grammophon 4775864

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