My First Beethoven

[richardfinegold]

I'm trying to figure out what LvB recordings I had or heard first. There may be some gaps, because some of the LPs were dad's, and they have now been sadly lost.

As far as I can remember it went something like:

7 - Konwitschny (I think one of my frinds had Toscanini)
4 and 5 Walter
6 Groves- 10 inch LP
9 Schmidt- Isserstedt, though one of my friends had a Klemperer mono version wich I heard at a relatively early age and another had Ansermet's, which I liked. Actually it was their dads who had the LPs, but we listened to them.

I don't know how I got on to 1,2,3 and 8. I knew these works fairly well, probably beacause I listed to so many radio concert broadcasts, so I can't think that particular LPs shaped my listening of those.

I have a hunch that the Eroica LP we had was on Supraphon - perhaps von Matacic. If so, it'd be good to hear that again
Somewhat later I acquired some cheap LPs of Kletzki on CFP, which filled in gaps in my collection, then I went back and bought some of the Cluytens set - especially for number 6, but by then I think many had started to become relatively cheap.
I suspect that I also had Koussevitsky on LP in the Eroica - really good on RCA
A little later I became keen on several other versions of the Eroica - Bernstein and Barbirolli - different, but I enjoyed them both.

An inherited LP was Krips in 3 IIRC, very good. Some of my memories are a bit hazy, but the LPs are mostly still around so can be checked - also see mention of Erich Kleiber below.

In the CD era I obtained Walter's set, and found 1 and 2 well done there, and also Szell's. Re Szell I managed to get the CBS/Sony CDs, but also the Amsterdam 5 coupled with Sibelius - which is superb. I sampled several versions of 9, and eventually settlled on one of Karajan's as being my top, though I still like Schmidt Isserstedt and Ansermet. I did get Carlos Kleiber in 5 and 7 (didn't everyone?) - the 5th at least is good, though I wouldn't necessarily put it on first. I also investigated Erich Kleiber (on LP) - maybe even better!
Norrington's early 7 I found very different, and then Hogwood's set - really excellent in 3 and 7. Furtwangler's 9s are high up in my estimation. I even have JEG's set - and some of those performances are very good.

I keep buying new sets if they're cheap enough, and obtaining CD copies of performances I had earlier on LP. I picked up bargains, including Ashkenazy in 6 (very good). I've never "invested" in Toscanini, and indeed I didn't particularly like many of his performances/recordings - such as 7, but I recall his 8 as being very fast - some might say hard driven, but exhilarating for all that. Maybe I should revisit T's performances. In recent years CD prices have fallen so I now have rather too many sets. Some of the Naxos historical sets are very well worth investigating though, with some very enjoyable Beethoven from the likes of Weingartner and I believe even Richard Strauss. I may have to come back with a PS on this, when I've checked.

Try Toscanini in the Eroica. His cold bracing shower approach helps convey the impact that this revolutionary work may have had on LvB's contemporaries.

[ludwik1980]

Beethoven joined the Classical and Romantic periods, and actually helped the creation of "Romantic" music, Romantic being the period and stylistic traditions, not neccessarily any music with a Romantic theme or idea or basis.

[John Shelton]

Try Toscanini in the Eroica. His cold bracing shower approach helps convey the impact that this revolutionary work may have had on LvB's contemporaries.

Or even

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TZAIfHvUWk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeGy4KCPBkU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SGffYpBcrE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj2o8xmrRio

[hedgehog]

Or even

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TZAIfHvUWk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeGy4KCPBkU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SGffYpBcrE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj2o8xmrRio

Superb! I know the Norrington recordings of course, but lovely to see the orchestra playing. Of course all the hard work has been done in the rehearsals, so Norrington can afford to just do gestures - having said that Bernstein was rather better at that ruse!

[John Shelton]

Of course all the hard work has been done in the rehearsals, so Norrington can afford to just do gestures - having said that Bernstein was rather better at that ruse!

I recall Bernstein ... can't think of the exact word ... gyrating to the Rondo-Burleske of Mahler 9 with the Concertgebouw at The Barbican in the mid 80s (1985?). I love Norrington but, no, I don't think he could quite carry that off .

[richardfinegold]

I recall Bernstein ... can't think of the exact word ... gyrating to the Rondo-Burleske of Mahler 9 with the Concertgebouw at The Barbican in the mid 80s (1985?). I love Norrington but, no, I don't think he could quite carry that off .

I remember watching Bernstein on TV in the mid 70s conducting the NYP in Tchaikovsky/4. At the beginning of IV he jumped up in the air, and coming down he lost his balance and fell backward off the podium. He scrambled back up to the podium as the orchestra played on.

[Flay]

I remember watching Bernstein on TV in the mid 70s conducting the NYP in Tchaikovsky/4. At the beginning of IV he jumped up in the air, and coming down he lost his balance and fell backward off the podium. He scrambled back up to the podium as the orchestra played on.

Conducting Tchaik appears to be a risky business! Poor Kurt Masur last April: http://digitaljournal.com/article/323868

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Try Toscanini in the Eroica. His cold bracing shower approach helps convey the impact that this revolutionary work may have had on LvB's contemporaries.

The 1930s NYPO shows Toscanini's Eroica at its best: the later NBCSO I find unrelentingly aggressive in approach - not helped by the poor recorded sound. Szell's pretty damn fine in the shower department, too!

[cloughie]

The 1930s NYPO shows Toscanini's Eroica at its best: the later NBCSO I find unrelentingly aggressive in approach - not helped by the poor recorded sound. Szell's pretty damn fine in the shower department, too!

There was a good Toscanini NYPO 7th from 1936 - an old Camden reissue I think!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

the very first Beethoven to register in my mind was Solomon playing the No 14 ... my father loved it to death and then later Sviatoslav Richter on RCA Victrola playing the Appassionata

the first set of the Symphonies that was urged on me by friends was the Schmidt Isserstedt Decca

[Karafan]

Try Toscanini in the Eroica. His cold bracing shower approach helps convey the impact that this revolutionary work may have had on LvB's contemporaries.

Do you have a preferred Toscanini Eroica, Richard?

BW,
K.

[pastoralguy]

[QUOTE=richardfinegold;
#6-My sister had Hans Swarowsky and some weirdly named Vienna Orchestra that was probably the VPO under a different name. I enjoyed it
but again it's been a dogs age. ?[/QUOTE]

Omg! That was my introduction to the Pastoral symphony. My father had a set that was a hodgepodge of different conductors and orchestras. I did listen to it recently but the sound quality was so poor it didn't make much of an impression.

[Hornspieler]

Originally Posted by Dave2002
I'm trying to figure out what LvB recordings I had or heard first. There may be some gaps, because some of the LPs were dad's, and they have now been sadly lost.

As far as I can remember it went something like:

7 - Konwitschny (I think one of my frinds had Toscanini)
4 and 5 Walter
6 Groves- 10 inch LP
9 Schmidt- Isserstedt, though one of my friends had a Klemperer mono version wich I heard at a relatively early age and another had Ansermet's, which I liked. Actually it was their dads who had the LPs, but we listened to them.

As I recall, Dave, the LP conducted by Charles Groves was Beethoven's 4th symphony. (I doubt if you could have got the 6th onto a 10" LP)

It was actually commisioned by the BSO and copies used to be on sale at the Bournemouth orchestra's concerts.

Certainly I have a recording of the 6th, but that was taken off-air from a Winter Gardens lunchtime concert.


HS

[umslopogaas]

I've only just noticed this thread or I would have posted earlier. Am I alone in having been introduced to Beethoven's symphonies by the Readers Digest set of LPs conducted by Rene Leibowitz? My parents werent musical, but did buy a little Dansette gramophone when I was in my teens, and then bought three big RD sets: the LvB symphonies, the 'Festival of Light Classical Music' and a box of operettas. I didnt take to the last, but ate up the first two. As years passed I became very condescending to the RD - so insufferably middle class - and therefore dismissed Leibowitz on the grounds he couldnt be much good if RD employed him. I now realise that this was not true, to put it politely, and people more musical than me rate him very highly. I'm told he was more of a specialist in avant garde music and venturing into Beethoven was an unusual move for him: I must admit that I've very seldom come across him in other repertoire. What his Beethoven was like I couldnt say - as another post noted, when the music is new to you its the music that counts, not the interpretation.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

As I recall, Dave, the LP conducted by Charles Groves was Beethoven's 4th symphony. (I doubt if you could have got the 6th onto a 10" LP)

Doubt no more, HS - I, too, have that 10" disc: a very fine performance by the Royal Philharmonic Orch contained in the very first edition of The Great Composers* - a fortnightly magazine published (IIRC) in 1969, with a superb text entirely written by Robert Simpson. (It was actually my "second Beethoven": Tesco [I kid you not] sold off remaindered copies of the magazine in 1974, and I had bought the edition with Beethoven's First Symphony - played by the same forces - a fortnight earlier from the Tesco store in Blackburn, just before going to see a double bill of Dr No and From Russia with Love at a matinee in the now defunct Essaldo cinema.)

* = apologies: the series was called The Great Musicians - many of the records supplied with the magazines were from the Vox/Turnabout stable, but the Beethoven First and Sixth were both specially recorded for the magazine.