Riccardo Chailly - Beethoven Symphonies
I bought this new set mainly to have a well-played and well-recorded set of the Beethoven symphonies suitable for my new headphones. I did not expect Chailly to supplant Klemperer in Beethoven; but, then again, I rarely listen to the Beethoven symphonies any longer.
Day One: the first symphony. I like this performance. Under Chailly the performance dances along and does not try to find much gravitas in the work. The first symphony is pretty pseudo- Haydn to my ears, without much depth. Suits Chailly and his tempi very well. I will move on to the second symphony.
Day Two: the second symphony. Somewhat to my surprise, I find I am not all that familiar with this work. It’s a minor piece but, again, Chailly seems at home and OK. Good playing, good sound.
Day three: the fourth symphony. For the time being I have skipped the Eroica, the first two movements of which I esteem very highly and I cannot imagine anyone coming near Klemperer there. So on to the fourth symphony which contains much first class music. I admire the playing of the Leipzig orchestra; the players really are first class. I admire the Decca recording. I admire Chailly’s emphasis on Beethovian dynamics and sforzandi. I do not like his tempi in the first two movements, both of which sound rushed and take us back to the bad old days of Toscanini. There is wonderful music in the first two movements and I wish Chailly had found the time to savour it a little rather than rushing ever onward as if he had a train to catch at the end of the concert. Music often needs to breathe, and Chailly does not give it time to catch its breath.
Day Four: the fifth symphony -- not one of my favourites. It often sounds pompous, banal and pumped-up. I have no problems with Chailly, Decca or the magnificent Leipzig orchestra in this performance, but I do have problems with Ludwig van Beethoven. The first movement goes very well with Chailly, and his swift tempi and lightness of touch remove the puffed-up extremes in which too many conductors indulge. The second movement has always disappointed me: a set of variations, with a refrain that comes round three times too often, has never struck me as an inspired way to continue a symphony that -- in Chailly’s hands at least -- starts well. After the scherzo and trio, we have that over-blown finale, sounding like something the young Gustav Mahler might have written. Beethoven should have learned from his hero, Handel, that triumphal music should not last too long. But how many really good finales are there that actually add something to a major work? Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique; Mozart’s Jupiter; Beethoven’s Seventh; Brahms Fourth; Schubert’s Unfinished (!); Bruckner’s Ninth (!). It’s a short list; revelatory finales are hard to write.
Day Four (continued) and the Pastoral symphony. On the whole, Italians are city and town dwellers and rarely feel at ease in the countryside. Chailly sounds as though he wants to keep his visit to the countryside as short as possible. His traversal of the work reminds me of the days when my “record player” had a control where you could select 78 rpm, 45, or 33 -- and sometimes I would select the wrong speed. The first and second movements speed by; the rustic third movement is tossed aside. The finale isn’t bad but, by then, it’s too late. This is a pretty disastrous rendition of Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony. Both Furtwängler and Klemperer came in for plenty of criticism in their day over tempi; this is a difficult tone poem / symphony to bring off. But I sense that, true Italian that he is, Chailly just does not like the countryside. On to symphony number seven, leaving the sixth to others better qualified.
Day Five: Symphony No.7. I prefaced this with the Egmont Overture: good, but not grim and black like Klemperer. Somewhat against my expectations, I took to Chailly’s version of Op 92. Again, superb recording and superb playing. An excellent middle-of-the-road interpretation (thank goodness the scherzo and trio were taken briskly; obviously, Beethoven hadn’t counted on people having listened to this 86 times in their lifetimes). Any niggles? Well, in 50 years time people will speak of Beethoven performances by Furtwängler, Toscanini, Klemperer, Mengelberg, Weingartner, Knappertsbusch … and a few others. But not, I suspect, of the Beethoven of Chailly which, in the last resort, lacks the 12.5% that separates “excellent” from “great”. But, this is a Beethoven 7th to which I will return happily in years to come.
Day Six: Symphony No.8. Fast, frantic and full of sforzandi. I did not enjoy it. For all I know, this was echt Beethoven. But, for me, bring back Tommy Beecham and a little late 18th century charm and elegance.
Day Seven: Back to the third symphony. I have always thought the first two movements to be among Beethoven’s greatest and half wish he had abandoned the work after the funeral march; the third and fourth movements, to my taste, simply are not up to the standard of the first two. Klemperer for me defines this symphony, perhaps above all in his mono recording with the Philharmonia (1955; better than the 1959 stereo re-make -- Otto was a pretty variable conductor). I have no problem with Chailly’s basic tempo for the first movement. But I do have a problem with his refusal to adapt his tempo to the music being played. He gives the impression of putting the orchestra on autopilot and brings to mind the “Italian bandmaster” jibe made à propos Toscanini by (Beecham? Furtwängler?) No rubato here, no easing of the tempo, no reaction to some of the wonderful music in the score. The music does not breathe. No relief in the second movement; Chailly sets up a giant metronome and goes off for un espresso, leaving the orchestra to cope bravely. None of Klemperer’s grim darkness, lit by occasional rays of light. The order is: “Get it over with in 12 minutes and 11 seconds, and forget about all that adagio assai stuff”. Halfway through I lost patience and skipped on the the third movement. The third movement and finale go much better for Chailly, aided by his superb orchestra and excellent recording. Reinforces my growing conviction over the 37 movements of the Beethoven symphonies that the less emotionally and musically complex the music, the better Chailly comes over. I suspect he’s a dead cert for the William Tell overture of Rossini. But on to the ninth symphony, and how will he measure up to Furtwängler’s incandescent 1942 Berlin classic?
Final Day: Beethoven’s 9th. Contrary to my expectations, I quite enjoyed this, not least because almost all my other recordings of the work date from the 1940s and 50s and, with this new release, I hear so much more detail than I have done before. That said, the first movement is pretty relentless, and many favourite wayside flowers in the music are trampled underfoot in the headlong rush through the music. Again, the music isn’t allowed to breathe. The adagio lacks the ecstatic quality that Furtwängler brought to it. The long and ugly finale -- an infuriating mixture of sublimity and banality -- is greatly helped by the recording quality. Not a great Beethoven 9th, then, and certainly not one to any way rival Furtwängler in March 1942. But not bad.
The grand old conductors of the past such as Weingartner, Mengelberg, Knappertsbusch, Furtwängler and Klemperer all had their quite different approaches to Beethoven, Brahms, et al. But what comes through in all their performances is a humanity and a love of the music they are conducting. These are the qualities I miss in Chailly’s Beethoven: that sense of love and veneration. Like his fellow Italians of previous generations -- Arturo Toscanini and Guido Cantelli -- Chailly is a virtuoso conductor who can make an orchestra do anything he wants. But, to stick with Italians, there is more warmth and humanity in Victor de Sabata’s 1947 performance of Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony (with the Santa Cecilia orchestra of Rome) than in the whole of Chailly’s Beethoven cycle. It may well be that Riccardo Chailly’s Beethoven set is one for the 21st century. But I do not feel it is one for someone, like me, born in 1941. Great virtuosi -- of the bow, the keyboard or the rostrum -- are not necessarily the greatest musicians.
I bought this new set mainly to have a well-played and well-recorded set of the Beethoven symphonies suitable for my new headphones. I did not expect Chailly to supplant Klemperer in Beethoven; but, then again, I rarely listen to the Beethoven symphonies any longer.
Day One: the first symphony. I like this performance. Under Chailly the performance dances along and does not try to find much gravitas in the work. The first symphony is pretty pseudo- Haydn to my ears, without much depth. Suits Chailly and his tempi very well. I will move on to the second symphony.
Day Two: the second symphony. Somewhat to my surprise, I find I am not all that familiar with this work. It’s a minor piece but, again, Chailly seems at home and OK. Good playing, good sound.
Day three: the fourth symphony. For the time being I have skipped the Eroica, the first two movements of which I esteem very highly and I cannot imagine anyone coming near Klemperer there. So on to the fourth symphony which contains much first class music. I admire the playing of the Leipzig orchestra; the players really are first class. I admire the Decca recording. I admire Chailly’s emphasis on Beethovian dynamics and sforzandi. I do not like his tempi in the first two movements, both of which sound rushed and take us back to the bad old days of Toscanini. There is wonderful music in the first two movements and I wish Chailly had found the time to savour it a little rather than rushing ever onward as if he had a train to catch at the end of the concert. Music often needs to breathe, and Chailly does not give it time to catch its breath.
Day Four: the fifth symphony -- not one of my favourites. It often sounds pompous, banal and pumped-up. I have no problems with Chailly, Decca or the magnificent Leipzig orchestra in this performance, but I do have problems with Ludwig van Beethoven. The first movement goes very well with Chailly, and his swift tempi and lightness of touch remove the puffed-up extremes in which too many conductors indulge. The second movement has always disappointed me: a set of variations, with a refrain that comes round three times too often, has never struck me as an inspired way to continue a symphony that -- in Chailly’s hands at least -- starts well. After the scherzo and trio, we have that over-blown finale, sounding like something the young Gustav Mahler might have written. Beethoven should have learned from his hero, Handel, that triumphal music should not last too long. But how many really good finales are there that actually add something to a major work? Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique; Mozart’s Jupiter; Beethoven’s Seventh; Brahms Fourth; Schubert’s Unfinished (!); Bruckner’s Ninth (!). It’s a short list; revelatory finales are hard to write.
Day Four (continued) and the Pastoral symphony. On the whole, Italians are city and town dwellers and rarely feel at ease in the countryside. Chailly sounds as though he wants to keep his visit to the countryside as short as possible. His traversal of the work reminds me of the days when my “record player” had a control where you could select 78 rpm, 45, or 33 -- and sometimes I would select the wrong speed. The first and second movements speed by; the rustic third movement is tossed aside. The finale isn’t bad but, by then, it’s too late. This is a pretty disastrous rendition of Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony. Both Furtwängler and Klemperer came in for plenty of criticism in their day over tempi; this is a difficult tone poem / symphony to bring off. But I sense that, true Italian that he is, Chailly just does not like the countryside. On to symphony number seven, leaving the sixth to others better qualified.
Day Five: Symphony No.7. I prefaced this with the Egmont Overture: good, but not grim and black like Klemperer. Somewhat against my expectations, I took to Chailly’s version of Op 92. Again, superb recording and superb playing. An excellent middle-of-the-road interpretation (thank goodness the scherzo and trio were taken briskly; obviously, Beethoven hadn’t counted on people having listened to this 86 times in their lifetimes). Any niggles? Well, in 50 years time people will speak of Beethoven performances by Furtwängler, Toscanini, Klemperer, Mengelberg, Weingartner, Knappertsbusch … and a few others. But not, I suspect, of the Beethoven of Chailly which, in the last resort, lacks the 12.5% that separates “excellent” from “great”. But, this is a Beethoven 7th to which I will return happily in years to come.
Day Six: Symphony No.8. Fast, frantic and full of sforzandi. I did not enjoy it. For all I know, this was echt Beethoven. But, for me, bring back Tommy Beecham and a little late 18th century charm and elegance.
Day Seven: Back to the third symphony. I have always thought the first two movements to be among Beethoven’s greatest and half wish he had abandoned the work after the funeral march; the third and fourth movements, to my taste, simply are not up to the standard of the first two. Klemperer for me defines this symphony, perhaps above all in his mono recording with the Philharmonia (1955; better than the 1959 stereo re-make -- Otto was a pretty variable conductor). I have no problem with Chailly’s basic tempo for the first movement. But I do have a problem with his refusal to adapt his tempo to the music being played. He gives the impression of putting the orchestra on autopilot and brings to mind the “Italian bandmaster” jibe made à propos Toscanini by (Beecham? Furtwängler?) No rubato here, no easing of the tempo, no reaction to some of the wonderful music in the score. The music does not breathe. No relief in the second movement; Chailly sets up a giant metronome and goes off for un espresso, leaving the orchestra to cope bravely. None of Klemperer’s grim darkness, lit by occasional rays of light. The order is: “Get it over with in 12 minutes and 11 seconds, and forget about all that adagio assai stuff”. Halfway through I lost patience and skipped on the the third movement. The third movement and finale go much better for Chailly, aided by his superb orchestra and excellent recording. Reinforces my growing conviction over the 37 movements of the Beethoven symphonies that the less emotionally and musically complex the music, the better Chailly comes over. I suspect he’s a dead cert for the William Tell overture of Rossini. But on to the ninth symphony, and how will he measure up to Furtwängler’s incandescent 1942 Berlin classic?
Final Day: Beethoven’s 9th. Contrary to my expectations, I quite enjoyed this, not least because almost all my other recordings of the work date from the 1940s and 50s and, with this new release, I hear so much more detail than I have done before. That said, the first movement is pretty relentless, and many favourite wayside flowers in the music are trampled underfoot in the headlong rush through the music. Again, the music isn’t allowed to breathe. The adagio lacks the ecstatic quality that Furtwängler brought to it. The long and ugly finale -- an infuriating mixture of sublimity and banality -- is greatly helped by the recording quality. Not a great Beethoven 9th, then, and certainly not one to any way rival Furtwängler in March 1942. But not bad.
The grand old conductors of the past such as Weingartner, Mengelberg, Knappertsbusch, Furtwängler and Klemperer all had their quite different approaches to Beethoven, Brahms, et al. But what comes through in all their performances is a humanity and a love of the music they are conducting. These are the qualities I miss in Chailly’s Beethoven: that sense of love and veneration. Like his fellow Italians of previous generations -- Arturo Toscanini and Guido Cantelli -- Chailly is a virtuoso conductor who can make an orchestra do anything he wants. But, to stick with Italians, there is more warmth and humanity in Victor de Sabata’s 1947 performance of Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony (with the Santa Cecilia orchestra of Rome) than in the whole of Chailly’s Beethoven cycle. It may well be that Riccardo Chailly’s Beethoven set is one for the 21st century. But I do not feel it is one for someone, like me, born in 1941. Great virtuosi -- of the bow, the keyboard or the rostrum -- are not necessarily the greatest musicians.
1 comment:
I share the same sentiments with you on the very good performance of the Sym 2. Straight-forward interpretation here.
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