Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

[kishnevi]

I have the 1977 "Beethoven Edition" of the previous 1972 boxed-set of this 1970-recorded version of the 9th with Boem/Vienna Philharmonic.
The DG labels have no timings listed, neither does the mini-sheets inside the box - the 1972 version had a different booklet, but no timings either.
But according to Discogs for the French edition:

Symphony No. 9 In D Minor, Op. 125
O    Allegro Ma Non Troppo, Un Poco Maestosos                           16:40
P1    Molto Vivace                                                                 12:10
P2    Adagio Molto E Cantabile                                                16:30
Q    Presto (Mit Schlusschor Aus Schillers Ode "An Die Freude")   27:04
                   Lyrics By – Schiller*

I'm sure these timings are accurate.

My issue divides the last movement in two, track five starting with the bass recitative (O Fruende nicht diese Tone)

Timings as given in the track listing differ slightly, but not significantly

16'46
12'08
16'38
6'43
20'26. (=27'09 for the full movement)

Total time is given as 72'41.

[jlaurson]

Current #morninglistening...


L.v. Beethoven, Symphony No.2
Vienna Symphony Orchestra / H.d.Roos
Gramola
German link - UK link
1. 16:20 | Adagio molto - Allegro con brio:
2. 15:18 | Larghetto
3. 05:33 | Scherzo (Allegro)
4. 09:12 | Allegro molto

The tempos and timing of this release are what makes it special. In a way it's the sound to go along with his book on Beethoven... which is wacky and wildly entertaining and incredible at times... and all kinds of other things.


Successful recent Ninths are Vanska and Dausgaard, I'd say. Not counting the 1990s Salzburg Abbado as "recent" seems only fair. :-)
But I don't listen that intently to the Ninth anymore (on record) as I did, back when the classics jumped out at me... so that may have something to do with it.
Agree that the Jaervi Ninth is better on paper than in sound, but it's still pretty good.

[Jo498]

Is this again some kind of "half tempo" idea? The only normal sounding bit is the slow intro of the first movement (unfortunately the fast section is not previewed)

[Brian]

Is this again some kind of "half tempo" idea? The only normal sounding bit is the slow intro of the first movement (unfortunately the fast section is not previewed)

There is a thread about it.

[jlaurson]

Is this again some kind of "half tempo" idea? The only normal sounding bit is the slow intro of the first movement (unfortunately the fast section is not previewed)

Well, it's more than that... it's a general idea that for the 20+ works (The SQ4ts and the Symphonies that had been written by then, and the Septet) for which LvB left metronome markings, he deliberately f-ed them up... not randomly but with a system. He despised and sued the guy who invented/plagiarized the metronome, Johann Nepomuk Mälzel (who had hitherto cheated him out of a considerable amount of money when presenting Beethoven's then most popular symphony, Wellington's Victory, as his own in London). He was strongly encouraged to help Mälzel's metronome, which had become a political matter (Austrian innovation over Italian nomenclature), and ceded to the request... but wanted to ridicule Mälzel's invention -- thinking that no right-minded person would find those markings convincing at all.

Now, from today's perspective he was a.) wrong and b.) the claim's absurd. The truth is: Until 20 years ago, the metronome markings of Beethoven were widely ignored and even ridiculed. Even Simon Rattle performed the Fifth (perhaps in a stunt or earnestly) in the "prescribed tempo" to show how it was absurd. (Only to find: "That sounded pretty good, actually... didn't it?")

Our way of hearing music has changed and tended to an ever-faster way of playing these works... and eventually the metronome markings that are fast (the slow ones are still largely ignored) were caught up with.

The book is full of rather wild claims and there are parts that make me roll my eyes... some are inconveniently... well... plausible. And the rest is just fascinating story-telling the kind of which you don't find in books about composers, usually. Political and social circumstance and connections of the time all considered and laid out in a riveting manner. Exactly what makes his Mozart book the best Mozart book I've read... certainly/at least as sheer reading-pleasure is concerned.

Then there are particular claims pertaining to the Second Symphony and Don Giovanni / Magic Flute alliterations that also played into it... and the short of it is that if one deciphers the 'code' (the tempos are basically transposed up or down by a certain relation...) and hears the tempos as they would have been likely (esp. strong on interrelations of tempi within a work), and tries to not listen with ears used to 70 years of playing it randomly ignoring the markings and 20 years of observing them, then something comes out that reveals a beauty all of its own. Yadda yadda.

There are other takes, including this from the American Mathematical Society, that comes to similar but less musically-explained suggestions: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/was-beethovens-metronome-wrong-9140958/?no-ist

[Jo498]

Kolisch's article on "Tempo and Character in Beethoven's music" (arguing for taking the fast metronome markings seriously) is from the 1940s. That's about 70 years ago. Almost all the markings by Czerny from the 1830s-40s for pieces by Beethoven square well with Beethoven's own metronome marks.

There are interpretations by Coates, Toscanini, Scherchen, Leibowitz etc. from the 30s-60s close to most of the metronome markings of the symphonies.

E.g. in the 5th symphony the prescribed tempi for the last two movements are often followed; the last movement is actually one of the few that is sometimes played faster than Beethoven indicates! The ones for the first two are very fast but also possible and faster interpretations are about 10% slower or so which is close enough, I think. It's certainly possible that an almost deaf composer made a few mistakes and heard something a little too fast in his head. But some markings (e.g. 60 for a bar in the Eroica first movement) could already back then be easily checked without a metronome. And again, almost all scherzi and a few other movements are "traditionally" played as fast as Beethoven prescribed or even faster (e.g. the finale of the 7th is often cranked up to about 80 or faster for the bar instead of Beethoven's 72).

What's more: proportional tempi or something like that seems precisely what Beethoven wanted to get rid of and therefore he was happy about the metronome (his quarrel with Maelzel had nothing to do with the metronome but with rights on Wellington's victory). He explicitly wrote that "tempi ordinari" were a thing of the past.

[Brian]

This reminds me of my previous posts about conductor Sir George Smart:

I've recently unearthed, at the British Library, a trove of concert programs kept by the English conductor Sir George Smart, active in the 1810s-30s, who was a major Beethoven advocate, leading the English premiere of Beethoven's Ninth and at one point traveling to Vienna to ask the composer about the proper tempos for all the symphonies. Beethoven composed a short unpublished canon in his presence (16th September 1825). For concerts he conducted, Smart not only kept the programs, but made little notations of some of the timings of the works which most interested him, as well as how long the interval was and when everybody got to go home.

These two struck me as interesting:

5th of May, 1823. Sinfonia Pastorale – Beethoven. [Handwritten note:] "32 M. No repeats."
March 23, 1829: Sinfonia Pastorale – Beethoven. [Handwritten note:] "All through but no repeats 32 ½ minutes."

Karajan '62 (no repeats) is 36 minutes. Norrington LCP (w/ repeats) is 40, Bruggen (also with repeats) 42, and the ultimate romantic, Barenboim, takes 45.

On March 1, 1830, the Sinfonia in C minor was 26 minutes, though in 1827 it had been 31 (no mention of repeats). In March 1833, "Sinfonia No. VII." was "40 m." including "Slow movement Enc'd:" and a marginal note informs us that the encore was partly because the symphony was to be followed by an aria from Cosi, but the soprano arrived very late indeed, "just after we began the Encore of the...Beethoven" . Apparently the reason for her delay was that she was also performing in another concert at another theatre that night!

It's very interesting seeing how programs were constructed. One night in 1825 began with Beethoven's 4th ("in Bb 31 minutes"), which was immediately followed by "La ci darem"! And here's the second half of the March 7, 1825 Philharmonic Society concert:

Sinfonia in C minor - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Beethoven
Aria, "Il mio tesoro," (Il Don Giovanni) - - - - - - - Mozart
Introduction and variations, Corno obligato - - - Schuncke
Scena, "Softly sighs" (Der Freischutz*) - - - - - - Weber
Overture, Preciosa - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Weber
[*sung in English. All German arias were translated; there are numerous arias sung from a Mozart work called "Il Flauto Magico" , and also see below]

Another concert begins with "Eroica" and continues with Cherubini's Ave Maria and a "Fantasia Harp"!

Oddly, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says "Smart conducted the first English performance of Beethoven's ninth symphony at the Philharmonic Society in 1826," an error, as it was actually in March 21, 1825. Smart's handwritten note says, "New Grand Characteristic Sinfonia (M.S.) with Vocal Finale - Beethoven. Composed expressly for this Society _ (Italian Words [!]) Formed 2d Act of the Concert." The performance "Began 22m past 10" and the concert "over 26m past 11" - Smart's note says "1 H 04 M." In my view, this puts the "Beethoven's Ninth is supposed to only be 45 minutes long" theory to bed, for although it is true that Smart only met Beethoven to consult on tempos later that year, I'm not sure you can get down to 45 minutes by faster speeds alone, especially given that Smart himself was quite a snappy conductor, by the looks of it.

[Jo498]

Thanks for the quotation. I vaguely remember that I saw this before and they were sometimes deemed faulty because of the ominous 45 min. for the 9th. I recall that there are other sources speaking of more than or "about and hour" for the 9th.
(Even an extremely fast 9th, skipping the scherzo repeats would be something like 13 - 9 - 10 -  22, so closer to 55 than 45 (I think Zinman gets in at 59 min with some repeats in the scherzo)

Still 32 min for the 6th is very fast. Scherchen is among the fastest and takes 34:22, but he observes a repeat in the 4th movement I think (although he skips another one and the one in the first mvmt) and one could maybe save another minute each in the 2nd and 5th (where he is not so extremely fast).

26 min for a repeat-free 5th is also (barely) possible. ca. 5-5:30 for the first (Norrington: 6:28 with repeat) 8:30-9 for the Andante (Norrington 8:43) and about 12-13 for repeat free 3+4 (finale is about 8-8:30 w/o repeat, the 3rd about 5-5:30 min with some repeats)

One does not have to be pedantic about this markings to take them seriously; apart from Beethoven's deafness there are also indications that tempi might have been more flexible (as well as for the opposite) but for me the most convincing thing is that the markings given by Czerny, Hummel, Moscheles in the 1830s-40s for works by Beethoven (as well as Haydn and Mozart) are almost throughout in line with fast tempi (including rather flowing slow movements). And none of them was deaf and they were renowned pianists and teachers who might have suggested challenging but not completely outlandish tempi. (For slow solo piano movements there is also the argument with the quick decay of notes on 1800s-1820s fortepianos)

(There are a few mistakes, e.g. in the 9th the alla marcia is marked at half speed erroneously and there is very probably also a mistake for the trio of the second movement.)

[amw]

Successful recent Ninths are Vanska and Dausgaard, I'd say.

Tried them both! I think we must have very different interests where it comes to singers, as the wide and constant vibrato of the soloists was enough for me to discount them despite their other merits.

Agree that the Jaervi Ninth is better on paper than in sound, but it's still pretty good.

I've sampled it more extensively along with other recordings in the cycle. Tempi are on the slow side, and I don't really know why that tenor is yelling at me, I have never knowingly wronged him. But Goerne is actually in fairly good shape (though not amazing) and the ladies are fine. So this is basically a good 9th. (haven't checked out the other movements, lol, but no modern recording is less than good in those three, it's the finale that makes or breaks it generally) The other modern 9th I'm curious about (but wary) is Mackerras.

Actually most of the Järvi cycle excerpts I listened to are pretty much exactly how I like Beethoven to be played. The only real objections I've come across so far are that tenor and a passage in the first movement of the Eroica (about 30 seconds in) where he seriously underplays/shortens the sforzandi. Nothing to do with the speed—compare the best Eroica (Scherchen), which is faster, and gives them full weight. Or the other best (Gardiner), which is about the same, and shortens them without underplaying them. Järvi maybe listening to Norrington a bit much ;P But this has rapidly become a cycle I'm seriously considering buying, seeing as I don't have a complete one on modern instruments, haha. (And it complements Gardiner—absolutely score-focused, sublimated—and Norrington—absolutely interpreted, wilful—by being somewhere in between.) I'll have to listen in full to a few key movements before deciding though.

[jlaurson]

Kolisch's article on "Tempo and Character in Beethoven's music" (arguing for taking the fast metronome markings seriously) is from the 1940s. That's about 70 years ago. ---

I'm not arguing this didn't happen. I'm arguing that this was widely ignored until much later.

ronome markings seriously) is from the 1940s. That's about 70 years ago. ---

What's more: proportional tempi or something like that seems precisely what Beethoven wanted to get rid of ...He explicitly wrote that "tempi ordinari" were a thing of the past.

There is only one quote in Beethoven that I know of that reads like that... and that part sounds like scathing sarcasm, of which Beethoven seems to have been fond.

Much like he was more likely being sarcastic than straight when he wrote that he agreed to put an end to the barbarism of using Italian denominations for tempos and that he'd stop from now one ever to use them again. (In a 1817 letter to Hofrat von Mosel.) Of course Beethoven continued to use Italian tempo markings for the rest of his life; his one move toward German (which was what the Maelzel-supporting, government sponsored movement was largely about) was op.101... which had been years before and a one-off. Mosel was a musical mediocrity who was somehow placed in charge of musical matters in the Habsburg Reich and wanted to jam the metronome down everyone's throat and of course he needed Beethoven to sign off on it, as the world's leading composer. Schuller is an amazing composer and writer... but how he didn't sense at least the possibility if not total obviousness of the dripping sarcasm, I can't explain.

Mosel had written an article earlier in 1817 that plausibly reads like a side-swipe at Beethoven, namely that [I'm paraphrasing] "...it happens even to the greatest Composers that, while they compose -- a process during which they may be distracted -- they do not quite remember the tempo which they had initially thought of for their work... and then add middle movements which, in the tempo chosen for their main theme, now don't create the desired effect.

Now if only the composer were to let the metronome run during his act of composition, he would hear the beats without looking up from his paper and the tempo would remain with him throughout and he would be safe from the danger to have to rework -- or even put aside -- an otherwise successful composition because he forgot the original tempo."

If that's not a farce... Mosel more or less publicly suggesting that Beethoven would succeed more likely if he only had a metronome which he could have tick away while he was composing, then I don't know what is.

[Cato]

My 9th:



You feeling me, Gurn?

Well, this is one of my all-around faves!  The entire cycle is excellent.

There are so many great choices, and YouTube offers some classics, e.g.:

https://www.youtube.com/v/qkXqefWFzpY

[kishnevi]

I'm not arguing this didn't happen. I'm arguing that this was widely ignored until much later.

There is only one quote in Beethoven that I know of that reads like that... and that part sounds like scathing sarcasm, of which Beethoven seems to have been fond.

Much like he was more likely being sarcastic than straight when he wrote that he agreed to put an end to the barbarism of using Italian denominations for tempos and that he'd stop from now one ever to use them again. (In a 1817 letter to Hofrat von Mosel.) Of course Beethoven continued to use Italian tempo markings for the rest of his life; his one move toward German (which was what the Maelzel-supporting, government sponsored movement was largely about) was op.101... which had been years before and a one-off. Mosel was a musical mediocrity who was somehow placed in charge of musical matters in the Habsburg Reich and wanted to jam the metronome down everyone's throat and of course he needed Beethoven to sign off on it, as the world's leading composer. Schuller is an amazing composer and writer... but how he didn't sense at least the possibility if not total obviousness of the dripping sarcasm, I can't explain.

Mosel had written an article earlier in 1817 that plausibly reads like a side-swipe at Beethoven, namely that [I'm paraphrasing] "...it happens even to the greatest Composers that, while they compose -- a process during which they may be distracted -- they do not quite remember the tempo which they had initially thought of for their work... and then add middle movements which, in the tempo chosen for their main theme, now don't create the desired effect.


Now if only the composer were to let the metronome run during his act of composition, he would hear the beats without looking up from his paper and the tempo would remain with him throughout and he would be safe from the danger to have to rework -- or even put aside -- an otherwise successful composition because he forgot the original tempo."

If that's not a farce... Mosel more or less publicly suggesting that Beethoven would succeed more likely if he only had a metronome which he could have tick away while he was composing, then I don't know what is.

Would Beethoven have been able to hear the metronome?  That swipe may have some extra sting in there.

Granted he could have looked up and judged the metronome speed visually,  but if Beethoven couldn't hear the thing,  how reliable would his own suggested metronome speeds be?

Some of the late quartets at least have German instructions--not actually tempo markings, more dynamic and emotional markers ("Heileger Dankgesang...", etc.)

[kishnevi]

Paavo Jarvi is my second favorite newish cycle, behind Chailly.  I favor Chailly because he seems to dig deeper in the darker emotional side of the symphonies.  But AMW gives the reasons why I like Jarvi.


If you want Dohnanyi's cycle, it is probably easiest to get in as this cheapie series of double CDs

The rest are available in the same format (search Amazon for "Everybody's Beethoven" and they should all come up)
I have some in that format and some as individual CDs.

[Jo498]

Beethoven was not completely deaf before 1818 or so (and maybe not even then). And even later he followed music somehow visually. E.g. he attended rehearsals of some of the late quartets with the Schuppanzigh ensemble and discussed stuff with them or even made tempo or articulation changes (I have read one such report about op.127, don't remember exactly what was the issue there. There are no metronome numbers by Beethoven for the late quartets, unfortunately because especially the variation movements in op.127 and 131 with rather diverse variations and tempi varying from Adagio to allegretto within one movement are difficult in this respect)

As for the German tempo or expression remarks while only op.90 and 101 have them complete in German there are a few also in other pieces (e.g. "mit Andacht" at several places in the Missa solemnis).
But I don't think that with "tempi ordinari" he meant the problematic italian tempo words although he refrained using "scherzo" for some serious scherzo-type movements (e.g. 5th symphony) and added "ma serioso" for the "scherzo" in op.95. Rather, I think that he meant that he was not content with a few standard tempi and proportional relations, e.g. Allegro twice as fast as Andante or so.

[Bogey]

Paavo Jarvi is my second favorite newish cycle, behind Chailly.  I favor Chailly because he seems to dig deeper in the darker emotional side of the symphonies.  But AMW gives the reasons why I like Jarvi.


If you want Dohnanyi's cycle, it is probably easiest to get in as this cheapie series of double CDs

The rest are available in the same format (search Amazon for "Everybody's Beethoven" and they should all come up)
I have some in that format and some as individual CDs.

Good info, as I am putting the cycle together. 

[amw]

Update: Also considering Chailly (1-8, since they're available as separate releases) and Leibowitz (that baritone is extremely wobbly.... but love the RPO oboes). And maybe re-acquiring at least some of Dohnányi, which has definitely gone missing. Still like Järvi's 9th, and like the rest of his cycle a fair amount, but idk—it doesn't always raise hairs. I don't like these symphonies enough to do lots of spot comparisons.

I should also eventually see if I've warmed up to Immerseel. I remember finding his set surprisingly unmoving a while back.

[Mandryka]

This is an orchestration of op 111/ii apparently made by Beethoven

http://unheardbeethoven.org/mp3s/Beeth_op111_II_orch.mp3

The same website has his orchestrations of op 109-111. I think it's interesting, revealing in fact. It's like there's suddenly a connection between op 111/ii and the Pastoral Symphony which to me was a real surprise.

[28Orot]

"I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven"

          ~ Richard Wagner

"There was only Beethoven and Wagner [and] after them, nobody."

          ~ Gustav Mahler

Wagner's statement is the epitome of lunacy, and Mahler's statement is simply untrue. Who in the world was Mahler? what did he already compose? Long extended rubbery interludes full of strident outbursts. I can think of a 100 composers that came after Wagner who were better then him, and I can think of a handful of composers who were greater then Beethoven. So Mahler's comments are simply wrong.

As for Wagner. If the value and meaning of God is so insignificant and low that he would dare to equate Him to mortal human beings, then we simply doesn't have the same definition of what God is. I think Wagner has no clue as to what God is.

As for Wagner's music: Pompous nationalistic strident whips that lash out at the listener, void of inspiration and grace.

As for Beethoven, yes he was a great composer, but Greatest he wasn't. Once, I used to believe that Mendelssohn was the Greatest composer of all time. Now, I know he wasn't, I just liked his music, that's all. There is no 'greatest' in music. This is not some chess competition where one is 'better' then the other one by beating him. Music is an expression of life, and to suggest that this expression and gift belonged only to a select few, is rather a shallow and elitist characterization of a beloved form of art.

[Scion7]

Hmmm.  ^ You're quite mad, you know.

[28Orot]

Hmmm.  ^ You're quite mad, you know.

The comments of those two unlikely friends are mad, in my opinion.
Wagner and Mahler, who would have thought?