Beethoven: Symphony No. 9
Sheet Music

SKU: NX.ORF-C935171B

By Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, George London, Grace Bumbry, Gundula Janowitz, Jess Thomas, and Karl Bohm. By Ludwig van Beethoven. Classical. CD. Orfeo #ORF-C935171B. Published by Orfeo (NX.ORF-C935171B).

The well-known "classical" exception to the canon of ten Wagner works that can be performed on the Green Hill goes back to the master himself: it is of course Beethoven's 9th Symphony. The most famous recording of one of the rare Bayreuth performances of the symphony is of the legendary concert that reopened the Bayreuth Festival after the war, in 1951, with Wilhelm Furtwangler on the rostrum. That recording was released for the first time, officially and uncut, by Orfeo in association with the Bayreuth Festival in 2008 (C754081). In 1954, Furtwangler conducted the Ninth a second time (ORFEO C851121). Much less well-known and issued here for the first time in a live recording is a performance conducted by Karl Bohm in 1963 to mark the 150th anniversary of Richard Wagner's birth and the 80th anniversary of his death. Here we witness the emergence of a new musical generation.