Beethoven symphonies on iTunes?

[Jake]

What are some good recordings of the Beethoven symphonies to look for on iTunes?

[Peter Ferretti]

There's a lot of good ones. Bernard Haitink's with LSO are pretty amazing, and iTunes has most of the standard recordings.

That being said, my two favorite by far are the LA Phil iTunes exclusive recordings of 5 and 7. They are absolutely amazing.

[Kaden]

I got the Leonard Bernstien and the Wiener Philharmonic recordings of all 9 symphonies and they are all great!

[Steve Metcalf]

For a while the Philly Orch had the complete Beethoven Symphonies for 9.99...It was a price error, but now it's back up to 40 or something high. I'm glad I got on the boat before iTunes corrected that!

[mjt0229]

I don't know if iTunes has them, but my bass teacher always tells me to look for John Eliot Gardiner to hear how the bass parts are supposed to sound.

I don't care for Bernstein's recording of the 9th with the Vienna Phil, but I love my recording of Carlos Kleiber with the same orchestra for symphonies 5 and 7 and I have a nice recording of 3 with George Szell with the Cleveland Orchestra.

[dleecountdown]

I'll have to second Peter's rec. on Beethoven 5 by the LA Phil with Salonen. It is an excellent interpretation and also is a wonderful recording for studying the scherzo/trio. The bass section is amazingly articulate and very well recorded.

John Eliot Gardiner's recordings of the Beethoven symphonies are also great, extremely well-recorded, and very interesting (and in my opinion awesome) interpretations.