This collection of orchestral works follows on a set of Schubert symphonies by the same forces, likewise recorded live at the Styriarte festival in Graz, Austria. Even with four CDs (albeit for the price of two), this new box featuring works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms has found immediate commercial success. It's not a surprise. These performances fall under the general rubric of those from later in the late conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt's career where he sought to apply the lessons of the historical ...
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This collection of orchestral works follows on a set of Schubert symphonies by the same forces, likewise recorded live at the Styriarte festival in Graz, Austria. Even with four CDs (albeit for the price of two), this new box featuring works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms has found immediate commercial success. It's not a surprise. These performances fall under the general rubric of those from later in the late conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt's career where he sought to apply the lessons of the historical-performance movement, and specifically his own branch of that movement, to orchestras with conventional instruments. He worked closely for some years with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in this enterprise, and these performances, recorded between 1988 and 2007, are impressive purely in terms of coordination between conductor and orchestra, in music where the musicians are being asked to do quite unconventional things. As for the performances themselves, they show many of Harnoncourt's...
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