Editor's info:
World Music Network worked closely with the independent British classical label, Hyperion Records on this project. This Rough Guide features a sharp overview of Beethoven's life works. The over-done 'greatest hits' approach is avoided and the listener is given a fresh insight into the composer's myriad styles. The bonus album entitled, Beethoven: Mass in C major, features a complete performance of a whole work, allowing the listener to experience a deeper understanding of the music.

Beethoven's music is intensely powerful, highly individual and entirely ingenious. Throughout his life the infamous composer struggled to balance his immeasurable talent with a tendency towards deep solitude and a naturally dark and brooding countenance. His work symbolizes this wrestle between darkness and light, and between sadness and joy. His contemporary, the noted composer Joseph Haydn, once observed of the man, 'There's something bizarre and sombre in your music because you're sombre and bizarre yourself.'

Beethoven was baptized in 1770 in Bonn, Germany. As a teenager he travelled to Vienna to study with the virtuoso composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. After barely two weeks in the musical city Beethoven was forced to return home to his mother, who had become seriously ill. She died shortly afterwards. As a result, at the age of 19, Beethoven became responsible for the welfare of his father and siblings. At the age of 22, he once again relocated to Vienna. Despite such formative family binds, he never got married or had children of his own. Immersed in his music-making, his works were to become his family, his life and his entire world. He explained, 'I only live within the music I write.'

Despite such unbending commitment to his profession, he was rarely satisfied with his compositions. He revised his only opera, Fidelio, numerous times. His own harsh taskmaster, when creating a complex fugue or an intricate sonata .......
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Ceniona na świecie wytwórnia fonograficzna World Music Network w swojej nowej serii wydawniczej The Rough Guide To Classical Composers wydaje monograficzne płyty dedykowane wybitnym kompozytorom muzyki klasycznej.
Wśród interpretatorów wiedeńskiego klasyka znajdziemy Anima Eterna pod batutą Josem Van Immerseelem, Cappella Istropolitana pod Barrym Wordsworthem, Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart pod Rogerem Norrington, pianistów Jeno Jando, John Lill i Stefan Vladar czy oraz zespołów specjalizujących się w muzyce Ludwiga van Beethovena: Leipzig String Quartet, Kodaly Quartet i The Gaudier Ensemble.
Doboru kompozycji i interpretacji dokonano ze znawstwem, co w przypadku tego wydawcy nie dziwi, podobnie udana selekcja występuje przecież na antologiach folkowych. Od dostępnych na rynku fonograficznym podobnych wydawnictw płytę odróżnia wysoki poziom merytoryczny selekcji. Nagranie, które znalazły się na płytach pochodzą z ostatnich lat i zaliczane są do najwybitniejszych interpretacji przez krytyków muzycznych.

Edycja specjalna zawiera dodatkowo bonusowy album "Corydon Orchestra / Corydon Singers / Matthew Best - Beethoven: Mass In C Major". Jest to nagranie jednej z najsłynniejszych - obok "Missa Solemnis" - sakralnych kompozycji Ludwiga van Beethovena, dokonane przez niezwykle cenony angielski zespół Croydon Orchestra pod batutą Mathew Besta. Pierwotnie ukazało się nakładem prestiżowej oficyny Hyperion Records