This is a quite wonderful disc, in which every demand one might have on a performance of these two great works is met… The warmth and tenderness and ease which are the predominant features of the Pastoral have rarely been more affectionately attended… The Second, which can be hard to bring off, is ebullient, high-spirited without being exhausting, and with an idyllically smooth slow movement at its heart. The German Chamber Philharmonic Bremen is a versatile orchestra, able to meet the demands of its conductor.

Järvi...avoids monumentalism...we hear all sorts of voices and contrapuntal nuances that would otherwise be smothered.

…we can marvel at the point and vitality of the playing, at the extraordinary micro-management of phrasing without affection or arrest, at the scrupulous balancing of the inner parts - not least the etching-in of Beethoven's often aurally elusive bass-lines and pedal-points.