Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6

The Kammerakademie Potsdam (Chamber Academy Potsdam) and its principal conductor Antonello Manacorda are continuing their new Beethoven cycle with the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, released by Sony Classical on October 6, 2023. 

The Kammerakademie Potsdam and its music director Antonello Manacorda have garnered multiple awards with their complete recordings of the symphonies of Schubert and Felix Mendelssohn, while their release of Mozart’s last three symphonies earned them the title of Orchestra of the Year at the 2022 OPUS Klassik Awards – Germany’s leading televised classical awards. Last year they launched a new Beethoven cycle with the First, Second and Seventh Symphonies, and they are now continuing this series of releases with the central Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies were premiered at an academy that their composer gave at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien on 22 December 1808. With its striking opening motif, the Fifth is widely regarded as one of the key works of classical music. Also known as the “Pastoral” Symphony, the Sixth is often said to complement the Fifth. With its five movements, it is notable for the musical means that it uses to create impressions of nature, Beethoven himself providing the work with a motto, according to which the symphony is “more the expression of feeling than painting”.

Antonello Manacorda explains that his ideal is “to capture the essence of the music, not its effect. To that extent I regard myself as an ‘unrhetorical’ interpreter. I don’t want to emphasize and underscore details for their own sake alone but instead try to trust the material and its proportions. The image that I have in mind is not that of a creator but of an archaeologist, using a fine brush to remove the dust from the artefact and revealing it in such a way that it becomes visible in all its perfection.” 

Cover Artwork by Jorinde Voigt: https://jorindevoigt.com/