CCMusic.com

Sony Classical is pleased to announce another ten releases in it's increasingly comprehensive series of Classical Masters. These new budget-priced releases contain classic recordings, many of them newly remastered, by some of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. Once again, the series offers cornerstones of the symphonic repertoire, including two complete cycles. In the late 1980s, Günter Wand, one of the most respected interpreters of the Austro-German repertoire, recorded all the Beethoven symphonies with his Hamburg Radio (NDR) Symphony Orchestra. It is still a benchmark. Reviewing the complete cycle a few years ago, ClassicsToday. Com wrote: "This is one of the most consistent of all modern Beethoven editions, capped by a Ninth that stands among the select performances of that work on disc... One of the things that makes these performances so special is Wand's ability to create a truly athletic feeling of movement at any tempo, and in order to do that he has to pay attention not just to tiny details, but also to larger phrases and musical paragraphs... The Fifth Symphony has all of the grit and grandeur that Beethoven intended... The funeral march in the "Eroica" is one of the most noble on disc... The "Pastoral" captures the music's earthiness and rusticity with memorable fidelity... Exceptionally well recorded, this Beethoven cycle belongs in every serious collection. "