Beethoven Symphonies - best perf + sonics on CD

Loydelee. his Stravinsky with the CSO is one of my favorites;

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=75678

He has an advantage when it comes to the Estonian, Latvian. Lithuanian and Scandinavian composers. He conducts from underneath as is the school in Estonia.

I greatly prefer most of LvB to be on a grand scale, spacious, exciting, raw, turbulent, full of sound and fury, yet signifying greatness. This takes large forces, and is why I eschew HIP.

SQ is also very important, so no matter how impassioned Furtwangler and Toscanini were, the sonics are almost unbearable, for the most part.

I find much of HvK to be overly polished and attempting to be profound, but winding up as little more than syrupy and grandiose. It's more about him than the music.

Bernstein can often be that way, but for me, his Mahler is unsurpassed.

The 1963 HvK Nos. 3 and 9 are excellent, and Kleiber's 5th is great. Not so much the 7th. And I enjoy Barenboim's spaciousness, but find that lacking in Vanska, despite the amazing SQ.

For the 9th, Fricsay is hard to beat, on all levels.

But as always, YMMV.

Hi Merlinus,

thanks for that. I see where you are coming from on Beethoven and grand sweeping scale. I have to admit...i like the smaller scale Missa Solemnis from Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Extremely well put together...but much smaller scale.

What or who is HIP?

I wonder if these choices in orchestra size aren't in many ways based upon familiarity. There are so many recordings from various orchestras that it would be hard not to find 50 wonderful examples of Beethoven's Eroica by small orchestras, large orchestras, fat conductors, short concertmasters. To me, a quality performance/recording is worth paying attention to and these external conditions may contribute to the performance but they won't dictate it. In other words, I work at not bringing with me a set of pre-determned conditions.

Thanks Goofyfoot...understood. i am not so sophisticated that i would necessarily dissect every Beethoven interpretation...but i do notice the differences in scale. And having both Furtwangler and von Karajan...i thought a smaller ensemble would be cool. In particular, Gardiner was supposedly done with smaller orchestra and quite good. Have you heard it?