Antonello Manacorda & Kammerakademie Potsdam - Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1, 2 & 7 (2022) [Hi-Res]

Sony Classical is releasing the complete Beethoven symphonies, recorded by the Kammerakademie Potsdam and its principal conductor Antonello Manacorda. The cycle will be released in three parts over the next two years, starting in October 2022 with the first album featuring the First, Second and Seventh Symphonies. Symphonies 5 and 6 will follow in 2023, and the cycle will be complete from the fall of 2024.

Beethoven has long played a central role in the Kammerakademie Potsdam's concerts, but has been absent from the ensemble's discography. But by performing all nine symphonies in a single weekend in 2014, it was already clear that they would one day record them all. "The intensity of preparation required to perform this massive work in a relatively short period of time was an enormously important experience for all of us," Manacorda recalls. The recent pandemic provided the musicians, as well as the conductor, with the opportunity to realize this desire.

Manacorda explains the chamber orchestra's unique sound: "We play on modern instruments. We use modern woodwinds, but natural horns and trumpets and smaller, narrower trombones. So it's a mixture of old and new. This allows us to perform works for larger orchestras without needing forty violins to do it, because it's much easier to get the right balance and the right level of clarity that way."