Classical sacd round up part 4 - the Beethoven edition

As readers are aware I bought last year a Super Audio cd player that plays those discs in addition to regular cds and I have been buying a number to add to my classical cd collection that goes back to the early days of cd.
Beethoven is a major composer and so a set on super audio cd of his symphonies was something I had been looking for.

This set is one I am familiar with as it was issued for the first time on cd in 1991 and I bought it in early 1992 during one lunch break putting it out of harms way until I got home
If you look the sticker indicates like most for Europe discs, it has a ordinary layer and the super audio cd layer on the one side so it can be played on practically any player

 There are six super audio cds in the set with two symphonies per disc on four and a bonus disc that has some thirty minutes of rehearsals for the Ninth

As you can see although this is called a box set apart from that bonus disc really all you get is a short booklet outlining the history of Herbert von Karajan's Beethoven symphonies recordings for DG is a slip case as the discs are otherwise identical to the originally released individual ones and just fit in.
There's no attempt to put them in as the 1991 mauve cd box set into space saving multi cd cases or of the use of card or paper sleeves.
The recordings date from 1961 through 1962 and were issued in early 1963 on stereo lp records and was the first stereophonic series issued by DG.
One reason I bought this is I am less taken to the combination of the use of replica original instruments  the sounds some of which I'm not keen on and of the tendency to play it faster and often less consideration than traditionally had been the case which is very much the current flavour in performed and recorded  classical music.
In general I would say these remain amongst the most consistent sets of Beethoven symphonies recorded with the Ninth being one of the finest I've ever heard for the singing of the Ode To Joy with only the Sixth, the Pastoral a little fast in playing although I feel it does hold together well even if it is different to most.
The recording quality for the period is very high and unlike a good number of modern recordings where lots of microphones are used and fed to multi-channel recorders before being mixed, this was done with simple stereo pair with just the odd 'spot mic' to aid the odd section of the orchestra which captures the scale of performance better in my opinion.

To go with this set, I needed some Overtures that traditionally were added to the lp record versions and so I bought this modern set played by the Bremen Chamber Orchestra that also has a multichannel sound layer as well as stereo.

 Around the mid 1990's the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra began a project of recording a collection of central classical repertoire at low cost enabling people to build a useful self contained collection that would aid musical appreciation.
At the time they were issued in conjunction with Tring records on regular cds a good number being well worth owning which I bought at the time but they were recorded at better than regular cd quality using the dsd technology used by super audio cds and briefly issued on sacd in association with Membran Records.
One of the discoveries of that era was the Manchester, England born pianist Ronan O'Hora and he recorded a superb account of Beethoven's Violin Sonatas 5 "Spring" and 9 "Krutzer"  with the violinist Jonathan Carney. It sounds really smooth .
That title was one re-issued on sacd around 2005 which I recently bought  to join my increasing number of classical recordings in this format.
When it comes to recordings of Beethoven' piano works I'm generally in the camp that prefers Wilhelm Kempffs recordings including his 1965 stereo piano concerto cycle but these have not been issued on sacd for North America and Euope. Indeed titles from Deutsche  Grammophon usually only show up as very limited releases in Japan with large price tags.

 One recording I did like of the Fifth piano Concerto growing up was Christoph Eschenbach's 1973 account with the Boston Symphony Orchestra which was recorded in four channel ("Quad") multichannel sound too  for DG and issued in late 2014 by PentaTone on sacd coupled with an account of the Third with the London Symphony Orchestra.
I decided to add this issue to my selection of Super Audio cds by this most important composer.