Beethoven 4 & 5 CBSO/Nelsons

[jayne lee wilson]

The CBSO had a terrific blast at the 5th, but I've just heard JEG's new live one, with the ORR in Carnegie Hall - with all repeats, showing again how different the balance is with them, and how essential to the structure as a whole. Those eerie tappings and scrapings in the transition only make sense if scherzo and trio have been heard twice - otherwise that contrast (wonderfully brought out in the new JEG, strings sounding very near the bridge!) is just another episode, and the scherzo's return in the finale just sounds like a reminiscence, not the relentless ghostly presence, like black body radiation, that it is. And only THEN does that vast C Major coda justify itself. Without those repeats, the finale is all too much, too soon.

The scorching ORR 5th also made me wonder just how good Nelsons and the CBSO might have been, with all repeats played, winding up the tension, power and energy to the end. Probably overwhelming.

Like the inner movements of Mahler's 6th, the controversy will probably go on for ever. Even if documentary evidence proved decisive about last thoughts, it's impossible to gauge the degree of creative uncertainty in the artist. Despite the CBSO's fineness of execution, for me the Beethoven 5th simply sounds wrong, structurally and emotionally, played the way it was last night.

[JFLL]

... the scherzo's return in the finale just sounds like a reminiscence, not the relentless ghostly presence, like black body radiation, that it is ...

Thank you, JLW, for that most arresting simile. It's prose (and analysis) like this that makes this board so rewarding (at times!).

[bluestateprommer]

Yet another very late posting on a thread here; hearing this on iPlayer, agreed with the sense of 'big band' Beethoven, but that's fine and generally worked here. The 4th is my favorite LvB symphony, so it's always a treat to hear it live, even if live at a distance. Solid work from Carolyn Sampson in "Ah, perfido", and while the 5th wasn't a world-beater of a performance, it was fine.

Regarding Nelsons' talk at the start, which one can regard as awkwardly charming or charmingly awkward, depending on your POV, while I can understand some "meh" opinions of it, I gathered that the talk was less about Beethoven than about audience building, in Nelsons trying to encourage the audience to bring a friend, or two, to the concert hall. The American classical music blogger and consultant Drew McManus runs regular posts on his blog every so often, "Take a Friend to the Orchestra (TAFTO)", and I interpreted Nelsons' talk more in the light of that than Beethoven. It does raise the question of how audience numbers have been in Birmingham lately. Obviously I don't live there, so I'm in no position to judge, but maybe others there can comment on that.

Yes, this is business and the bean-counters potentially rearing their ugly heads, but I guess my point is that there's not much point in giving a great concert if nobody comes. With Beethoven, obviously that's generally not a worry, but the catch is to give other composers or works that same kind of "buzz".