Beethoven: Symphony nr. 7

Yesterday at the concert we were handed an audio CD with a live performance taped at last year's Klara Festival. The programme: Beethoven's Seventh and the Triple Concerto, with the Kammerorchester Basel conducted by Giovanni Antonini. Antonini happens to be a recorder player who established the period band Il Giardino Armonico. For me the Giardino epitomises the kind of hard core period practice that transgresses the boundaries of tastefulness. On the whole I find it brutish and sensationalist, betting everything on breakneck speeds, cheap effects and course attack. I was aware of the fact that Antonini had issued some recordings of Beethoven symphonies (on the Sony and Oehms labels) but the reviews were not encouraging: "a notch faster than Toscanini", "timpani that rattle like rain on a corrugated roof", "a Fourth symphony on a war footing, brutal and unreflecting". So, evidently, when I put the CD into the reader's slot I was not very expectant. But I was pleasantly surprised. His Seventh has all the hallmarks of period performance - litheness, textural contrasts, no vibrato - and it is indeed fast, but it all seemed to stay within the bounds of reason. The introspective Allegretto was a welcome relief from the dyonisian fury in the other movements. I must say that the performance seemed to run a little out of breath in the thunderous finale. The sound compacted into a bit of a blur, leaving only an extraordinarily seismic contour to contemplate. The decent but not altogether successful radio live recording may have contributed to that effect. By way of contrast I put on an LP with a 1970s recording of the symphony, part of a set conducted by Rafael Kubelik and featuring a different orchestra for each symphony. In the Seventh the Vienna SO is absolutely glorious and I was stunned by the richness of sound that emerged from the vinyl. In comparison the CD sounded positively puny! I don't want to belittle the effort of Antonini and his band but it seems to me there is precious little new under the sun when it comes to Beethoven performances. For me a sterling traditional reading has as much, if not more to offer than the best of period performance. I don't really need a Beethoven for the 21st century. I'll continue to return to the old masters with an occasional dip into the HIP craze for refreshment.