Honouring the Beethoven anniversary, the complete cycle of symphonies and overtures with Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie is being released as a box set on SACD.
When Paavo Järvi became Artistic Director of The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in 2004 he was adamant that their first project together should be Beethoven. For 16 years he has worked intensively with the Bremen musicians, performing the complete symphonies in Paris, Tokyo, Strasbourg, Warsaw, São Paulo as well as at both the Beethovenfest Bonn and Salzburg Festival. Upcoming residencies take them to Frankfurt’s Alte Oper and Vienna’s Musikverein.
Together they recorded and released each symphony on RCA Red Seal, receiving international critical acclaim and a string of prizes. “Admired and celebrated worldwide for their artistic achievements, they have realized groundbreaking projects together and have often written history of interpretation in the process” commented the jury of the Rheingau Music Prize on presenting Järvi and the orchestra with the prestigious award in 2019. Now, to honour the Beethoven anniversary, the complete symphony cycle and overtures is being released as a box set on SACD.
Earlier this summer, in interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Paavo Järvi talked about growing up with Beethoven:
“Why did Furtwängler make a rallentando here, but not George Szell? What if this particular section actually would be performed alla breve instead of the usual four? We used to talk about such things over the dinner table … discussing the music of Beethoven and other composers was just the way we grew up. Then later, after we moved to the United States, the new, historically informed movement became increasingly prominent and whilst studying at the Curtis Institute of Music, everything I thought about Beethoven started to change. Following the start of my professional career and especially after I was invited to conduct The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, I was blessed with the opportunity to see the works of this musical giant in their depth. After playing a Beethoven symphony together, I knew I had found the perfect partner to research this composer. The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen is an orchestra with a unique, almost “anti-orchestral” way of working. The mutual give and take between musicians and conductor, in which each contributes interpretative insights, enabled us to dig deeper and deeper. For ten years we almost exclusively performed Beethoven together before we recorded all of the symphonies … At the end of this process, Beethoven became a completely different composer for me than the one I grew up with. And my journey of discovery still continues.