The Birmingham Beethoven Cycle: Symphonies 4 & 5

Andris Nelsons passed the halfway stage of his Birmingham Beethoven cycle with brilliantly muscular accounts of the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies and a glossy performance of the concert aria Ah! Perfido.The CBSO made a compelling case for the Fourth Symphony, an arguably overlooked work described by Schumann as sitting between the “Two Norse giants” that are the Third and Fifth.