5 CD - 2292-46452-2 - (p) 1991
1 DVD - 4509 91120-2 - (c) 2006

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)





9 Symphonies





Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21
26' 48"
- Adagio molto - Allegro con brio
 9' 20"
CD1-1
- Andante cantabile con moto 7' 41"
CD1-2
- Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace 4' 00"
CD1-3
- Finale: Adagio - Allegro molto e vivace 5' 26"
CD1-4
Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 55 "Sinfonia eroica"
47' 49"
- Allegro con brio
 15' 53"
CD1-5
- Marcia funebre: Adagio assai
 14' 35"
CD1-6
- Scherzo: Allegro vivace
 5' 37"
CD1-7
- Finale: Allegro molto
 11' 27"
CD1-8
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op.68 "Sinfonia pastorale"
44' 24"
- Allegro ma non troppo - Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande
 13' 07"
CD2-1
- Andante molto moto - Szene am Bach 11' 59"
CD2-2
- Allegro - Lustiges Zusammeinsein der Landleute
 5' 10"
CD2-3
- Allegro - Gewitter, Sturm
 3' 52"
CD2-4
- Allegretto - Hirtengesang. Frohe und dankbare Gefühle nach dem Sturm 9' 44"
CD2-5
Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93
26' 47"
- Allegro vivace e con brio
 9' 25"
CD2-6
- Allegretto scherzando
 3' 49"
CD2-7
- Tempo di Minuetto
 5' 54"
CD2-8
- Allegro vivace
 7' 22"
CD2-9
Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36
33' 38"
- Adagio molto - Allegro con brio 12' 31"
CD3-1
- Larghetto 10' 30"
CD3-2
- Scherzo: Allegro 4' 22"
CD3-3
- Allegro molto 5' 55"
CD3-4
Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67
36' 38"
- Allegro con brio
 7' 12"
CD3-5
- Andante con moto
 9' 54"
CD3-6
- Allegro 8' 22"
CD3-7
- Allegro 10' 51"
CD3-8
Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Op. 60
34' 24"
- Adagio - Allegro vivace
 12' 14"
CD4-1
- Adagio 9' 17"
CD4-2
- Allegro vivace
 5' 43"
CD4-3
- Allegro ma non troppo
 6' 41"
CD4-4
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92
40' 10"
- Poco sostenuto - Vivace
 14' 03"
CD4-5
- Allegretto 8' 08"
CD4-6
- Presto 9' 25"
CD4-7
- Allegro con brio
 8' 14"
CD4-8
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125
66' 44"
- Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso 15' 04"
CD5-1
- Molto vivace
 13' 42"
CD5-2
- Adagio molto e cantabile *
 13' 34"
CD5-3
- Presto - "O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!" - Allegro assai
 24' 24"
CD5-4



 
Charlotte Margiono, Soprano
Birgit Remmert, Contralto
Rudolf Schasching, Tenor
Robert Holl, Bass

Arnold Schoenberg Chor / Erwin Ortner, Chorus Master
The Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Peter Richards, Horn *

Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Dirigent
 
Luogo e data di registrazione
Stefaniensaal, Graz, (Austria)
- 29 giugno 1990 (Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5)
- 1 luglio 1990 (Symphonies Nos. 8 & 6)
- 3 luglio 1990 (Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3)
- 5 luglio 1990 (Symphonies Nos. 2 & 7)
- 21 giugno 1991 (Symphoy No. 9)
Registrazione live / studio
live
Producer / Engineer
Wolfgang Mohr / Helmut Mühle / Michael Brammann
Prima Edizione CD
Teldec - 2292-46452-2 - (5 cd) - 74' 47" + 71' 21" + 70' 26" + 74' 44" + 66' 44" - (p) 1991 - DDD
Prima Edizione LP
-
Edizione DVD
Warner Classics - 4509 91120-2 - (1 dvd) - 118" 00" - (c) 2006 - GB-DE-SP-FR-IT - (Symphony No. 8 & Symphony No. 6)

Beethoven's music is language at every moment
Krones: Mr. Harnoncourt, in the eyes of the musical world you are closely connected with the idea of "historic performing practice", and you are highly regarded as an expert on the music of the 17th and 18th centuries. This reputation derives from your artistic career and from your many recordings of ‘Early Music'. Do you see yourself first and foremost as an ‘Early Music expert'?
Harnoncourt: First of all, I’d like to say that I do not see myself by any means as someone vvho repeats historic performances, or wants to reintroduce historic conditions - not in any field of music. On the contrary, I only feel justified, or even obliged to perform music vvhen it has something relevant to say to the musicians and music-lovers of today. Pure historic interest or correctness is absolutely not enough for me: the music must be necessary today, and it must be necessary to me. For this reason I also have problems performing music of lesser significance by ‘minor masters’ (although unfair sentence is often passed here), even if it is of great interest. This music then becomes a research object for me, something that does not really affect people's lives today. And music should always affect people's lives. It has always been my conviction that music is not there to soothe people's nerves or to bring them relaxation, but rather to open their eyes, to give them a good shaking, even to frighten them. If music cannot do this, then I don’t play it, and in order to support these functions, I sometimes bring unhistoric devices into my interpretation too.

And yet you have made a meticulous study of the historic sources: bath the general pedagagic questions of performing practice, and also in particular the tradition of the works you interpret: the autograph manuscript (where possible), the first edition, material relating to the première and other early performances (especially those conducted by the composer), or even contemporary accounts of these concerts.
Well, of course I have tried to gain some idea of people's state of mind at the time the works were written, but I don”t pursue this aspect meticulously - I’m much too practically-minded for that. It should also be mentioned at this point that the many deviations from the usual scores are corrections that we made after careful study of the sources. A couple of obvious examples in the Ninth Symphony are the D instead of B fiat in the second subject ot the first movement, and the low octave of the double bassoon in the “march” of the finate. I don’t find all these things important for their historic interest, but simply because I betleve that every statement made by a composer tells us something important about his work, and is essentiat to o proper understanding of the music. And if a composer like Beethoven puts lines and dots above his notes in one place and not in another, or if he makes a precise distinction between “sf” and “fp”, then this is important for the expression, indeed for the content of the music.

This brings us to one of the most important chapters of interpretation, the question of the content that the composer intended, or that of extra-musical ideas of a more general nature, which is also central to the interpretation of Beethoven's works. For we know how very hard this composer - and Beethoven is, after all, who we are talking about today - endeavoured time after time to bring ideal, programmatic or at least more general emotional substance into his works. The academic research of recent years has brought some remarkable things to light in this respect.
What seems imponant to me - and contemporaries shared this viewpoint - is the conviction that there are mostly sources of inspiration in the music of the great t8th and 19th century composers that lie outside the sphere of music in some way, and that this fact seems to confront us in every bar that we listen to. When I was just a child - perhaps my most important approach of all to music - I had the very strong feeling that even a violin sonata by Mozart is a kind of opera. And today I am certain that this feeling was right. In those days the term 'programme music' had such negative associations that many people who thought along similar lines chose to keep their opinion to themselves. I don't necessarily mean that the composer was trying to convey literary content, for exampte, in his music, but rather that a composer - Beethoven in our case - was inspired by literature to make a statement in music. Of course we are then faced with the question, whether one can understand such a work adequately without knowing the model. In most cases, I would not interpret the work any differently if I had no idea about the source of the composer's inspiration, for I understand the general emotions and feelings from the expression of the music itself.

The content and emotional registers of the music, together with gesture and bodily expression in general, used to be 'conveyed’ by deliberately making use of rhetoric devices. Articulation imitated the intonation and flow of a public speaker, as it were, musical genres were regarded as dramas or novels, and the special content given to a work of music was based on a 'vocabulary' of meaning - on 'musical and rhetoric figures' in particular - with which most cognoscenti were familiar. Mr. Harnoncourt, you are an ardent advocate of 'making the notes speak', as you never cease to emphasize in your two books "Musik als Klangrede" and "Der musikalische Dialog". Do you see Beethoven's music in this light, too?
In general, you're really preaching to the converted, making comments like this to me. I am convinced that it is only possible to really grasp the essence of any music from these past centuries by regarding it primarily as language. And I know and feel that for Beethoven in particular, a profound knowledge of rhetoric was an important point. This is one godd reason why Arnold Schering's interpretations of the content of Beethoven's work appealed to me so much when I was a student (as for that matter did his work on Bach too). And although people occasionally say today that such interpretations are typical of the poeticizing of the Thirties, I am still inclined to take these attempts perfectly seriously. Of course it's clear to me that we have a more scientific approach to this area today, but I still believe thtat in thirty years people will be saying that the research of today was typical of the 1980s or 1990s. What I want to say is that Schering's interpretation of the "Eroica” as a Homer symphony, as a realisation in music of part of the story of the Trojan War, seems just as valid to me as the more recent, analytically substantiated insights of Constantin Floros or Peter Schleuning that the "Erioca" is based on the Prometheus legend. I don't think that I play the "Eroica" differently now. One thing I am quite convinced of, though, is that Beethoven had ideas relating to content, to movement and gesture, which he put into music.

Of great interest in this context are the remarks made by members of contemporary audiences, by the critics and musicians of the time and by the composer's friends, who had the same, or at least a similar, state of awareness and educational background as Beethoven himself. To what extent did you pay attention to  these sources in reaching your conclusions?
These are very important sources of information for me, and I have even noted especially striking examples down in my conducting-scores so that I can read them out to the orchestra. But in Beethoven’s conversation books, too, and in Schindler's early Beethoven biography (to which I attach particular importance) there is also a wealth of information about content and performing practice that tells us a good deal about the individual works. Incidentally, I have also read a number of works dating from 1780/90 about the links between body movement and music - how an opera singer should move, for example. There are descriptions here of exactly what should happen, from the hair down to the feet, if one wants to express discord, for example - the arms can be raised slowly or the body can be placed under tension in some other way, etc. In these works the authors also discuss whether an overture ought to be played with the curtain raised or not, and if so, what should happen on stage (in inner harmony with the music).

Questions about the linguistic or gesticulative character of music are also not least of relevance for the choice of tempo. And this of course brings us to one of the most controversial issues in the whole of Beethoven interpretation. There are original metronome markings made by Beethoven himself, and these fit without exception into the general tempo framework customary at the time, which tended to favour fast tempi. An important comparison that proves this are Schubert's original metronome markings, which are very similar. In the era of 'romantic' interpretation, when musicians and conductors were totally preoccupied with the actual sound, it was frequently claimed that these markings couldn't be correct. How do you view his problem area?
I have my own ideas about how these metronome markings were reached, and I also have experience of composers who later changed their own markings: when they heard their own work in someone else's reading, then they not infrequently said that the tempo marking seemed more appropriate to them than the one they originally indicated. But to return to the first point. When I read Beethaven's scores without actually playing them, I arrive at almost the same metronome markings as he did. However, a tempo measured as the same can vary greatly in ettect according to the circumstances - the size of the orchestra here is just as decisive as the size and the resonance of the hall. The tempo as measured in one's mind’ is certainly the fastest of all; with just a piano or a string quartet, I am still very close to my 'imagined tempo', but with a huge orchestra I may find I have moved away from it Perhaps it depends on whether one is playing in the morning, afternoon or evening: the pulse frequency and the attitude of musicians and audience alike is ditferent every time. If you fail to take all these factors into account and simply judge tempo with a metronome, then this is inhuman and unreal. But notwithstanding, Beethoven did mean his tempi as he wrote them down. One just has to modify them all the time, and nobody knew how to do that better than Beethoven himself. It's worth reading Schindler's reports and commentaries here, on the Second Symphony for example; and Carl Czerny also described how there were certain variations with Beethoven in one and the same work, depending on how the composer felt on that occasion.

In Beethoven's symphonies we experience sudden changes in mood and character very often indeed. This is of course connected with the nature of his music as a musicolinguistic statement (with the emphasis on "linguistic").
This is one point that has repeatedly fascinated and preoccupied me: the disappointment of expectations. The composer, and Beethoven in particular, takes the listener to a point where he has certain very concrete expectations - the listener is taken in one direction through a variety of different steps, And then at the decisive moment the expectation is not fulfilled, because the music offers something different, something that is contrary to the listener's expectations. I find that particularly fascinating. And the same ls true in Beethoven's music of his rhythmic contrasts, which sometimes stand behind one another, but are sometimes superimposed on top of one another. The latter occurs when, for example, binary structures come together with ternary structures, i.e. when a variety of different types of motion are present on several levels - and audibly so - within a single bar.

Mr. Harnoncourt you have recorded the Beethoven symphonies with a 'normal' symphony orchestra, not with a small ensemble such as was used for the première of the 'Eroica'. How do you see this problem?
We all know that Beethoven thought along very pragmatic lines in this respect, and adopted his ensemble to fit the place where the music was to be performed. There are many different accounts of his thoughts about the scoring of the Ninth Symphony (or of parts of the "Missa solemnis”) - he varied his concept depending on where the performance was being given. When he was playing in the Burgtheater or the Reitschule, for example, he used a much larger orchestra than in a nobleman's palace. We chose this scoring for our live recordings of performances in the Stephaniensaal in Graz - a medium-sized orchestra without double wind instruments.

But you did make use of "old" natural trumpets...
Yes, natural trumpets are the only historic timbre in our recordings. The reason is that the trumpet is not just an instrument, it's also a kind of symbol - and every fanfare motif demands a certain kind of tone. In order to 'blare out' the notes on a modern trumpet, you have to play it far too loud; but when it's played at the correct volume, the fanfare character is missing. So I had to decide: either with the right character but too loud, or in the right dynamics but without character. So I finally turned to the natural trumpet, where this problem doesn’t arise, Theres also an additional gain here, in the shape ot clearer distinction of the different keys.

Of course, natural instruments do pose problems in certain registers. Did you do any `retouching’?
I did not do any retouching whatsoever as a matter of principle, neither octaving nor reallocation of certain notes/passages to other instruments. If Beethoven had possessed instruments that were capable of more or of playing differently, then he surely would not just have distributed certain notes differently - this would have changed the whole instrumentation significantly. And that's why I think it is always a mistake to change individual notes or registers: I believe in the correctness of the composer's instrumentation and the correctness of the overall linguistic character, both as regards individual notes, and as regards the overall sound. A particularly good example of this is the point where the trumpet takes up the main subject of the “Erolca” - it breaks off at G. Many recordings assume that the old trumpet was not capable of playing B flat, and get the modern instrument to play this note after all. But I am convinced that Beethoven did not leave out the B flat on the trumpet because the instrument could not play it, but because he wanted to show how the hero had failed. If the "victory note" is not heard radiantly, but instead is taken up quietly by the flute and then by the strings, then this I see this as an important statement about the content of the music, and not as something that can be eliminated by
retouching. The tact is that il was possible to play a B flat on the trumpet in Beethoven's time.

So you assume that Beethoven acted with full awareness at every moment at his creative career, since he wanted to malre a statement to convey a message that was important to him - and in a language with which his audience was familiar, which they were able to understand?
Absolutely. And I am convinced that every thinking musician, indeed anyone at all who has studied the ideas and the aesthetics of the period even a little, cannot avoid arriving at the same conclusion.

Mr. Harnoncourt, thank you for the intervieuw.
Hartmut Krones
Translation: Gery Bramall

Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929-2016)
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