The late conductor and instrumentalist Frans Bruggen was one amazing musician. I have always cherished his performance of the Eroica Symphony by Beethoven. And today I came across his performance of the Symphony #2,
Frans Brüggen – once the world’s most famous recorder player, he later became one of the foremost experts in the performance of eighteenth century music.
He was born in Amsterdam and studied musicology at the university there. At twenty-one, he was appointed professor at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and later held the posts of Erasmus Professor at Harvard University and Regents Professor at the University of Berkeley.
In 1981, he founded the Orchestra of the 18th Century, which comprises some sixty members from nineteen different countries. Three times a year, the orchestra assembles to go on tour. The musicians, who are all specialists in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century music, play on period instruments, or on contemporary copies. The wide-ranging repertoire this orchestra has recorded for Philips Classics includes works by Purcell, Bach, Rameau, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn.
Here is the Beethoven #2 that I heard earlier today:
