City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
"Nelsons’ treatment of the Fourth [Symphony of Beethoven with the CBSO] was startling. Like all outstanding conductors, he has the precious ability to conjure something unexpectedly brilliant out of thin air [...]
He did it a year ago in another matinee concert with the CBSO in Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony, and Beethoven’s Fourth here was cut from the same cloth. Its slow introduction seemed pregnant with dramatic possibilities, and what followed exploited most of them, with every rhythm sprung, every chord perfectly balanced, the perpetuum mobile of the finale fabulously precise.“