The German musician Christian Löffler is continuing his exploration of the archives of the Deutsche Grammophon label, which involved digging among shellac records, 78s recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. The producer, known for his splenetic electronic works, revisited four Beethoven tracks in November 2020 on the occasion of the composer's 250th birthday. The version of the Pastorale reaches heights of reverie, and this nature-lover (he lives on the shores of the Baltic) stretches the string section towards the clouds. In addition to these four Beethovens, set at the end of the disc, Löffler offers reworks of compositions by Bach, Chopin, Wagner, Smetana and Bizet, often sampling the quieter passages to insert them with astonishing naturalness into his electronic flow. Convinced that German electronic musicians would have made excellent classical composers in the past, the artist's goal is quite clear here: to attract a new audience to “this timeless, wild-looking music”. ”When listening to the recordings, I got the idea that Beethoven’s music was actually very human and accessible but became somewhat unearthly with decades of replaying and overthinking it. I wanted to bring it back to the very basic feels”, Löffler explains. And he has! © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz