Welcome to the 50th work in the Slipped Disc/Idagio Beethoven Edition

Fourth Symphony, opus 60 (1808)

Trapped between the enormous statements of the Eroica and the Fifth Symphony, the fourth symphony was always appreciated most by composers. Berlioz regarded it as the work of an angel and Mahler mimics its hesitant introduction in the opening to his first symphony. You don’t need to know much about music – or Beethoven – to understand why the work failed to be understood by audiences, then or now.

Although written at the same time as the 5th symphony, the fourth is neither heroic, nor is it romantic, ethereal or political. A German analyst complained that it lacked ‘higher meaning’ and one early-20th century English critic placed it as ‘not in the main line of Beethoven’s spiritual development’, a statement that is at once self-evident and yet so simplistic as to demand instant demolition.

To understand the symphony, we have to take it at face value: this is what Beethoven was writing in breaks between composing movements of the 5th symphony. In other words it is, by self-definition, his not-the-fifth symphony. Once that truth is grasped, all others fall into place. The fourth symphony is every bit as radical as its companions, springing a counter-intuitive shock by defying the heroic and romantic modes of the time. It is deliberately quiet for two movements and consciously introspective for the rest. It carries us forward beyond Beethoven to the fourth symphony of Robert Schumann, another composer who ignored what the world expected of him, and beyond that to Mahler and Schoenberg. In the hands of a gifted interpreter, Beethoven’s fourth symphony is an overwhelming experience, equal to either of ts neighbours. Leonard Bernstein called it ‘the biggest surprise package Beethoven has ever handed us.’

To find an entry point I’d begin with the Russian school of Beethoven interpretation, always focussed less on beauty than structure and momentum. The enigmatic Yevgeny Mravinsky gave a gripping performance with the Leningrad Philharmonic in June 1955, an account that delineates that shape of things to come in the opening page and holds fast to its purpose for the next half-hour. If Mravinsky has a fault aside from a certain coolness, it is his inflexibility. Here his rigidity delivers a Beethoven unperceived by noisier conductors, a composer who walks alone while the world about him trembles on the brink of war and chaos. Whatever Mravinsky and his musicians went through in the siege of Leningrad is imbued in this epic realisation of an elusive masterpiece.

Among Mravinsky admirers, the Latvian Mariss Jansons (2012) offers a gentler view of Beethoven, more rounded and approachable, yet tinged by an inner compass that points resolutely ahead, to a better world. The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, on top form in a Tokyo concert hall, adds luxurious sheen to the proceedings.

The Czech exile Rafael Kubelik, offered an opportunity to record a 1970s Beethoven cycle for Deutsche Grammophon, chose to perform one symphony with each of his favourite orchestras. For the fourth symphony, he settled on the Israel Philharmonic, still composed at the time mostly of Hitler exiles from Germany, Austria and his own homeland. The fourth symphony served as a meeting point for waywayrd souls, waifs and strays. Kubelik invested the work with a yearning for paradise lost, driving it forward to some roseate destination. The Israel Phil was not an ensemble of absolute world class, but here it sounds like one.

Most discussions of the fourth symphony begin (and end) with Wilhelm Furtwängler. The fourth was one of the old waverer’s favourite works and he never failed to make it reflect the circumstances of the moment. His June 1943 Berlin broadcast, in the midts of war and death, is dark and dread-filled, punctuated by audience coughs, bangs and nervousness. Over these disturbances, Furtwängler throws a line of beauty and salvation. We can do better than this, the music seems to say, redemption is in our hands. This is one of my most-listened Beethoven records. Post-War Furtwängler repeats with the Vienna Philharmonic are more serene, less satisfying.

Carlos Kleiber‘s 1982 Munich performance has a magical aura and unmatchable tension. You may be swept away. Myself, while listening to it, I think: you had to be there. This is not a repeatable occasion, enjoyable as it remains. Herbert von Karajan‘s most effective Beethoven 4 is the Berlin one from 1963. Abbado, Rattle, Chailly and Ivan Fischer are all worth investigating. The veteran Herbert Blomstedt (2016) is well worth a detour to Tanglewood for sheer elegance and timeless mastery.

Leonard Bernstein spoke with real authority in this symphony, which American orchestras played more when he was growing up than their European colleagues did. There’s a lightness to his touch and a smoothness of line in the second slow movement that makes his subsequent speeds appealing and coherent. The New York Philharmonic exercise unaccustomed discipline and surgical precision.

Christopher Hogwood led the period-instrument recordings in 1987, but I can’t help finding his reading fidgety and dry when heard beside Roger Norrington, Nikolaus Harnoncurt or Frans Brüggen. If it’s excitement you’re after, John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique will appease raw cravings. It’s fast and furious in the latter half, but is it Beethoven?

When I contemplate the fourth symphony, my ideal recording is Neville Marriner‘s with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Marriner was a pioneer of period practice who rejected growly basses and valveless horns in favour of an agreeable sound ambience. As a boy of 16 in 1939, Marriner was called into the London Symphony Orchestra to deputise for fighting men. Conscripted at 18, he was seriously wounded and out of action for several months, in the course of which he studied period performance with his ward neighbour, Thurston Dart.  Over the next 15 years in London orchestras, he played for Toscanini, Furtwängler, Stokowski, George Szell and Pierre Monteux. Observing them closely from his seat as leader of the second violins, Neville Marriner learned how to get the best out of a group of musicians. While he lacked the numinous aura of a grand maestro, he could get outstanding results from any set of players, and on very little rehearsal.

His 1976 Philips recording of Beethoven’s fourth symphony is Neville Marriner at his peak – sensitive, supple, sleek and sometimes swift while taut in line and length. The finale is a masterclass in holding the attention. Marriner took a lot of flak from early-music purists for being too moderate, and from grand-maestro adulators for not being flash enough, but here he’s as good as it gets, if not better. His core values were founded on a humility that came from spending all those years at the wrong end of the stick.

 

Meet Peter Whelan, artistic director of the Irish Baroque Orchestra.

 

Well, someone had to.

 

There are many versions of W B Yeats’s poem Down by the Salley Gardens, from classic to rock. I give you these as personal favourites.

Watch out for the beautiful cup of tea at the end.

The is the stricken virtuoso’s distanced performance of part of Beethoven’s Harp Quartet with London Philharmonic principals last night.

Ms Mutter has tested positive for Cornavirus.

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

 

What can you do with 3 sopranos and 2 altos? Be inventive, that’s what.

The all-women quintet Papagena have come up with a range of unaccompanied songs, settings and original commissions that often take the breath away. Don Macdonald’s Moonset, for instance, does just what the title says: it sinks, gently, bringing hope of a new day, a breath of fresh air…..

Read on here.

And here.

The New York Youth Symphony had to cancel its spring date at Carnegie Hall but nothing was going to stop them playing.

Here’s a movement of Mahler’s first symphony, 74 young musicians playing from home, conducted by Michael Repper.

Gustav would have been so proud.

Among other bizarre situations, the Finnish soprano was unable to get back from London to her American home. But Finnair took her to her homeland, where she is holed up in Turku in her ex-husband’s hut.

How does she fill her day?

 I do something exercise for an hour a day; treadmill or exercise bike. I talk to friends on the phone. Evening sauna. I drink vodka martinis. I started cooking a bit yesterday. I haven’t done anything related to music other than listening.

 

The violinist Pekka Kuusisto has been suffering from coronavirus disease at home for ten days. He says the symptoms are tolerable, ‘despite slightly lowered energy levels.’

Interviews here.

 

 

The general manager of the Metropolitan Opera sent out a second round of begging letters last night.

The reason soon became apparent as Bloomberg reported that the company’s credit rating has been cut to junk: The Metropolitan Opera has a $67 million line of credit backed by artwork and endowment funds. The organization had drawn $36.5 million as of July 31, 2018, according to its latest annual report.

 

A Met spokesperson said the comany had already raised $30m in its latest appeal.

‘While it is disappointing to receive this downgrade as a result of the severe economic implications of the coronavirus pandemic, which is affecting so many arts institutions, the Metropolitan Opera has nevertheless taken a number of immediate actions to stabilize its finances,’ Lee Abrahamian, a spokeswoman for the opera, said in an emailed statement.

 

 

Lola Astanova has a message today: ‘for all the friends in Italy: we are with you and we’ll get through this together!’

Oh, look, she’s wearing a tricolore.

The accomplished and popular Italian bass Luigi Roni died last night in the region of Puccini’s town of Lucca. He was 78.

After studies in Lucca, Luigi Roni performed on all the world’s major stages, last appearing on the Met HD Live in 2012.

He founded a summer festival in the Serchio valley and lived quietly in retirement with his son.

Welcome to the 49th work in the Slipped Disc/Idagio Beethoven Edition

Horn sonata, op 17. Wind trio opus 87, Clarinet trio opus 11

 

Ever wonder why Beethoven wrote so little for instruments other than piano and strings? Where Mozart composed for any bidder from oboe to glass harmonica, Beethoven kept his eye on the mainstream. Mozart, being gregarious, met a broad variety of working musicians. Beethoven was going deaf and could never contain his contempt for flattery or a false note. These are probably the reasons for his lack of interest in wind and brass instruments, but we cannot be sure.

The exceptions are, without fail, interesting. They begin with the 1800 horn sonata, written for a tour he took with the Czech horn star Johan Wenzel Stich, who used the stage name Giovanni Punto. A senior soloist much admired by Mozart, Punto composed 16 horn concertos and 21 horn quartets. By the time he met Beethoven, near the end of his life, he required external stimulus from a younger musician. Beethoven knocked off a horn sonata. The pair first played it on April 18, 1800 at Vienna’s Burgtheater. Beethoven later claimed he wrote the horn part the night before and made up the piano accompaniment as he went along. After a repeat performance in Budapest, there was a falling out and Punto called off the rest of the tour. Of the sonata’s three movements, the second is just over a minute long – a sign, perhaps, of Beethoven’s impatience and disinterest.

Two recordings dominate a limited discography. Dennis Brain‘s 1944 Abbey Road session with Denis Matthews at the piano is austere in acoustic and approach. The full glory of Brain’s horn is absent in wartime conditions. Matthews has a quick fingers and a faintly pedagogic manner. The pair sound like they can’t wait to get to the pub.

Thirty years later, the LSO’s freewheeling Australian horn Barry Tuckwell gave one of those performances that are intended by record producers to be ‘definitive’. The emigré Russian pianst Vladimir Ashkenazy kept Tuckwell’s exuberance in check and the result is less flamboyant than I remember from his concerts, though by no means wallflowery. Tuckwell is always larger than life.

Beyond the star names, there are treasures to be found in the 1951 playing of the Russian-Jewish virtuoso Yakov Shapiro, accompanied by the rising Emil Gilels. Shapiro was old-school with vibrato as broad as the Moscow River and Gilels evidently warmed to his style. The sound is Red Army roughhouse but the humanity soars. For the richest sound on record go to the German virtuoso Hermann Baumann and the former Berlin principal horn Radovan Vlatković. Both are pin-perfect and clean as a whistle. Personally, I’ll take Shapiro.

Not many people know that Beethoven wrote a movement for an oboe concerto. It is mentioned by Haydn in a letter while Beethoven was his pupil. A sketch survives in the British Library and reconstruction was made in 1981. It was recorded with a Dutch chamber orchestra by Jan Willem de Vriend and sounds, as you’d expect, like a piece of homework to show what the student knows of the instrument’s capacities.

Not long after this peripheral piece Beethoven wrote a quizzical little trio for two oboes and cor anglais (the opus number of 87 is misleading). There is every reason to suspect the trio was commissioned by amateurs since Beethovens keeps the run slow and the shifts manageable. There is not a lot of substance to the music, with most of the fun to be found in a skippy little finale. Among the available recordings you have a choice between a sobersided reading led by the Swiss oboe virtuoso and composer Heinz Holliger and a playful runaround with the Frenchman Francois Leleux.

This insignificant composition led directly to one of Beethoven’s most irresistible confections, his set of eight variations for two oboes and cor anglais on Mozart’s aria “Là ci darem la mano” from the opera Don Giovanni. Set Beethoven loose on Mozart and he’s like a kid opening a bag of sweets, letting all the different flavours fall out on the table and rearranging them, time after time, in a different order. The virtuoso clarinet Sabine Meyer leads the field, with Wolfgang Meyer and Reiner Wehle, in a straitlaced 2005 reading of delicate poise and beauty. Leleux, with Paul Meyer and Gilbert Audin, are like three lads on Saturday night, wilder by far and up for anything. The winds of the Berlin Philharmonic sound like pen-pushers by comparison.

Still in the 1790s, Beethoven wrote a trio for clarinet, piano and cello, one of his most endearing ideas. It’s often known as the Gassenhauer trio because its third-movement theme was whistled by delivery boys down the lanes (Gassen) of old Vienna, if that’s what you’d like to believe. The same melody was exploited by Hummel and Paganini, and it’s not much to write home about. But Beethoven gives it heft and suppleness and the best players have an absolute ball with it.

Whom to choose? Students go to Reginald Kell (Clarinet), Frank Miller (Violoncello) and Mieczysław Horszowski (Piano) in 1950 New York, a bedrock reading of classical virtues. For larger personalities, still in classical mode, try Karl Leister (Clarinet), Pierre Fournier (Violoncello), Wilhelm Kempff (Piano) in 1970. Bigger still: Daniel Barenboim, Gervase de Peyer, Jacqueline du Pré, 1969. Unmatchable for vivacity and devil-may-care. There is an alternative version where the clarinet is replaced by violin, but why bother?

Likewise, do not bother with the so-called clarinet trio opus 38, which is nothing other than a skimpy reduction of the glorious septet, opus 20. If you’ve heard the original, you won’t be satisfied by this, even in as accomplished a reading as Karl Leister‘s with Matthias Moosdorf and Olga Gollej.