Sunday Classics: We're ready now to hear those "fraternal twin" symphonies, Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth

Post rehabilitated and updated, June 2018 (see below)



At top, Leonard Bernstein conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in the instantly recognizable first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (in the Vienna Konzerthaus, 1977); above, Arturo Toscanini conducts the NBC Symphony (March 22, 1952).

by Ken

The music is all set to go for this post, and I think this week I'm just not going to say very much. [Well, this was so in 2010, a little less so in 2018. -- Ed.] We've already established the chronological connection between Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies (whose slow movements we heard in, respectively, Friday night's and last night's previews), which were created in almost a single continuous burst of inspiration, and had their first performances at that amazing four-hour-plus concert on December 22, 1808, at which not just the two symphonies but the Fourth Piano Concerto and Choral Fantasy for piano and orchestra (both of which we heard quite a lot of in a post on Beethoven's piano concertos) plus three movements from the C major Mass and the concert aria "Ah, perfido" also had their premieres -- and the composer also offered a solo piano improvisation, presumably worrying that the audience might not feel it was getting its money's worth.

We've also hinted at the thematic connection between these near-twin symphonies (fraternal twins, of course), which is basically that there doesn't seem to be one. Of course Beethoven had a horror of repeating himself, but when it comes to consecutive creations there seems also to have been an utterly understandable impulse to go somewhere wildly different.

* * *

THE FIRST MOVEMENTS

So the Fifth Symphony announces immediately, in what may be the most recognizable four-note motif in music --

that it will be about generating large designs from simple cells and about high-voltage rhythm and energy. And the Sixth, the Pastoral, plunges us more gently but equally insistently into the musical day in the countryside the composer is imagining for us.

Why don't we hear those first movements?

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67:
i. Allegro con brio

Munich Philharmonic, Rudolf Kempe, cond. EMI, recorded c1973

Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Epic-CBS-Sony, recorded Nov. 26, 1955

Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), George Szell, cond. Decca, recorded November 1966

You'll immediately hear two quite different approaches to those famous opening notes: Kempe pacing them conspicuously more broadly than the rest of the movement, Szell taking something like the tempos he's going to be taking. The movement as a whole can be paced more broadly even than Kempe does in what seems to me a splendid all-purpose performance, Szell clearly represents the more streamlined, forward-moving approach. At that, though, the two Szell performances, separated by more than a decade, while objectively pretty much the same, sound kind of different, don't they? For one thing, there's a difference in recording technology, but more importantly, it seems to me, is the difference in the orchestras. Szell was complete master of the Cleveland Orchestra, and could almost surely have gotten it to sound any way he wanted -- and this leaner, less resonant sound seems to be it. However, when he recorded with the Concertgebouw Orchestra or the Vienna Philharmonic, while he didn't cultivate the full richness of sound those great orchestras were capable of producing, they didn't sound like the Cleveland Orchestra.

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 6 in F, Op. 68 (Pastoral):
i. Awakening of cheerful feeings on arrival in the country: Allegro ma non troppo

Munich Philharmonic, Rudolf Kempe, cond. EMI, recorded c1973

Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded Jan. 13-17, 1958

Again, Kempe's all-purpose performance has proved a pleasure to live with. But the 81-year-old Walter's more personally radiant Pastoral is one of my favorites of his sometimes problematic but still precious late-in-life run of stereo recordings with this modest Los Angeles version of the "Columbia Symphony Orchestra."

WHAT CAME BEFORE, AND AFTER

Just to drive home the point about how adamantly Beethoven refused to repeat himself, I thought it might be fun to hear the first movements of the symphonies that preceded and followed our pair. Note that he used slow introductions for both the Fourth and Seventh Symphonies, a device much loved by Haydn and also used effectively by Mozart, which he himself had in the First and Second Symphonies, but note too how different those slow introductions are, in terms of the kinds of expectations they play at setting up, and where they lead. For Beethoven this surely this wasn't a matter of repeating himself but of further exploring an idea he felt contained more possibilities.

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 4 in B-flat, Op. 60:
i. Adagio; Allegro vivace

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 7 in A, Op. 92:
i. Poco sostenuto; Vivace

Munich Philharmonic, Rudolf Kempe, cond. EMI, recorded c1973

* * *

THE SECOND MOVEMENTS


Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic continue with the Fifth Symphony's second movement.

We've already heard the second movements of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. In both I think we hear something like these symphonies' beating heart, or underlying soul, or some such.

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67:
ii. Andante con moto

Staatskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim, cond. Teldec, recorded May-July 1999

Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Epic-CBS-Sony, recorded Nov. 26, 1955

Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), George Szell, cond. Decca, recorded November 1966

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 6 in F, Op. 68 (Pastoral):
ii. Scene by the brook: Andante molto mosso

Staatskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim, cond. Teldec, recorded May-July 1999

Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded Jan. 13-17, 1958

I'm not going to say anything more about the Barenboim performances except that I really like the Beethoven symphony cycle he recorded with "his" orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, which they seem to have worked on unusually hard, with lovely results.

AGAIN, WHAT CAME BEFORE AND AFTER

The slow movements of the Fourth and Seventh Symphonies are indelible creations. The Allegretto -- not exactly an expected tempo marking for a "slow" movement -- of the Seventh (which we heard in a post on Beethoven and Bruckner slow movements) has of course entered the musical vernacular.

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 4 in B-flat, Op. 60:
ii. Adagio

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 7 in A, Op. 92:
ii. Allegretto

Staatskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim, cond. Teldec, recorded May-July 1999

* * *

THE REST OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH SYMPHONIES

One thing the two symphonies have in common is that everything that follows their slow movements is conceived as a single megamovement -- a scherzo and finale in the case of the Fifth, and the case of the Pastoral comprising not two but three movements, completing Beethoven's only five-movement symphony.

I don't think I need to say anything about the soaring grandeur of the remaining movements of the Fifth, and not much more about the rest of our day in the country with the Sixth. Any sense that the latter is smaller in emotional scale than its predecessor should be wiped away in the thunderstorm of the fourth movement, and perhaps even more so in the heaven-storming climaxes of thanksgiving in the finale.

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67:
iii. Scherzo: Allegro
iv. Allegro

[iv at 5:46] London Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond. Everest, recorded 1959

[iv at 4:54] Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded Mar. 1962

[iv at 4:58] Philharmonia Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, cond. EMI, recorded August 1954

The world seems to have caught up with Karajan's 1962 DG Beethoven symphony cycle, which has long seemed to me one of his great recorded achievements. It was his first big project on his return to DG, following the brief period with Decca after his stormy departure from EMI. He would go on to record two more audio cycles for DG, as well as video cycles for DG and Sony, but it seems clear to this listener that he worked really hard on the 1962 cycle, perhaps feeling both the opportunity and the responsibility of having finally won musical control of his recordings. I thought it would be interesting to juxtapose this final arch of the 1962 Beethoven Fifth with the 1954 version from his (mostly mono) Beethoven symphony cycle for EMI.

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 6 in F, Op. 68 (Pastoral):
iii Merry gathering of the peasants: Allegro
iv. Thunderstorm: Allegro
v. Shepherd's song; Happy and grateful feelings after the storm: Allegretto

[iv at 3:19, v at 7:14] Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. RCA-BMG, recorded 1961

[iv at 5:43, v at 9:18] Gewandhaus Orchestra (Leipzig), Kurt Masur, cond. Philips, recorded December 1992

[iv at 5:34, v at 9:01] Orchestre National de France, Kurt Masur, cond. Naîve, recorded live in the Théâtre des Champs-Èlysées (Paris), Nov. 7 and 14, 2002

During his time in Chicago, Reiner recorded most of the Beethoven symphonies, and no doubt would have gotten to Nos. 2, 4, and 8 if he had lived longer. His Nos. 5-7 are special old friends of mine, and I couldn't resist turning to him here, even if the French RCA CD transfer sounds a little tinny to me. The first Masur performance is from his second Beethoven symphony cycle with his longtime colleagues, Leipzig's Gewandhaus Orchestra, which really does improve on its already deeply musical predecessor. Not surprisingly, he turned to Beethoven again in his time with the Orchestre National (taking advantage too of a then-new critical edition of the symphonies), and the result is quite lovely -- the playing he draws from his French orchestra has some charming native qualities while sounding authentically "Beethovenian."

* * *

FINALLY, YOU'LL PROBABLY WANT TO HEAR
OUR SYMPHONIES ALL PUT TOGETHER

2018 UPDATE NOTE: And I thought it might be nice -- in this rehabbing of the original post -- to plunk in some actual performances! -- Ed.

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67
i. Allegro con brio
ii. Andante con moto
iii. Scherzo: Allegro
iv. Allegro


[ii at 8:17, iii.at 19:07, iv at 24:50]
Staatskapelle Berlin, Otmar Suitner, cond. Broadcast performance from the 1980s(?)

[ii.at 9:11, iii at 20:59, iv at 27:25]
Vienna Philharmonic, Otto Klemperer, cond. Live performance, May 25, 1968

[ii at 7:31, iii at 17:02, iv at 22:30]
New York Philharmonic, Guido Cantelli, cond. Live performance, recorded Jan. 6, 1952

THE GREAT CRITIC HARRIS GOLDSMITH
ON CANTELLI'S BEETHOVEN FIFTH

The performance of the [Beethoven] Fifth Symphony that Cantelli brought to his debut with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra evidently found the conductor in an experimental frame of mind. Almost needless to say, we find a plentitude of Toscanini here -- with its fiery thrusting drama and sternly-controlled (and straightforward) pacing. But there are also surprising echoes of Furtwängler's 1937 HMV recording with the Berlin Philharmonic. Note, for instand, the upward accacciaturas in the Piu mosso coda of the Andante con moto, here taken slowly and on-the-beat as with Furtwängler but in no other performance I know. And with the Philharmonic-Symphony Cantelli was evidently striving for a sonority more commonly associated with German orchestras (try the fiery C major outburts of the self-same second movement; and also the blazing massiveneness of the opening and third movements -- whose thrusting brass and tympani strokes suggest molten copper. . . .

-- from H.G.'s notes for the 12-CD
Music & Arts set The Art of Guido Cantelli

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 6 in F, Op. 68 (Pastoral)
i. Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the country: Allegro ma non troppo
ii. Scene by the brook: Andante molto mosso
iii. Merry gathering of the peasants: Allegro
iv. Thunderstorm: Allegro
v. Shepherd's song; Happy and grateful feelings after the storm: Allegretto


[ii at 12:01, iii at 24:58, iv at 27:56, v at 31:30]
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Klaus Tennstedt, cond. Live performance from the Tanglewood Festival, July 20, 1975

[ii at 9:22, iii at 20:57, iv at 26:30, v at 29:54]
Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Karel Ančerl, cond. Live performance, Jan. 19, 1972


ABOUT THE 2018 REHAB-UPDATE OF THIS POST

It was made necessary in the first place by the disappearance here -- as with most of the Sunday Classics posts of those years -- of my audio clips, presumably owing to one too many changes in the formatting of my audio host, Internet Archive. (Ditto YouTube, though the video clips, being fortuitously "found," have never mattered as much to me.) Eventually I guess I should probably replace all of those clips, but this post got my attention because the pairing of these two symphonies seems to me one of the great events, artistically and psychologically, in the history of the creative imagination.

In the process I wound up, most significantly, adding a fair number of musical samples as well as some modest performance comments and substituted the live performances of the two symphonies for studio recordings that were in the original. -- Ed.

#