"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Sunday Classics: What comes after Mozart's and Beethoven's minor-key symphonic opening movements?
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What comes after the monumental, mysterious opening movement of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony, which we heard last week? At the link, Christian Thielemann conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in what seems to me a grindingly prosaic rendering of the thunderingly dramatic scherzo.
by Ken
I realize I should have been saying more about this amazing music we've been hearing, dipping into the two symphonies apiece for which Mozart and Beethoven composed opening movements in the minor mode. But really, when it comes to an incandescent movement like the opening one of Mozart's great later G minor symphony, No. 40, could I really have said anything more helpful than, say, "Wouldja listen to that?" And ditto when it comes to the opening movements of Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies. I mean, we're talking here about two of the monuments of human civilization, and I thought talking should take distant second place to listening.
My point was, if we accept that writing a minor-mode symphonic first movement is an uncommon and nervy thing to do, and is likely to happen only if a composer has been seized by some gripping musical material that requires it, where does he want to take his audience next?
Sunday Classics: The symphonic Mozart and Beethoven open in minor mode
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They look so simple, these eight notes, but they form one of the most striking and readily identifiable motifs in all of music -- the opening of one of Beethoven's two minor-key symphonic first movements.
by Ken
In Friday night's preview we listened to all of the first movements among Mozart's 40 or so symphonies which are in minor keys. That's right, both of them, which happen to be in the same key, G minor.
Partly this was out of abiding affection for the masterpiece among them, the great Symphony No. 40, and partly it was as a springboard to listening to the two first movements among Beethoven's nine symphonies which are in minor keys, Nos. 5 (C minor) and 9 (D minor). It seems clear to me that these movements have something in common, something that sets them apart from all their major-key brethren -- and something that even sort of applies to the littler Mozart G minor Symphony, No. 25.
Let's listen again to the Mozart G minor opening movements.
MOZART: Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183: i. Allegro con brio
Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia, recorded Dec. 10, 1954 (mono)
Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Josef Krips, cond. Philips, recorded June 1973
MOZART: Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550: i. Molto allegro
Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded 1959
Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Josef Krips, cond. Philips, recorded June 1972
I DON'T WANT TO MAKE THIS SOUND MORE
MYSTERIOUS THAN IT ACTUALLY IS
Sunday Classics preview: The symphonic Mozart dips into the minor
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Leonard Bernstein prepares listeners for listening afresh to Mozart's Symphony No. 40. (Warning: It's pretty technical.)
by Ken
I had a couple of possible post ideas that started to overlap and scrunch into each other. I had in mind a post where we would listen to the iconic first movements of Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, and I was thinking separately about my curious ambivalence about Mozart's symphonies with the notable exception of the G minor, No. 40. And it was hard to escape one thing these three landmark symphonies have in common.
For tonight I thought we'd start by listening to the first movements of the Mozart's Symphony No. 40 and also No. 25, which happens to be in the same key (G minor). Of Mozart's 40-ish symphonies, these are the only ones that have minor-key first movements.
MOZART: Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183: i. Allegro con brio
Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia, recorded Dec. 10, 1954 (mono)
Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Josef Krips, cond. Philips, recorded June 1973
MOZART: Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550: i. Molto allegro
Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded 1959
Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Josef Krips, cond. Philips, recorded June 1972
Sunday Classics preview: Three "K"s -- remembering three conductors who were great artists
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The gossamer "Ballet of the Sylphs" from Berlioz's Damnation de Faust is played by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Rafael Kubelik in this 1950 EMI recording, from a four-CD Kubelik "Portrait," one of the treasures that came out of my nearly 17-pound Berkshire Record Outlet carton this week.
by Ken
I'd been good for so long. Oh sure, I usually scanned the new classical overstock and cut-out listings on the Berkshire Record Outlet website most every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and sure, I dumped stuff in my shopping cart. But that didn't commit me to anything, and I figured that by and large the things that interested me would interest enough other site followers that they would soon enough go out of stock -- "soon enough" in this case being "in time to protect me from actually buying them."
Every now and then, something appears that (a) I really want and (b) I know can't remain in stock very long. Which happened just recently with a CD issue -- finally! -- of the not-quite-complete series of Beethoven string quartets recorded by the Paganini Quartet for RCA Victor between 1947 and 1953. Not only have these never been on CD; I'm not aware of them ever being reissued on LP. And in fact, all the LP copies I've ever come across have been really chewed up. They may not have sold a huge number of copies, but the people who bought them apparently played the heck out of them.
What that means, when there's an item I really want, is that I have to take a look at my shopping cart, to see what might still be available. And apparently it had been long enough since my last order that, even though yes, a fair number of things I'd dumped in had indeed gone out of stock, there was a heckuva a lot of stuff still poised for purchase. I started studying the list like it was a work of scholarship, or maybe a primary source document. I tried everything in my powers (which unfortunately include only a small store of willpower) to jettison items to get the order down to manageable size. But still there remained something like 46 other items (CDs and DVDs, many of them of course multiple sets). What could I do? The flesh is weak.
I won't tell you how much the order came to in dollars, but in weight it came to nearly 17 pounds. Since it arrived earlier this week, andI've only begun to sift through the treasures. But I noticed a number of samplings from conductors of a sort I'm especially fond of.
It goes back to a point I was making just last week, contrasting performers who think they can assemble performances by tacking bunches of notes together following some rules they think they've found in some book or article with performers who understand that the only way you find you way inside a piece of music is by finding how and why it moves from the inside.
We've already heard a morsel from one of our "three 'K's," Rafael Kubelik's "Ballet of the Sylphs,' above, and we'll hear another Kubelik tantalizer in a moment, along with samples from our other conducting "K"s.
Sunday Classics Preview: More on our Mozart overtures, as we prepare to focus on Abduction from the Seraglio and Don Giovanni
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Bass Ferruccio Furlanetto sings Leporello's curtain-raising "Notte e giorno faticar" from Don Giovanni (you'll find a translation of the aria text below) at the Met in 2000. The clip continues into the hell that breaks loose then, interrupting Leporello's whinings -- Donna Anna (Renée Fleming) pursuing a mystery intruder she doesn't yet know is Don Giovanni (Bryn Terfel), then her father the Commendatore (Sergei Koptchak) taking up the pursuit, challenging the intruder to a duel, which the Don tries every which way to avoid, but the old man won't let him go and winds up getting killed. This is the whirlwind of activity I so studiously avoided in our audio clips below. Oh well.
by Ken
We're still concerned with what's wrong with three of the four Mozart overtures we heard last night. What we're going to do tonight is get the curtain up on all four operas. In the process, in order to get us moving toward tomorrow's business (this is supposed to be a preview, after all), I'm going to own up that the two pieces we're interested in this week are last night's A and B.
When the curtain rises on A and B, we meet a character alone, musing on his circumstances as he awaits further developments, though the developments they're awaiting are pretty different, and what actually happens is even more different.
[A] MOZART: Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio), K. 384: Overture and "Hier soll ich dich sehen"
BELMONTE: Here then am I to see you, Constanze -- you, my happiness? Let Heaven make it happen! Give me my peace back! I suffered sorrows, o Love, all too many of them. Grant me now in their place joys and bring me toward the goal.
Fritz Wunderlich (t), Belmonte; Bavarian State Orchestra, Eugen Jochum, cond. DG, recorded December 1965
Kurt Streit (t), Belmonte; Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Weil, cond. Sony, recorded Apr. 2-10, 1991
For an opera that seems to want to be a simple "rescue" comedy, Abduction throws up endless obstacles to its performers, making a really all-around first-rate performance a virtual impossibility. The conductor's task in making all this music "play" both musically and dramatically is almost unimaginably difficult, which is why I'm in something like awe of the jobs done in these recordings by Eugen Jochum and Bruno Weil. The Jochum Abduction also has the stupendous plus of Fritz Wunderlich's Belmonte, the last role he recorded before his tragically untimely death in 1966. (We heard Wunderlich recently singing songs from Schumann's Dichterliebe (Poet's Love), and before that singing Nicolai's "Hark, the lark" setting from The Merry Wives of Windsor in our piece on musical larks.
There's a real danger that Belmonte shrinks into a mooning whiner, in which case the opera dies, kaput. Amazingly, the American tenor Kurt Streit holds his own against the ferocious competition of Wunderlich. If you put the DG and Sony recordings together, you'd have . . . well, not quite complete coverage, because you would still need a first-class Osmin. I warned you this wasn't easy.
MOZART: Don Giovanni, K. 527: Overture and "Notte e giorno faticar"
LEPORELLO: Toiling night and day, Working for someone who can't be satisfied. Putting up with rain and wind, Eating badly and sleeping badly. I want to play the gentleman, And I don't want to be a servant anymore. Ah, what a dear gallant man! He wants to be inside with a beauty And I play sentinel!
But it seems to me . . . someone's coming; I don't want to be seen.
Fernando Corena (bs), Leporello; Vienna Philharmonic, Josef Krips, cond. Decca, recorded June 1955
José van Dam (bs-b), Leporello; Paris Opera Orchestra, Lorin Maazel, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded June 22-July 6, 1978
Don Giovanni makes extreme performance demands too, especially whey you consider the number of principal roles, each of which can have a strong positive or negative impact on a performance at certain points. But it still seems to me more forgiving of imperfections than Abduction. These, though, are overall my No. 1 and No. 2 favorite recordings. (By the way, I have a couple of extra copies of the widely underappreciated Maazel/Sony recording, which I bought when I saw them at such an insultingly low price that I couldn't just leave them there. At some point these are apt to become prizes or premiums or something.)
You'll notice that our two Don Giovanni performances don't end identically. That's because I've done the editing out of the rest of the CD track myself, and done it slightly differently. Leporello's musings don't come to a full stop. They are, instead, interrupted by developments of a most dramatic character -- not the developments he was awaiting, but then, with his master, he's learned not to be too surprised by anything that develops. It would be fair to say that all hell breaks loose, but in the first version, I cut off before you can really hear the musical build-up -- it seemed ungracious to tease you. However, in the second, we continue almost to the entrance of the first agitated voice.
(I would love to have allowed the track run to its conclusion. It's amazing how much happens in those next few minutes. But all of that would be (mostly) extraneous to our immediate purposes, and then there would be the problem of providing texts. Rest assured that at some point we will come back to this scene.)
NOW, AS FOR OVERTURES "C" AND "D" . . .
Since we're not doing anything more with these works just now, we can afford to leave them mysterious. The goal for tonight, as noted above, is just to get the curtain up in each case. This is not to say that there might not be another trick introduced here, possibly even unrelated to last night's trick(s). Of course people who've hung around here before shouldn't need the warning; they're used to tricks. But for the benefit of always-welcome newcomers, I thought I'd say something.
You already know we're going to be concerned with Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio and Don Giovanni, with explanatory detours through Gilbert and Sullivan's Gondoliers (the king, "in the wonder-working days of old,/When hearts were twice as good as gold,/And twenty times as mellow," of whom the Grand Inquisitor recalls: "Good temper triumphed in his face,/And in his heart he found a place/For all the erring human race/And every wretched fellow") and Rodgers and Hammerstein's Anna Leonowens whistling a happy tune in The King and I.
ON SECOND THOUGHT, I THINK WE SHOULD HEAR FROM G&S'S GRAND INQUISITOR NOW
I was going to leave this for tomorrow, but really only some of this object lesson taught by the Grand Inquisitor, Don Alhambra del Bolero -- the part about the king who "in his heart found a place for all the erring human race, and every wretched fellow" -- is pertinent to our subject, and it occurred to me that this is what a preview ought to be for.
We can't go too deeply here into the plot of The Gondoliers. At this point in Act II we're in the island kingdom of Barataria, where the Grand Inquisitor has arranged for the young men brought up to believe that they are brothers Marco and Giuseppe Palmieri, jolly and steadfastly egalitarian Venetian gondoliers, to rule jointly until it can be sorted out which is the secretly-stolen-away-in-infancy heir to the throne. The poor Inquisitor has frequently to deal with the obstacle of the boys' unfortunate egalitarianism.
GILBERT AND SULLIVAN: The Gondoliers: Act II, "There lived a king, as I've been told"
DON ALHAMBRA There lived a king, as I've been told, In the wonder-working days of old, When hearts were twice as good as gold, And twenty times as mellow. Good temper triumphed in his face, And in his heart he found a place For all the erring human race And every wretched fellow. When he had Rhenish wine to drink It made him very sad to think That some, at junket or at jink, Must be content with toddy. MARCO and GIUSEPPE With toddy, must be content with toddy. DON ALHAMBRA He wished all men as rich as he (And he was rich as rich could be), So to the top of every tree Promoted everybody. MARCO and GIUSEPPE Now, that's the kind of king for me. He wished all men as rich as he, So to the top of every tree Promoted everybody! DON ALHAMBRA Lord chancellors were cheap as sprats, And bishops in their shovel hats Were plentiful as tabby cats-- In point of fact, too many. Ambassadors cropped up like hay, Prime ministers and such as they Grew like asparagus in May, And dukes were three a penny. On every side field marshals gleamed, Small beer were lords-lieutenant deemed, With admirals the ocean teemed All round his wide dominions. MARCO and GIUSEPPE All round his wide dominions. DON ALHAMBRA And party leaders you might meet In twos and threes in every street Maintaining, with no little heat, Their various opinions. MARCO and GIUSEPPE Now that's a sight you couldn't beat-- Two party leaders in each street Maintaining, with no little heat, Their various opinions. DON ALHAMBRA That king, although no one denies His heart was of abnormal size, Yet he'd have acted otherwise If he had been acuter. The end is easily foretold, When every blessed thing you hold Is made of silver, or of gold, You long for simple pewter. When you have nothing else to wear But cloth of gold and satins rare, For cloth of gold you cease to care-- Up goes the price of shoddy. MARCO and GIUSEPPE Up goes the price of shoddy. DON ALHAMBRA In short, whoever you may be, To this conclusion you'll agree, When every one is somebodee, Then no one's anybody! MARCO and GIUSEPPE Now that's as plain as plain can be, To this conclusion we agree-- ALL When every one is somebodee, Then no one's anybody!
Kenneth Sandford (b), Don Alhambra; Thomas Round (t), Marco Palmieri; Alan Styler (b), Giuseppe Palmieri; New Symphony Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded c1960
Owen Brannigan (bs), Don Alhambra del Bolero; Richard Lewis (t), Marco Palmieri; John Cameron (b), Giuseppe Palmieri; Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded c1957
UPDATE (SATURDAY NIGHT, 6:30 PT)
Here's the plan for tomorrow. I'm going to add updates to both last night's and tonight's posts with full credits for the unidentified musical selections by the time the Sunday Classics post goes up (10am PT, 1pm ET). At the same time I'll try to clear up the remaining mysteries.) update for SATURDAY
UPDATE (SUNDAY MORNING)
First, here are the missing credits for today's raised-curtain versions of Overtures C and D.
(C) MOZART: Così fan tutte, K. 588: Overture and Act I opening trio, "La mia Dorabella capace non è" [in German] Rudolf Schock (t), Ferrando; Horst Günter (b), Guglielmo; Walter Berry (bs-b), Don Alfonso; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Eugen Jochum, cond. Broadcast performance, February 1957
(D) HAYDN: L'Incontro improvviso (The Unexpected Encounter): Overture and opening ensemble, "Che bevanda, che liquore" ("What beverages! What spirits!") Benjamin Luxon (b), the Calender; James Hooper (bs), Jonathan Prescott (bs), and Nicolas Scarpinati (bs), subaltern dervishes; Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Antal Dorati, cond. Philips/Decca, recorded June 1979)
I trust I don't have to explain that what was "wrong" with our Mozart Overture D is that it's not by Mozart but by Haydn, his L'Incontro improvviso (The Unexpected Encounter) of 1775, sort of his counterpart to Mozart's Abduction (written some seven years later) as a Turkish-themed opera with an abduction plot.
Not that there's anything wrong with being by Haydn -- it's only wrong for a "Mozart overture," as I claimed it to be. While I don't expect that Haydn's operas will ever break into the international repertory in a big way, they're hardly without interest, and I was delighted when Decca reissued the eight operas recorded by Philips (in association with Radio Suisse Romande and the European Broadcasting Union) in 1976-80 in an inexpensive 20-CD box -- though without printed texts, of course, and these are pieces for which music-lovers are unlikely to have or have ready access to printed librettos, except for those of us who have the LPs. (Of course it does mean that I can't get rid of the LPs!)
And I trust you already noticed what was wrong with Overtures A and B as presented Friday night: They came to full stops, thanks to concert endings not present in the actual operatic versions. As we heard yesterday, both of these overtures lead without pause into opening arias. (Even here, though, there was a slight difference between A and B. Mozart himself wrote a concert ending for the Don Giovanni Overture. The Abduction Overture has a concert ending by Johann André.
By process of elimination, the overture with which there was nothing whatever wrong Friday night was C, that for Così fan tutte, which we heard from my favorite recording of the opera, in which the usually wonderful Eugen Jochum got the best work imaginable from a spotty-looking cast, which included both of Germany's ranking baritone superhams, Hermann Prey (as Guglielmo) and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (as Don Alfonso). I've been going on about this performance for so long that I was actually nervous when I acquired the CD edition. But not to worry, it sounds better than ever.
Now I may have introduced a note of confusion with the expanded version of C above, in that the opening trio as heard here is in German rather than the original trio. The choice of performance nevertheless seemed utterly logical, being an earlier Bavarian Radio broadcast conducted by none other than Eugen Jochum! And I think the roots of the glorious 1962 recording are clearly evident. Of course for the DG recording Jochum had the services of the Berlin Philharmonic, and while that wasn't necessarily the enormous advantage that it might seem, since the Berlin Phil -- unlike, say, the Vienna Phil -- is not an opera orchestra, and can't have played Così much if ever, Jochum had the knack of drawing its characteristic best out of whatever orchestra he happened to be conducting.
Sunday Classics Quiz-Contest: What's wrong with three of these Mozart overtures (or right with the other one)?
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This week: Win a rare CD of Josef Krips conducting Mozart overtures
What could ever be wrong with the Marriage of Figaro Overture? It's performed here by the Staatskapelle Berlin under Daniel Barenboim, Berlin State Opera, 1999.
by Ken
AND THE WINNER IS . . .
Winner of last week's prize, a CD of Sousa marches played by the Band of H.M. Royal Marines conducted by Lt. Col. G.A.C. Hoskins, M.V.O., L.R.A.M., R.M. (Prinicipal Director of Music, Royal Marines), is our friend Bil -- first for his thoughtful response to my question about the difference between American and British band performances of Sousa marches ("thoughtful" because it agrees with me), and second in hopes of shutting him up about these damned prizes. Bil, please let me know where to send yours (KenFromDWT@aol.com).
Thanks to all who joined in last week. Just to be clear: The prize isn't necessarily for getting the most correct answers, but for making the liveliest contribution to the discussion. Yours truly is the sole judge. Contest result to be announced next Friday, unless I decided to do it sooner.
ABOUT THIS WEEK'S PRIZE
Okay, "rare" may be a stretch, although it's certainly not common. (I probably shouldn't say this, but the copies I've found have generally been in bargain bins. But then, many priceless treasures have been refugees from the bargain bins.) On this Adès CD, Josef Krips conducts nine Mozart overtures, the eight "basic" ones -- Idomeneo, Abduction from the Seraglio, The Impresario, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, La Clemenza di Tito, and The Magic Flute -- plus La finta giardiniera, with Zurich's principal orchestra, the Tonhalle. Here is his unhurried but glowing performance of the Marriage of Figaro Overture, which we just heard above. It's not the ultimate in polish, but for me it overflows with warmth and humanity -- just listen to the Tonhalle winds sing!
MOZART: Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), K. 492: Overture
Tonhalle Orchestra (Zurich), Josef Krips, cond. Adès, recorded 1960
I've said before that I don't think you can conduct Mozart with an unclean soul. Krips had a soul of singular radiance. (We just heard some of his live 1969 Vienna performance of Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder.) He was one of the great Mozart conductors of the 20th century. His 1955 Decca recording of Don Giovanniremains not just my favorite recording of that seminal opera but one of the best-conducted performances of a Mozart opera (or maybe any opera) I've heard. He made a gorgeous recording of the sublime C minor Concerto (No. 24) with Arthur Rubinstein,with whom he of course recorded one of the classic Beethoven concerto cycles. And, oh yes, with the Concertgebouw Orchestra he made wonderful recordings of the Mozart Symphonies Nos. 21-41.
A curiosity: For some reason, the letter that Krips wrote to the members of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in 1963 as he concluded his ten years as the orchestra's music director is posted online -- not in text form, but as a scan of the actual letter. I find it a fascinating document.
THIS WEEK'S QUIZ
As noted above, there's something wrong with all but one of these Mozart overtures. Note, however, that it's not necessarily the same thing wrong with all of them. In tomorrow night's Sunday Classics Preview we'll have some additional musical selections that should clear up at least some of the mysteries.
As noted, we'll have some additional musical selections related to the quiz pieces, which will point us to the subject(s) of Sunday's post.
UPDATE (SUNDAY MORNING)
Here are the missing credits for our musical selections above. The remaining questions are answered in this morning's update to the Saturday night Sunday Classics Preview.
(A) MOZART: Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio), K. 384: Overture [with concert ending by Johann André] Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner, cond. EMI, recorded c1981
(B) MOZART: Don Giovanni, K. 527: Overture [with concert ending by Mozart] Staatskapelle Dresden, Sir Colin Davis, cond. BMG, recorded c1998
(C) MOZART: Così fan tutte, K. 588: Overture Berlin Philharmonic, Eugen Jochum, cond. DG, recorded December 1962
(D) HAYDN: L'Incontro improvviso: Overture Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Antal Dorati, cond. Philips/Decca, recorded June 1979)
[8/28/2011] Beethoven's "slender Grecian maiden between two Norse gods" -- the Fourth Symphony (continued)
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And here's the Adagio, again with Carlos Kleiber conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and again here "analyzed with the assistance of Robert Greenberg's Wordscore Guides." (In a moment we're going to hear Bruno Walter rehearsing the movement.)
BRUNO WALTER REHEARSES THE ADAGIO
OF THE BEETHOVEN FOURTH SYMPHONY
Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Feb. 8, 1958 (mono, though the actual recording is in stereo) [Note: We hear the finished recording of the Adagio below.]
ERNEST NEWMAN TAKES A SOMEWHAT UN-SLENDERIFEROUS
VIEW OF THE FOURTH SYMPHONY (from the booklet for the original issue of Otto Klemperer's EMI Beethoven symphony cycle)
Composed 1805-6. First performed March 1807.
It became the fashion in the nineteenth century to regard the "even-number" Beethoven symphonies, from the Eroica onwards, as of lighter calibre than the Third, Fifth, Seventh and Ninth -- as works in which the indefatigable artificer took an occasional day off, as it were, from the strenuous labors of his odd-number creations. Schumann saw the Fourth as "a slim Greek maiden between two Norse giants" -- i.e., the Eroica and the Fifth. A less apposite description of the Fourth, according to our modern notion of it, could hardly be imagined; it sets us wondering what sort of etiolated performance the work used to get in the Mendelssohn epoch. One even ventures to dissent for a moment from one of the best of present-day writers on Beethoven -- Walter Riezler -- when he speaks of the symphony as being "full of untroubled happiness." This, taken by itself, may easily set up wrong connotations in the listener's mind; but if we look into the judgment a little more closely we see that Riezler gets to the root of the matter in his further remark that "its consummate harmony is founded in darkness." This is a much-needed corrective of the superficial Schumann view and what was implied in it: "happiness" in Riezler's sense is not at all the static happiness of a gracile female figure in a Greek frieze but the dynamic happiness of a giant exulting in his strength.
The Fourth is in some ways the most enigmatic of the Beethoven symphonies; it defies all our efforts to categorize it in a single epithet or two. The preamble to the first movement is already mysterious; it leads us to expect a serious, if not actually tragic denouement, instead of which some exultant "whoops" at the end of it lead into a first subject (Allegro vivace) of the most carefree kind:
EXAMPLE 1
Equally light-footed and light-hearted is the second subject:
EXAMPLE 2
But it is not long before a storm breaks out; and these swift alternations of mood continue to the end of the symphony, which oscillates all the time between gusts of fury of the type of those Beethoven had already unleashed here and there in the course of the first movement of the Eroica, and a joy in life that is alternately idyllic and titanic. Even in the exquisite Adagio, which is one of the earliest and most moving expressions of the "romantic" in orchestral music, the one atmosphere is not maintained throughout.
The symphony, in fact, abounds in unexpected strokes, not only swift alternations of mood but, within each mood, unpredictable happenings of all kinds, rapid shifts and contrarieties of rhythm, deceptive pseudo-endings followed by apparent or actual restarts, and conversely, endings coming where we had been led to expect further development. The overriding gaiety is liable to be broken in upon at any moment by a sort of tropical storm, with lightning flashing, thunder roaring, and torrential lashings of rain, the clouds however, dispersing as suddenly as they had formed.
All the deities of Olympus seem to be at play in the symphony, exhibiting alike their graces and their gusts of temper. But it is useless to try to foist any kind of programme on the work, and absurd to suppose that because it sets up images of this kind in us, therefore Beethoven's imagination must have worked along some such lines. The symphony is just a self-delighting play of the purely musical imagination.
SO NOW . . .
LET'S LISTEN TO THE PIECE!
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 4 in B-flat, Op. 60
i. Adagio . . . Allegro vivace
"The opening movement presents a challenge. The first theme can hardly be called a theme at all, and yet what Beethoven makes of this melodic fragment is simply fantastic. To hold the first movement together so that it neither falls nor falters along the way is not the easiest of assignments."
— Josef Krips
London Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond. Everest, recorded c1959 [Caution: The Krips-Everest Beethoven symphony cycle, originally recorded on 35mm film, sounds pretty spiffy via either original (and only original) Everest LPs or the officially licensed 1994 Omega Record Group CD reissue, but there have been countless cheapo LP and CD issues that sound mediocre or worse. Unfortunately, although I see a couple of the Omega single CDs on Amazon, at very high prices, I don't see a listing for the boxed set, and without reliable testimony I wouldn't trust any other CD issue. Caveat emptor!]
ii. Adagio
"The Fourth contains a slow movement of indescribable depth. For the conductor, this Adagio is the most difficult part of the entire work. I must confess that I worked on it for some thirty years before solving the essential rhythmic problem of this movement, which is, after all, in 3/4 time as written, and not -- as is usually assumed for the sake of convenience -- in 6/8."
— Josef Krips
Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Feb. 8 and 10, 1958
iii. Allegro vivace
"The third and fourth movements almost play themselves."
— Josef Krips
Ernest Newman notes of the Allegro vivace: "It will be observed that Beethoven originally called his third movement 'Minuetto,' though it is in no sense a minuet. This is the last time he gives a symphony movement that title, though in the Eighth we get the prescription 'Tempo di Minuetto.'"
NDR (North German Radio) Symphony Orchestra, Günter Wand, cond. BMG, recorded live, Oct. 8, 2001
iv. Allegro ma non troppo
"The finale is a virtuoso piece for orchestra that presents not the slightest problem for the conductor."
— Josef Krips
London Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Monteux, cond. RCA/Decca, recorded 1960
IN THE MATTER OF BEETHOVEN'S JUXTAPOSITION
OF CONTRASTING SYMPHONIC TEMPERAMENTS --
I might similarly have mentioned last night, when I slipped the whole of the Eighth Symphony into the preview, that a similar situation occurred with the near-simultaneously conceived Seventh and Eighth Symphonies.
AFTERTHOUGHT: ABOUT OUR RECORDINGS
It wasn't intentional, really and truly. In choosing four recordings to "cover" the Beethoven Fourth Symphony, I simply gravitated to conductors of whom I had fond memories in the piece. It wasn't till the post was long since posted, perhaps prodded by that recollection of Josef Krips's that he struggled with the rhythmic problem of the Adagio "for some thirty years," that it occurred to me that we have here a decided veteran group:
Josef Krips (4/8/1902 - 10/13/1974): about 57, the "youngster" of our group
Bruno Walter (9/15/1976 - 2/17/1962): 81
Günter Wand (1/7/1912 - 2/14/2002): 89
Pierre Monteux (4/4/1875 - 7/1/1964): about 85
Yet I don't hear much in the way of signs of age here. It does occur to me, though, that it may take an awful lot of wisdom to make this piece flow as pointedly and yet as seemingly effortlessly as our team of veterans did.
For the record, Carlos Kleiber (7/3/1930 - 7/13/2004) was "only" 53 when this video recording was made in 1983, and perhaps it shows, though this may be more a matter of his "we must reconstruct the piece from scratch" approach, which for all the incidental felicities can sound, in varying degrees, well, manipulative. I kind of like this Beethoven Fourth, but I certainly don't love it. Kleiber was a brilliant talent, no doubt about it, and delivered some genuinely great performances, but the body of his work seems to me wildy and dangerously overrated -- "dangerously" in that, as with so many highly talented but idiosyncratic performers, it's the idiosyncrasies that wind up being fetishized. (Think Maria Callas.)
remains not just my favorite recording of that seminal opera but one of the best-conducted performances of a Mozart opera (or maybe any opera) I've heard. He made a gorgeous recording of the sublime 
with whom he of course recorded one of the classic Beethoven concerto cycles. And, oh yes, with the Concertgebouw Orchestra he made wonderful recordings of 
