“Ingo Metzmacher stepped onto the Berlin PO’s rostrum and delivered performances of two Seventh Symphonies, by Beethoven and Hartmann, that were as sovereignly paced as they were thrilling... The compositional accomplishment, the hairy polyphonic internal structures, the block-like outbursts, are characteristic of Hartmann’s style which he pushed to the limit in his Seventh as in other works, and the Philharmonic mastered them under Metzmacher with breathtaking bravura. And the Beethoven? Metzmacher shaped everything with the utmost concentration and energy, yet at the same time revealed himself as an elegant musician with a perfect stick-technique. Older music lovers will have been reminded of Erich Kleiber...when did anyone ever hear the Allegretto played with such magnificent elasticity, such a spacious sense of form, such rhythmic flexibility? Or the Finale presented with such joyful intoxication, positively jazzily, and yet modelled with such plasticity, instead of being sawed through without a thought, as it so often is? A sensational concert!” (Der Tagesspiegel)