Following in the footsteps of Jörg Widmann, Daniel Hope and Marin Alsop, Gramophone is honoured to be curating this month’s playlist, ‘The Beethoven Effect’, on Apple Music. Drawing on nearly a century of reviewing recordings – Gramophone was founded by Sir Compton Mackenzie in 1923 – our playlist traces a Beethoven journey back in time, picking out some of the milestone recordings along the way. ‘Beethoven’s music invariably sets the tone or provides the symbolic weight for moments of great historic or social import. Its timelessness, its humanity, its defiance and its power never wane,’ writes Gramophone’s Editor in Chief, James Jolly, in his introduction to this month’s 'Beethoven Effect'.

The journey starts with Teodor Currentzis’s new Sony Classical recording of the Fifth Symphony (released today) and travels back to the same work, played by the Berlin Philharmonic under Arthur Nikisch, in 1913. Along the way, we’ve radically different approaches to the symphonies conducted by Sir Roger Norrington, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Herbert von Karajan, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini and Richard Strauss. The Violin Concerto is played by Yehudi Menuhin in 1953 and Christian Tetzlaff in 2019, and we've piano music from the likes of Maurizio Pollini, Wilhelm Kempff and Artur Schnabel. Also sample the closing section of the Gramophone Award-winning set of Fidelio with Nina Stemme and Jons Kaufmann in the main roles and Claudio Abbado 'in the pit'.

Listen to the Gramophone-curated 'The Beethoven Effect' below or on Apple Music, where you can sign up for a free three-month trial.