BaL 18.01.20 - Beethoven: Symphony no. 1 in C, Op.21

[Petrushka]

You don't want Beethoven to make you smile....? Not even the slow movements of 2 and 4, the birds by the brook in No.6? All those giggle-and-guffaw-inducing jokes in No.8?

Speechless and mystified here......

BTW which Norrington? Admire both but I usually find SWR a significant advance on LCP....

Not to mention the Peasant's Merrymaking in the Pastoral which has me smiling every time. There's plenty of humour in Beethoven so a bit mystified myself.

[Goon525]

You don't want Beethoven to make you smile....? Not even the slow movements of 2 and 4, the euphoric country walk, the birds calling and the brook flowing, the final beatification, in No.6? All those giggle-and-guffaw-inducing jokes in No.8 ?(the last bars of the 1st movement...)

Speechless and mystified here......

.

Quite so.

Incidentally, Jayne, you’ve mentioned the fine sound quality of the Danish set several times. Have you found a high res version? Qobuz seems only to have it at CD resolution.

[Bryn]

Quite so.

Incidentally, Jayne, you’ve mentioned the fine sound quality of the Danish set several times. Have you found a high res version? Qobuz seems only to have it at CD resolution.

See http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...238#post775238 et seq.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Humour and reactions to Music are both very individual things, of course, but I do think that Beethoven wouldn't thank anyone for not smiling at the comedy that motivates his First Symphony - the puns and pratfalls, from the revolving doors of the trying to get to the home key at the very start to the concluding march as Dad's Army comes on scene, bayonets fixed, guns primed --- and wearing only their Long Johns; it's like not wanting to smile at a Jacques Tati film!

And that humour is caught in so many ways by performers from Klemperer and Karajan to Krivine and Knorrington and so many in between and beyond.

[visualnickmos]

You don't want Beethoven to make you smile....? Not even the slow movements of 2 and 4, the euphoric country walk, the birds calling and the brook flowing, the final beatification, in No.6? All those giggle-and-guffaw-inducing jokes in No.8 ?(the last bars of the 1st movement...)

Speechless and mystified here......

BTW which Norrington? Admire both but I usually find SWR a significant advance on LCP....

No - I don't. I enjoy music without smiling. I'm myself 'speechless and mystified' as to why YOU are 'speechless and mystified!'

[Master Jacques]

No - I don't. I enjoy music without smiling. I'm myself 'speechless and mystified' as to why YOU are 'speechless and mystified!'

I think I am a bit speechless and mystified, too. The idea that one should have to smile along with other people's (sometimes rather personal) fantasies concerning what a certain piece of music's "about", seems to me rather akin to the crowds at the end of Shostakovich's 5th Symphony being force-marched around chanting "we are enjoying ourselves!"

These examples of Beethoven's musical wit may well induce a silently (and appreciatively raised) eyebrow, but giggles and guffaws?? Chacun à son goût, of course, but Ludwig van's idea of humour is hardly laugh-out-loud Papa Haydn, is it?

[jayne lee wilson]

I think I am a bit speechless and mystified, too. The idea that one should have to smile along with other people's (sometimes rather personal) fantasies concerning what a certain piece of music's "about", seems to me rather akin to the crowds at the end of Shostakovich's 5th Symphony being force-marched around chanting "we are enjoying ourselves!"

These examples of Beethoven's musical wit may well induce a silently (and appreciatively raised) eyebrow, but giggles and guffaws?? Chacun à son goût, of course, but Ludwig van's idea of humour is hardly laugh-out-loud Papa Haydn, is it?

I think No.8 should certainly inspire some kind of laughter - certainly something more than serious, frowning concentration....(perhaps a raised eyebrow is an inverted smile...).

"Essentially a work of comic genius, the Dionysiac 7th’s jesting stablemate”
(Richard Osborne, Gramophone 12/14).
Try to imagine the scherzando of the 8th slowed....right....down......remind you of a certain Haydn Symphonic tick-tock, perhaps...? And isn't the coda to the 8th's finale a marvellously self-aware self-parody? Isn't it Beethoven sending himself up?

My other examples allude to - smiles (inward or outward) of joy, serenity and identification....
With brooks and wildlife and merrymaking and apotheotic dancing and songs of thanksgiving (which the finale of the Pastoral surely is, not only for the shepherds, and by no means alone in Beethoven's output beyond Op.132) not to mention a certain Ode to Joy....rather more to it, perhaps, than "other peoples' fantasies".....

[jayne lee wilson]

Quite so.

Incidentally, Jayne, you’ve mentioned the fine sound quality of the Danish set several times. Have you found a high res version? Qobuz seems only to have it at CD resolution.

Odd that isn't it? On the Q-Studio Stream it says "24/96" against the tracks, but Audirvana has "16/44.1" at top of screen; my DAC reads it as 44.1. In direct comparison with the CD here (1/iii), the disc replay is (as usual) superior to the lossless stream, just having the edge in refinement, presence, micro dynamics etc.

If someone has the download, maybe they could analyse it...

For all the emphasis on daring, idiosyncrasy and mavericks etc (mea culpa) hearing the CD of 1 & 2 again now it just sounds wonderful....lovely, lively, idiomatically recreated Beethoven in perfectly balanced, spacious-yet-immediate neutral sound. Whatever the individuality of approach, it serves the actual music wth tact and taste; poised and crisp and playful, but knows how to relax; and never seems overdriven. Tonally clean and precise, but with more than hint of warmth and sweetness.

[Bryn]

I think No.8 should certainly inspire some kind of laughter - certainly something more than serious, frowning concentration....(perhaps a raised eyebrow is an inverted smile...).

"Essentially a work of comic genius, the Dionysiac 7th’s jesting stablemate”
(Richard Osborne, Gramophone 12/14).
Try to imagine the scherzando of the 8th slowed....right....down......remind you of a certain Haydn Symphonic tick-tock, perhaps...? And isn't the coda to the 8th's finale a marvellously self-aware self-parody? Isn't it Beethoven sending himself up?

My other examples allude to - smiles (inward or outward) of joy, serenity and identification....
With brooks and wildlife and merrymaking and apotheotic dancing and songs of thanksgiving (which the finale of the Pastoral surely is, not only for the shepherds, and by no means alone in Beethoven's output beyond Op.132) not to mention a certain Ode to Joy....rather more to it, perhaps, than "other peoples' fantasies".....

Quite so, on all counts. The range of comic content in Beethoven's work is wide, from subtle parody to outright slapstick, as in the opening bars of the Op.31/1 keyboard sonata.

[BBMmk2]

Quite so, on all counts. The range of comic content in Beethoven's work is wide, from subtle parody to outright slapstick, as in the opening bars of the Op.31/1 keyboard sonata.

For example the First Movt from his PC 1. Sounds like the Jingly Jangly Scarecrow but i expect that rhyme originates from a folk song somewhere!

[Master Jacques]

And isn't the coda to the 8th's finale a marvellously self-aware self-parody? Isn't it Beethoven sending himself up?

No. And no. (I can say that with a perfectly straight face, too.)

It's a satisfying coda, exuberant and beautifully turned, that's all: and thinking of it in terms of Beethovenian biography is the sort of modern solecism which puts people off it. It's only a step from such "CM in jokes" to those fatuous and infuriating cries of "elitism".

If special fantasies (or "metaphors" if you don't like the more loaded word) work for us, that's great. But by no means ought we to criticize other people's pleasure in the music, because it does something different for them. Beyond pictorialism, it's possible to hear irony in the Pastoral Symphony, a profound cry of yearning for a world which - rather than simply being "lost" - never existed in the first place. That is the whole point of Pastoral, as Empson so brilliantly elucidates -- and as LvB graphically demonstrates. Finding it funny perhaps misses the point, don't you think?

[HighlandDougie]

If someone has the download, maybe they could analyse it...

According to the file info, Audirvana+ and the display on my Mytek DAC, the files which I downloaded from highresaudio.com are 24/96. Having also looked at the cost of the downloads on Qobuz (prompted by Bryn), they only offer 16/44 as an option - no hi-res at the moment. So I would guess that they will only be streaming at 16/44?? Presto offer MP3, 16/44 and 24/96, with the last of these costing rather more than from High Res Audio (c.£35 as opposed to c.£15). I posted the link elsewhere, as Bryn alludes to above, but for Goon's sake, it's:

https://www.highresaudio.com/en/album/view/35f9d4db-606f-4b34-b044-9fc1a51fcb1c

Something of a bargain, especially for such good sound quality.

And, as Matthias B pointed out some time ago, the BPO/Rattle set is available as a 24/96 download from 7 digital for not much more than £12:

https://fr.7digital.com/artist/berliner-philharmoniker-and-sir-simon-rattle/release/beethoven-symphonies-nos-1-9-9386374?f=20%2C19%2C12%2C16%2C17%2C9%2C2

Apologies for the link being to the French site but it should ask you to switch to the UK one.

[Ein Heldenleben]

No. And no. (I can say that with a perfectly straight face, too.)

It's a satisfying coda, exuberant and beautifully turned, that's all: and thinking of it in terms of Beethovenian biography is the sort of modern solecism which puts people off it. It's only a step from such "CM in jokes" to those fatuous and infuriating cries of "elitism".

If special fantasies (or "metaphors" if you don't like the more loaded word) work for us, that's great. But by no means ought we to criticize other people's pleasure in the music, because it does something different for them. Beyond pictorialism, it's possible to hear irony in the Pastoral Symphony, a profound cry of yearning for a world which - rather than simply being "lost" - never existed in the first place. That is the whole point of Pastoral, as Empson so brilliantly elucidates -- and as LvB graphically demonstrates. Finding it funny perhaps misses the point, don't you think?

There’s almost personal ‘tragedy’(if that’s not putting it too strongly) as well as irony in the Pastoral isn’t there? With LVB meticulously transcribing precisely those bird sounds for our pleasure that he admitted in the Heiligenstadt Testament he is unable to hear.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh-pcrWG3Mg&list=PLErHuBsy75wzNtI5pjaDqwyM_C_RdipXn&index=13&t=0s

[Master Jacques]

There’s almost personal ‘tragedy’(if that’s not putting it too strongly) as well as irony in the Pastoral isn’t there? With LVB meticulously transcribing precisely those bird sounds for our pleasure that he admitted in the Heiligenstadt Testament he is unable to hear.

Well said: the point is, that he is conjuring up something - by an act of imagination - which no longer exists for him. Personally I find much of the Pastoral Symphony almost unbearably moving, for that reason. It's not a work I can listen to often, or (in my case) lightly.