Recordings of all the Beethoven symphonies with their chief conductor are always a milestone in the artistic work of the Berliner Philharmoniker. So it was with Herbert von Karajan and Claudio Abbado, and expectations are correspondingly high for this cycle conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Where does the special status of these symphonies come from? Simon Rattle has an explanation: “One of the things Beethoven does is to give you a mirror into yourself – where you are now as a musician.” In fact, this music contains such a wealth of extreme emotions and brilliant compositional ideas that reveal the qualities of the orchestra and its conductor as if under a magnifying glass.

Beethoven - Symphonies 1-9 (Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle)

A naïve New Yorker retreats to his dead Grandfather's summer cottage, a datsche in Germany, but instead of peace he finds Adam, a refugee in hiding.