Posters from the old BBC messageboards will know of my Beethoven fanaticism.
Although I’ve always admired Colin Davis’s meticulous following of the score, his Beethoven rarely set me alight. In particular, his LvB 5 I found rather uninspired. Worse, I never understood the final “late” entry of the very last chord on the timpani, on the Philips label with the BBC Phil.
Well, in the “Terrific Live Schubert” thread, in Message 12, JLW suggests seeing the short video with Harnoncourt and the COE. And, would you believe it, he too emphasises the final “late” ff trill on the timpani.
A work I know so well? Really? Pah! I took it for granted that the final bar is an ff roll on the timpani. But I was wrong! The final bar is not a semibreve on C with a fermata (at least not in my Eulenburg edition), but a tremolo minim followed by a minim trill with a fermata (sorry, don’t know how to upload manuscript - I’d be grateful if someone with a score can upload the very last bar – it would help emphasise what Beethoven was asking for).
So THAT’s what Sir Colin Davis and the BBC Phil were emphasising, together with Nicolaus Harnoncourt and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
I’ve checked all my versions of the 5th (only a disappointing 11 I’m afraid ☹, although I’ve heard many more both live and on radio). I'd prefer not to know how many recordings other posters have particularly, as that will only depress me further, although in my defence, we are severely limited here – for example, Qobuz is not available and neither is Spotify. But of the recordings that I do have, none makes the emphasis of the accent on the third beat, separating the two minims, no not Karajan, not Toscanini, not Furtwängler, not C Kleiber, not Zinman, but yes, now I discover, Harnoncourt and Colin Davis do.
To be honest I’m not sure I like it, but then Beethoven specifically wrote 2 minims and not a semibreve – why? I’m not an expert at all, but I cannot think of a single other instance where the final timpani roll to bring a work to a satisfactory conclusion, is interrupted (literally maybe, not sonically) as it is here. Curiouser and curiouser…
At any rate, I’m sorry Sir Colin for completely misjudging you (even though the rest of the performance leaves me a little cold).
Mario
Although I’ve always admired Colin Davis’s meticulous following of the score, his Beethoven rarely set me alight. In particular, his LvB 5 I found rather uninspired. Worse, I never understood the final “late” entry of the very last chord on the timpani, on the Philips label with the BBC Phil.
Well, in the “Terrific Live Schubert” thread, in Message 12, JLW suggests seeing the short video with Harnoncourt and the COE. And, would you believe it, he too emphasises the final “late” ff trill on the timpani.
A work I know so well? Really? Pah! I took it for granted that the final bar is an ff roll on the timpani. But I was wrong! The final bar is not a semibreve on C with a fermata (at least not in my Eulenburg edition), but a tremolo minim followed by a minim trill with a fermata (sorry, don’t know how to upload manuscript - I’d be grateful if someone with a score can upload the very last bar – it would help emphasise what Beethoven was asking for).
So THAT’s what Sir Colin Davis and the BBC Phil were emphasising, together with Nicolaus Harnoncourt and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
I’ve checked all my versions of the 5th (only a disappointing 11 I’m afraid ☹, although I’ve heard many more both live and on radio). I'd prefer not to know how many recordings other posters have particularly, as that will only depress me further, although in my defence, we are severely limited here – for example, Qobuz is not available and neither is Spotify. But of the recordings that I do have, none makes the emphasis of the accent on the third beat, separating the two minims, no not Karajan, not Toscanini, not Furtwängler, not C Kleiber, not Zinman, but yes, now I discover, Harnoncourt and Colin Davis do.
To be honest I’m not sure I like it, but then Beethoven specifically wrote 2 minims and not a semibreve – why? I’m not an expert at all, but I cannot think of a single other instance where the final timpani roll to bring a work to a satisfactory conclusion, is interrupted (literally maybe, not sonically) as it is here. Curiouser and curiouser…
At any rate, I’m sorry Sir Colin for completely misjudging you (even though the rest of the performance leaves me a little cold).
Mario
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