BaL 31.01.15 - Beethoven: Symphony no. 3 in E flat "Eroica"

[Cockney Sparrow]

O.k., I know you like to avoid downloads but it is worth mentioning that Qobuz have lossless CD quality downloads of the set (including digital booklet notes) for €19.99.

Firstly to say we are all entitled to our views - including only buying physical CDs (I still do buy them, for sure). But also, along the lines Bryn is suggesting but going further, are the streaming services. I subscribe to Google Play Music (Google equivalent of Spotify) and also Naxos Music Library is available via my library. For those willing to replay via computer audio streaming (and again, I acknowledge for some that is a "No!") then at least for "try before you buy" the following can be found:-
Klemperer - Symph no 3. K Legacy EMI - on Naxos Music Lib (NML)

Bruggen Complete Symphonies - Decca - on Google Play Music

Bruggen Complete Symphonies - Glossa - NML

Krivine Complete Symphonies NML

Numerous Furtwangler on NML - including 1944.

p.s. NML includes quite a lot of recordings with booklet PDFs.....

[Barbirollians]

Agree about Krivine, though if Presto is to be believed (and the fact that the CDs are "temporarily out of stock" at amazon in both the UK and France), it may only be available as a download now. That may be why it wasn't mentioned (given that there are so many versions that are readily available).

Brüggen's Glossa Eroica was a big disappointment to me. It's recorded in a cavernous acoustic and is - to my ears - nowhere near as good as the earlier one.

I think it's a bit harsh to say that NK "ignored" these versions - and many dozens of others too. The question has to be how could they have been fitted in to the time available (and discussed in any meaningful way)?

The new Bruggen was given an Outstanding Recording rating in IRR ! :wink eye:

Fair enough but he found time for a number of swipes at Karajan - including the bizarre one where the passage of the 1962 Karajan played seemed to emphasise its merits at the expense of the Harnoncourt - the opposite of what he intended .

[Barbirollians]

Good God - I had forgotten how much I disliked Harnoncourt's Beethoven . Enormous amounts of heavy underlining , over accented and inexplicable changes of tempo . Tiny little rushes of acceleration in particular . The brass play as if they are shouting at you .

[Don Petter]

Good God - I had forgotten how much I disliked Harnoncourt's Beethoven . Enormous amounts of heavy underlining , over accented and inexplicable changes of tempo . Tiny little rushes of acceleration in particular . The brass play as if they are shouting at you .

It seemed as if he thought you might be falling asleep, so gave you a sudden dig in the ribs every so often.

[Nick Armstrong]

Yes... He seems incapable of producing anything but a hard-edged, hammer-like sound wherever emphasis or 'sf' or the like is called for; and there's a hard edge to the orchestral sound generally. Not for me.

[makropulos]

The new Bruggen was given an Outstanding Recording rating in IRR ! :wink eye:

Fair enough but he found time for a number of swipes at Karajan - including the bizarre one where the passage of the 1962 Karajan played seemed to emphasise its merits at the expense of the Harnoncourt - the opposite of what he intended .

It's a fair cop, Barbs :) - but it wasn't me, honest!

I do so agree with you about Harnoncourt's Beethoven, by the way - for all the reasons you give. What a contrast with the inspiring musicality of Brüggen's first set which continues to delight (well, to delight me at least).

[Barbirollians]

Agree entirely about the first Bruggen set . The 1 and 4 in particular strike me as outstanding and the Eroica not far behind

[Karafan]

Absolutely - I thought that the Harnoncourt sounded like a surface skate across the music every time he played an extract . Juxtaposing it with the 1962 Karajan was to its disadvantage . I did not hear smoothness in the Karajan at all .

Klemperer 1959 extract undoubtedly the highlight of the whole BAL !

Yes, isn't that the odd thing with Klemperer? I have many of his recordings, but I find I rarely play them, equating them (unfairly) in my mind with a lumbering, elephantine approach.

Then, when an example like the extended excerpt from his 1959 Eroica is played, one is forcibly reminded just why he has the great reputation he has. Conception, conducting and impact (as Sir Nicholas said "on its own terms") quite extraordinary and the recorded sound of the Philharmonia (and Legge) caught at their zenith.

K

[jayne lee wilson]

Beethoven Symphony No.3 COE/Harnoncourt/Teldec CD rec 1990, Stefaniensaal Graz.

Into the first movement of this Eroica, two things were immediately apparent - the athletic, youthful energy and lift of the performance, and the excellence of the recorded sound. Set spaciously in a very present, slightly reverberant acoustic, the placing of both string sections and instrumental soloists is wonderfully precise - winds and horns very exactly positioned in three dimensions. Brass have a thrillingly clean cutting edge but are never overbearing. Textural clarity is outstanding too - you hear every detail of the network of motives and ideas, and their accompaniments throughout the exposition, whose repeat seems very swiftly over! A good sign, surely. Just listen to those six big chords near the end of the exposition; every instrument clear in the tutti, timpani the architectural bass (or base).
But this precision and the largely vibrato-less string playing precludes neither legato nor lyrical relaxation; diverging naturally from a fast basic tempo which, after Norrington, Zinman, Krivine et al, no longer seems contentious. (For me, quite the opposite... or the apposite.)

Harnoncourt has a keen eagle-eye on the developmental climax - those four great chords, their power and dissonance thrillingly prominent, are followed by an extraordinarily soft, legato phrasing as we lead away into the new theme (the delayed "second subject"). The coda emphasises rhythmic momentum without sounding TOO conclusive. This is the first movement, after all...

The Marcia Funebre (by no means hasty at 14'35) gains much from this almost extreme orchestral transparency; far from seeming analytical or anodyne, we are presented with stark tragedy, both in tone and phrase, at once self-abnegating yet elegant: just listen to the exquisite shaping of the second theme. Then the solo oboe, almost espressivo in its individuality: the COE of this vintage, especially with Harnoncourt, seem incapable of playing without a sense of personalised, immediate event. (You recognise this throughout their Schumann Cycle too). But the stunning power of the first big climax still took me aback - "wow", I whispered... the trumpets cutting through to the very soul. All this, again, without a shred of rhetoric, of tonal fat cushioning the bone; as the music gathers pace and power, you clearly hear drums against double basses against brass: the emotion directly, and implicitly, from the sound itself; the strings finally withdrawing into a hushed, bare quietude. The soul broken.

The performance takes wing again into a thrillingly levitated scherzo, those winds and shiny, brassy horns wonderfully placed in the acoustic space, as real instrumental individuals.
What would they do with the finale, I wondered?
One thing they don't do is to play it quasi-attacca; there's a few seconds grace before the attack; personally I'd rather we dived straight in! But the finale is really off-the-leash, wild and abandoned to almost dionysiac exultation. At first I thought there was some sacrifice to focus or clarity; but a second (and a third!) hearing scotched that mistaken impression. It was just a bit too much joy for my brain to take in in one... And no loss at all of their earlier precision or lyrical intensity (that very distinctive, pure, vibrato-less legato in those strings again...).

(But what a strange, self-conscious impression is left, when a live recording gives you the ambience, and some audience noise at the end - and then fades down before the applause! After an experience like this, the applause is part of the occasion, surely. "You see it was live, but we thought you wouldn't want all that noise...")

So, no "should" about it: this Eroica ranks high in any "list of versions". Even after several hearings, what I retain most vividly is - youthful heroism and energy, an almost desperate joy - but with the clearest, bleakest sense of tragedy woven in: into the very sound of orchestra, recording and performance: a sense of disillusion, and of a fighting back. The soldiers go into battle with "fair cheeks, and fine bodies"** under the aegis of memento mori.
A performance true to its time, and to Beethoven's own time, in every sense.

**Ezra Pound, Mauberley.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well - I preferred it to Zinman and Chailly (in similar "HIPP-informed modern instrument" terms) to say nothing of Thielemann (which is always charitable), and I can see why some listeners might find it as exciting a performance as NK obviously did and JLW obviously does. But for this type of approach, I'd still recommend JEGgers to anyone not allergic to period instrument timbres - and that's my problem with the choice of this recording; there are so many others that I think are so much better. I just don't find this quarter-century old recording the one "for today".

[Barbirollians]

JLW's review I think shows just how subjective things are - the brass sounded throughout to me horribly overbearing . Gardiner's recording is indeed much better and Bruggen in a different league .

[verismissimo]

What a treat to read your review, Jayne. So filled with insight. Thank you!

[Roehre]

What a treat to read your review, Jayne. So filled with insight. Thank you!

Seconded, with one slight addition.

This performance with the Krivine are IMVHO the only ones in which the marking Sotto Voce at the very beginning of the funeral march is clearly observed. Beethoven was ridiculed about this marking: how do we give an instrumental piece a "soft/subdued voice"? But that's exactly where the marcia funebre starts off - and Harnoncourt and Krivine manage that.
It's one of those markings in this symphony which is either purposefully overlooked by the conductor (Karajan, Klemperer [including the 1959 recording] are no exceptions, not sure about Cluytens or Haitink/LSO), or he has no clue (as B's contemporaries did) how to interpret that one.

[Barbirollians]

Cluytens starts the marcia funebre pretty quietly and softly whether you feel that would be quiet enough to meet the marking I am not sure .

[visualnickmos]

What a treat to read your review, Jayne. So filled with insight. Thank you!

Great review.