Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 "Choral" (Live)

With decades of performing the great landmarks of western sacred music to their collective credit, Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium offer fresh perspectives on Beethoven’s secular worldview. Their eloquent interpretation, recorded live at Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, brings a reverence to the score all too often absent from period-instrument performances. And so, they strike a convincing balance between pinpoint rhythmic accuracy (as in the thrilling first movement) and allowing breathing space for the music. Listen, for instance, to the ebb and flow of tempo in the slow movement’s second set of variations, or the finale’s imposing fugal “Allegro energico” section.