Amazon.co.uk allows you to pay for your items in your local currency. Restrictions apply. Learn More. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s
Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or
view the MP3 Album.
|
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Long regarded as the quintessential interpretation of the most popular and best-loved symphony ever written, this performance of the Fifth has everything: passion, precision, drama, lyric beauty, and a coiled fury in the first movement that sets your pulse racing from the very first note. Carlos Kleiber has made very few recordings in his distinguished career, but almost all are special. If you own no other copy of this symphony, this is the one to get. It comes with an exceptional performance of the Seventh--not quite as gripping as the Fifth, but definitely one of the great ones. There is classical music, and there are classic recordings of classical music. This one's a classic. -- David Hurwitz
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
42 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Having heard the 7th more than one hundred times in my 50 + years and nearly always been blown away by the last movement the
Klieber Beethoven 7 on the radio and was a revelation and I had to get the CD without delay. The clarity of the Vienna Philharmonic playing, the musical line, the sense of architecture ........... lost for words.
I am an avid fan of Arturo Toscanini but Carlos Kleiber in the Fifth and the Seventh makes the Maestro seem half asleep.
Of course the DG 1975 recording quality far out strips the best of Toscanini and is superb.
Klieber Beethoven 7 on the radio and was a revelation and I had to get the CD without delay. The clarity of the Vienna Philharmonic playing, the musical line, the sense of architecture ........... lost for words.
I am an avid fan of Arturo Toscanini but Carlos Kleiber in the Fifth and the Seventh makes the Maestro seem half asleep.
Of course the DG 1975 recording quality far out strips the best of Toscanini and is superb.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This has just been chosen on BBC 3's CD Review as the 'best' version of the 5th. Symphony, just pipping the 1955 mono Klemperer ; and I believe it was chosen also the last time CD Review tackled the many versions of this work. It made waves when it first came out on LP and has always been popular, combining as it does great fire and intensity with a good sense of structure and some beautifully lyrical phrasing and playing. Much the same virtues are evident in the 7th. Symphony, and together on one CD they really are irresistible. There can never be one definitive version of either of these incomparable works, and many, many performances on CD have something valid to tell us, but these two interpretations have more than most.
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
The Fifth! Ah, the fifth! In the musical world, no one doubts whom you mean. Beethoven’s majestic symphony is the most overplayed, over recorded and hackneyed piece of work in the world. Then something like this comes along and we’re back in the original furnace of its creation. Kleiber and his band (and lets not underestimate their achievement) give us a first movement of fearful power & terror. That opening motif sheds it familiarity and hits us as if for the first time. After getting the solar plexus to settle after the first movement, we’re then in the realms of steady resignation, a relentlessness that never relies on volume or speed and then on to an ethereal 3rd movement that seems to encompass all spiritual sadness to an almost unbearable point.
And then …! Here we have the most glorious transition between movements in all the history of music. The seamless growth from breathless quiet to the explosive joy of the 4th movement can never fail to make the arms rise in triumph. Beethoven saying Bollocks to fate and taking his own life back with a fierce exhilaration that makes one want to shout with him. Kleiber & the Vienna miraculously achieve this with a transparency of sound and unity that comes along in recorded music once in a lifetime. The engineering is equal to the artistry (blindfold, most people would still think it’s a new recording). If you really haven’t heard this version, go out now and buy it. Turn it up on the Hi-Fi and come away a changed person.
And then …! Here we have the most glorious transition between movements in all the history of music. The seamless growth from breathless quiet to the explosive joy of the 4th movement can never fail to make the arms rise in triumph. Beethoven saying Bollocks to fate and taking his own life back with a fierce exhilaration that makes one want to shout with him. Kleiber & the Vienna miraculously achieve this with a transparency of sound and unity that comes along in recorded music once in a lifetime. The engineering is equal to the artistry (blindfold, most people would still think it’s a new recording). If you really haven’t heard this version, go out now and buy it. Turn it up on the Hi-Fi and come away a changed person.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Believe it .
Being by nature somewhat cynical , and being a bit fed up with sleeve notes proclaiming various recordings and performances as being " the greatest " of whatever , I have to agree... Read more
Published 1 month ago by theplanets
Carlos Kleiber Beethoven Symphony No.7 was phenonmenal
Wonderful interpretation of Beethoven Symphony with clarity of line and dynamics. The Beethoven 5th Symphony was very good too.Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 7
Published 2 months ago by Sze
Glorious
Both of these performances are magnificent. They are gloriously played and thrilling. Kleiber makes it all sound so easy. Read more
Published 3 months ago by enthusiast
Annoying clicks
I do not generally buy classical music so take this review with a pinch of salt.
I keep hearing annoying clicks throughout the recording. Read more
I keep hearing annoying clicks throughout the recording. Read more
Published 4 months ago by J. Brierley
Not "just" another copy of the Seventh
Unlike I suspect many people I bought this to get a good copy of the Seventh, not the Fifth. However, this rapidly became my usual listening copy of the Fifth as well. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mr. C. Street
This Beethoven`s recording like a opened score
On this cd, the recording team has reached impossible achievement !There is no need to have orchestral score-Hans-Peter Schweigmann and Klaus Scheibe had captured all what... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Rufina Noor
The definitive 7th
Absolutely marvellous recording!!! The Kleiber reading of no 7 leaves me speechless. It has energy, depth, edge, roundness, vitality - everything! Read more
Published 9 months ago by Per Arne Rudberg
Un classico
Non c'è che dire: a distanza di di oltre 35 anni dalla loro registrazione, le Sinfonie 5 e 7 di Beethoven dirette da Karlos Kleiber continuano ad affascinare e si confermano... Read more
Published 15 months ago by pablot68
Poor interpretation of the 7th symphony
Many of the reviewers appear to have awarded 5 stars on the basis of Kleiber's interpretation of the 5th symphony. Read more
Published 18 months ago by I. Jack
One of the Greatest Fifths
In my opinion, it's the first movement which causes most trouble in recorded performances, but this is as close perfection as we're likely to get this side of heaven. Read more
Published 24 months ago by Jeffrey M. Chambers
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
