Sony Classical continues its major Mozart opera project with conductor Teodor Currentzis and his orchestra & choir MusicAeterna. A ‘no-compromise’ studio recording cycle of Mozart’s three Da Ponte operas. Living in a unique artistic community established on the edge of Siberia, the musicians work and record under ideal conditions towards Currentzis’ stated goal “to show what can be achieved if you avoid the factory approach of the classical music mainstream”. The soloists’ vocal technique is also markedly different to modern operatic interpretation, with a focus on intimacy and clarity, a use of vibrato remarkably restrictive even by today’s ‘period practice’ standards as well as an approach to melodic ornamentation derived from historic sources which cannot be heard in other performances of these works.

Here’s a performance to make you sit up and marvel anew at the originality, power, and beauty of this, the most popular symphony ever written. Characteristically, Teodor Currentzis has thought long and hard about the work, and he directs a performance in which every bar has been mulled over and re-evaluated. But it sounds anything but text-bound. One second it’s shouting from the rooftops, the next it’s barely whispered. This is a Beethoven Fifth that packs a mighty punch, and the momentum will have you perched on the edge of your seat. Definitely a milestone in this work’s long recorded history.

Their recording of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 is the long-awaited sister-recording to Teodor Currentzis’ and musicAeterna’s Beethoven Symphony No. 5 album. Recorded at the Vienna Konzerthaus in August 2018, both albums are the Russia-based musicians’ seminal contribution to the composer’s 250th anniversary celebrations.