Leonard Bernstein conducted regularly in Munich from the 1980s onwards. It was then that he learned to appreciate and love the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in particular. In October 1976, Bernstein had appeared with an all-Beethoven programme, and in 1983 he began a series of annual concerts with the orchestra. This CD from BR-KLASSIK presents the live recording of the Beethoven concert on 17 October 1976, in which Bernstein conducted Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and the Leonore Overture no.3.

The programme of the Munich concert in October 1976 included Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which can be seen as a stroke of liberation in the sense of "per aspera ad astra" ("through hardships to the stars" or "through darkness to light") and also a symphonic piece that he had written for his only opera Fidelio: the Third Leonore Overture, with its lone trumpet signal announcing the arrival of the minister Don Fernando – and thus the rescue of Florestan from arbitrary violence and imprisonment. Joachim Kaiser, Munich's leading music critic at the time, said: "Bernstein demonstrated to a spellbound Munich audience how much he is filled with Beethoven, the man is full of a freedom and fire that can be produced and reproduced. Even if Bernstein's leaps, crouches and crescendos may seem violent to anxious listeners, the inner rightness of the music – which sounds natural, powerful, wonderful and relaxed – is overwhelming."