Kristiina Poska won the coveted conductor prize of the Dirigentenforum of the Deutsche Musikrat in 2013, with the German press praising her extended musical palette.
Critical Reception
Despite the huge success of its premiere, Beethoven's Seventh Symphony received skeptical comments, with Carl Maria von Weber calling it 'ready for the madhouse'.
Performer Biography
Kristiina Poska, the conductor of this album, made her breakthrough in 2010 with Verdi's La Traviata at the Komische Oper Berlin and was its first conductor from 2012 to 2016.
Compositional Technique
In his First Symphony, Beethoven already explored the depths of the human condition through huge contrasts, where light themes could quickly turn into dramatic existential crises.
Compositional Technique
Beethoven's First Symphony shocked audiences by starting with a seventh chord accompanied by string pizzicato, questioning existing norms of the genre.
Compositional Technique
Beethoven's Seventh Symphony pushes rhythmical drive to its absolute limit, creating an original, energetic, trance-like soundscape, and uses a triple forte for the first time.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Beethoven aimed for a unified 'whole' in his symphonies, where the final movement would carry the main weight and spirit, a vision that accompanied him throughout his life.
