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:
By John J. Puccio
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.
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:
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