In a landmark initiative between the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Intermusica, London's Barbican Centre and Salle Pleyel, Paris, the orchestra and Kapellmeister Riccardo Chailly undertook a major Beethoven cycle in autumn 2011.

The orchestra was the first ever to present a complete Beethoven symphonic cycle during the composer’s lifetime in the 1825/6 season. Looking further back, the Gewandhausorchester performed Beethoven’s first symphony just a year after it was premiered and before the first edition was even published.

Nearly 190 years later, Riccardo Chailly presented his Beethoven cycle across Europe with concerts in Vienna and Leipzig as well as the Intermusica-managed concerts in London and Paris. There were five concerts in each city, a set of residencies that chimes with the release of a new Beethoven symphonic cycle recording for Decca Classics.

To add a contemporary dimension to the project Riccardo Chailly commissioned five composers to write a piece related to one of Beethoven’s symphonies. Each new work was performed next to its partner symphony. The five composers were drawn from the four residency countries and Italy, which is Chailly’s homeland: Steffen Schleiermacher (Germany), Bruno Mantovani (France) Carlo Boccadoro (Italy), Friedrich Cerha (Austria) and Colin Matthews (Great Britain).

The cycle began in Leipzig, then travelled to Vienna’s Musikverein before touring to Paris and London. Each residency culminated in the performance of Beethoven’s ninth symphony. Joining the orchestra in all cities to perform the ‘Choral Symphony’ was be Christiane Oelze (soprano), Annely Peebo (mezzo soprano), Kor Jan Duesslejee (tenor) and Thomas E Bauer (baritone). Choruses from the Choeur de Radio France and the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus also performed with the orchestra in London and Paris respectively.

The Gewandhausorchester Leipzig is an International Associate at London's Barbican Centre, a relationship Intermusica is proud to facilitate.

Press quotes

“This is above all, an explosively swift cycle.”
Andrew Clements, The Guardian

“Riccardo Chailly's Barbican Beethoven cycle with his storied Leipzig orchestra has been one of the musical pinnacles of the year.”
Martin Kettle, The Guardian

“The opening went at a lick but there was no lack of intensity. This was high-voltage Beethoven, delivered with a winning swagger.”
Nick Kimberley, Evening Standard

“Chailly eked out orchestral colour and timbre and we were spurred into the interval on a high of virtuoso playing.”
Nick Breckenfield, Classical Source

“The seventh was played with staggering exactitude at precariously swift speeds; the electrifying finale brought the audience to its feet.”
Tim Ashley, The Guardian

“Riccardo Chailly and his Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra can only be described in terms of whipped-up velocity. Each timpani staccato rings out with the precision and terror of a pistol shot. It's energising and nerve-racking, and in any other circumstance would surely crash, metaphorically if not technically.”
Fiona Maddocks, The Observer

“Chailly has refashioned the mellow, old Gewandhaus sound with a sharper focus – how often does a traditional symphony orchestra shine as clear a light through the music as this?”
Richard Fairman, Financial Times

“The so-called Minuet flashed by like the countryside viewed from a high-speed train, the finale rambunctious in its unbuttoned vigour. The commitment and polish of the Gewandhaus Orchestra’s playing was astounding.”
Classical Source

“The Gewandhaus is one of Europe's finest orchestras, while Chailly is one of a handful of living conductors who genuinely deserves to be called great.”
Andrew Clements, The Guardian

“What the Leipzigers offer is a richly textured, homogenised sonority adaptable to both the Classical and more Romantic faces of Beethoven. Riccardo Chailly's account was neatly pointed, thrusting, potent, unashamedly heroic.”
Barry Millington, Evening Standard

Press articles

BEETHOVEN FROM RICCARDO CHAILLY– ALL IS REVEALED

Concerts, CDs - and now a film exploring the symphonies

Gramophone
12 October 2011

Riccardo Chailly’s view of the Beethoven symphonies has been a well-kept secret, but now in a single well-coordinated gesture all is revealed. At concerts in Vienna’s Musikverein, Paris’s Salle Pleyel and London’s Barbican, Chailly and his Leipzig Gewandhausorchester will present all nine symphonies alongside five specially commissioned works that reflect their individual composer’s attitude to Beethoven’s symphonies. The composers – drawn from different European countries – are Carlo Boccadero, Friedrich Cerha, Bruno Mantovani, Colin Matthews and Steffan Schleiermacher, and each concert will feature one of their works.

Click here to read the rest of this article, which includes a film interview with Maestro Chailly.

SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE

Riccardo Chailly’s Beethoven cycle, coming soon to the Barbican, will push his superb players to the limit

Hugh Canning, Sunday Times
4 October 2011

D uring Beethoven’s lifetime (1770-1827), the Leipzig Gewandhaus­orchester, the oldest municipal symphonic band in Germany, was the first to perform a complete cycle of the composer’s nine symphonies, establishing a tradition that endures today. This autumn, its latest “Gewandhauskapellmeister” (Germans love these magisterial titles), the Italian maestro Riccardo Chailly, is embarking on another historic feat: taking the entire canon on tour to Vienna, Paris and London in a series of “residencies” comprising open rehearsals, talks and workshops, culminating in five concerts in each city. Five contemporary composers from five countries have been commissioned to write new pieces inspired by five of the symphonies.

For Chailly, who has spent as many of his 58 years at the helm of orchestras from northern Europe — the Berlin Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester (1982-88), the Concertgebouworkest, in Amsterdam (1988-2004), and now Leipzig (since 2005) — as he has making music in his native Italy, this project is the realisation of a dream, already captured in live recordings by Decca. “I’ve been waiting to do a Beethoven cycle for almost 20 years,” he told me when we met after a Gewandhaus concert at the Lucerne festival. “When I was in Amsterdam in the early 1990s, the idea already came from Decca to record a complete cycle, but I said, ‘I’m sorry, with all my love for Beethoven, I need much more experience of conducting them in concert, in different programmes and with different orchestras.’ ”

Click here to read the rest of this article.