These performances are intensely alive and immensely invigorating.

Rattle and the Berliners are largely at one. Rattle may want fewer players on the platform than Furtwängler or Karajan – he uses roughly 50 musicians…but this remains the Berlin Philharmonic: its distinctive style revealingly intact. The first two symphonies are an untrammelled delight…[this] cycle is a decidedly distinguished affair

Rattle ensures that there is no sense of creaking under the weight of history, bringing his own interpretative insights to every single one of these pieces. Tempos occasionally tend towards the fast side...Not everything is fast just for the sake of it, though, and Rattle allows space where the music needs it...I lost count of the number of times I was staggered by the transparency and balance achieved. I could hear absolutely everything in the score.

Technically, of course, the performances are immaculate. But for all the fine string playing, the sometimes outstanding solo contributions from the Berlin Philharmonic’s wind players and the sudden moments of vivid characterisation that Rattle undeniably comes up with, these performances don’t hang together as a set.

the Berliners’ Beethoven is lithe, detailed and compelling: every detail…shines through in rich, warm sound and imaginative, unfussy camera work. Tempi are often swift…but never feel rushed, string sizes seem apt, and the joy of live music making is vividly captured.