This is a fantastic disc, Ashkenazy drives the music hard, it works superbly in the revolutionary opening of the Fifth symphony, but however great that work was to me, and it truly was superb here, the Seventh was a real revelation, especially the opening movement, i don't know why, but the Seventh has had a tendency to take a back seat, probably my middle favourite of the nine, i played this same work roughly a year ago [4th October 2011], and i had the same feelings for it back then.
Vladimir Ashkenazy is Russian, he's now 75, and he recorded this work in 1983, this is a Taiwanese re-issue of these two Symphonies, and comes with a different front cover, i much prefer this cover, and i bought it on Ebay, from certain foreign sellers you can get these sorts of re-issues not available in your own country.
It was the superb first movement that really got me, so incredibly revolutionary, there's a very long 'introduction' at the beginning [0:00-4:34], most music use introductions to... well introduce the real music!, but for Beethoven here, the intro is real music, i think he enjoyed this intro so much, he didn't want it to stop, so it kept going on and on, some lovely woodwind moments here, and there's a sort of 'bridge' between the intro and the Vivace proper [3:44-5:02], which gains in momentum by the woodwinds, and almost has it's own mini intro itself [4:34+], when the music explodes into the Vivace [5:02+], it's an incredibly satisfying moment, a moment that Beethoven has built up for 5 minutes, a lovely release, the brass come to the fore, .
Here's Carlos Kleiber conducting the first movement on YouTube, he's so incredibly animated!.
It was the superb first movement that really got me, so incredibly revolutionary, there's a very long 'introduction' at the beginning [0:00-4:34], most music use introductions to... well introduce the real music!, but for Beethoven here, the intro is real music, i think he enjoyed this intro so much, he didn't want it to stop, so it kept going on and on, some lovely woodwind moments here, and there's a sort of 'bridge' between the intro and the Vivace proper [3:44-5:02], which gains in momentum by the woodwinds, and almost has it's own mini intro itself [4:34+], when the music explodes into the Vivace [5:02+], it's an incredibly satisfying moment, a moment that Beethoven has built up for 5 minutes, a lovely release, the brass come to the fore, .
