Trivia

• There are 1,710 performances of individual symphonies listed. They are divided between 142 conductors.
• The approximate duration of a complete Beethoven symphony cycle is 5 hours and 46 minutes, according to the Bärenreiter Urtext Edition. The actual duration, however, may vary depending on the observance of repeats, both those indicated in the score and those based on historical performance practice.
• The Austrian conductor Felix Weingartner (1863–1942) was the first conductor to record all nine of Beethoven's symphonies, completing a cycle involving four different orchestras. He was also the second conductor, after Leopold Stokowski (1882–1977), to record all four of Brahms's symphonies.
• The average duration of the 190 complete cycles listed is 5 hours and 44 minutes. Felix Weingartner completes his cycle in 5 hours and 7 minutes, while Takashi Asahina takes 6 hours and 55 minutes (1992 cycle). Please note, however, that these figures are indicative only, as a meaningful comparison must take into account differences in tempo and the observance of repeats, both those indicated in the score and those based on historical performance practice.
• According to the Bärenreiter Urtext Edition, the approximate duration of the Ninth Symphony is 1 hour and 5 minutes. Five conductors clock the work under one hour (Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Joe Hisaishi, David Porcelijn, Peter Stangel and David Zinman). Everyone else listed takes more than an hour to perform the symphony.
• Among the cycles listed, the shortest individual symphony performance is Felix Weingartner’s recording of Beethoven’s First Symphony (21 minutes), while the longest is Takashi Asahina’s 1989 recording of the Ninth Symphony (1 hour and 20 minutes). Weingartner omits the repeats, possibly because of the technical limitations of early recording technology and the need to accommodate the performance on 78 rpm records.
• Approximately one-fifth of conductors take more than 6 hours to complete their cycles, while the remaining four-fifths complete theirs in less than 6 hours.
• A total of 28 conductors are represented by more than one complete cycle, most notably Takashi Asahina with nine and Herbert von Karajan with six. It should be noted, however, that some cycles were assembled retrospectively from radio broadcasts or other archival recordings rather than conceived and recorded as unified projects.
• A total of 122 orchestras are represented in performances of the symphonies, with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Wiener Philharmoniker being the most prominent, each accounting for approximately 100 performances of individual symphonies. Other prominently represented orchestras include the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. A total of 78 orchestras are represented by only one complete cycle.
• Decca (including Decca Eloquence and Philips) has issued a total of 18 complete Beethoven symphony cycles, followed by Deutsche Grammophon with 17, Warner (including EMI and Erato) with 15, Sony with 14, and Exton with 9.