Kristiina Poska and the Flanders Symphony Orchestra continue their Beethoven symphony cycle with a pairing that shows two contrasting sides of the composer. The Fourth Symphony (1806), long overshadowed by its neighbours the ‘Eroica’ and the Fifth, opens with a dark, hesitant introduction before bursting into music full of wit, rhythmic surprise and sheer energy. The ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, completed two years later, turns to nature and the countryside around Vienna, moving from the brook and the peasants’ merrymaking through the storm to a closing hymn of thanksgiving. Heard together, the two works reveal a Beethoven defined as much by humour, warmth and delight in life as by heroic struggle. The recordings were made in 2025 at Music Centre De Bijloke in Ghent, the orchestra’s home, towards the end of Poska’s time as its chief conductor.