Your desert island disc Beethoven symphony recordings.

[Petrushka]

Here is a link to the Konwitschny set for anyone interested: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beethoven-Co...9400715&sr=1-1

[Bryn]

Here is a link to the Konwitschny set for anyone interested: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beethoven-Co...9400715&sr=1-1

Or pay rather less at play.com:

http://www.play.com/Music/CD/-/1145946/-/Product.html?source=9593&_$ja=tsid:11853|prd:78888

[Parry1912]

What d'you mean, P1912? What did those noble scholars say? And should we, and all conductors, believe them?

Go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphon...ovement_repeat

Reference no 26 directs to a copy of British Academy Review. The article by Jonathan Del Mar is on page 43. Very interesting!

[Petrushka]

Go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphon...ovement_repeat

Reference no 26 directs to a copy of British Academy Review. The article by Jonathan Del Mar is on page 43. Very interesting!

Thanks for that, Parry1912. Fascinating stuff!

[PaulT]

Same here. Don't have to wait too long now. The 1st and 7th are live in R3 this coming Wednesday and I am attending their 9th on Nov 3.

For a superlative 7th I take it that you don't share the general acclaim for the Carlos Kleiber/VPO so I'd suggest the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Franz Konwitschny. It's only available as part of the complete set but it's cheap enough and most of the performances are pretty good. A set well worth comparing with the Chailly with the same orchestra.

I have just come out of the Salle Pleyel in Paris where Chailly performed symphonies 1 & 7 and would urge you all to listen to the R3 broadcast from the Barbican on Wednesday. This IS my Desert Island 7th. The first was pretty hot too. I dont know how I resisted the temptation to buy the set in the Pleyel shop. Chailly gives some interesting views on You Tube about his approach to these symphonies in conversation with James Jolly..

[Bryn]

Go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphon...ovement_repeat
was tha
Reference no 26 directs to a copy of British Academy Review. The article by Jonathan Del Mar is on page 43. Very interesting!

As far as I am aware, the first recording to offer the third movement repeat in the form ABABA' was that made by Pierre Boulez with the New Philharmonia in 1970(?). "I have a pupil who has written a 200-page thesis on this very point [the third movement repeat], and he has really proved conclusively to me that it was just carelessness on Beethoven's part that the repeat marks got left out. I think the balance of the work is improved, too, in practice". (Boulez in conversation with Alan Blyth of The Gramophone). Mind you, the Boulez recorded performance of the Fifth is pretty pedestrian. The Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt on the same LP is very fine though.

[Alison]

I wasn't aware this was on CD, Alison. I was at that 1991 Prom (as I was the 1985 LPO/Tennstedt on BBC Legends). Is it one from the Alison Archives? Certainly worth a CD issue as I think it was better than either if those issued.

So sorry, you're quite right Petrushka. I do have the 1991 on an old cassette somewhere. In the case of symphonies
6, 7 and 9 I feel I have made somewhat arbitrary decisions and the Ninth in particular defies an outright choice.
Maybe it just felt good to have Klaus in the nine symphony stable. No, Ive never really been swept away by the Kleiber Seventh.

[Alison]

Encouraging note from Paul T.

Chailly's Beethoven first grabbed my attention with a performance of the Second Symphony from the Concertgebouw Radio Recordings box.

A far more cohesive and vibrant account than that of Jansons several years later with the same orchestra.

[jayne lee wilson]

Thanks Parry, good read - but there's no firm conclusion really, is there? Jolly good, keep the conductors thinking, as with the Mahler 6 inner movements.

I always miss the scherzo repeat, though it is important then to make the finale repeat too. In Robert Simpson's little-big BBC book on the symphonies, he quotes Boult saying that it can be hard to maintain the intensity through all those repeats, but RS goes on to say that Boult himself has proved that it can be done; and makes the more obvious point that the final pianissimo appearance of the scherzo only really works if the full version has "been crashed into the brain by repetition that hints at endlessness"!

The Chailly cycle is reviewed by Richard Osborne, and most interestingly too, in the current Awards issue of Gramophone - I have to say it is rather equivocal, if positive. He has serious reservations about no.3, "stripped bare of most of its expressive content"!

Seriously busy week ahead, will try to carve out the time - retain the mental energy - for Wednesday's concert.

Go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphon...ovement_repeat

Reference no 26 directs to a copy of British Academy Review. The article by Jonathan Del Mar is on page 43. Very interesting!

[Biffo]

Before purchasing the Chailly Beethoven cycle you can listen to it on Spotify. I haven't listened to all of it, just selected whole movements from Nos 3, 6, 7, 8 & 9. This has been enough to put me off a complete cycle. I don't know how (or even if) it will be issued as separate discs but I would be tempted by no 7 as long as it wasn't coupled with the rushed performance of No 8. No 6 is taken at a fairly brisk pace but actually works for me. I found No 3 severely disappointing and as it is my favourite of the cycle a clincher for non-purchase.

[silvestrione]

1 BPO/Abbado Rome
2 VPO/Rattle
3 Staatskapelle Dresden/ Davis
4 BPO/Karajan 1962
5 don't actually listen to it any more, but if I did I suspect it would be C Kleiber/VPO
6 Karajan Philharmonia late 50s
7 RPO/Davis
8 BPO/Abbado Berlin 1999
9 BPO/Abbado, the version on Sony, 1996

[Tony Halstead]

9 BPO/Abbado, the version on Sony, 1996
Hmmm...
'Slow movement' (VERY slow) played ('interpreted' ) at a metronome speed of about 40.
Beethoven asks for 60, so, one beat per second.

[PaulT]

1. Norrington/LCP
2. Klemperer/Philharmonia 60`s stereo
3. Klemperer/Philharmonia 1955 mono
4. Karajan/Philharmonia
5. Thielemann/VPO
6. Bohm/VPO
7. Chailly/LGO
8. Haitink/LPO live from RFH 1967?
9. Furtwangler/Philharmonia Luzern 1954

[John Skelton]

9 BPO/Abbado, the version on Sony, 1996
Hmmm...
'Slow movement' (VERY slow) played ('interpreted' ) at a metronome speed of about 40.
Beethoven asks for 60, so, one beat per second.

You have to remember that Beethoven was deaf at the time, so his metronome didn't work properly .

[Biffo]

I find the metronome markings for the slow movement of No 9 rather confusing. The first subject is marked Adagio molto cantabile, crotchet = 60 and the second subject Andante moderato, crotchet = 63. The metronome markings seem at variance with the expression marks or have I got it wrong (strong possibilty).