BaL 19.09.15 - Beethoven: Symphony no. 4 in B flat

[Roehre]

Zinman is an excellent choice, one of my longterm favourites & a great refresher for anyone who doesn't do HIPPs...
..

...and based on the Henle/DelMar edition of the Neue GesamtAusgabe

[LeMartinPecheur]

I don't remember Abbado getting a mention but Karajan's 1962 recording was given a mention.

IIRC Abbado was given a mention...as one of those not getting a mention ()!

Along with Klemperer and a few others, pretty good but no time to deal further with.

[visualnickmos]

I've had the Zinman set for years, and the 4th is brilliant, but those twiddly bits I still find myself listening out for them, in some distant hope they will go away! Such a pity; like sticking unnecessary bows to a beautiful Dior creation..... WHY????? Surely if Beethoven had wanted twiddles he would have b******y well said so.....

Basically, it ruins the whole show for me.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

WHY????? Surely if Beethoven had wanted twiddles he would have b******y well said so.....

Quite so.

[Alison]

I'm happy enough with The Zinman version though could get equal satisfaction from Mackerras, Haitink or Abbado. The Jochum version in London was with the LSO not the LPO. Good comments on Jarvi (P) and Chailly.

[Barbirollians]

Zinman - how predictable and dull.

[cloughie]

Zinman is an excellent choice, one of my longterm favourites & a great refresher for anyone who doesn't do HIPPs...

Just after it was released, one local listener who often sought my advice bought it and.... took it back to HMV in a huff two days later, having exchanged it for... the 1955 Klemperer 3rd on GROC.

He said the tempi in the Eroica on the Zinman CD made him giddy. I don't think he ever heard the 4th...

Your advisee (?) shows great taste - among the all-time best Eroicas.

[Roehre]

I've had the Zinman set for years, and the 4th is brilliant, but those twiddly bits I still find myself listening out for them, in some distant hope they will go away! Such a pity; like sticking unnecessary bows to a beautiful Dior creation..... WHY????? Surely if Beethoven had wanted twiddles he would have b******y well said so.....
..

May I respectfully suggest to read the editorial comments in the Neue GesamtAusgabe by DelMar - commissioned by and in collaboration with the BeethovenHaus and published by Henle in Munich - facts re the state of the autograph score and the first editions [misreadings, inconsistencies, printing mistakes, not-justified editorial alterations and regarding the available beethovenian sketches] which are omitted in the old GesamtAusgabe by Breitkopf from 1888, on which all recordings until recently were based?

[verismissimo]

May I respectfully suggest to read the editorial comments in the Neue GesamtAusgabe by DelMar - commissioned by and in collaboration with the BeethovenHaus and published by Henle in Munich - facts re the state of the autograph score and the first editions [misreadings, inconsistencies, printing mistakes, not-justified editorial alterations and regarding the available beethovenian sketches] which are omitted in the old GesamtAusgabe by Breitkopf from 1888, on which all recordings until recently were based?

Go on, Roehre, give us a clue or two...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Go on, Roehre, give us a clue or two...

It would be helpful.

[visualnickmos]

May I respectfully suggest to read the editorial comments in the Neue GesamtAusgabe by DelMar - commissioned by and in collaboration with the BeethovenHaus and published by Henle in Munich - facts re the state of the autograph score and the first editions [misreadings, inconsistencies, printing mistakes, not-justified editorial alterations and regarding the available beethovenian sketches] which are omitted in the old GesamtAusgabe by Breitkopf from 1888, on which all recordings until recently were based?

Goodness! It's all getting a bit complicated. I won't be trying to obtain and read said tome. I just was suggesting LvB would have said if he wanted twiddly bits or not. Are you saying he did or didn't? That was really all I was looking for. I'm not really that bothered about it to spend time engrossed in scholarly musical writings.... especially as a non-muso!

But thank you all the same for your 'pointer'.

[Roehre]

Go on, Roehre, give us a clue or two...

For example: many slurs in the strings in the first movement (bars 325–332) are not clear in the autograph. They aren’t consistent in the later sources either. Thus it’s unclear whether they extend over to the main note. Either could be justified from the evidence in the sources alone. From a practical point of view only the longer slurs are to be countenanced, and have therefore been adopted in the Urtext , so no difference with the Bärenreiter-score.
However, sometimes the sources present the editor with an unavoidable dilemma in this respect. One example, in the first movement the sources consistently slur only the upbeat notes in bars 36–42, 190–214, etc., never to the main note. Yet the latter is just as obviously the practical solution. In such cases the text as in the sources is adopted. The Urtext differs her from the Barenreiter .That e.g. explains a couple of the twiddles, as Zinman follows the Urtext here, though the alternative as given in the old scores is just as justified.

As for the speed of the finale, with for modern bassoons next to unplayable phrases, there are some solutions: adopt the original phrasings (as Mahler e.g. already had discovered), or use “original” instruments, or both.

(There is a study score of symphony 4 in preparation, a bit cheaper than the cloth bound "official" one)

[silvestrione]

The only one he played that i would really like to try is the Jochum/Berlin Phil version, but it doesn't seem to be easily available, e.g. only in large box set.

[Nick Armstrong]

I usually read all the comments on a BAL once I've heard the programme, and then add my views. I'm just going to say what I think having heard this BAL this morning.

I thought it was a classic edition. It's good to hear Rob Cowan in his natural habitat, and I found his analysis and chosen extracts fascinating. Especially good to hear so many comparative extracts of the early part of the first movement; and to hear the historical considered side by side with the HIPP and the modern recordings. Only disappointment for me was not to hear the Cluytens referred to; but then again, when did Kletzki last surface in a BAL?

A compromise result? Perhaps. I've not heard the Zinman and will do so, but from the extracts at least it sounded very good, Rob's estimation gaining stature for me knowing his preferences for the Szells and Kubeliks of this world.

Anyway, as usual, the 'result' is for me far less important than the 'workings' that precede it, and I was really interested to hear the illustrations - the addictive Barshai, the annoying Rattle, the very engaging Szell, the slightly ludicrous Chailly, the punchy Krivine, the appalling Thielemann, the good indeed rather splendid 1962 Karajan, the fascinating Kletzki and Fürtwängler 1943 (the only one I have on CD!), the over-trim Paavo Jarvi, the regrettably-reverberant Bruggen...

It was an ideal listen, for me: good to have the Real Rob Cowan back, not the miscast 'celeb' interviewer. (That said, I wasn't particularly convinced by his description of the 4th as the most life-enhancing Beethoven symphony. It has some pretty stiff competition....)

Now - what did everyone else think...? *scrolls to page 7*...

[Nick Armstrong]

For the rest of us, it'll just be the usual fun disagreeing with the reviewer's idiotic choices - so win-win!... it's Rob Cowan, so Krivine won't feature - nor will Karajan, probably, except as a sideline to use up the Cowan library of clichés - "smooth, suave, lacking rhythmic vigour" etc etc

O thou of little faith! A tad unfair!