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Beethoven: Symphony No.9 in D minor, Op.125 (Choral)
(Also Symphony No.1 in C, Op.21)
11 October 2006
Avery Fisher Hall, London
Twyla Robinson (soprano)
Karen Cargill (mezzo-soprano)
John Mac Master (tenor)
Gerald Finley (bass)
London Symphony Chorus
London Symphony Orchestra
Bernard Haitink
What the critics say
Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times, 13 October 2006
How to Make the Familiar Sound Fresh
New York concertgoers were hardly in need of a Beethoven symphony cycle when the conductor Bernard Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra began their five-concert survey of all nine works Saturday at Avery Fisher Hall. Though these scores remain challenging to play, they could not be more familiar. The larger issue for performers is to present these landmark symphonies in ways that make them sound fresh without resorting to novel interpretive approaches just for the sake of novelty.
Mr. Haitink and his players vanquished that challenge with their exciting and often revelatory performances. Each concert has been met with an instantaneous standing ovation. The series ends tonight with Mr. Haitink conducting the Symphony No. 1, the “Leonore” Overture No. 3 and the Symphony No. 7.
The difficulty in programming these works today was well put to me once by Michael Tilson Thomas. He said that there is nothing harder than performing, say, the “Eroica” Symphony in a manner that conveys the audaciousness of the score without exaggerating its path-breaking elements. The solution he and other adventurous conductors have found is context. Place a Beethoven symphony on a program with a similarly exploratory 20th-century work or a recent work, and the connections between Beethoven the radical and his successors will come through on their own.
Esa-Pekka Salonen did this recently with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; one program preceded Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with a performance of Gyorgy Ligeti’s mystical Requiem. At the Boston Symphony, James Levine is in the midst of a project in which major works by Beethoven are being paired with major works by his soulmate Schoenberg.
But when a series presents the complete Beethoven symphonies on their own, the specific qualities of performances command all the attention. Comparisons with classic accounts by renowned interpreters are unavoidable.
So how have Mr. Haitink and the London players managed to make these symphonies sound so startling?
For one thing the Dutch-born Mr. Haitink’s personal character imbues his musical persona. He is a true maestro, a powerful musician who has had an eminent career. At 77, he remains agile and tireless on the podium.
Yet the authority he exudes is modulated by his self-effacing nature. He is not a know-it-all. No interpretive agenda comes through in his performances. These have been vibrant, generous and flowing performances, unmannered and, well, un-Maazelian. Other conductors may bring out more of the mystery and gravity of these works or convey more tortured emotion and volatility. Mr. Haitink’s performances have been refreshingly un-neurotic.
Still, he conveyed the tempestuous contrasts in his inexorable account of the Fifth Symphony on Sunday afternoon. In the first movement, the swings between incisive delineations of the compact motif that drives the music and the subdued passages when those motifs bustle with quiet intensity were starkly rendered.
But, for Mr. Haitink, contrast is not the same as conflict. This was not a battle we were hearing but an intricate and engrossing debate. I have seldom heard the finale of the Fifth move toward its nervously exuberant climax with such sweeping energy. Yet there was no forcing or aggression in the playing. Everything seemed inevitable.
Sometimes Mr. Haitink’s accounts were counterintuitive. History books tell us that the Eighth Symphony, also performed on the Sunday program, is the most lightly scored, jocular and traditionally Classical of the nine works. But by having fun with the heady ebullience of the first movement and bringing out the curious repetitions in the deceptively cheerful second movement, with its intrusive outbursts of scurrying low strings, Mr. Haitink had this score seeming off-kilter and unpredictable.
In these performances, as on the new London Symphony CD’s of the symphonies recorded live in London last season and available on the orchestra’s own label, LSO Live, Mr. Haitink’s tempos have been, over all, somewhat faster than usual. But not in his account of the Ninth on Wednesday night.
In the best sense this was a deliberate interpretation, with measured tempos and articulate execution that conveyed the work’s contrapuntal intricacy and architectonic layout. The finale was at once magisterial and thrilling. The strong vocal quartet — Twyla Robinson, soprano; Karen Cargill, mezzo-soprano; John Mac Master, tenor; and Gerald Finley, baritone — sang from positions behind the orchestra, in the front ranks of the robust and excellent London Symphony Orchestra Chorus.
The orchestra has sounded terrific. Perhaps in matchups — instrument by instrument, section by section — with other major orchestras, the London Symphony lacks some degree of technical finesse. But it hardly mattered. Here were musicians inspired to be playing these works with a conductor they clearly revere. Concertmaster Gordan Nikolitch sprang from his chair so often he reminded me of the kinetic violinist David Harrington in the early days of the Kronos Quartet.
The London Symphony is essentially a player-run ensemble. It has a principal conductor, Colin Davis, but not a top-down, all-powerful music director. Maybe a taskmaster in that traditional role could bring greater discipline to the playing. But I’ll take the dynamic and courageous playing of this orchestra any day over the slick technical perfection of many major ensembles.
Still, let’s hope that the success of this exciting series does not give New York presenters ideas. Could we have a break for a while from complete Beethoven symphony surveys? After tonight, audiences will have earned it.