Top speed and weird opening of RR 8.1.22

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Very apposite, Bryn.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Today I switched on CFM! We were presented with the 1st movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony (no more, of course - what do you expect?).
It sounded rushed, and the way it was being played, I suspect the players may have thought the same. The timpani sounded like it did in the Beethoven's 7th that triggered this thread. Delving deeper, I discovered that it was indeed Jordi Savall. In the 7th symphony, the interpretation actually grew on me as it went on. But not in the 9th. It was so rushed that it reminded of a younger version of me, playing the piano as fast as I could to impress the girl in the next practice room at school.

[cloughie]

Today I switched on CFM! We were presented with the 1st movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony (no more, of course - what do you expect?).
It sounded rushed, and the way it was being played, I suspect the players may have thought the same. The timpani sounded like it did in the Beethoven's 7th that triggered this thread. Delving deeper, I discovered that it was indeed Jordi Savall. In the 7th symphony, the interpretation actually grew on me as it went on. But not in the 9th. It was so rushed that it reminded of a younger version of me, playing the piano as fast as I could to impress the girl in the next practice room at school.

…did it work?

[Bryn]

Today I switched on CFM! We were presented with the 1st movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony (no more, of course - what do you expect?).
It sounded rushed, and the way it was being played, I suspect the players may have thought the same. The timpani sounded like it did in the Beethoven's 7th that triggered this thread. Delving deeper, I discovered that it was indeed Jordi Savall. In the 7th symphony, the interpretation actually grew on me as it went on. But not in the 9th. It was so rushed that it reminded of a younger version of me, playing the piano as fast as I could to impress the girl in the next practice room at school.

No surprise that you prefer dragged out Beethoven, rather than it being played close to the tempi he called for. Your comment led me to give this 9th a spin. There are a couple of uncomfortable lapses in ensemble in the first movement (this was an unpatched recording of a concert performance, IIRC) but the tempo was close to Beethoven's MM of minim=88. With the whole performance coming in at a little over 63 minutes, it is by no means the quickest on disc, the first movement being close in tempo to the old LCP/Norrington, for instance. That said, I do prefer Krivne's recordings, both on disc and the later performance that was, and may still be, on Youtube. As to the timps, they were, again, played as written, with a range of dynamics from pianissimo to fortissimo. Perhaps you just think that Beethoven did not know what he was up to.

[jayne lee wilson]

I didn't expect this thread to revive but since it has -

Listening on 2-channel SACD through my usual system to the Alia Vox/Savall Symphonies 6-8 for a week now, there is simply NO HINT of a problem with the orchestral balance: timpani are powerful where they should be, but never overbearing; Savall's favoured sonic signature, warm and mellow but light and athletic, allows detail to register clearly upon the ear even at high levels, and tempi are subtly and expressively varied. In fact the latter are by no means exceptionally fast compared to earlier cycles of whatever instrumental vintages, going back to the 1939 NBC Toscanini.

I would add that the hall used for 6,7 and 9 - the Collégiale du Château de Cardona (Catalogne) was also the acoustic for the Symphonies 1-5 (outstanding reviews everywhere - usually off the SACDs...) and the earlier Mozart Late Trilogy 39-41, with the same engineering team.
They know what they are doing and it is only lossy codec excerpts on R3, or CFM steam-hammer compression of isolated movements that misrepresents the years-long labours of love from Savall, his orchestra and the engineers that serve them (right through to the SACD mastering).

Earlier in this thread someone claimed that "128kbps mono" was perfectly adequate for judging recorded balances. At that, I should just put my head in my hands, pour a brandy and give up, but - I always feel compelled to defend these "fruits of laborious toil" (as Mozart put it) things of beauty, and things that I love. Above all - to be fair to those who created them.

I could come back on the (complete!!) 9th later, but it is probably a waste of time here. Though I'm pretty sure listening to it, in SACD on my usual studio-monitoring-based system, won't be!
I'm sorry I never started a dedicated thread for the Savall Cycle; declining health and strength have put it beyond me. But then what response could it possibly get?

[rauschwerk]

Richard Osborne has many pertinent things to say about the interpretation of Beethoven 9, including the metronome markings, here

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/beethoven-s-ninth-symphony-the-greatest-recordings

[hmvman]

I think I would be very wary of judging the balance of a recording from a CFM broadcast because, as JLW has mentioned, the dynamic compression is hugely overdone.

On that subject, and I hope not getting too off-topic, did anyone else hear this programme on R4 about compression in recorded music? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06tvgp1 I see it was first broadcast back in 2016 but was repeated earlier this month.

[Alison]

Please keep posting Jayne, this thread proves punters are interested in the detail. It’s not as if forumites are exactly indifferent to your posts!

I hope Ardcarp is pleased with the response even if perplexed by some of the views.

[RichardB]

Richard Osborne has many pertinent things to say about the interpretation of Beethoven 9, including the metronome markings, here

... from which I quote:

By 1824 Beethoven’s practical skills as a conductor were virtually non-existent. Why, then, prefer Beethoven’s (very fast) metronome suggestion to the carefully considered, if somewhat convoluted written instruction Allegro ma non troppo, e un poco maestoso which appears at the head of the autograph manuscript?

What is this supposed to mean? That because Beethoven wasn't involved in conducting any more he had no idea of tempo when composing? Some composers never conduct and have a very good idea of what tempo their music should be played at. This argument strikes me as without merit, whatever else one might think about Beethoven's tempi. To be sure, every composer knows that tempi often have to be adjusted according to the acoustic of the performance space, but to ignore what the composer has written on the grounds that his deafness had ended his conducting career seems somewhat silly.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think I would be very wary of judging the balance of a recording from a CFM broadcast because, as JLW has mentioned, the dynamic compression is hugely overdone.
.

This is true, but the dynamic compression doesn’t discriminate between the timpani and the rest of the orchestra.

[ardcarp]

even if perplexed by some of the views

Perplexed? Moi?

[Bryn]

This is true, but the dynamic compression doesn’t discriminate between the timpani and the rest of the orchestra.

That rather depends on the form of dynamic compression used. If it involves not only compression but also limitation, the response time of the limiter circuit will likely let the initial attack of a timp stroke through, to a greater extent than, as the string section. However, I doubt that is the source of your problem with Beethoven's dynamics. CFM's dynamic compression is notorious. Apart from anything else, CFM refuses to reveal the system they use, or how they use it. This is not the case with the Beeb's dynamic compression regime with FM. Radio 3 have claimed not to use dynamic compression for live concerts. However, this was not the case for some Proms, a few years ago, when an outside broadcast company specialising in sports broadcasts was brought in, leading to severe dynamic limitation of, for instance, Havergal Brian's 'Gothic' Symphony and Janacek's Glagolitic Mass that year.

[silvestrione]

... from which I quote: What is this supposed to mean? That because Beethoven wasn't involved in conducting any more he had no idea of tempo when composing? Some composers never conduct and have a very good idea of what tempo their music should be played at. This argument strikes me as without merit, whatever else one might think about Beethoven's tempi. To be sure, every composer knows that tempi often have to be adjusted according to the acoustic of the performance space, but to ignore what the composer has written on the grounds that his deafness had ended his conducting career seems somewhat silly.

I think RO's point, rather, is that there is a danger of privileging Beethoven's attempts to apply a recently developed little machine to living breathing music, instead of responding to the written instructions that are not mechanical at all, but convey his sense of that music's essential character that he is so keen people do not miss (Allegro ma non troppo, e un poco maestoso).

[Bryn]

I think RO's point, rather, is that there is a danger of privileging Beethoven's attempts to apply a recently developed little machine to living breathing music, instead of responding to the written instructions that are not mechanical at all, but convey his sense of that music's essential character that he is so keen people do not miss (Allegro ma non troppo, e un poco maestoso).

Whereas I have confidence in Beethoven knowing what he was up to. The interpretation of terms such as Allegro ma non troppo, e un poco maestoso have varied greatly over the past couple of centuries, or so. According to Rees, Czerny et al, Beethoven was most displeased at the slow tempi at which some played his music. The metronome marking Beethoven dictated to his nephew Carl for the 9th Symphony were there to avoid the work being performed at a slower tempi than he intended.

[jayne lee wilson]

This is true, but the dynamic compression doesn’t discriminate between the timpani and the rest of the orchestra.

SAVALL….LVB…..etc...

OK -so (off of 2-ch SACD as before) in the 9th (somewhat thrills & spills like the sacrosanct Furtwangler(s)), the timps & winds sound differently balanced from those in the 7th.

Winds in the 9th are slightly too recessed in (i) and (ii), lacking some presence, but noticably clearer and more forward in (iii-iv), where the sound is generally more immediate; recorded live across two performances, the different balances between the pairs of movements would probably be obscured by CFM compression/lossy codecs.
Same goes for the timpani; in the 9th i-ii, they sound lighter and are placed further to the right in the soundstage than in the 7th. The thrilling powder-keg-&-gunshot effect in the 7th, where they are also powerfully architectural, a groundswell to the whole band, is much less apparent. But in (iv) they are closer to the effect in the 7th (and the better for it, just when you need it most).

(The 8th is different again, more immediate still & a real thrill-ride, but of course in a different hall).

So as I said, the less the dynamic precision and the lower your resolution, the harder it is to perceive these things - and be fair to the recordings.
But what a terrific 7th this is, with that wonderfully headlong, head-over-heels momentum through the coda, to that final rapping out of the bare rhythm!

****
Fine survey by Richard Osborne within its limitations (lofty dismissal of instruments of certain vintages & the tempi thus associated...well, he would, wouldn't he?), but his comments on sonata-form in the 9th(i) are highly questionable; if it were not composed against the background of sonata (with truly intense thematic integration/transformation throughout, and strikingly so in the coda), it could not have such a devastating impact. But I guess that is another story....