Artur Schnabel’s dictum that great music is always greater than it can ever be performed is never more apposite than with Beethoven, the ultimate restless seeker of new truths. A fully satisfying set of ‘the Nine’ will always remain a chimera. And inevitably, so much boils down to taste. Beethoven was volatile, impetuous, disdainful of social niceties. I want performances of his symphonies that balance loftiness of vision with mobile tempos, sharply differentiated sonorities (period instruments can help here, of course) and an echt-Beethovenian sense of controlled anarchy.

Evolving over four years, and now completed with the Ninth, Antonello Manacorda’s cycle with the superbly drilled Kammerakademie Potsdam fulfils many of my criteria. Their cycle follows the trend set by the award-winning Harnoncourt set (Teldec, 11/91) of fusing old and new: a modern chamber orchestra, lighter, period-style articulation, minimal string vibrato, natural brass, Classical timpani. The small forces, based on between 26 and (in No 9) 31 strings, may immediately put this set beyond the pale for some. But with exemplary recorded sound, Manacorda and his players vividly convey the sheer physicality of Beethoven’s sound world. I also hear countless details in these familiar scores that I’d barely noticed before.

Predictably, the ‘lighter’ (up to a point) even-numbered symphonies benefit most obviously from the crack chamber forces. Strings are lean but (to my ears) never undernourished, violins antiphonally divided, to palpable advantage in, say, No 2’s fierily conducted first movement or the cosmic battle in the development of No 8’s opening Allegro. Natural horns add their raucous savour to the elemental climax in the coda of No 2’s first movement, always a goose-pimple moment for me.

Manacorda has evidently noted Beethoven’s own controversially swift metronome markings but is never their slave. Slow movements have space to breathe and sing. No 1’s Andante con moto has a blithe, balletic lilt, its crucial pianissimo timpani strokes perfectly caught. No 2’s Larghetto – Beethoven’s homage to the idyllic lyricism of Così fan tutte – combines vocal eloquence with an easy, one-in-a-bar flow. As Richard Osborne once noted, a superlative first clarinet, oboe and horn (I would add bassoon) are crucial in any Beethoven symphony cycle. The Potsdam wind principals are poets of their instruments. In No 4’s Adagio the clarinet shapes and colours his sublime solos as movingly as any I know.

Buoyed by fabulous wind-playing, Manacorda’s Pastoral balances bucolic freshness, refinement of detail and, above all in the finale, a Wordsworthian sense ‘of something far more deeply interfused’. The first movement is delightfully springy, while Beethoven’s infinite subtleties of scoring in the ‘Szene am Bach’, not least the drowsily syncopated horns, are delicately etched. If the ear might crave a more fervent swell of tone at the symphony’s hymnic climax, the final sotto voce benediction and muted horn call, sounding from the far-off valley, duly work their spell.

In the odd-numbered symphonies Manacorda and the Potsdamers should appeal to those Beethoven lovers who have enjoyed, say, Norrington, Harnoncourt, Chailly and Paavo Järvi’s RCA cycle with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie. Some will lament a lack of string weight, and of that elusive phenomenon, visionary transcendence. There are no idiosyncrasies, which for some might equal a want of individuality. But in the main I find Manacorda’s sinewy, athletic style, his fusion of fire and lyricism (his players take to heart Beethoven’s requests for dolce and cantabile) true to both the spirit and the letter.

In No 7, reviewed alongside Nos 1 and 2 by Andrew Farach-Colton (2/23), Manacorda takes a surprisingly traditional view of the Allegretto (8'47", to Carlos Kleiber’s 8'07" and Harnoncourt’s 8'11"), but vindicates his tempo choice with long-breathed phrases and singing inner lines over the basses’ remorseless dactyl trudge. In the Trio you’re uncommonly aware of the second horn’s subterranean grinding beneath the pastoral song. While no recordings I know of No 7 quite match the visceral excitement of Toscanini and Carlos Kleiber in the corybantic outer movements, the Potsdamers compel with their rhythmic tightness and barbaric, horn-fuelled sonorities.

If not quite as breakneck-fast as Chailly, Manacorda’s impetuous tempo for the pressure-cooker first movement of No 5 makes even the justly famed recording by Carlos Kleiber sound measured. Manacorda maximises the contrast between the military and the intimate-mysterious in the Andante, while the lissom cellos and basses in the Scherzo’s Trio decisively banish notions of cavorting elephants.

The trio of natural horns come thrillingly into their own in the Eroica. Taking a traditional tempo in the opening Allegro (48‑52 bars per minute, against Beethoven’s prescribed 60), Manacorda combines expressive lyrical shaping, muscular energy and superb instrumental detailing. The off-beat bassoons, against fortissimo horns, at the fugal climax of the funeral march and the tense precision of the pp strings at the start of the Scherzo are two salient moments among many. First oboe, a star throughout this set, shines in the funeral march and the finale’s lyrical apotheosis.

Like Chailly and Norrington, Manacorda takes an anti-Wagnerian, anti-Furtwänglerian view of the Ninth Symphony. This is not the Ninth as sacred ritual, opening in primordial mystery. Phrased in long spans, with tautly controlled rhythms, the first movement is fierce, often furious, ultimately tragic (no traditional slowing down for the final peroration over a churning ground bass). In the Scherzo the timpani are both explosive and subtle, while natural horns and carolling woodwind reinforce the Trio’s links with the Pastoral.

Manacorda judges shrewdly the slow movement’s relative tempos, slightly slower and more flexible than Chailly’s. The violins phrase their opening theme with luminous purity, then bring out the decorative, 18th-century grace of the first variation. Some will find this performance a shade cool and detached. With a measure of innocence, it seems to me to touch the music’s spiritual heart. As to the finale, 35 singers plus an orchestra of 50 might seem a puny line-up. Other performances generate more decibels, and more depth of tone. But Manacorda’s architectural control and ear for inner detail shine through: from the hollering, screeching opening, via the subtle build of the ‘Joy’ theme, to the choir’s Bacchic peroration. The youthful-sounding Czech chorus, with not a wobbler or shrieker in view, are tireless in Beethoven’s often sadistically high lines. Only a bellowing, legato-shy bass slightly mars a fine solo quartet, with tenor Mauro Peter outstanding in his ungratefully written ‘Turkish’ solo.

‘Between ourselves, the best thing of all is a combination of the surprising and the beautiful’, wrote Beethoven to his pupil Ferdinand Ries. He intended each of his symphonies, at least from the Eroica onwards, to be a dynamic, transformative experience. For me this superbly played and recorded set – fiery, punchily disruptive, yet caring for the long lyrical line – makes his point.