Beethoven's Fourth Symphony

Sir John Eliot Gardiner joins pianist Maria João Pires in an exploration of Beethoven at his uninhibited best – music that sings, dances and glitters with youthful energy.

There’s only one Beethoven – and at the peak of his youthful genius, even his happiest music is like bottled lightning. His Fourth Symphony is one of his smallest, but every note is charged with an unstoppable life-force. His Second Piano Concerto might actually be his First, and it positively sparkles with energy, wit and the joy of youth.

Not that John Eliot Gardiner needs any advice on that score: after a lifetime devoted to music, his interpretations of Beethoven are as perceptive as they are fresh, and for pianist Maria João Pires, Beethoven is a byword for playfulness and poetry. The rarely played Leonore Overture No 2 rings up the curtain in a blaze of glory.