Beethoven - which Eroica?

[aeolium]

Why does ignoring the metronome markings make it "more" Eroica-ish? And why assume that Beethoven "might have had a headache" when he wrote them in means that he meant them to be slower: why not faster? Because a conductor working with large modern-instruments symphony orchestras thinks it needs a "sense of utter desolation"? "Maybe he was just wrong", pabs? Maybe he wasn't! Maybe he knew exactly what the Music needed to make the impact he heard when composing it?

fhg, I think it should be remembered that the metronome markings for the Eroica were added 12 years after its composition, that it was not composed with those metronome markings in mind. The original directions for the second movement were AFAIK "marcia funebre - adagio assai" - adagio indicating a tempo certainly slower than andante or allegretto and marcia funebre surely suggesting a slow march as for a cortege. It therefore seems entirely legitimate to me for a conductor to play the work according to those original directions rather than the later metronome addition - is that not historically informed? We know that Beethoven's compositional style had changed significantly in those intervening years (would we, to take a comparison, regard Schumann's later revisions to his 4th symphony as being decisive compared with his original 1841 conception?). Also his views about the metronome, if reports are to be believed (e.g. in Thayer), appear to have changed in intervening years: he originally seems to have dismissed it as unnecessary, suggesting that the tempos should be felt, only later coming round to believe in its merits (as shown in the letter to von Mosel in 1817). Even so, is there not something of a dig at the metronome in the second movement of the 8th symphony, which seems almost to imitate someone beating time?

Personally I think performances of the Eroica which do not use the metronome indications (but adhere to the original tempo indications) are as justifiable as those which do. It is fine to have both, indeed I would say essential, as it would be ruinous for performances of this work to be rigidly dictated by metronome indications which were not present at its original publication. The great thing about music like this is that every generation rediscovers it in its own way.

[Thropplenoggin]

Personally I think performances of the Eroica which do not use the metronome indications (but adhere to the original tempo indications) are as justifiable as those which do. It is fine to have both, indeed I would say essential, as it would be ruinous for performances of this work to be rigidly dictated by metronome indications which were not present at its original publication. The great thing about music like this is that every generation rediscovers it in its own way.

Very well put, aeolium! I'm increasingly partial to HIP interpretations but wouldn't be without my Furtwängler and Klemperer. Indeed, I'm currently listening to the BaL-winning live 9th on Testament of Klemperer/Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus - a birthday gift. Such passion! There are plenty of HIP versions lacking this fire in their belly. And the adagio even comes in at well under 15 mins!

I've noticed that the HIP Brigade on these boards seem to want to invoke a totalitarian 'HIP or bust' approach to certain composers. I'd sympathise with this for Bach, say, where the historically-informed approach seems to outshine many a saccharine and fusty romanticised approach.

But late Beethoven - Romantic Beethoven - seems to allow for this heavier interpretation, highlighting the Sturm und Drang. The HIP Brigade on For3 set up a false dichotomy - HIP good, everything else bad - like the media insist on doing with things like eBooks and paperbacks, as if the two couldn't happily co-exist.

EDIT:

Perhaps For3's Hip Brigade are members of SPECTRE (Sinister Period-Practise Enacted to Counter Traditional Readings Everlastingly)

[vinteuil]

- "adagio assai" - .

... have I misremembered, or isn't it the case that Beethoven sometimes got confused as to whether "assai" meant "very" - as in Italian - or "fairly, quite, somewhat" - as in the French "assez". I think there is some JSTOR stuff which wd help, but I don't currently have access...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I've noticed that the HIP Brigade on these boards seem to want to invoke a totalitarian 'HIP or bust' approach to certain composers.
...
The HIP Brigade on For3 set up a false dichotomy - HIP good, everything else bad

Really? Which posts make you "notice" this? (Can you cite, say, four examples?) Or are you a member of THRUSH (Traditional Heresy Requires Under-Speed Hysteria)?

(OK, so it's not very good: I've had a couple of large Talliskers and feeling very mellow at the start of the weekend - which is also why I haven't responded to aeoli's excellent post [tomorrow afternoon perhaps]. But seriously, Bryn has regularly expressed his admiration of Scherchen's Beethoven and my own frequent flag-waving for Ferrier, Karajan, Furtwangler, Fischer, Klemperer, Kleiber [father and son], Szell, Reiner and Barenboim would disqualify me from any SPECTRAL activity that didn't involve Gerald Grisey!)

Best Wishes.

[Bryn]

Bryn has regularly expressed his admiration of Scherchen's Beethoven ...

... and the surveys by Cluytens, Konwitschny, Vanska, Toscanini, Mackerras, Barenboim ... , even Klemperer, and now Chailly. Yeh, many are more like arrangements than strictly Beethoven, but they are all highly musical. My beef is that second guessing the composer's considered (after numerous performances in some cases) metronome markings is considered by all too many to be the fall-back position. It's been shown in recent decades that the old saw that the composer's metronome marking were unachievable is just plain nonsense. It does not even require historical instruments to articulate the notes clearly at the written tempi. If Norrington and the Struttgarters, or Chailly and the Leipzigers can play more than merely musically at Beethoven's indicated tempi, (even if Chailly did apologetically chicken out when it came to recording the third movement of the 9th), then why mess with those tempi specifically called for by the composer? Why play Beethoven a la Wagner as default?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Try playing the Hammerklavier Sonata at minim = 138. It may have been written by a musician genius, but it's nonsensical nevertheless.
Another notoriously absurd marking is minim = 100 for the finale of Mendelssohn's D minor Piano Trio Op. 49. Half that speed sounds nippy enough.

[Bryn]

Try playing the Hammerklavier Sonata at minim = 138. It may have been written by a musician genius, but it's nonsensical nevertheless.
Another notoriously absurd marking is minim = 100 for the finale of Mendelssohn's D minor Piano Trio Op. 49. Half that speed sounds nippy enough.

Well that's what exposed Schnabel as such a useless pianist, I suppose. He, and many others since, observed Beethoven's 'nonsensical' metronome mark.

[Petrushka]

This claim was rife in th 1960s, but was roundly denounced by Menuhin when asked (and he should have known).

In the correspondence between Elgar and his producer Fred Gaisberg* there is not one mention of any tailoring of the speeds to fit on a 78 side.

* Elgar on Record Jerrold Northrop Moore, Oxford University Press 1974.

[rauschwerk]

Well that's what exposed Schnabel as such a useless pianist, I suppose. He, and many others since, observed Beethoven's 'nonsensical' metronome mark.

Geek's corner again! I once timed the same bit of 5 recordings of the Hammerklavier first movement, namely bars 17-30. Results (minims/min) as follows:-

Rosen 119, Brendel (last recording) 108, Pollini 114, Schnabel 129, Kempff (1950s mono) 105. Schnabel gets the nearest (Tovey rightly described the marking as 'impossible') but pays a heavy price for it in terms of accuracy. Solomon is very fast and very accurate but I have not timed him.

[Thropplenoggin]

Well that's what exposed Schnabel as such a useless pianist, I suppose. He, and many others since, observed Beethoven's 'nonsensical' metronome mark.

That's what I like about Bryn - his ability to see someone else's point of view

[Tony Halstead]

That's what I like about Bryn - his ability to see someone else's point of view

Actually, I do believe he was being serious when he wrote that Schnabel was

such a useless pianist

[BBMmk2]

I do rather like Harnoncourt's Eroica, but then i am thinking of buying Haitink's LSO Live set?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Try playing the Hammerklavier Sonata at minim = 138.

Quite right, Alpie: one should!

[Bryn]

Actually, I do believe he was being serious ...

Only in so far as the employment of irony to make the point. Good on Schnabel for trying to observe the composer's intentions. Would that some fortepianists would do likewise, rather than leaving it to those, such as Ursula Oppens, who play modern pianos.

[amateur51]

Actually, I do believe he was being serious when he wrote that Schnabel was

You left out the I suppose waldhorn, a crucial omission from the urtext

Wasn't it Schnabel who referred to music “greater than any performance of it could possibly be,”'?


oops cross-posted with the urtexter himself