"This is a revelatory live recording by EMI's engineers of Klemperer's performance of the Ninth Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall." Those were the words of the Gramophone Classical Music Guide, welcoming the second of the two versions of Beethoven's epic choral symphony on this SACD. Both were recorded with the Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra in Autumn 1957 and both feature the same four vocal soloists: Aase Nordmo Løvberg, Christa Ludwig, Waldemar Kmentt and Hans Hotter. The famous studio recording, long a mainstay of the Warner Classics catalogue, was made just weeks after the concert at the Royal Festival Hall. Both versions bear out BBC Music Magazine's judgement that Klemperer's interpretation of the Ninth Symphony "combined urgency with masterly control and spellbinding authority, and a dignity all his own."

Both the live and the studio recording have now benefited from HD remastering from original tapes, showcased to the full in SACD format.