Beethoven: Symphonies nr. 1-9

Over the past months I have worked through a full Beethoven symphony cycle at a leisurely pace. It started when at the end of October we spent a few days at my parents' place where my father was listening to Beethoven symphonies. I joined him for a Ninth and back at home continued with a cycle of my own. My first selection was a Simax recording of the Eighth by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra led by Tomas Dausgaard. Frankly, I found it hard to stomach. It sounded harsh and bloodless. Like a sportscar brandishing a shiny and lean bodywork but with nothing under the hood. So I switched to an LP with a late 1950s recording of the same work by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Eugen Jochum. Immediately I was captivated. So I continued in that same vein and the cycle that emerged looks as follows:

Symphony nr. 1 - Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, 1957
Symphony nr. 2 - NDR Sinfonieorchester, Günter Wand, 1988
Symphony nr. 3 'Eroica' - Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Georg Solti, 1959
Symphony nr. 4 - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, 1962
Symphony nr. 5 - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Lorin Maazel, 1958
Symphony nr. 6 'Pastorale' - Orchestra National de France, Rafael Kubelik, 1976 (LP)
Symphony nr. 7 - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Karl Böhm, 1958
Symphony nr. 8 - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Eugen Jochum, 1959 (LP)
Symphony nr. 9 - Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnanyi, 1985

So it transpires that 6 out of 9 were drawn from a 'golden age of stereo recording' between 1958 and 1962. Four happened to be performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, under four different conductors. Three of these recordings were made in the space of just a few months time (Böhm's Seventh was recorded in April 1958, Jochum's Eighth early May and Maazel followed suit with his Fifth in May and June of that same year!). 

I did not listen in numerical order but chronologically jumped to and fro. The highlight of the cycle was, perhaps, Böhm's Seventh which is a glorious reading captured in a sound that is astonishingly lively and rich for the era. It's a grand and luxurious approach but one that does justice to the unflagging energy that pervades this work. Another great recording is Wand's Second. This is a more recent interpretation but still very traditional. Still, I couldn't care less as Wand's grasp of the architecture is awe-inspiring. Listening to this interpretation just feels very right. I haven't heard any of the other recordings in his NDR-cycle but I expect this to be quite rewarding.

Very good also was Karajan's Fourth in his second rendering of the complete cycle, from 1962. Despite its apollinian credentials I was struck by the nervous energy that radiates from this recording. Contrary to what might be expected, I had a similar impression from Klemperer's fleet-footed and authoritative First. I also liked Solti's Eroica which struck me as rather Kapellmeisterisch, but in a good sense. No histrionics, but a solid and contained reading that one is tempted to revisit. Also the sound of this 1958 tape is very good with the 'nutty', 'earthy' character of the Vienna PO wel captured. I acquired Jochum's Eighth, in a cheap LP pressing for DGG's Resonance series, very early on in my musical explorations and so I'm very familiar with it. Still I haven't tired of this lean and boisterous reading. Also commendable is Dohnanyi's Ninth with the Cleveland Orchestra and a fine quartet of soloists. The music's drive is slightly blunted by Telarc's characteristically soft-grained recording but the overall effect is of an invigorating, timeless classicism.

The young Lorin Maazel recorded a heaven-storming Fifth with the distinguished Berlin Philharmonic. At the time it was damned by the critics because of its expressive idiosyncracies but today we'd say that Maazel was ahead of his time. Still, I felt unconvinced by this effort. The low point of the cycle was Kubelik's Pastoral with the Orchestra National de France. It is part of a LP box with a full cycle, of which each symphony is played by another orchestra. The opening movement is beguiling enough, played by Kubelik with an almost Bohemian generosity. But in the Andante (Scene by the Brook) all momentum is lost and even the Storm is not able to quicken the pulse. At the end the impression is one of overwhelming boredom.

After such a long time away from Beethoven, it was a fascinating journey. The music sounded genuinely fresh and often I was struck by Beethoven's modernity. There is a primitivist streak in this music which bursts out in obsessive rhythms or withdraws in extended, murky transitions (though never, it seems, gratuitous but with a deeper musical logic underpinning them). Listening through this cycle also confirmed that good music-making is timeless and whether it is branded 'traditional' or 'historically informed' doesn't matter in the least.

Ginastera: Piano Sonata nr. 1 - Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit - Brahms: 3 Intermezzi - Beethoven: 32 Variations - Constantinescu: Joc Dobrogean

I've been listening quite often to his CD over the last couple of weeks, maybe even months. I have been seeking out performances by the young Romanian pianist Mihaela Ursuleasa since I heard her take, in partnership with Patricia Kopatchinskaja, on Enescu's wonderful Violin Sonata nr. 3. This recital did not disappoint my expectations. It's an epic affair that starts with Beethoven's rowdy C minor variations (WoO 80), then moves to late Brahms's introvert Intermezzi op. 117 as a base camp to tackle the Everest of Ravel's scintillating Gaspard de la nuit. Ursuleasa ups the ante with Ginastera's fabulously kinetic Piano Sonata nr. 1, op. 22 and finally closes with a white hot encore in the Romanian style. All in all a tremendous achievement for a pianist in her early 30s. The recital is composed as a personal narrative in which each piece is associated to life stations or key relationships of the performer. For Ursuleasa, the Ginastera sonata conjures up the image of her father, a jazz pianist. The Beethoven variations she played already at the age of 10. Brahms she discovered and fell in love with when she took up studies in Vienna. In relation to Gaspard she reminisces about the fairy tales that coloured her earliest years. And the Constantinescu toccata is inextricably linked to her South-Eastern European roots. In all these pieces Mihaela Ursuleasa displays a gripping, muscular virtuosity, supported by a keen sense of architecture and an appealing clarity of contour. For me the highlight on this disc is most certainly the Ginastera sonata. Sure, it may not plumb the existential depths of the Brahms Intermezzi, but it reveals a very accomplished composer with, say, the fire and dash of the young Prokofiev. The opening Allegro marcato is a rambunctious dance as they also feature prominently in his symphonic ballets. The ensuing Presto misterioso is a wonderfully atmospheric, shadowy movement played almost pianissimo throughout. Then follows an expansive, nocturnal Adagio molto appassionato. It opens with a mysterious theme quite extraordinaly played, it seems, by directly plucking the strings of the piano. A beautiful movement, accesible and modernistic. The finale - Ruvido ed ostinato - is a predictable return to Ginastera's most obsessively kinetic mood. Party time, indeed! All in all a great CD to which I will often return.

Anima Eterna - Symphonic Silver

A couple of weeks ago DD, a reader of this listening diary, sent me a complimentary LP, issued in a limited edition of 500 copies (mine is nr. 28) on the occasion of Anima Eterna Brugge's silver jubilee. The luxurious and lavishly decorated double sleeve album was personally signed by Jos van Immerseel, the orchestra's conductor and tireless 'animator'. A very friendly gesture of both sender and signer, for which many thanks!

I must confess that Anima appeared on my radar only at a fairly late stage in their existence. It was their Beethoven set, recorded in 2005 for the Zig-Zag label that struck me more or less like a bolt from the blue. Up to that point I had been rather sceptical about the whole HIP movement, but van Immerseel with his Beethoven finally convinced me to embrace what period performance had to offer. That doesn't mean that I'm going along in their conception of 'authenticity' which, for me as a listener (and not as a music scholar), is largely besides the point. Being true to the spirit of the music is for me much more important than being true to the text. (Here I'm reminded again of that Debussy encore by Horowitz that I listened to last week. In his superslow rendering of the Serenade for the Doll, he must have taken terrific liberties with the score. And it was performed on a Steinway and not an Erard to boot. But who cares when this trifle nestles itself in your brain and mercilessly haunts you for a week on end!) It's an endless debate, of course, and we're not going to resolve it here. Suffice it to say that for me it is immaterial on which instrument a piece is played as long as it speaks to me as a human being. Or think about it this way: what a priceless legacy would we lose if everything that was recorded by traditionalists would simply be binned on the grounds that it didn't meet requisite criteria for 'authenticity'? That wouldn't make sense at all, wouldn't it?

van Immerseel's Beethoven was very good and his Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique was an utter revelation. I wrote a glowing Amazon review about this recording of which I'm still very fond. Sadly I have not yet been able to investigate other Anima Eterna recordings. I seem to remember that Robert Redford, in a column for Gramophone magazine, picked the orchestra's recording of Ravel's Boléro as his most treasured disc. I also would love to hear their Strauss, Liszt and Rimsky recordings. It will come, in due time. These days, Anima is touring with a Debussy programme which I sadly missed when they performed it in Brussels and Antwerp. Unfortunately there seem to be no plans to record it.

What I appreciate first and foremost in the van Immerseel/Anima Eterna recordings I know is a compelling view of 'the whole'. It's in my opinion a minimum requirement for any performance that aims for the status of greatness. If the overall architecture isn't right, then scrupulous attention to authentic detail won't save it (Debussy's music may be a terrific exception to this rule, as I tried to argue rather helplessly in my exchange with Mark DeVoto). And then there is the typical bonus that comes with period performance in the form of lean textures, crisp articulation and an overall more transparant sonic image. Luckily van Immerseel steers a middle course between the lushness of traditional performances and the brutish attacks of iconoclasts such as René Jacobs and Giovanni Antonini for whom textural ugliness seems to be a virtue. Anima Eterna produces a quite beautiful, sophisticated sound and there is a distinctive and beguiling earthiness to it that I'm not hearing anywhere else. This 'middle course', however, does not imply that van Immerseel's interpretations aim for a safe middle ground. I seem to notice that his recordings elicit very polarised reviews.The contrast between these two assessments of Anima's recent Poulenc disc is quite typical. I seem to think that van Immerseel is not too unhappy with this state of affairs.

The LP features a potpourri of pieces, from the early baroque to the 20th century, to illustrate the orchestra's breadth of repertoire. Some are excerpts from albums that have been issued earlier on Channel Classics (Mozart's piano concertos) and Zig-Zag (the Beethoven symphonies, the Poulenc concerto for two pianos). But the LP includes two unreleased tracks: a live recording of De Falla's Fire Dance (from Amor Brujo) and the finale from Schubert's Second Symphony from an archived studio recording. What, surprisingly, struck me most from the pieces included is an excerpt (Klaglied) from an early (1994) recording of a Buxtehude cantata (Mit Fried und Freud, ich fahr dahin, Bux WV 76) with the Collegium Vocale Gent. Limpid, harmonically rich but most effective in its simplicity it touched a nerve. It went straight onto my wishlist. Beyond the Buxtehude there is much to enjoy. I liked the measured approach to the Fire Dance a lot (as I did appreciate the deceptively leisurely take on Berlioz' Marche au supplice). Anima turned it from just another orchestral spectacular into a compelling study in colours and rhythms. The fiery Schubert finale is another highlight. I'm not so sure what to think of the Larghetto taken from the Poulenc double concerto. The sonic signature is very different from other Anima recordings, with the orchestra and soloists recorded as if from a rather great distance. In combination with the 'watery' sound of the two Erard pianos this creates a dreamy atmosphere as if we are hearing the piece in half-sleep. Finally, I've never investigated van Immerseel's take on the Mozart piano concertos. This was the recording project that brought him and the orchestra an international audience. But judging from the Allegro from KV 450 I seem to understand better what all the fuss at the time was about. If Channel Classics could be persuaded to re-issue the full set at an affordable price, I'd jump on it.

The technical quality of the LP is very good. I did an A/B comparison with the CD recording of the Beethoven Prometheus overture and the LP seems marginally more lively. Again, thanks for this generous treat to 'symphonic silver'.

Haydn: String Quartet op. 77 nr.1 - Beethoven: String Quartet op. 95 'Serioso' - Schubert: String Quintet D 956

We were really spoiled this week as on Thursday we had the Belcea Quartet performing at the Brussels Conservatorium. Personally I feel this is one of the finest chamber ensembles around. They didn't disappoint in this choice Viennese programme. The Conservatoire was packed but as is customary this was a very disciplined audience that seems to know why it is spending time in a concert hall. The rapt concentration and the relatively small hall created an ambience of wonderful intimacy. The Haydn quartet (which I hadn't heard before) came off very well. What struck me was the relaxed, almost friendly energy that radiates from the group. The music seemed to emerge almost effortlessly. It sounded like the image that is projected by a Zeiss lens: there was wonderfully luminous microdetail, clearly etched but soft contours and a holographic sense of musical lines meshing with one another. It's not spectacular but musically deeply satisfying. Corina Belcea leads as a genuine 'primus inter pares' (and a ravishing appearance she is too). Her violin soars but not to put her colleagues in the shadow but to stretch a broader canvas for them. This is quartet playing as it should be.

The Beethoven quartet came off slightly less successfully I thought. I have the more assertive (maybe even aggressive) rendition of the Artemis Quartet in my ears and for this 'angry' Beethoven piece this is perhaps more appropriate than the somewhat softer grained approach of the Belcea. Anyway, we were listening to what is still a very good performance.

After the break came the Schubert String Quintet in C, with Valentin Erben (ex-Alban Berg) taking the second cello part (as he did on the Belcea's 2009 recording of this piece). Again, I didn't know the Schubert so I had to listen with unprepared ears. Schubert is a composer I still have to discover. Certainly, I have an inkling of what Schubert stands for and it is not an idiom that I am immediately attracted to. There is a simplicity at the heart of Schubert's music, it seems to me, that attracts and leaves me cold at the same time. I love an architectural conception of music. Music that is 'durchkomponiert'. That's why I like Bartok. That's why I am intrigued but also suspicious of Debussy who made it look like his music was not 'composed' at all whilst lavishing the greatest care on the most minute detail of its architectural conception. Schubert throws a single chord at you and immediately one is taken off guard by a complex emotional vista. The Quintet is no exception. It's a very late piece, in fact the last chamber composition Schubert was able to finish two months before his untimely death. It has an otherworldly atmosphere similar to the late piano sonatas. As in those sonatas, Schubert takes the time to develop his musical material: the work takes over 50 minutes! The work didn't strike me as difficult, however. There's a lot of repetition so it's easy to follow (compared to the Beethoven Serioso where there is no repetition at all). The cumulative impact of this long piece, however, is quite extraordinary. One really has the experience of a journey to the edge. It is often said that the quintet's finale, with it's earthbound, schmaltzy character, doesn't seem to belong. It most certainly does belong and the merrymaking is all the more poignant given the seriousness of what went before. Yves Knockaert thought in his spoken introduction before the concert that Schubert grasped back to Haydn in this finale. But I don't hear Haydn; I hear Mahler there, and certainly Bruckner, and in the final bars we are getting a glimpse of the territory that Mahler reconnoitered in this valedictory symphony and that was further explored by the Second Viennese School. In that sense the Belcea's reading was certainly revelatory. I was so impressed by their maturity and humanity. This is true, timeless artistry.

Beethoven: Sonata for Violin and Piano nr. 9 'Kreutzer' - Ravel: Sonata for Violin and Piano - Say: Sonata for Violin and Piano - Bartok: Romanian Folk Dances

I still have to report a live concert we attended Tuesday last week. Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin) and Fazil Say (piano) came to Leuven with an interesting programme. I was particularly attracted by Prokofiev's epic First Violin Sonata but, to my considerable disappointment, the performance was cancelled at the last moment and the Beethoven Kreutzer Sonata came instead. But I guess that's part of the game when you want to hear and see these two 'enfants terribles' at work. Both Say and Kopatchinskaja have a reputation for waywardness. Their podium presence certainly confirms this. Kopatchinskaja plays barefeet. Say sways ecstatically behind his piano. Both bring visceral energy to their performance (the difference with the poised Ibragimova/Tiberghien duo I heard recently in Brussels is striking). But despite the fact that they must have performed this particular programme innumerable times (it already featured on their debut CD in 2008), the joint music making still sounded fresh and engaging. The Beethoven sonata did not disappoint. There was an electrifying sense of drama, particularly in the stormy outer movements, that for me threw a new light on this work. The middle Andante was slightly less successful. There it struck me that Kopatchinskaja's tonal palette seemed rather restricted, but that impression can also be due to the relatively poor acoustics of a large, new teaching auditorium. After the break came Say's own piece: an eclectic and derivative work that I forgot as soon as I had heard it. In Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances (an adaptation of the piano original by Zoltan Szekely) Kopatchinskaja could play out her eastern European pedigree to the brink. The music might as well have sounded on a dusty Moldovan village square a hundred years ago. The programme was brought to an end by a masculine and colourful rendition of the Ravel sonata. Some quirky encores (which certainly underscored the virtuoso capabilities of the duo) concluded an engaging musical evening. I must admit at being slightly skeptical when I went in, but I was won over by the ostensible honesty and musicality of what was offered. Kopatchinskaja's rough and visceral approach might smack of cheap sensationalism (and in this promo video it really goes over the top) but what I heard last week struck me as staying within the bounds of good taste and genuine musicality. 

Beethoven: Symphony nr. 2 - CPE Bach: Sinfonia

Following upon the audition of Giovanni Antonini's take on Beethoven's Seventh, I was intrigued to find him back in similar repertoire in the Berliner Philharmoniker's Digital Concert Hall. An interesting programme featuring an orchestral suite by Bach, a sinfonia by CPE Bach and Beethoven 2. I didn't listen to the Bach suite, but took the sinfonia as a delightfully vivid aperitif. There's a waywardness in the piece that is quite attractive. This composer merits more of my attention. Antonini's approach to the Beethoven is fully in line with the reading captured by the Klara live recording: clearly etched, dynamic, hard driven. As with the CD, I listened with considerable pleasure. And it is great to see a slimmed down Berliner digging so impassionately into the music. It's really a living, pulsating organism, not a bureaucracy that is making music there. In one way or another they are always able to create a genuine sense of occasion. On the other hand, I wonder to what extent we can really talk of an 'interpretation' here given that Antonini had at the most a single rehearsal to work with the orchestra through the symphony (I learned that from the accompanying interview). Reminds me about Berganza's remark on the quality of the music making being better 40 years ago when orchestras and singers still had several weeks to prepare an opera production. Eventually you end up with quite extraordinary situations such as the one documented on a video here where Maria Joao Pires discovers during a live concert at the Concertgebouw that she has prepared the wrong Mozart concerto. Clearly, rehearsal was not deemed necessary at all!

Anyway I certainly enjoyed this Beethoven Second. As with the Seventh I sometimes wondered whether it is really necessary to drive the orchestra to the point of near-paroxysm. There are a few shots where you can witness the amazing dexterity of the double bass players working themselves at breakneck speed through the score. Inevitably, the sound thickens and becomes less 'beautiful'. Antonini tells in the interview this is quite justified. Beauty of sound does not have to respected at all times, he thinks (referring to Karajan as someone who upheld the opposite paradigm). Sometimes the orchestra is allowed to sound ugly, as long as the unpleasantness serves the spirit of the music. Hmmm, maybe.

This week I was driving (rather lurching) with the car towards Brussels and exceptionally I had the radio on. There was the opening movement of Beethoven's Fourth. It was amazing. The orchestra sounded like a period band. What was remarkable was the beautiful ebb and flow that breathed through the music. And the effortless suppleness with which the lines where shaped. I was surprised (and yet I wasn't!) to hear about the performers: Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Now that seemed like great Beethoven ...

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.

Beethoven - String Quartet nr. 11 'Serioso'

Beethoven's 'Serioso' quartet, op. 95, is a fabulous composition that has given me a lot of satisfaction the last couple of days. It's likely the most condensed and tightly knit of all of his works in this genre. Barely 20 minutes long, it contains a wealth of ideas and has a impressively symphonic impetus. All these elements plus the pounding rhythms and jagged dynamics remind me of Bartok's Third Quartet.

The Serioso is mostly lumped together with the middle quartets. Remarkably, it would be another twelve years before Beethoven would write another quartet. But the musical language is at that point, 1810, already hinting at what will come later. So a number of ensembles, such as the Takacs, have included the Op. 95 in their survey of late quartets.

The first movement, an extremely compressed sonata structure, has been very aptly compared to a 'coiled spring'. It's Beethoven at his most gruff and impetuous but also at his most clever. Most modern ensembles play this with fearsome energy and razor sharp attacks. It's the Emerson aesthetic. Quartets from the older schools, such as the Borodin or Italiano or Gewandhaus Quartet, seem to present a more poised approach. At first I was taken aback by the virulence exhibited by the Artemis Quartet. Is it really necessary to get the last ounce of aggressive energy out of the score? I wasn't sure. But after listening to some of the other readings, I was convinced by the coherence of their vision and the appropriateness of their approach. In their performance there is plenty of space for beautiful ensemble playing and sweet intonation. But the allegros sound as if Beethoven was pounding his fists on the table. In comparison the Quartetto Italiano (on LP), usually one of my favourites, do seem a bit cautious and tame. Also successful, as somewhat of a middle of the road version, is the Alban Berg in their 1979 recording. Sadly the recording is less than stellar and the performance as a whole seems to vaccilate between contemporary expressiveness and traditional old world splendour.

The Artemis, then, convinced. The complex second movement, in D major, is beautifully done with the dirge-like accompaniment of the songlike theme on the violin and the second theme which sounds as if Beethoven had been studying baroque masters. Its fugato treatment certainly seems to confirm this. In its terseness it is a very complete and satisfying movement that displays an amazing gamut of emotions. The third movement, a scherzo, is simple in layout with an abruptly rhythmic theme that alternates with a chorale-like trio. Then the finale, which trumps all the other movements in originality: the somber larghetto introduction, a stormy rondo with a theme that seems to have amazing symphonic potential, and the breezy coda, which has nothing to do with anything that went before it, as a concluding practical joke.

The Virgin recording of the Artemis Quartet is, on the whole, very good. I find the setting (the trusted Jesus-Christus Kirche in Dahlem, Berlin) only a little too resonant. It particularly matters in the scherzo where the hectic musical proceedings are interspersed with frequent pauses. But otherwise it's amongst the best I've heard. This CD was the first installment of their complete cycle which, after fiver years, happened to be rounded off earlier this month.

Beethoven, 32 variations in C minor

Today I listened a couple of times to Beethoven's set of 32 Variations in C minor, WoO 80, a composition of 1806 (from the time of Symphony nr. 4). First Gilels on LP (1968, part of the Szell concerto set), then, twice, Buchbinder on CD. It helps to have a little guide on hand to follow the proceedings. 

The Gilels reading I found unsubtle and uneven.The transitions between the fast, loud variations and the more subdued ones are often ragged, giving the whole thing an air of vulgarity. Buchbinder presents a much more groomed and compelling whole. The CD recording (a Teldec budget re-issue mixing a Haydn sonata with some Beethoven trifles) is very clear and suitably weighty too.

I have very few recordings of Buchbinder in my collection. Whilst he has an impressive discography and works intensively with the most prestigious orchestras, he does not seem to enjoy a genuine star status. Nevertheless, the concert I heard him give many years ago in the Vienna Konzerthaus, playing the three last Beethoven sonatas in a row - without a pause - is no doubt one of the most compelling musical experiences I have ever had: an hour-long exalted communion with 2000 other kindred souls.

Beethoven Frühe Meisterwerke

I'm lingering a little longer on early Beethoven. The temptation is there, of course, to dive again into the vast universe of his symphonies, sonatas and quartets. But I won't do that, for now. There is a lot more to discover in the stack of LPs - now counting more than 200 units - that has gone through Johan's KM cleaning treatment.

Yesterday and today I listened to a Decca LP issued at the occasion Beethoven's bicentennial anniversary in 1970 (SX 21187-M). It brings together a mixed collection of early 'masterpieces', and that includes his first piano sonata (op. 2 nr. 1), his first symphony (op. 21),  the song 'Adelaide' and a movement from the Septet, op. 20. Two pleasant discoveries here. Monteux offers a buoyant and muscular reading of the First with the Vienna Philarmonic. Whilst the recording goes back to 1961, it sounds thoroughly modern with its lithe, fiery tempos and its overall clarity of line. I only wish the vinyl was in better shape. Definitely worthwhile to look for a replacement copy. There is a nice and informative tribute to Monteux here.

The other surprise was the sonata, played by Wilhelm Backhaus. I've always been intrigued by the Backhaus' Beethoven ever since a friend in his Zürich apartment put on a CD with one his piano concerto recordings (that's about 15 years ago). But I never came round to digging deeper into it. Despite a rather inflexible reading, the sonata pulled me in. There is something really authoritative in the playing. It simply commands attention. Backhaus may be grumpy and introvert but he is not aloof. There is also genuine warmth and openness. It's this curious mixture which makes for compelling listening. Meanwhile I ordered the complete LP set of Beethoven sonatas on eBay.

Beethoven PC 1 ctd: Argerich/Sinopoli

I used to like this CD recording, but now that I hear it in such a distinguished sequence, it fell a little flat. That has less to do with Argerich, who on the whole offers a persuasive performance of great polish and depth of feeling. Her playing is characteristically lush and luminous, albeit sometimes a little rushed. The orchestra is the same as the one which served Klemperer so well 17 years earlier. But here we are sorely missing this 'second simplicity' so characteristic for that performance under the ageing conductor and which Clifford Curzon described as that 'second naiveté you arrive at after having gone through all the difficulties, having come through all the tests, and out the other side." Sinopoli directs a rather pedestrian performance which has the additional disadvantage of a very resonant recording in Walthamstow Town Hall. Hence the balance between piano and orchestra sounds unnatural and the music is drowned in a cloying sfumato which particularly in the slow movement tilts into the sentimental. The rapport between soloist and conductor is not ideal either. Particularly in the fast movements, Argerich seems to be wanting to push on whilst Sinopoli doesn't budge and continues to cruise along.  As the performance moved on, I felt myself getting impatient and finally I was rather happy it was over.

Oh, yes, I also listened to another Gilels performance, this time with the State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR under Kurt Masur. A live performance of 1976. This was part of a Brilliant CD box with recordings from historic Russian archives. Something to quickly forget. A boomy and noisy recording, Gilels pounding the piano as if he was playing the Liszt sonata and Masur offering a shoddy and unidiomatic accompaniment. The finale sounds preposterously rushed (even it's only a minute faster than the Klemperer/Barenboim).

What I, up to this point, have retained from this traversal of First Pianoconcertos is Szell's tremendously accomplished accompaniment with the Cleveland Orchestra (the complete opposite of Sinopoli in fact), also Karajan's fiery and opulent but oh so vivacious Berliners, Kempff's Olympian command of the score and the touching synergy between a great, old musician and a young prodigy in the Klemperer/Barenboim performance.

Beethoven PC1 continued: Barenboim/Klemperer

So since my traversal of these different versions of the First Beethoven Pianoconcerto, the music has resonated continuously in my mind (when I see people walking with headphones on the street I wonder as I am ALWAYS hearing music in my head; no need for an iPod).  Fortunately I remembered having another full set on vinyl, also from the mid-1960s: the Barenboim/Klemperer with the Philarmonia Orchestra (also from 1968). Barenboim  in his mid-twenties - similar to Eschenbach - was accompanied by the octogenarian Otto Klemperer. And what a splendid collaboration it is! The Philarmonia play divinely under the late Klemperer: measured but responsive, supremely assured and with a full-blooded, burnished tone. The young Barenboim certainly seems to have the full measure of the score. He plays with remarkable authority and poise for his age (in contrast with Eschenbach whose reading struck me as highly contrived). The recording is perfect, weighty but airy, with exemplary balance and giving a just the right sense of the Abbey Road studio acoustics (I also listened to the finale on the CD and it sounds distinctly less spacious than the LP. The piano sounds harder and more glassy too). The box includes a booklet with very informative and readable notes by William Mann and a delightful commentary by the producer Suvi Raj Grubb. Characteristically, the latter has been truncated for inclusion in the CD booklet. For example, this passage - in which SRG describes the bustle just before a recording session begins - has disappeared:

To an outside observer, chaos appears to reign supreme in the last minutes before the start of a recording session. There seems to be a great deal of casual to-ing and fro-ing by the studio staff. The electrical engineers, trailing yards of cable, change amplifiers, plug in microphones and test them, calling out from the studio 'one, two, three, four - this is the left - LEFT - hand, channel.' The second engineer, usually a junior, slaps tapes on to the machines, happily whistling the latest pop tune the while. Meanwhile, the balance engineer, the king-pin of the engineering staff, gets the feel of his microphones by waggling the controls on his panels - one moment you hear the horns in unnaturally brilliant close-up, practising scales, and the next you hear a violinist telling her neighbour: 'In our house we like it with onions'. And high above all the other sounds, of the orchestra arriving, chairs being moved and instruments being tuned, the whine of frequencies with which engineers test their equipment adds a penetrating counterpoint. Everything gradually becomes increasingly frenzied, and just as the outside observer might well begin to wonder how any organized work could possibly start a few seconds later, all activity tails off. Now the only sound coming over the microphones is that most exhilirating of all music sounds - that of an orchestra tuning up ..."

Beethoven's First Piano Concerto

Today I listened to Beethoven's First Piano Concerto in C major, op. 15. Three versions from the mid-1960s, all on vinyl: the Christoph Eschenbach/Karajan/Berliner partnership (1965), the Gilels/Szell recordings with the Cleveland Orchestra from 1968, and the Kempff/Leitner recording from 1962, also with the Berlin Philarmonic.

Beethoven's concertos are not very often on my playlist. I'm not sure why. There is no doubt these are towering masterpieces but somehow I feel this to be a different, a more lyrical Beethoven than the more vigorous and/or abstract composer of the symphonies, sonatas and quartets. 

The Eschenbach disc was a little bit of a disappointment. Despite a Keith Monks treatment the vinyl sounds worn out. I am not very familiar with the art of Christoph Eschenbach. These days he is quite prominent as a conductor (apparently he is moving on from the Philadelphia and the Orchestre de Paris to the Washington-based National Symphony Orchestra) but I have heard very little of his recordings in which he seems to focus on core repertoire (another Pathétique, another Shostakovich Fifth). Also I tend to have a suspicion about pianists-turned-conductors. I wonder whether his restrained, severe demeanour is a pose. As a pianist I only have a dim recollection of having heard some of his Mozart sonatas. Anyway, he seems to have had a particularly harrowing childhood, having lived through the atrocities of the Second World War and being robbed from speech for a year as a result. This appears to be the very first recording by Eschenbach who was 25 at the time. The cover shows a delightful picture of the young pianist and his conductor. The Berliner under Karajan are in a characteristically glorious form, sounding luxuriant and vivacious. This contrasts sharply with Eschenbach's playing which is discreet to the point of being colourless. Tempos are also taken very broadly with a particularly spacious Largo where the attention threatens to wander. The finale is not as sprightly as we might expect. The orchestra is boisterous enough but Eschenbach playing is hesitant and demure. The recorded sound of the piano - slightly hollow and glassy - is not optimal either. The partnership between Karajan and Eschenbach was, as far as I know never extended. Although the cover suggests this might be the start of the cycle, it never materialised. The recording is now out of the catalogue.There is a Gramophone review which is more positive about it than I am.

The Gilel/Szell partnership seems altogether more successful. The recording is very good with a prominent, masculine orchestra and beautifully grainy woodwinds. This Beethoven is a big-boned as you can get, marziale, clipped, and played at a more energetic tempo than the Karajan disc. Amazing how the old Szell (the music was taped two years before his death) could muster this youthfull energy! For Gilels it is not difficult to fit into this mould but his playing also shows a lyricism and vulnerability that is quite surprising. I quite liked this recording and look forward to exploring the other concertos as well. I also wish to explore a little further afield in Szell's discography of which I know very little. His biography is fascinating, stretching over seven decades and bridging two continents.

However, the recording that is likely to give me most pleasure is the classic Kempff/Leitner. This is a set that I have listened to a lot in the early days of my musical explorations. But it has been languishing in a corner of my vinyl collection ever since. The LP still needs to be cleaned so I only focused on the finale. Kempff plays wonderfully assured, witty and elegant. He also plays his own cadenzas which I quite like. Leitner accompanies with a matter of factness which is captivating. Quite a difference with the same orchestra under Karajan only three years later. The symbiosis between pianist and orchestra seems to be even more accomplished than on the Szell/Gilels recording. The sound is truly excellent with a prominent, earthy piano, a beautifully balanced orchestra and good dynamics. To be further explored when these records come back from the Keith Monks treatment.