PI Beethoven 5 and 7 from Gardiner

[Carnivorous Sheep]

Yes, it's the new one I was asking about.  It was a live recording made in Carnegie Hall in November last year, just released this month on CD.

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/15/142340577/john-eliot-gardiners-historical-beethoven

I was there at the live performance, though I'm not sure how much they edited it for the release.

It was certainly a fine performance, but I don't recall anything significantly different from his earlier cycle.

[mszczuj]

I suppose my problem with PI performances of Beethoven is in that I had expected the revelation of kind first PI performances of Mozart and Haydn was to me. Gardiner, Hogwood, Bruggen, Norrington in Beethoven was not in any kind so revolutionary for me as were Hogwood in Mozart and Haydn or Harnoncourt in Bach (I mean this state of mind that you know all you have heard before was pure absurd - because in this new insight you could find all what you know about the history, about the mankind, about the spirit). The first PI Beethoven I appreciated without any doubt was Huggett's 5th. It was absolutely crazy and it was right, because this very symphony is about lunacy of history (and please don't tell me that music is pure art and is about nothing - I think Hanslick was the most stupid man int the history of mankind  - he was so stupid that his stupidity destroyed western civilization - as the music is the highest point of reason and he force us to believe that is only arabesque of sound - so because of him, Riemann and Schoenberg we are not able to think any more for ever and ever)