Beethoven Revolution: Symphonies Nos. 6-9 (SACD review)
Jordi Savall, Le Concert des Nations. Alia Vox AVSA9946 (3-disc set).
By John J. Puccio
The Spanish conductor, composer, and violist Jordi Savall (b. 1941) has been a leader in the fields of historically informed performances and period-instrument bands for a very long time, having formed Hesperion XX (now XXI) in 1974, La Capella Reial de Catalunya in 1987, and Le Concert des Nations in 1989. In his career he’s made over a hundred recordings (mostly for EMI, Astree, and more recently for his own label, Alia Vox) and appeared in just about every concert house everywhere in the world. While usually sticking with Baroque and early classical music, he has also branched out with music of the early Romantic Age, like these Beethoven symphonies. Here, with Symphonies Nos. 6-9, he follows his earlier set of Nos. 1-5 (2020).
Unlike some HIP conductors who take such an intensely academic approach to their music making that it tends to drain the life out of it or yet other conductors who seem committed to whipping through it so fast we don’t get time to appreciate it, Savall has always taken a different path. His style, though always well researched and enlightened, has also been unfailingly joyful and robust. Although his performances have not always sounded the most refined, they have always been delightful and heartfelt. And so it is with his Beethoven.
Of course, Savall isn’t the first one to record all of the Beethoven symphonies using period instruments, historically informed performance practices, accurately sized ensembles, technically correct bowing, and the composer’s own tempo markings. You’ll remember, Roger Norrington and his London Classical Players were among the first to attempt this feat back in the 1980’s. But not all HIP conductors succeed in making the music more enjoyable than those employing traditional interpretations using modern orchestras. Take, for instance, the matter of tempos. When Beethoven got older he embraced the newly patented metronome with a passion, perhaps to ensure that later generations would play his music the way he intended. Whatever, later generations were divided over the composer’s rather fast metronome markings, many critics suggesting that the metronome Beethoven used must have been faulty. Needless to say, as the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries wore on, conductors came to adopt their own tempos and pretty much ignored Beethoven’s. These days, thankfully, we have greater choice in such matters. Savall, for example, follows Beethoven’s markings pretty carefully and is within seconds of Norrington’s speeds in most movements. Yet Savall’s accounts couldn’t be more different from Norrington’s.
As the first disc in Savall’s set contains the Sixth Symphony “Pastorale,” it makes a good comparison. I have always felt it was the weakest of Norrington’s recordings because he followed Beethoven’s tempos so rigidly that it rather took away some of the gentle warmth of the music. Not so with Savall, whose quick tempos never sound fast and breathe new life into the score. Instead of sounding somewhat cold and sterile, as Norrington sounds to me in the Sixth, Savall’s version is far friendlier, more radiant, more alive. Indeed, I would count this recording among the best accounts of the “Pastorale” from anybody, HIP or traditional, and that includes my favorites from Bohm, Walter, Reiner, Jochum, Klemperer, and the rest. Savall's way with the “Arrival in the country” is full of good cheer; the “Scene at the brook” is tranquil and serene; the “Merry gathering of peasants” is sensibly spirited without appearing boisterous or rushed; the “Storm” is appropriately menacing: and the concluding “Shepherd's song” and “Happy feelings after the storm” are gentle, bucolic, and carefree, taken more effortlessly than most other period-instrument bands. Beethoven wanted us to picture the scenes of the “Pastorale” in our mind, and that’s exactly what Savall helps us do. Altogether, he makes a fine show of it, producing as good an interpretation as anyone’s and better than most.
Disc two gives us the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies. The Seventh, as you know, is the one that Beethoven himself said was one of his best pieces of work, the one whose second movement Allegretto became so popular that audiences would often demand it as an encore, and the one that Richard Wagner called the “apotheosis of the dance,” thanks to its bouncy, dance-like rhythms. It is a work that seems tailor-made for Maestro Savall, who generates thoroughly zesty results without sounding frenetic. His performance is much like the one I reviewed a short while back from von der Goltz and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, both of them conveying exuberance, spontaneity, and affection in equal measure.
Beethoven called No. 8 “my little Symphony in F,” and so audiences have referred to it for years. Compared to the more massive symphonies that precede and follow it, it really is somewhat small, being only about twenty-five to thirty minutes in length (although Savall gets through it in just under twenty-five minutes). It’s also one of the composer’s more seriously lighthearted works (with the exception of the final movement, at least), and the composer could never understand why it didn’t receive the same accolades as his longer symphonies did. I think it does get rather swallowed up by its surroundings. In any case, Savall provides the music with a healthy playfulness and vivacity, helping us to see it as a natural extension of and worthy successor to No 7.
The third and final disc in the set contains Beethoven’s crowning jewel, the Ninth Symphony. For me, this makes Savall’s account of the piece a tad disappointing because it’s the one symphony in the collection where the slightly faster-than-traditional speeds aren’t quite able to convey the full grandeur and opulence of the music. Remember when compact discs were first introduced, Sony and Philips, the co-developers of the CD, told us they designed it to hold about seventy-five minutes because they wanted the entire Ninth Symphony to fit on one disc. Well, Savall brings it in at just under sixty-three minutes, so there’s plenty of space to spare. Still, the recording makes a fascinating and worthwhile listening experience, and, overall, it’s better than most of the other historically informed, period-instrument interpretations of the work I’ve heard.
Savall opens the Ninth with a brawny vigor, where the timpani tend to dominate. The second movement, marked Molto vivace, is certainly that, very brisk and snappy. This seemed to me the most successful of the movements in its abundance of sparkle within a framework of elegant nobility. The third movement Adagio seemed a trifle brusque to me, too businesslike to be as moving as I’ve heard it. The final-movement Presto opens what has become one of the most-famous stretches of music in the whole of the classical world. Under Savall it appeared to me a trifle perfunctory; nevertheless, it provides a suitable introduction to the big choral number that follows. The soloists and chorus also serve the music well, although they are not as impressive as I’ve heard in some more-conventional performances.
The packaging is a fold-out Digipak sort of affair that’s about as easy to operate as an old road map. The booklet insert is over 270 pages long and written in practically every language known to Man. I found this document quite comprehensive and a welcome addition to the set. Just don’t try taking it out of the case; it’s a devil to put back in.
Producer and engineer Manuel Mohino recorded the symphonies at La Collegiale du Chateau de Cardona, Catalonia, Spain and the National Forum of Music, Wroclaw, Poland in 2020-21. Alia Vox chose to make it in hybrid SACD multichannel and stereo, depending on the equipment you use for playback. I listened in SACD two-channel stereo.
The sound (especially for Nos. 6, 7 and 9, recorded in Spain) is spacious, wide-ranging, smooth, dynamic, well balanced, and well defined. It is, in fact, about as good as one could want. The only minor caveat I found was that the soloists are recorded fairly closely. Nonetheless, the chorus doesn't shrill out on us. Compared to all the other period-instrument performances I’ve auditioned, the sound here is clearly the best, the most-realistic, so you really won’t do any better. No. 8, recorded separately from the others, is a tad more resonant and slightly less transparent than the others but still quite good.
JJP
To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor
Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.
Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.
Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor
For nearly 30 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.
For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2024 Honda CRV Sport L Hybrid, I stream music from my phone through its adequate but hardly outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through a Roku Streambar Pro system (soundbar plus four surround speakers and a 10" sealed subwoofer) that has surprisingly nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence and reasonable price. Finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker and a pair of Google Pro Earbuds for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technologies that enable us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.
William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor
Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.
The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.
Ryan Ross, Contributor
I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.
I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.
Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst
I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.
Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.
Mission Statement
It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.
When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.
So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio
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