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Beethoven: London Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Barbican Hall, London, 17.2.2009 (GD)

Beethoven:
Overture ‘Namensfeier’ Op 114
Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Op 60
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op 92


It is probable that Beethoven wrote this overture for the the ‘nameday’ of Emperor Franz, 1^st October 1814, even though it had to wait until the following year before it was actually performed at a Viennese charity concert on Christmas Day. Tovey particularly admired this short but powerfully, and economically, impressive work, with a grand ceremonial introduction, a galloping allegro, a short development section and a rousing coda,  claiming that it ‘does not deserve to be neglected’. But neglected it has certainly been since Tovey wrote those words in the early twenties. It is certainly of greater musical merit than the ‘King Stephen’, or ‘Ruins of Athens’ overtures but is played even less frequently than them. I don’t really understand its neglect, perhaps partly to do with fashion and ignorance or laziness on the part of conductors? So it was encouraging that Gardiner performed the work in a precise and suitably robust manner. Accents and rhythms were sharply reinforced by prominent hard stick timpani and cutting brass articulation especially fitting for the triumphant D major coda. 
 
This concert is part of Gardiner’s three season Beethoven cycle with the LSO. Gardiner, as would be expected, divided his vilolins in the correct antiphonal manner and employed a large body of strings with five double-basses positioned in a row at the orchestra’s rear. After listening, and getting used, to the excellent recordings Gardiner made in 1994 with his period band, the Orchestre Revoluionnaire et Romantique, of the nine Beethoven symphonies, I was, after tonight’s concert, wondering what, if any, new interpretive insights Gardiner was attemping with a modern symphony orchestra playing partly in period style? I say partly because, although the string section played with a minimum of vibrato, it seemed too large in terms of period agility and clarity. Also, although the timpanist used hard sticks he played in a rather loud and relentless manner on modern drums, modern horns and trumpets attempted, quite successfully, a period edge, but woodwinds lacked bite and were often obscured in tutti passages. This was a rather odd amalgam of period style playing and standard (modern) symphony orchestra style. I say ‘odd’ in the sense that nowhere did I have the sense of a modern symphony orchestra fully able to adapt to a period style as is the case with Harnoncourst and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in classical repertoire, to take one example.  
 
Although on the whole Gardiner tonight demonstrated an understanding of the right tempo and tempo relationships, and in a related sense overall symphonic structure, the ‘Adagio’ introduction (which is not really an ‘adagio’ in the ‘romantic’ sesnse) to the Fourth Symphony took a while to find a secure sostenuto, as though Gardiner, untypically, could not initiate a precise tempo structure. The Allegro vivace’s ‘spin’ (to use Tovey’s term) of thematic, dynamic, rhythmic contrasts – especially those sharply accented cross-rhythms in the strings at the end of the exposition – didn’t ‘spin’ or flow in the inexorable manner in which they should. Very seldom, throughout this concert, did I hear a real pianissimo. This lack of sustained pp playing was particularly evident at the beginning of this movement’s development section with quiet string modulations punctuated by mysterious drum-rolls. 
 
The beautiful rondo ‘Adagio’, which Berlioz partcularly admired, lacked that sense of flow one hears so beautifully captured from conductors like Toscanini, Klemperer, Kleiber (Vater und Sohn) and indeed from Gardiner’s own recording mentioned above. Initially the movement’s foundational rhythmic figure was articulated well by Gardiner but when it was punctuated forte/sempre staccato, on full orchestra, it sounded heavy, plodding, with no lift to the rhythmic contour.  Beethoven’s scherzo proper, with its double repetition of scherzo/trio, really needs a conductor who understands rhythmic contrast and matching dynamics. Although I admire Gardiner, especially in baroque music, he is no Toscanini in this respect, particularly in Beethoven. Listening to Gardiner choose the correct Allegro vivace tempo and miss this level of contrast (contrast here reduced to rhythmic/dynamic sameness) had me worrying! For once Gardiner misjudged the right tempo in the finale, Allegro ma non troppo, playing more like an allegro assai! I emphasise this point because when Beethoven gives his tempo indication as Allegro ma non troppo he does so for good reason. Conductos like Scherchen or Reiner could play this movement very fast and bring it off in terms of rhythmic, dynamic/lyrical contrast, but tonight it was all projected at one homogenised level, and at times deteriorated into a scramble. The coda with its ff tutti chords, re-confirming the tonic B flat, were played in a rather  loud (as opposed to arresting) manner and the introduction of a ritenuto here bore no structural relationship with the rest of the movement, sounding tacked–on as it were.  
 
Although Gardiner established a good ‘Poco sostenuto’ at the start of the Seventh Symphony he fell into a trap Felix Weingartner warned of in allowing the scales which punctuate the long introduction (here not too clearly defined in the interplay between different string sections, especially cellos and basses) to degenerate into what sounded like exercises, with none of the dramatic intensity associated with the famous scales in the Commendatore’s music in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which was  captured so well in Toscanini’s various recordings. The actual transition to the Allegro vivace lacked that essential sense of inevitability in the change in tempo and dynamics. The ‘join’ here was all too apparent. The allegro vivace itself was more hammered out with relentless timpani thuds and lacked the vital sense of  ‘bounce’ in the 6/8 rhythmic pattern. In fact so loud were the timpani here (and throughout) that at certain cardinal rhythmic points any sense of balance was obscured with timpani obliterating the accompanying brass rhythms. This problem of orchestral balance (partly to do with the rather recessed Barbican acoustic) extended to an already mentioned lack of differential clarity in the strings, especially between cellos and double-basses. By the time we reached the first movement coda Gardiner had drifted into a less steady and slightly faster tempo thus losing grip on the bass crescendo and the exultant C major modulations, punctuated by resplendent horns, which close the movement; resulting thus in a lessening of coda’s full power and resilience. 

Gardiner left little pause between this and the Allegretto second movement, but I can’t see any structural or tonal reason for this. In fact although the allegretto is in the home tonic of A, it is in the contrasting minor mode! Surely the listener requires a short moment of reflection to adjust to the contrast? The only plausible reason I can think of is that Gardiner found the audience’s (or parts of it) clapping after each movement tiresome? But if this were the case why play the whole work attacca? The Allegretto was played in a straight-forward, rather bland, and at times static manner…by which I mean it didn’t flow. At no time in this movement did I hear Beethoven’s important marking of sustained pp! This lack of pianissimo especially applied to the fugal development section where I had no sense of hushed mystery. Also, and surprisingly, from Gardiner the Bach exponent, I couldn’t hear this section’s wonderful contrapuntal sense of part-writing. Gardiner opted for the string arco ending rather the pizzicato conclusion favoured by Klemperer and both Kleibers.

Gardiner took the Scherzo at a real presto and, for the most part, articulated the rhythmic structure precisely. As would be expected Gardiner observed all the repeats in this symphony. This of course includes the first repeat of the scherzo’s exposition and both repeats in both the trio sections. Even in performances I revere from older masters like Toscanini and Klemperer, both of whom omit all the works repeats, I miss the striking rhythmic jolt which the first scherzo repeat delivers on the string basses and timpani. But tonight it sounded a tad smudged and thus devoid of the abrupt energy which a conductor like Carlos Kleiber brought to it. Unlike his recording of the seventh Gardiner tonight played the F major trio slightly slower than his former translation of the marking Assai meno presto. This would have worked tonight if he had taken a slower tempo for the main scherzo, but with his extreme presto the less fast marking didn’t come off as well, but it still retained that degree of movement and forward drive which an older school of conductors rarely attained, with the exception of Toscanini who was the first conductor in the modern era to play it as it appears in the score.  
 
The famous Allegro con brio finale, ‘unapproached in music as a triumph of Bacchic fury’ for Tovey, apart from being the dynamic peroration of the symphony, is also the most complex harmonically and tonally bringing together all the works main modulations of A major, A minor, F major, E flat, C major and minor. If all this is to be projected in performance the conductor must exert an almost super-human structural/modal grasp in relaying this musical constellation. Beethoven’s tempo marking of crotchet=72 suggests plenty of brio but at a tempo which can sustain the coda’s prodigious and unparalleled, at the time, dynamic climaxes. Allegro con brio in itself can be taken as fast to very fast. Tonight Gardiner opted for the latter…very, very fast, but this can work, as Carlos Kleiber’s recorded performance attests. But tonight Bacchic excitement was too often compromised by scrambled playing, especially in all the string sections, also, again, many woodwind passages were inaudible. Too much energy was delivered too soon, notably with help from strident brass and relentlessly loud timpani. This meant that when Beethoven’s last great grim bass ostinato came, initiating the ultimate fff climax, not enough power had been held in reserve, and although the orchestra became increasingly louder it all came across as an anti-climax with no structural/inner power to sustain it. Thus the triumphant coda itself which pulsates with dreadful and sustained dynamic energy deteriorated into a wash of hollow sound and noise.

Geoff Diggines


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