It was but a few years after founding the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century in 1981 that Frans Brüggen first turned his attention to the music of Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies and endeavoured to perceive that special orchestral landscape, in order to transform it into musical sound, with the use of period instruments rediscovering historical tonal colours. The indefatigable Dutch conductor returned to immerse himself anew in this glorious music with a complete cycle made in the autumn of 2011 and released by Glossa in the following year. From this new survey, the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies are now appearing on Glossa Cabinet, and continue to demonstrate the rapport he shares with his orchestra for one of classical music’s greatest challenges of realising the intimate and the familiar in these symphonies, a challenge achieved here on record by way of concert performances (Brüggen has long distanced himself from studio recordings).