Search - Beethoven, Herreweghe, Royal Flemish Philharmonic :: Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 6 [Hybrid SACD]

Herreweghe, Royal Flemish PO: Beethoven Sym 2 & 6: Vital, Tu

Dan Fee | Berkeley, CA USA | 07/09/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I already got the first volume in Herreweghe's new Beethoven symphony series. That disc holds the fourth and seventh symphonies. Super audio surround sound really brings out the heft and the warmth of the instrument registers, combined with the transparent venue. Consistent with how we now tend to hear Beethoven after period instrument trails have been blazed, the band sounds closer to being a big chamber orchestra rather than a big fat (Vienna Philharmonic model) band in the old Romantic sense. Herreweghe leads the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, a modern instrument band that plays vividly, all wide awake. After the first disc I started holding off, even though other volumes in this series were released. Now this volume gives us the second and sixth symphonies. The sixth is subtitled, Pastoral. In the four sequence numbers between two and six, Beethoven traversed an immense range of western classical music symphonic writing; actually giving birth to the Romantic Symphony as audiences later came to know it; perhaps laying a groundwork for even the modern symphony through pushing the legacy envelope and through a seemingly bottomless and varied intellectual strength? I believe that all that's missing from this cycle now is the last ninth symphony.



Eugen Jochum supposedly opined (paraphrased): The key to good Beethoven is always paying close attention to the sforzandos. So the first test my ears always set for a Beethoven reading asks, Where is the sforzando punch? Do I hear it in Herreweghe's sound in Flanders?



Yes.



Two comparisons come to mind, both from recent Beethoven discs. Sir Roger Norrington has done a full set of symphonies, leading the Stuttgart RSO. He observes many HIP touches, even though his Stuttgart radio orchestra plays on on modern instruments. Before Norrington, Harnoncourt did something similar in his much lauded symphony set with the European Chamber Orchestra. Rising star Paavo Jarvi has also been doing a notable symphony set with the German Chamber Philharmonic of Bremen in super audio surround. Norrington got regular red book PCM stereo; As it happens, Herreweghe in Flanders gets very good super audio surround.



The telling difference with Herreweghe is all about warmth, and tunefulness. His strings in particular never seem to stop phrasing, ever so warmly. Even with the sforzando punches, the singing qualities dominate without softening the rhythmic punch. I would guess that the woodwinds are phrasing as cleanly and clearly as the band does for Jarvi in Bremen. Yet the over-riding musical impression is still a warm one, still all about that tunefulness. Jarvi in Bremen leaves a dominant impression of musical point, snap, a much more aggressive Beethoven, edgier, pushing, shoving.



The second symphony is a delight in all four of its classical movements. It's Haydn-esque models are obvious; yet it all sounds like Beethoven, not Haydn or Mozart. If you like your Beethoven, all good-hearted, this Herreweghe set may well endure, deep and long and true in your Beethoven affections.



I am tempted to mention old contrasts between Toscanini - and, say, Furtwaengler? Except that the old contrasts are not quite what we hear, here. We are some way apart, from any big band reading of the revered Beethoven performance past. Suffice it to say that Bremen comes off as the athletic track and field ready band, chock full of updated Toscanini vitamins. While Flanders winds up and pitches under Herreweghe, more like a stunningly graceful ballet about baseball than a lean, mean baseball team machine.



Each valid, each worthwhile, each still Beethoven. But not performance equivalent in tone, manners, details, lingering impacts.



Come to the sixth symphony, and old comparisons again come to mind. If Herreweghe sounds like near kin to any prior reading, surely the irrefutably warm and glowing Bruno Walter readings is in the mix. We got Bruno Walter in remastered stereo SACD, before Sony felt a chill running through its classical marketing departments. I will not surrender that treasure, in super audio. Herreweghe is as relaxed and happy to be out of doors, as Bruno Walter was. Or, reaching back again, one remembers Janos Ferencsik's way with Beethoven, following Hungarian traditions. Beethoven the great rebel is subsumed by Beethoven the great humanist, an Enlightenment Era figure more than a misunderstood, Romantic antagonist. This Beethoven was surrounded by lots of people, connected: friends, patrons, students, other musicians.



The fluid gestures sound out just the right ease in this sixth symphony, just the right flow of friendly, musical geniality. The sense of open air and expansiveness feels palpable, though on retrospective analysis Herreweghe isn't all that slowed down in his mainstream tempos. Even when Beethoven happens to hammer home the harmony of the passing moment, sforzandos banging, the deeper impression remains - a harmonic countryside topography glowing, lit with some inner Beethoven light of welcome and well-being.



Bird calls sound like bird calls. Storms stir up, storms. Peasant merrymaking is way too graceful to actually be down and dirty as any Ma and Pa Kettle Scene, set far back from the modern super highways at the end of a partly weed overgrown, winding cow path of a road. Ballet, dance.



Gee, the Paavo Jarvi is winning, too, on its own different terms. I'm fighting off urges to get both cycles, yet again; just as I struggled a while back, among Muti in Philadelphia, Solti in Chicago, several von Karajan sets, Colin Davis in Dresden, and ... well I've been writing lists for quite a while, you see. Before that I juggled Klemperer, Walter, Szell, Karl Bohm, and Cluytens.



My guess is that the main complaint about these Herreweghe readings will be that they are entirely too ordinary, too easy to hear. Nobody will much be able to dispute the technical abilities of the band. Each orchestra department is solid, true, and devoted. Not a bar of sloppiness mars the playing. And the clean, clear, vital presentation recalls at least the renewed study that HIP lessons have given to Beethoven, and before him, the Baroque. Nothing is at all mannered in balance, tempo, phrasing; not mauled by attention-grabbing habits. Jaap van Zweden and Herreweghe have nurtured quite a lovely band into renewed existence, all about in Flanders.



The generosity of Herreweghe's Beethoven will probably be the catch for some listeners. Where is the eccentric hook in Herreweghe's readings? Probably no eccentric hooks at all.



Super audio surround is highly recommended. Band, and hall, highly recommended. Performance, also highly recommended, provided you want your Beethoven to be more warm or life-affirming - full of Enlightenment Era humanist devotion to open-mindedness and connection. Hard to spell out just how Herreweghe and Flanders embody enlightenment era or humanist tonal values; but succeed on that level, they undoubtedly do, and then some. If you love only Beethoven the High Romantic Rebel shaking his fist at the heavens, Herreweghe is probably not going to satisfy your need for dissenting gestures.



Five stars."