Barenboim conducts Beethoven No. 1

The Staatskapelle Berlin and its chief conductor Daniel Barenboim continue their symphonic Beethoven cycle with this recording of Beethoven’s First Symphony. The cycle started with an acclaimed performance of the Ninth on Berlin’s Bebelplatz and goes on in the Lindenoper. Beethoven’s First is both a retrospective and a foresight: it is still in the tradition of Mozart and Haydn and nevertheless hints at some of what later made the “mature” Beethoven; it contains the contemporary and the future. The world premiere in April 1800 in Vienna was a temporary high point in the career of the twenty-nine-year-old Beethoven.