GREAT RECORDINGS phase 10

BEETHOVEN: SYMPHONY No.6
Overtures: 'Coriolan' & 'Prometheus'
'Egmont' - Overture & Incidental Music
Birgit Nilsson/Philharmonia Orchestra
Otto Klemperer

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'This is a tremendous performance of the Pastoral: measured, controlled, completely confident and wonderfully convincing. The overtures are invigorating and splendid and Nilsson gives enthralling interpretations of the two songs from Egmont.' (Gramophone)

The great German-born conductor Otto Klemperer (1885-1973) began to record for EMI with Walter Legge's Philharmonia Orchestra in 1954 and embarked on a famous Beethoven symphony cycle in October 1955 (with the 'Eroica' and Symphonies 5 & 7, also available in the Great Recordings series).

Two years later, when he completed the cycle, he recorded not only this superb account of the Sixth Symphony (the 'Pastoral', Beethoven's great hymn to nature of 1808), but also classic performances of three highly theatrical overtures: Prometheus (written for a ballet in 1801), Coriolan (1807; the curtain-raiser for Collin's play about Coriolanus) and Egmont (1810; part of the incidental music for Goethe's historical drama).

In addition, Klemperer also recorded two exquisite songs, with the great Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson ('superlative singing' according to Gramophone), and the brief funeral march from Beethoven's music for Egmont.