Michael Tilson Thomas - Michael Tilson Thomas Conducts Beethoven (2020)

Sony Classical announces another ten releases in its popular series of Classical Masters. This new batch of budget-priced sets contains major recording projects by some of the 20th centurys most celebrated musicians. Not long before he took up the principal conductorship of the London Symphony Orchestra in 1988, Michael Tilson Thomas recorded all of Beethovens symphonies with another of the British capitals leading ensembles, the English Chamber Orchestra, rounding off the cycle with a performance of the Eroica featuring New Yorks Orchestra of St. Lukes. A Gramophone reviewer wrote in 1985 that Tilson Thomass chamber versions always throw new light on the strings/wind balance, giving us something closer to what Beethoven expected than we are used to You can expect details to stand out which you had not noticed before, while another, writing in 1987 on the sound of the Abbey Road Studio No. 1 recordings, found plenty of weight and power bright and immediate with a fine feeling of presence and declared the Ninth a splendid culmination to Tilson Thomass cycle. The six albums of this first release in a single box also contain the conductors London recordings of Beethoven overtures, late choral works and the concert aria Ah! Perfido with soprano Eva Marton.