7/5 of Beethoven: Part 1 (CD/SACD Reviews)

By Karl W. Nehring

For the general public and even among avid aficionados of classical music, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 is with little doubt the most widely recognized symphony in the entire symphonic canon. Those first four notes have been indelibly etched into our musical consciousness regardless of whether we associate them with fate knocking at the door (Schindler, Beethoven’s secretary), victory (WW II), or simply as “da-da-da-daaaaa.” My guess would be that most lovers of classical music are familiar with the work, and more likely than not have a favorite recording, or maybe several favorites from the myriad recordings available. The Fifth is one of those pieces that just about every conductor and every orchestra has had a go at over the years.

I have found myself doing a lot of listening to the Fifth lately and going through some of the recordings in my own collection. One of the things that struck me is how conductors seem to make a point of explaining why they have taken the approach they have taken toward the piece, the factors that have influenced their interpretation. Although each conductor would certainly have his or her own reasons for interpreting any composition, it seems as though the very ubiquity of recordings motivates conductors to explain why they have made the interpretive choices they have made. As we read through the thoughts of the seven conductors that I have included in this survey, we would do well to realize that conductors make interpretive choices about any piece of music they record, even though they do not necessarily share their thoughts with us as they have done when recording this iconic symphony.

I have spent a good deal of time listening to these performances, thinking about the similarities and differences in both musical and sonic terms, but mainly just enjoying this magnificent music. To be honest, these are all fine performances and all are well recorded. Although I have my preferences, those preferences are not the result of night-and-day differences. They have changed in the past and could change in the future. That is part of the joy of being a music lover. The musical landscape is not fixed and static. There are new compositions being written and recorded, older compositions being exposed to new light and fresh eyes. There are always new recordings to explore and discover, older recordings to rediscover, so many recordings, so little time, but so much joy.

Please note that I have ordered the seven recordings alphabetically by type. In Part 1, the performances are by orchestras of Beethoven-era size, about 60 musicians, while the other four performances, which will be covered in Part 2, are by modern orchestras of about 100 members. So buckle up, here we go…

Teodor Currentzis, musicAeterna. Sony Classics 19075884972 (CD)

Teodor Currentzis (b. 1972), born in Greece and now living in Russia, where he assembled the group of musicians that form musicAeterna, writes in his liner notes, “what most people know about Beethoven is the result of the performance practices of the 20^th century, entering our lives through the legacy of famous postromantic recordings… I truly believe that the first rule for a true immersion into Beethoven’s Fifth symphony is trying to forget what you took for granted from the history of its interpretation, and to reexamine nonnegotiable solid habits of performing history. In that way, I believe, you can start taking your first steps toward the desert space of your own intuition outside the luxurious sarcophagus of tradition. Indeed, this difficult process took me over twenty years, until I started to see and hear this music as something new. However, this ‘something new’ is necessary as it gives you the shock of the first impact that Beethoven definitely wanted, but that has been wasted in the pseudo-existential factories of recording legacy… My only desire for this recording is to bring to the music dramaturgy of the Fifth Symphony the so-called catharsis, in all possible states, starting from the physical state of metronome and form, to the spiritual state of ‘music not to be found in the notes.’”

Although it does not affect my aesthetic judgment about the quality of this release, I do want to point out that of all the Beethoven Fifth recordings available on CD, this is the only one of which I am aware that contains only the Fifth. I would imagine that for some folks, that would be a deal-breaker right there, although to be fair, I would point out that it is available at a lower price than some of the major labels charge (although yes, those labels are giving you more than 31 minutes of music).

That said, I will start out by observing that this is an exciting performance. The first time I heard it, I was amazed at how energetic it sounded and how tight and disciplined the orchestra sounded. If nothing else, this is a recording that makes one heck of a first impression!

As I listened more closely, though, I also found myself feeling as though the performance was in some sense too tight, too disciplined, too earnest in its attempt to drive home the power of Beethoven’s score. There are places where you feel that the conductor is just trying to be a bit different, accenting notes in a slightly different way, punching them a touch too forcefully, making the music seem more breathless, reaching at times beyond drama toward melodrama.

The engineering is also “tight.” It was recorded in the Grosser Saal at the Vienna Konzerthaus (not the famous Musikverein, home of the Vienna Philharmonic). There is some hall resonance, but the recording gives the sense of a relatively small space. To these ears at least, it sounds something like a big studio rather than a small hall.

Still, this is an intriguing and stimulating recording. No matter how familiar you are with the Beethoven Fifth, I believe you will be struck by this recording, that it would make you hear the music as with new ears. You might not find it your favorite recording, but you will be glad you gave it a listen. It may well stimulate you to take a renewed interest in this music and set some time aside to listen to some other recordings. Indeed, as I look back upon my experience, I realize that this is the recording that led to my wanting to do this survey. Upon hearing the Currentzis, I immediately wanted to re-listen to some of the other recordings on my shelves to see how they compared. It was similar to what happened when I first heard the Savall Eroica from has boxed set – the music sounded so fresh and exciting that I wondered how recordings I had not listened to for a while would compare, so I pulled several Eroica recordings off my shelf and started listening with newly attentive ears. ()

John Eliot Gardiner, Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique. DG Archiv Produktion 477 8643 (CD from box with Symphonies Nos. 1-9)

Sir John Eliot Gardiner (b. 1943), an English conductor who is primarily known for his interpretations of music from the Baroque and Classical eras, founded the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique in 1989. In his liner notes to Gardiner’s boxed set of the complete Beethoven cycle, the noted music critic music Richard Osborne opines that “the Fifth is another of Beethoven’s great transforming journeys whose evolution from the embattled C minor opening (‘Fate knocking at the door’) to the fervent C major march finale is both personal and political, and enactment of the contemporary philosophical belief that out of the French Revolution’s confrontation with the old order, a new synthesis, a brave new world, could be born.” He goes on to observe of the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Symphonique, a period instrument ensemble, that “for Gardiner the role of this new 60-strong orchestra was central to the Beethoven cycle. Period instruments, he argued, allow us to hear more in these symphonies; the edge is not taken off as it can be with instruments of a later period and sophistication. The instruments also help underwrite the revolutionary nature of Beethoven’s genius. Without the ‘traffic-jam’ sonorities modern instrument can induce, Gardiner could press forward with tempi and dynamics that drive home the sense of Beethoven pushing his material to its limits. This can be a shock to players and listeners, but it is a shock, says Gardiner, which is mitigated by the music’s energy and humanity.”

Gardiner’s Beethoven cycle was recorded in the early 1990s and released in 1994 as a deluxe boxed set by Deutsche Grammophon, which re-released the recordings on its Archiv budget label in 2010. Perceptive readers may already have been struck by the thought that Currentzis was certainly not the first conductor to question the 20^th-centrry performance tradition. In fact, five years before the Gardiner set was released by DG, another English conductor, Roger Norrington, had completed a traversal of the symphonies for EMI with his own period-instrument orchestra, the London Classical Players. Those recordings were quite a sensation at the time. I owned several of them, found them interesting, but they eventually disappeared from my collection. Perhaps at some point I will seek out and re-listen to his version of the Fifth (yep -- so many recordings, so little time!), which I do not remember that much about (my main memory of his Beethoven was that his Eroica was exhilarating but not my favorite while his Ninth just struck me as perverse).

In addition, in the early 2000s Norrington made another recording of the cycle, this time with the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, of which he was Principal Conductor from 1998 to 2011. In 2016 the orchestra for budgetary reasons was merged with another Stuttgart-based orchestra, the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra, to form the SWR Symphonieorchester, whose current Chief Conductor is none other than – you can’t make this stuff up – Teodor Currentzis. 

But back to Gardiner. His Beethoven cycle has gained wide acclaim and has generally been considered to be the best of the period-instrument bunch. (One quick digression: I greatly prefer his Ninth to Norrington’s.) His recording of the Fifth was captured from live performances in Barcelona in March, 1994. Once again, we hear a performance marked by energy and exuberance, but not as idiosyncratic as that of Currentzis. The music just seems to breathe a bit easier, the phrasing and accents not as sharply highlighted as they are under Currentzis. In addition, the sound comes across as a bit more spacious and warm. All in all, this is a crackerjack rendition of the Fifth, and the five-disc set is widely available at a bargain price. If you are a Beethoven fan, you really ought to give this set a listen.   
 
Jordi Savall, Le Concert des Nations. Alia Vox AVSA9937. (SACD, from box with Symphonies Nos. 1-5)

In my review of Savall’s boxed set of Beethoven’s first five symphonies () I mentioned that I would be comparing his version of the Fifth to several other recordings. Well, here we are.

Once again, we have comments from the conductor regarding his approach to the music, which by now should be starting to sound familiar. Savall (b. 1941) writes in the album booklet that “all our orchestral work was done using instruments corresponding to those used in Beethoven’s day and with a similar number of musicians to those deployed by the composer for the first performances of his symphonies, in other words, about 55 to 60 musicians, depending on the symphonies... we started with the basic idea of returning to the original sound and line-up of the orchestra as envisaged by Beethoven, constituted by the ensemble of instruments available in his day. Moreover, we needed to discover the original sources for the existing manuscripts, we studied and compared not only the autograph sources and the extant parts used in the first concert performances, but also modern editions based on those same sources, with the aim of verifying all the indications concerning dynamics and articulation… Our principal aim of projecting in our 21st century the full richness and beauty of these well-known symphonies -- all too often presented in an oversized, overelaborate form, is to restore to these works their essential energy through a proper natural balance between the colours and the quality of the orchestra’s natural sound. In Beethoven’s day, that sound was produced by the stringed instruments (catgut strings and historic bows), woodwind instruments; flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons and contrabassoons; brass instruments; sackbuts, trumpets and natural trumpets and the period tympani played with wooden drumsticks. The resulting brilliance, articulation, balance and revolutionary dynamics form the basis of a dynamism based on a respect for Beethoven’s intended tempi (barring a few rare exceptions) and the phrasing to which they give rise, in accordance with the mood indications and the dramatic narrative sustained by the spiritual power of its own message.”

Interestingly, this recording took place in a venue not far from where the Gardiner recording was made, Savall in Cardona, Spain, which is a half-hour or so away from Barcelona. Perhaps there is something in the Spanish air… At any rate, once again we have a performance in which the conductor backs up his words by leading a performance that shows off the “natural energy” and “dynamism” of this remarkable music. The more I listen to Savall’s performance, the more I am in awe of what Beethoven produced in this incredible work that we perhaps take too much for granted these days. As you would expect from a period-instrument performance, the tempos are brisk and the dynamics are lively. The power of the performance is enhanced by the sound quality that the engineering team has managed to capture. Savall seems to build his performance upon a solid foundation of lower strings and tympani, which are well-captured by the microphones. In addition to the warm tonal balance, there is a fine sense of physical space, which audiophiles often term as “imaging.” This is an outstanding performance captured in outstanding fidelity. It is my first choice among the period-instrument recordings I have auditioned.

In Part 2, we will consider four modern-orchestra recordings. Stay tuned.