BaL 1.03.14 - Beethoven Symphony no. 7 in A

[richardfinegold]

HS - thanks for the reply. The discussion about Exposition repeats is one that has run and run before and will no doubt continue to do so. In Beethoven's defence, I would point out that, with the repeat in the First Movement of the Eroica (which takes about 14-15 minutes if performers trust the Allegro con Brio marking and the composer's metronome mark of one bar every second) the climax of the Movement occurs precisely half-way through the Movement (bars 405-440 of 846) whereas it appears only a third of the way through (bars 250-283 of 691) if the repeat is ignored. This means that the "new" Oboe melody in E minor that immediately follows the climax is not just a haunting, strange new idea, (although, heaven knows, it is that, too) but also a structural marker, pointing the end of the first half and the beginning of the movement away from the dissonances of the climax (just as the first half moves towards them). Including the Expo repeat gives an Exposition of 310 bars (as opposed to 155 without it) - which balances out the 294 bars of the Recapitulation and Coda(s) - the extended Coda/"second development" from bar 557 to the end is unbalanced/disproportionate without the Expo repeat earlier: it becomes a sort of Leaning Tower of Pisa, top heavy with the climax reached far too early. (I sound like my first wife.)

It also helps keep the Movement better in proportion with the length of the whole work (first two movements about 14 - 15 minutes each, last two together about 15 minutes): playing the work at the tempi Beethoven gives avoids the sense that some people have that it's a "long" work - the score suggests a total playing time of about 45-50 minutes; shorter than the Choral, Brahms' 1 & 2, most of Bruckner's, any of Mahler's ... )

BUT (and this is moving to my opinions rather than observations) - any repeats shouldn't be a simplistic "cut and paste" job. There is a very well known recording of Haydn Symphonies which "includes" all the repeats that I'm sure were added in the editing room rather than in performance (there are suspicious page turns at exactly the same moment, and one bow catching a Music stand that happens at exactly the same point in the score). The repeats should, I'm sure, re-encounter the Music in the light of what has been heard since the first time we heard it: "development" should begin with the Expo repeat - the same thing, but subtly different.

In the 78 prm era, many symphony recordings were issued with instructions to (re)play a previous disc if one wanted to hear a repeat or to skip to the next numberred disc if one did not want to hear it

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think the value of repeats all depends on the strength of the overall performance. I have heard performances where the inclusion of the repeats just sounds like going through the motions, and those without (like some of Furtwängler's) where the absence of repeats does not weaken the performance. But in other cases, like Gulda's playing of Mozart sonatas, the inclusion of the repeats sounds so right that I find it difficult to listen to performances that omit them.

Yes, precisely - performers have to be convinced with what they're doing and including repeats that you believe hold up the momentum just out of a sense of duty rather than conviction can only lead to an unconvincing performance that satisfies nobody.

The Furtwangler case is always the fly in my ointment: how he achieves such convincing performances that frequently contradict the text? I feel sure it is something to do with his involvement with Schenkerian analysis - but how exactly ... !

Back on topic - listened to Zinman's Seventh today. Not "bland" - the tempi are infectious and the orchestral detail is a joy - but something not quite "there" for me (not merely the oboe cadenza, which I'd probably love in concert, but just seemed tiresome, holding everything up like a caravan on a country lane). And for all the orchestral detail, those last Horn "whoops" are a little shy. Glad to have heard it, and I shall do so again, but it didn't give me that sense of euphoria that I get from Krivine or Kleiber.

[pastoralguy]

[QUOTE=ferneyhoughgeliebte;382458

There is a very well known recording of Haydn Symphonies which "includes" all the repeats that I'm sure were added in the editing room rather than in performance (there are suspicious page turns at exactly the same moment, and one bow catching a Music stand that happens at exactly the same point in the score).[/QUOTE]


I've always been very fond of Previn's recording's of the Tchaikovsky ballets but I was horrified that when I replaced my well worn Lps with CDs there were small 'mishaps' that occurred again when a phrase was repeated. I'd never noticed on vinyl but, my goodness, it was as clear as a bell on silver disc.

[seabright]

This reminds me that when Fritz Reiner's Chicago SO LPs of the Beethoven 6th and 7th were issued here in the UK on Victrola, both had the first movement repeats. Neither of these have "lead back" bars written in but they just jump back to the beginning again. However, the original RCA LPs issued in America had no such first movement repeats. It just meant that the powers-that-be in RCA's London office decided to do what Beethoven wrote, so they copy-taped the openings of each symphony's first movement and spliced them in at the start. The question is, were they right to do what the score required, or should they have issued what Reiner actually conducted? :)

[Barbirollians]

The Zinman is anodyne . I bought it when it first came out and as much as I tried to like it I don't. That may be personal as I have not really liked anything he has done except accompanying Hilary hahn in the Beethoven Concerto.

Krivine's recording was very annoying judging by the extracts played and for want of a better phrase " up itself"

As mentioned above today's birthday's recording with LSO Live is excellent.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If a product is sold to the public under an artist's name, then it should be as the artist intended, not "Reiner arr tape editor". If Reiner had told the recording company to edit the Expo repeat on after the recording sessions, then what was offered was fair enough (although this would be highly un-Musical, IMO) - but if the decision was taken without Reiner's consent or knowledge than it was a (well-meaning, perhaps) diabolical liberty!

[Bryn]

If a product is sold to the public under an artist's name, then it should be as the artist intended, not "Reiner arr tape editor". If Reiner had told the recording company to edit the Expo repeat on after the recording sessions, then what was offered was fair enough (although this would be highly un-Musical, IMO) - but if the decision was taken without Reiner's consent or knowledge than it was a (well-meaning, perhaps) diabolical liberty!

I seem to recall reports of the opposite happening re. the LGO/Konwitschny when it was re-issued on the Fontana label (LP), and repeats to be found in the original recordings were excised to fit the 7th and 8th on a single disc. I don't have the LP any more, but I might get round to checking the much more recent CD release of the recording. Not tonight though. Have to be up at 5:30 in the morning for work.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I seem to recall reports of the opposite happening re. the LGO/Konwitschny when it was re-issued on the Fontana label (LP), and repeats to be found in the original recordings were excised to fit the 7th and 8th on a single disc. I don't have the LP any more, but I might get round to checking the much more recent CD release of the recording. Not tonight though. Have to be up at 5:30 in the morning for work.

Yes, I think that's true. It was mentioned in the "Bargain Guide".

On the other side of the coin, I recall a review of Marriner's recording of Beethoven's first two symphonies, in which the conductor (?) was praised for varying the bowing in the repeated expositions.

[Bryn]

... Krivine's recording was very annoying judging by the extracts played ...

No need to rely on somebody else's choice of snippets. Later performances of all 9 symphonies (not edits from a number of different performances in as many a three separate venues, as in the CD set) can be found, watched and listened to via http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...Jn6IO_sxx8Iv6M . In some of the symphonies Krivine and co. have a change of mind re. what gets repeated and which repeats remain unobserved.

[seabright]

If a product is sold to the public under an artist's name, then it should be as the artist intended, not "Reiner arr tape editor". If Reiner had told the recording company to edit the Expo repeat on after the recording sessions, then what was offered was fair enough (although this would be highly un-Musical, IMO) - but if the decision was taken without Reiner's consent or knowledge than it was a (well-meaning, perhaps) diabolical liberty!

The UK RCA Victrola Beethoven 6th was published in 1970 and the 7th the following year, Reiner having died in 1963. The repeats were added in on the initiative of RCA's London office producer, so Reiner had nothing to do with it, not least because this particular LP edition wasn't also released in the USA. What I don't know is which version of each recording has made it onto CD in the massive 63-Disc Boxed Set "The Complete Reiner Edition" issued some months ago. Incidentally, looking through the complete list on the ArkivMusic site, I'm not at all sure all those Reiner recordings were ever issued in the UK, even on Victrolas.

[rauschwerk]

I bought the FLAC download of the recommended recording and burnt it to CD. It's a very fine interpretation and very well played BUT (a frequent gripe with chamber orchestra recordings) I can't hear the strings (especially the fiddles) properly, probably because there aren't enough of them. If I didn't know the main finale tune, I really wouldn't be able to make it out without a score.

[silvestrione]

I bought the FLAC download of the recommended recording and burnt it to CD. It's a very fine interpretation and very well played BUT (a frequent gripe with chamber orchestra recordings) I can't hear the strings (especially the fiddles) properly, probably because there aren't enough of them. If I didn't know the main finale tune, I really wouldn't be able to make it out without a score.

Glad to see you saying that, Rauschwerk, I'd begun to think it was my hearing or my equipment!

[Bryn]

I bought the FLAC download of the recommended recording and burnt it to CD. It's a very fine interpretation and very well played BUT (a frequent gripe with chamber orchestra recordings) I can't hear the strings (especially the fiddles) properly, probably because there aren't enough of them. If I didn't know the main finale tune, I really wouldn't be able to make it out without a score.

Must say I do not find it difficult to hear the strings clearly. It might be worth bearing in mind though that the composer also made an edited version of the work scored for wind harmonies. An oversized string section can totally ruin the timbral interplay of the 7th, to my ears. Anyway, I recon Matt Parkin, Mike Hatch and Bill Lloyd made a fine job of the recording for the Beeb, not forgetting Simon Perry's role as Executive Producer for Hyperion.

[Roehre]

Must say I do not find it difficult to hear the strings clearly. It might be worth bearing in mind though that the composer also made an edited version of the work scored for wind harmonies. An oversized string section can totally ruin the timbral interplay of the 7th, to my ears. Anyway, I recon Matt Parkin, Mike Hatch and Bill Lloyd made a fine job of the recording for the Beeb, not forgetting Simon Perry's role as Executive Producer for Hyperion.

IF it is Beethoven's, that is.
There is much to say that the composer had got something to do with it, but it is far from sure and rather unlikely that he himself made the arrangement.
Most likely the arrangement has been seen and authorised by Beethoven.
-AFAIK There aren't any parts of the arrangement in existence with amendments added in Beethoven's handwriting.
-There are no harmonic or structural differences between the wind score and the orchestral one, as is the case with all but one [the piano trio version of Symphony 2] of Beethoven's own arrangements of his own works (there is even an admittedly small one in the Trio op.38 after the septet op.20)
-All the arrangements which where published at the same time as this wind version (piano quartet, string quartet, piano trio, piano-4-hands i.a.) are proven to be by others by either mentioning the arranger's name on the score, or he being identified in Beethoven's correspondence.
-A publisher being keen to stress the wind version were B's own definitely would have announced so in the advertisements which appeared more than ten times during the year 1816 in a range of Viennese magazines.

How well made this Symphony no.7 arrangement for winds may be, Beethoven knew (of) it, but most likely didn't write it.

[verismissimo]

Our Summer BAL No 58 Beethoven 7

Last two BALs on Beethoven 7 recommended SCO/Mackerras in 2014 and VPO/Carlos Kleiber in 1999.

Now I read that James Levine thinks that Toscanini's 1936 recording with the NYPO is 'the most perfect orchestral recording'. I have it in an LP transfer from 1969 and a CD version on Naxos (transferred by Marl Obert-Thorn).

My introduction to the 7th in the 1960s was with Monteux and the LSO. It's still the recording of the symphony that I return to most frequently.

What are boarders' preferences?