Sunday Classics preview: In which we dip into one of the most famous works ever written -- but not THAT movement

Glenn Gould plays Liszt's piano transcription of the slow movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. (The movement concludes here.)

by Ken

In Beethoven's time, and Liszt's too, of course, concert opportunities to hear orchestral works were far more limited than they are now, and radio broadcasts and recordings still undreamt of. And so as a way of enabling the music to circulate, and of allowing music lovers to enjoy them in their own homes, and of providing publishers an opportunity to make some money, piano transcriptions were abundant -- sometimes done by the composers themselves, more often done by competent musical journeymen, and in rare cases done by musicians of the order of a Franz Liszt. The thing to remember about Liszt's transcriptions of the nine Beethoven symphonies is that they were undertaken as a labor of love, with no thought of any creative contribution by the distinguished transcriber.

Tonight, by way of a preview of our preview, we hear first the Liszt rendering of this beautifully flowing theme-and-variations slow movementof one of the most famous of all musical compositions, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, in two very different renditions -- I suspect that Glenn Gould, who wasn't a great Beethoven enthisiast, and especially disliked what he thought of as as the composer's efforts at profundity, by stretching the thing out to near-preposterous lengths is having some sport with the music.

Then we hear two distinctly different performances -- though in neither case an extreme one -- of the movement itself: the somewhat leaner, more driving one from Herbert von Karajan's 1962 DG Beethoven symphony cycle, a project on which I suspect Karajan worked as hard as anything he ever did; and the somewhat more leisurely and lyrical, rather grander live performance by Otto Klemperer.

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

Arranged for piano solo by Franz Liszt --

Cyprien Katsaris, piano. Teldec, recorded 1980s

And in its original form --

Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded March 1962

Vienna Philharmonic, Otto Klemperer, cond. DG, recorded live, May 25, 1968


IN TOMORROW NIGHT'S PREVIEW --

We'll hear again the Liszt transcription and two distinctly different "real" performances of a companion piece to tonight's. AND IN SUNDAY'S MAIN POST -- We'll take a closer listen to those "fraternal twins," the Beethoven Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, we'll try to establish a bit of context for them in Beethoven's symphonic output, and finally we'll hear them both complete.

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