Beethoven: Complete Symphonies, Vol. 4
Kristiina Poska Finds Wit, Warmth And Wonder In Beethoven.
Beethoven’s Fourth and Sixth Symphonies seem to belong to different worlds, yet heard together they show a composer of extraordinary warmth, sensitivity and joy in creation. The Fourth (1806), often overshadowed by the “Eroica” and the Fifth, opens with a mysterious, hesitant introduction before bursting into light, and it sparkles with wit, rhythmic playfulness and spontaneity that point ahead to the Eighth. The “Pastoral”, written two years later, turns to the countryside around Vienna where Beethoven found comfort and renewal. Its five movements, from the arrival in the country to the storm and the shepherd’s song of thanksgiving, are, in his own words, “more the expression of feeling than painting”.
Kristiina Poska, who was Chief Conductor of the Flanders Symphony Orchestra from 2019 to 2026, leads her orchestra in the fourth volume of their Beethoven symphony cycle. Her own liner notes call this a Beethoven “less concerned with monumentality than with imagination and playful creativity”, and the playing reflects it, with lightness, balance and naturalness. The Fourth was recorded in October 2025 and the Sixth in May 2025 at Music Centre De Bijloke in Ghent, in a programme running to just over 72 minutes.
Flanders Symphony Orchestra
Kristiina Poska, conductor
Tracklist
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