Pletnev's Beethoven

[Renfield]

Continuing from this thread, on the subject of Richard Osborne's review of the Beethoven symphonies from the Russian National Orchestra, under Mikhail Pletnev. This is the review itself:

Surprises in store as Pletnev offers a Beethoven cycle for the modern age

   Mikhail Pletnev's desire to remake Beethoven for the modern age is understandable. You don't have to share his deep dislike of period performance – "Where are the fleas? Remember in those days they didn't wash" – to recognise that when innovation turns to orthodoxy ossification can quickly follow. Much latter-day Beethoven playing is, indeed, overdriven, metronomic, utilitarian in spirit. Sadly, you can no more "remake" a Beethoven symphony than you can remake the Mona Lisa. Playing styles and performing contexts change but, if the mathematically complex notational structures that make the symphony remain fixed, the interpretative problems tend to remain the same (albeit susceptible of different solutions) whether your name is Habeneck or Wagner, Weingartner or Wand.
"No Beethoven recording in recent years holds so many surprises in store," claims the author of the booklet essay. A first hearing does indeed bring surprises, not all of them pleasant as potentially enlivening performances are subverted by the conductor's wilful manipulation of rhythm and structure. A second hearing, needless to say, brings no such surprises.

If you listen to the set chronologically you will be rewarded with marvellous accounts of the first two symphonies. I remember a time when so-called "great" conductors were troubled by these pieces. Toscanini had their measure but there were others (Furtwängler, for example) who were all at sea. If period performance has done nothing else for Beethoven, it has solved this particular conundrum. These performances show Pletnev's Beethoven at its commanding, enlivening best. The playing of the Russian National Orchestra – a vibrant young ensemble blessed with a smattering of older, wiser heads – has relish and impulse, with secure bass-lines and transparent textures.

The first instance of Pletnev manipulating Beethoven's written text comes in the Trio of the Second Symphony, which he turns into a comic opera jape. It's rather fun. The real problems start with the exposition of the Eroica where he establishes no discernible pulse. The music is mercilessly pulled about, racing on and holding back in ways that are largely unrelated to the music's underlying harmonic structure. Since this is expository material, the distortions become ever more marked as the material is revisited during the course of Beethoven's astonishing 691-bar movement. I have distant memories of a fellow Russian, Serge Koussevitzky, doing something similar, though not to this degree.

In the Ninth Symphony, where Pletnev's astonishingly slow start gives way to an increasingly febrile continuation, there is some kind of linear development. In the first movement of the Pastoral there is not even that consolation. It is difficult to imagine this being more bizarrely conducted. The first four bars are a coquettishly phrased Andante going on Adagio, after which the music kicks like a recalcitrant mule before careering off into the distance. The "Scene by the Brook", by contrast, is settled and serene, blessed by wind and string playing of great distinction.

The rhythmic articulation at the start of the Fifth Symphony, a notorious black spot, would be well-nigh perfect were it not for the massive pauses Pletnev introduces between the fermatas. And what is to be gained from the three-second pause he inserts before the Eroica's sudden dash for the wire in its presto peroration? The set is riddled with extraneous silences, only a handful of which are audible edits, as Pletnev parcels up the music into set-piece episodes.

Though Pletnev must have seen the new Bärenreiter edition, he retains some Romantic and post-Romantic effects. I see no real problem with this. In the coda of the first movement of the Eroica he extends the trumpet line but since he keeps it in check and knows where the real climax is, no damage is done (except by the hammily contrived ritardando that accompanies the climax).

The best performances among the later symphonies are those of the Fourth and the Seventh symphonies. The Eighth, by contrast, is stodgily conducted. The Ninth, once under way, is a fairly swift affair, in the instrumental movements at least. The finale is well done, a performance of discipline and relish, carefully assembled.

The recordings, made over a period of 11 days in studio conditions in the Great Hall of the Moscow State Conservatory, are excellent. Put on the start of the finale of the Seventh, where it is notoriously difficult to balance the strings against the winds, and the result is first-rate. Which is why the set frustrates. For every movement conducted by Dr Jekyll there is another just around the corner awaiting its fate at the hands of Mr Hyde.

My comment on it was:

I found it an example of what a good review should not be, histrionic and pedantic.

Edit: And I am generally positive to Osborne's reviews, much more than I am to, say, Edward Greenfield's.

And since M wanted to look it up, and I'm keen on discussing Pletnev's Beethoven (not only the symphony cycle) in general, I thought I'd make a dedicated thread, sparing the one on Tennstedt from the derailment this discussion would have entailed.

If there was a thread on this topic in the past and I have missed it, please do not hesitate to merge the two.

[Don]

I didn't notice anything histrionic about the Osborne review, and I detest histrionic performances and writings.  Could you point out specifically where the histrionic parts are located in the review?

[M forever]

I didn't find any "histrionics" in the review either, and I am wondering where you find it "pedantic" (and why)?

[scarpia]

I also found nothing particularly objectionable in the review.  It has a point of view and justifies it with specific examples, which I found helpful.  After reading, however,  it I have no inclination to hear the performances described.

[PerfectWagnerite]

I also found nothing particularly objectionable in the review.  It has a point of view and justifies it with specific examples, which I found helpful.  After reading, however,  it I have no inclination to hear the performances described.

Me neither, especially after reading this:

The rhythmic articulation at the start of the Fifth Symphony, a notorious black spot, would be well-nigh perfect were it not for the massive pauses Pletnev introduces between the fermatas.

I HATE when a conductor does that. The fermata is on the sustained note, NOT on the rest. You can hold the DA-DA-DA-DUMMMMMMMMMM as long as you want but it's an eighth rest that follows, not a fermata rest. It is one of those gimmicks that conductors use to seem as though they have something special to say about the music but is so outrageously incorrect it almost lead you to believe he or she must have not read the score recently.

[M forever]

But it's that kind of "effect" which people who don't get the finer musical points do get and tend to find "revelatory". That's what the whole set is about, basically, musical gimmicks like that.

[scarpia]

But it's that kind of "effect" which people who don't get the finer musical points do get and tend to find "revelatory". That's what the whole set is about, basically, musical gimmicks like that.

One gimmick I liked was introduced by Benjamine Zander, who claimed that the fermatas in the first two phrases of the Allegro con Brio are not in the autograph score and were introduced by misguided editors.  He plays the opening in strict time, with no fermatas.  Probably without basis, but I thought it sounded good that way.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

I think one man's "pedantic" can be another man's "thorough". But it can take patience.

From where I sit, looks like a pretty good review.

[eyeresist]

I HATE when a conductor does that. The fermata is on the sustained note, NOT on the rest. You can hold the DA-DA-DA-DUMMMMMMMMMM as long as you want but it's an eighth rest that follows, not a fermata rest. It is one of those gimmicks that conductors use to seem as though they have something special to say about the music but is so outrageously incorrect it almost lead you to believe he or she must have not read the score recently.

"Histrionic"?

That review actually made me want to hear these performances. I like when a conductor has a point of view, even when it's not "correct", or even tasteful.

[Renfield]

I've not forgotten this thread, but I want to properly elaborate on my objections to Mr Osborne's written thoughts, so I'm withholding my response for the moment (I'm currently in the middle of something). My apologies for that.

[jwinter]

I've considered picking this up several times, but I have so many Beethoven sets at this point it would take something really special to make me add another.  The last one I bought (on a rare visit to the city, and while weighing Pletnev in the other hand for a good 5 minutes) was the recent M&A reissue of Toscanini's 1930's set, an excellent purchase.

Has anybody here actually heard the Pletnev set?

[M forever]

I have heard about half of it.

Which other cycles do you already have?

[jwinter]

I have heard about half of it.

Which other cycles do you already have?

Oh hell, somebody would ask that.    I had an early and long infatuation with Beethoven's symphonies when I first started collecting classical recordings.  I still take great pleasure in comparing how various conductors and orchestras will approach certain passages, and early on I used LvB sort of as my baseline for evaluating conductors and deciding how to go about building my collection (for example, if somebody did interesting things with the early symphonies, I might turn to them when I branched out into Haydn, Mozart, etc.).  I did the same thing (though to a lesser extent) with the piano sonatas in evaluating new pianists. 

I've scaled way back in acquiring LvB symphony sets in the past couple of years.  We had a couple of threads on the topic back on the old forum, which devolved into quite a bit of bickering over materialism, collecting vs "really" listening, etc., mostly amusing stuff.  My position in a nutshell, they are my favorite works of music, sets are hugely plentiful and cheap, and I enjoy hearing alternate takes when I listen to them, as opposed to listening to the same recording over and over again (although I do have favorites that I've heard many times).  I'm not a score reader, so hearing different interpretations is my way of getting closer to Beethoven, and finding a deeper enjoyment of his work.

Off the top of my head (my CDs are at home), I have the following sets (not counting individual recordings):

Abbado BPO (CD & live in Rome)
Barenboim
Bernstein NYPO & WP
Blomstedt
Bohm
Cluytens
Davis SD
Dohnanyi
Ferencsic
Furtwangler EMI
Gardiner
Harnoncourt
Haitink LSO
Hogwood
Jochum BRSO/BPO
Karajan x 4
Kegel
Kempe
Klemperer
Kletzki
Krips
Masur
Monteux
Rattle
Sawallisch
Scherchen
Schmidt-Isserstedt
Solti (CSO1)
Szell
Toscanini x2
Walter x2
Weingartner
Zinman

[PerfectWagnerite]

What no Wand?

[jwinter]

I have some Wand, but not the complete set.  I picked up 9 and a coupling of 3 & 8 at my local store ages ago, and haven't felt the need to order the set with so many duplications.  Definitely enjoyed what I've heard, though, particularly the 9th.

[Todd]

How are the Krips and Monteux sets?

[dirkronk]

How are the Krips and Monteux sets?

Well, isn't the Monteux the amalgam of the Decca (recorded originally for RCA) Monteux performances with LSO & VPO in 1-8...and put together with the 9th recording done for the Westminster label? That 9th I've always found interesting (not to say peculiar) to listen to because of the staging: according to the sketch in my early gatefold LP, they used a layout that split the 1st and 2nd violins, and put some of the other instruments in somewhat atypical positions. They also utilized some extreme ramping. As a result, the instruments behind the violins don't just sound like they're fanned out and farther BACK but rather farther UP. Not quite the "wall of sound" that my description implies, but it offers some odd audio moments.

Cheers,

Dirk

[jwinter]

How are the Krips and Monteux sets?

It's been a long time since I've listened to the Krips; honestly I don't
remember enough off-hand to comment intelligently on it.  I don't recall it making a strong impression on me one way or another -- I can give parts of it a fresh spin & report back if you're curious.

The Monteux is quite enjoyable.  It's a mixed set just as Dirk describes, mine  is on 2 Decca 2fers plus a Westminster 9th I dug up at BRO.  I probably enjoyed the 7th the best of the lot, a bit heavier than I usually like for this symphony, but among the best "old-fashioned" readings I've heard.  Very solid, non-ostentatious performances overall, and surprisingly light and flowing in the early symphonies, particularly the 2nd.  I don't recall much about the 9th, so I can't really comment on the soundscape as Dirk does, I'll have to give that a spin sometime soon.

See, this is why my purchasing has slowed to a trickle of late -- checking into GMG now and then prompts me to revisit lots of discs I haven't spun in a while. 

[dirkronk]

The Monteux is quite enjoyable.  <SNIP> Very solid, non-ostentatious performances overall, and surprisingly light and flowing in the early symphonies, particularly the 2nd. 

I still count Monteux's LvB symphonies 2, 4 and 7--all with the LSO--as favorite all-around stereo era performances. The ones with the VPO aren't bad, just not as well recorded and the playing doesn't seem to have the kind of liveliness and, well, oommph that the LSO delivers for "Papa."

Cheers,

Dirk

[M forever]

I really don't think you need the Pletnev cycle. You may be curious about the "surprises", but as Osborne said, "No Beethoven recording in recent years holds so many surprises in store," claims the author of the booklet essay. A first hearing does indeed bring surprises, not all of them pleasant as potentially enlivening performances are subverted by the conductor's wilful manipulation of rhythm and structure. A second hearing, needless to say, brings no such surprises.

You should have the Wand/NDR cycle though because it brings a lot of insights, but not the kind with which the conductor hits you in the face, the kind you can hear when you listen carefully, since Wand brings all the different parameters into balance more than most other conductors - which is much harder to arrive at than coming up with the kind of "surprises" offered by Pletnev.

I am not planning to buy any Beethoven cycles in the near future either since I have about as many as you do and haven't even listened to all the discs yet. There is really no point for me to get more. Although I might consider making an exception for Mackerras' Edinburgh Festival cycle which I heard in recordings made from live radio broadcasts (on Operashare) and which I found quite interesting, and here I mean, in a positive way, as opposed to Pletnev. Since the quality of the radio broadcasts isn't so great (audible compression), I wouldn't mind having these performances in decent quality.

IIRC, the last cycle I actually bought about a year or two ago was Abbado's first with the WP (DG) which I stumbled over for a very good price, so I got it. I had known individual recordings from the cycle and heard him and the WP play the 5th live in Berlin in 1987 or 88, and I always had a little weak spot for the recording of the 6th. In any case, I find his first cycle much more interesting than the two ones he did later with the BP, the studio recordings for DG and the live DVDs. They are very nice and highly cultivated but while the interpretations in the first cycle appeared to me to be an interesting result of his work in other areas of the repertoire because it contained a mix of late-romantic and modernist elements, just like the repertoire he was most active in, I found the later cycle which was the result of his complete "rethinking" of Beethoven under the impression of period performance pretty superfluous and actually a little hollow musically. If I want to listen to that, I listen to the people Abbado listened to, not him.