Music Review: Stellar Beethoven from John Eliot Gardiner
Beethoven Symphonies Four and Five
The Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
John Eliot Gardiner, conductor
Carnegie Hall, NYC
February 21, 2020
English conductor John Eliot Gardiner (b. 1943) made his name in the 1980s with Handel and JS Bach performances conduced on period instruments. He founded the Monteverdi Orchestra (later becoming the English Baroque Soloists) in 1977, following the first wave of period instruments recordings by people like Gustav Harnoncourt. A great series of Bach and Handel performances followed. In 1990 he formed the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (ORR), seeking to bring period performance to later repertory like Beethoven and Berlioz. Like many of these pioneers of period performance, Gardiner’s early efforts were sometimes uneven technically, and marked less by interpretive revelations than by rapid tempos and fascinating new sounds and timbres from the reconstructed “original” instruments like wooden flutes, valveless oboes, trumpets, and horns, and strings playing on gut strings with light, curved bows. As the years have gone on, the style and scholarship that informed these performances have seeped into the work of most modern orchestras, even though they play on modern instruments. Tempi have quickened, articulations are more crisp, and Bach rarely sounds like Bruckner these days, as it often did in the 1950s performances of the Saint Matthew Passion that glacially progressed on for 4-5 hours (!). (Not even the most devout German Lutherans would sit in church for that long).
This was my first chance to hear the ORR, resident at Carnegie Hall recently to perform the complete Beethoven symphonies. Based on my experience with the Fourth and Fifth, I am sorry I did not hear all the others. Yes, the unusual sounds of instruments of Beethoven’s time was fascinating. The woodwinds have a rough, antique quality, yet more individuality than modern instruments do. The string sections were clear, with unique voices from celli, violas, and violins, rather like a good string quartet where individuality merges with ensemble. The timpani had an astonishing ability to penetrate the orchestral sound excitingly even when played softly, as in the transition from the third to fourth movements in the Fifth Symphony; this effect was enhanced having the timpani near the front of the orchestra, rather than behind it is as uniformly done in modern performances. The instrumental timbers (and Gardiner’s excellent ability to balance the parts) meant that Beethoven’s counterpoint and inner voices were more evident here than in modern orchestra performances.
In a way, I expected all of the above. What I did not expect was the sheer thrill of these performances. The Fourth Symphony is often in the shadow of the following one, but here, seemed much more similar to it than different. The drama of the opening slow introduction (borrowed by Mahler to open his First Symphony) evoked the later Fifth. The following fast music was more strongly accented than usual--this was not pleasant classical-period music, but Beethoven with edge and drama. With less volume than modern instruments, the ORR still seemed more dramatic, more punctuated. Crescendos and diminuendos were bigger, climaxes more vivid, the 2 vs 3 rhythmic contrasts in the third movement scherzo more animated, the breakneck tempo of the finale breathless and exciting. This was not just a warm-up for the Fifth. Hear the ORR play it here.
The overly-famous Fifth Symphony was thrilling, but not in the usual “feel the inner turmoil of poor deaf Beethoven” way. That interpretation was a construction of later romantic writers and performers. In 1807-8, when both of these symphonies premiered, Napoleon had just defeated much of royal Europe. Beethoven had been excited about the freedoms of the French revolution now extending to the rest of Europe, but was just becoming disillusioned with Emperor Napoleon (just coronated in 1804) as these symphonies were being created. What you hear in them is tumult, revolution, overthrow. The Fifth, under Gardiner’s hands, seemed less about psychic angst than glorious pandemonium, as if we were in a Paris square with a mob screaming for the guillotine blade to drop. The performance was even more theatrically present than usual, as Gardiner had the strings stand, rather than sit. The famous da-da-da-DAH theme which permeates the symphony seemed menacing and manically threatening. Listen to the ORR’s opening , with the swells of the violins at the end of the first phrase before the pause, then echoed in the brass. The third movement, done with all repeats, felt like the core of the symphony—a mob procession to a riot. I did not want this movement to end. Listen to the transition to the scherzo’s trio---it’s violent and exciting with rapid tempi in the trio pushing the performers to their limits. And, for once, the endless tonic-dominant chords that end the symphony did not seem like empty triumph, but rather an army marching into a medieval castle and liberating the populace. Gardiner’s performance put me not just into Beethoven’s sound world, but into his entire revolutionary era. The Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique is well named, and I was thrilled to hear this performance.
The Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
John Eliot Gardiner, conductor
Carnegie Hall, NYC
February 21, 2020
This was my first chance to hear the ORR, resident at Carnegie Hall recently to perform the complete Beethoven symphonies. Based on my experience with the Fourth and Fifth, I am sorry I did not hear all the others. Yes, the unusual sounds of instruments of Beethoven’s time was fascinating. The woodwinds have a rough, antique quality, yet more individuality than modern instruments do. The string sections were clear, with unique voices from celli, violas, and violins, rather like a good string quartet where individuality merges with ensemble. The timpani had an astonishing ability to penetrate the orchestral sound excitingly even when played softly, as in the transition from the third to fourth movements in the Fifth Symphony; this effect was enhanced having the timpani near the front of the orchestra, rather than behind it is as uniformly done in modern performances. The instrumental timbers (and Gardiner’s excellent ability to balance the parts) meant that Beethoven’s counterpoint and inner voices were more evident here than in modern orchestra performances.
In a way, I expected all of the above. What I did not expect was the sheer thrill of these performances. The Fourth Symphony is often in the shadow of the following one, but here, seemed much more similar to it than different. The drama of the opening slow introduction (borrowed by Mahler to open his First Symphony) evoked the later Fifth. The following fast music was more strongly accented than usual--this was not pleasant classical-period music, but Beethoven with edge and drama. With less volume than modern instruments, the ORR still seemed more dramatic, more punctuated. Crescendos and diminuendos were bigger, climaxes more vivid, the 2 vs 3 rhythmic contrasts in the third movement scherzo more animated, the breakneck tempo of the finale breathless and exciting. This was not just a warm-up for the Fifth. Hear the ORR play it here.
The overly-famous Fifth Symphony was thrilling, but not in the usual “feel the inner turmoil of poor deaf Beethoven” way. That interpretation was a construction of later romantic writers and performers. In 1807-8, when both of these symphonies premiered, Napoleon had just defeated much of royal Europe. Beethoven had been excited about the freedoms of the French revolution now extending to the rest of Europe, but was just becoming disillusioned with Emperor Napoleon (just coronated in 1804) as these symphonies were being created. What you hear in them is tumult, revolution, overthrow. The Fifth, under Gardiner’s hands, seemed less about psychic angst than glorious pandemonium, as if we were in a Paris square with a mob screaming for the guillotine blade to drop. The performance was even more theatrically present than usual, as Gardiner had the strings stand, rather than sit. The famous da-da-da-DAH theme which permeates the symphony seemed menacing and manically threatening. Listen to the ORR’s opening , with the swells of the violins at the end of the first phrase before the pause, then echoed in the brass. The third movement, done with all repeats, felt like the core of the symphony—a mob procession to a riot. I did not want this movement to end. Listen to the transition to the scherzo’s trio---it’s violent and exciting with rapid tempi in the trio pushing the performers to their limits. And, for once, the endless tonic-dominant chords that end the symphony did not seem like empty triumph, but rather an army marching into a medieval castle and liberating the populace. Gardiner’s performance put me not just into Beethoven’s sound world, but into his entire revolutionary era. The Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique is well named, and I was thrilled to hear this performance.
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