Beethoven Symphony Cycles

[HighlandDougie]

Yesterday I listened to a significant proportion of Immerseeel's Beethoven cycle. I like it a lot.

However, when I got to the Pastoral, I really was suspicious as it seemed to me that it had been re-orchestrated with an organ. Was that my hearing, or was there really an organ added to the mix? Very odd.

I think that JvA might be horrified (or maybe amused) at the idea of incorporating an organ into the Pastoral! I'm about to give the CD a spin but I suspect that the combination of "Viennese instruments", pitch at 440 Hz and the blend of sound from the Bruges hall might have produced an acoustic effect suggestive of an organ lurking somewhere in the mix. The booklet accompanying the box of CDs sets out at some length the reasoning underlying Anima Eterna's approach to the LvB cycle (I've tried but failed to find a copy on the internet to which a link might be posted). Glad that the cycle is being enjoyed!

[Dave2002]

Glad that the cycle is being enjoyed!

It's a brilliant set - but the Pastoral still sounded a bit odd today. The seventh and ninth are stunning - as perhaps are most of the others.

I know others gave up on Immerseel in favour of Krivine, but I'm thinking that was a big mistake. Critical reviews of Immerseel's set are all over the place - in the sense of vastly diverging opinions - and opinions about each individual symphony - look for them. One wonders in some cases whether the critics bothered to listen at all, or perhaps sampled just a few discs. Incidentally - what's the big deal about A-440? OK - not "traditional" HIPP pitch, but just happens to be standard concert pitch I think still.

[HighlandDougie]

It's a brilliant set - but the Pastoral still sounded a bit odd today. The seventh and ninth are stunning - as perhaps are most of the others.

I know others gave up on Immerseel in favour of Krivine, but I'm thinking that was a big mistake. Critical reviews of Immerseel's set are all over the place - in the sense of vastly diverging opinions - and opinions about each individual symphony - look for them. One wonders in some cases whether the critics bothered to listen at all, or perhaps sampled just a few discs. Incidentally - what's the big deal about A-440? OK - not "traditional" HIPP pitch, but just happens to be standard concert pitch I think still.

Although you are right in that it is the UK concert standard, JvI makes the point that A-440 is quite high for a period instrument band (more normally 415) but that represents what he considers would have been the pitch used in the Vienna of Beethoven's time. The combination of the higher pitch and the timbre of their "Viennese instruments" produces a sound which is quite distinctive. I wonder also if your organ isn't the sound produced by the particular timbre of the woodwind (especially the bassoons) and the brass (and the Pastoral has trombones as well as trumpets) playing together at certain points, not least in the final movement? And what do critics know?

[Barbirollians]

I was rather put off this set by Immerseel's Symphony Fantastique which I found a big disappointment .

[HighlandDougie]

I was rather put off this set by Immerseel's Symphony Fantastique which I found a big disappointment .

The one glitch in an otherwise highly distinguished recorded oeuvre - those Érard pianos!! No such shocks to the system in the Beethoven cycle.

[BBMmk2]

Just wondering about any good recordings of Liszt's transcriptions of LvB's symphonies for piano?

[Dave2002]

Although you are right in that it is the UK concert standard, JvI makes the point that A-440 is quite high for a period instrument band (more normally 415) ....

I thought that most period bands played at about A=430. HIistorically I there might have beeen a wide range depending on location, from perhaps as low as A=390 up to A=460. I have recollections of reading of that wide range somewhere, perhaps based on organs in different locations. Without recordings to go on it's rather difficult to be sure what the tunings might have been in different regions. Historical accounts might have mentioned some musicians with absolute pitch noting the different pitches in different towns and cities, or some other musicians noting that they would have had to play sharp or flat if they went to play in or with different orchestras. Organs might have been a more reliable guide to pitches, as the pipes would not normally change in length too much over time, but even there there might be other factors. One consideration in determining usual pitches might be that if string instruments are tuned to higher pitches that would stress the instruments, so higher pitches would perhaps have been less common than lower pitches. The technical limitations of instruments would have been a factor perhaps noted by instrument makers and repairers.

Possibly there were wider disparities in pitches between cities which were far apart, with relatively little interaction between them and little exchange of musical performers.

I am not sure that even musicians with absolute pitch can detect a difference down to a few Hz accurately.

After 1711, with the invention of the tuning fork by John Shore, pitches might have tended to become much more standard - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuning_fork - and it seems plausible that this would have happened by 1720-1730.

[richardfinegold]

Has anyone heard the new Blomstedt cycle with the Leipzig Gewandhaus? It has gotten good reviews. I really like his previous cycle with Dresden, which can be had inexpensively from Brilliant Classics. That cycle is 40 years old, and as my respect for Blomstedt has steadily increased over the years I am wondering how his views may have changed....if at all. The new one is a bit more expensive so unless Santa sees fit to add yet another Beethoven cycle to my shelves I may have to pass...

[Andy2112]

Beethoven symphony cycle.

Out of curiosity, what opinion do my (much more esteemed than me) fellow forumers have on the idea of complete Beethoven Symphony cycle recordings. Does the totality of the journey from 1 to 9 just make it impossible for one conductor and orchestra to compile a truly complete set of fulfilling interpretations in one defined project? Are there any examples of complete cycles that truly hit the mark in every work?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'd say not - but that's because "the mark" (my inner conception of the nine works) shapeshifts every time I reread the scores.

But thanks for the opportunity to let me enthuse again about the Krivine set - still my go-to set. (And even here, I find the finale of the First a bit too fast - and the recorded sound quality does depend on which system I play it on. But these remain astonishing readings of the scores; lithe, impudent, and lyrical, without losing the power the works require - still completely revelatory for me, with the emphasis on the "revel".)

[Bryn]

I'd say not - but that's because "the mark" (my inner conception of the nine works) shapeshifts every time I reread the scores.

But thanks for the opportunity to let me enthuse again about the Krivine set - still my go-to set. (And even here, I find the finale of the First a bit too fast - and the recorded sound quality does depend on which system I play it on. But these remain astonishing readings of the scores; lithe, impudent, and lyrical, without losing the power the works require - still completely revelatory for me, with the emphasis on the "revel".)

And some good news. Having been somewhat difficult to find, I see the Krivine set is currently available, replete with 'digital' booklet and in lossless format, from QOBUZ, for the princely sum of €10.99.

[jayne lee wilson]

Hey, give us a break! It's all about Schumann this week!

Oh, alright then: NBC/Toscanini, live New York October-December 1939. (But only in the Music & Arts 2013 transfer).
You see? I'm not fixated on chamber orchestras and HIPPs and hi-res all the time...

[Richard Barrett]

Does the totality of the journey from 1 to 9 just make it impossible for one conductor and orchestra to compile a truly complete set of fulfilling interpretations in one defined project?

No. A conductor might have a repertoire stretching from Schütz to Stravinsky (like John Eliot Gardiner for example) which by any measure is a much longer journey! If I'm listening to Beethoven's symphonies I appreciate them more by listening to them all played by more or less the same people in the same place with the same conductor, which makes it possible at least in theory to take them and their evolution in as a whole, with other variables removed. I don't have a particular favourite though, at the moment.

[Bryn]

Hey, give us a break! It's all about Schumann this week!

Oh, alright then: NBC/Toscanini, live New York October-December 1939. (But only in the Music & Arts 2013 transfer).
You see? I'm not fixated on chamber orchestras and HIPPs and hi-res all the time...

I'm not made of money, so will stick with my bargain basement Naxos transfers (now long removed from the catalogue, I think).

[vinteuil]

.

... I wonder if Beethoven wd ever have considered them as 'a cycle'.

Were they not rather separate responses to creative imperatives at various points and very different times in his life?

He was surely a 'different' person in 1795-1800 from how he was in 1822-1824.

.