Search - Ludwig van Beethoven, Sir Simon Rattle, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra :: Beethoven: Symphonies #2 & 5; Sir Simon Rattle/Vienna Philharmonic

Rattle in the first stages of conducting Beethoven

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 02/07/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Simon Rattle spent twenty years assiduously avoiding Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms (he liked Haydn and sniffed around a couple of Bruckner symphonies). It's amazing that he was rewarded for this neglect by rising to the leadership of the Berlin Phil., whose mastery of these composers is indisputable. When an orchestra is better at Beethoven than its conductor, he has some catching up to do.



Rattle got two trial runs at the Beethoven Fifth, in 2000 and 2002, both live concerts with the Vienna Phil. (his Berlin orchestra was recording all the symphonies with Abbado at the time). They are identical performances so far as timing and phrasing go, but the earlier release, also on EMI, has better sonics and nice touches like the prominent piccolo piping away in the finale--here the piccolo part gets buried under strings and brass.



Rattle is in a learning phase, but he clearly prefers the Beethoven style of the historical period a la John Eliot Gardiner. He is a much more talented musician than Gardiner, who hid his arid view of Beethoven behind the shock of ultra-fast tempos, spare textures, and a total absence of romantic style. He stole Rattle's thunder, but the latter heeds to the faith anyway. This is propulsive, lean Beethoven. The Andante con moto is decidedly an allegro here; the dramatically distinct sections of the first movement all run together in a single-minded momentum. Yet the scherzo and finale sound exactly the same as under Karajan or Kleiber from the past.



At this point Rattle lacks personality as a Beethoven interpreter, and it might even be said that he is hiding behind the new performance style, which all but deamnds no perosnaliyt. If you prefer the new style, however, there is no doubting the high level of execution here."